Chapter Twenty-Two: Kento's Recollection, Part Three

Free. Free at last! It was the four of us versus the Dynasty and we were MAD. We'd have to save Ariel later. Now we had to hope we'd find Chrono, Icefire, and/or Cye. I deeply prayed those three weren't captured. If they were. . . we'd be in BIG trouble.

We spent the entire time running up and down hallways, destroying Tin Cans and avoiding the Dark Warlords. "Where do you think that they have Cye?" I asked. "Or, if he's free looking for us, where would he go?"
"The Pit!" said Rowen.

"Oh yeah! The Pit!" said Sage. Then, he did a double-take. "THE PIT!?! You WANT to go into the PIT!?"

"It's the most logical place to look," said Rowen. "I know we all don't like it, and neither does Cye, but it'll be one of the first places he'll look."

"Rowen does have a point," said Ryo. "But I'm still going to get an explanation on where he went. IF he showed his treacherous face here."

I wanted to say something, but I kept my mouth shut. Ryo know how I felt. But he was our leader, so I didn't want to question him on the matter.

We somehow reached the Pit without a problem. Now we had to jump into it, and then we'd hope for the best.

You could tell I was thrilled with that option. I hate heights. Okay, I stand corrected. I don't hate heights. It's the falling from them part that scares me. Maybe it's because it's the farthest I can be from my element at any given time. Get what I'm saying?

"Okay, on the count of three, we all jump, okay?" said Ryo. The three of us nodded, and jumped. I screamed. We all screamed. But it wasn't for ice cream. (Ooo, bad, bad pun!)

PLOOSH!

That was the sound we made when we hit it. We slowly sunk down, somehow able to breathe in that weird climate. While it was fascinating, it was also really creepy. We slowly, slowly sunk. I looked around. The other guys had different looks on their faces. The Pit clogged my mind, so I don't' remember who looked like what.

I know that Ryo was assuming we wouldn't find Cye here. . .

Suddenly, the fall picked up the pace as we hit a river. "I CAN'T SWIM!" I yelled.

"WE KNOW!" yelled Ryo.

"I CAN'T SWIM EITHER!" said Rowen. "I SHOULDA TAKEN THOSE LESSONS FROM CYE WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!"
"SAME HERE- WATERFALL!!!!!!" I screamed.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

We all flew over the side of the waterfall screaming bloody murder. Rowen was the lone exception, since he can fly. So he was calmly hovering above us in one of his blue bubble things while the rest of us treaded water and somehow got to shore. He calmly- CALMLY!- floats down to us.

"If Wildfires, Halos, and Hardrocks were MEANT to fly we would have been given wings!" said Ryo.

"Sorry," said Rowen. "C'mon, let's check this place out."

"I hate you, Rowen," I said.

"Thank you for the compliment, Kento."

It was some time later that we had wandered into a strange room with a big control panel with a lot of buttons and stuff. In the center of the room was a big vat with something dangling by a rope. It was low, so I couldn't see what it was.

"Hey, what's this?" asked Rowen, looking at the panel.
At about that some time, I wandered curiously over to edge of the vat. There was a hissing, boiling sound. Like acid or something. I looked down and saw what was dangling about the bubbling red acid. There, tied to the rope, was the one person I hoped I was going to find. Cye. He was looking up at me, and even from where I was I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. "Cye! You're alive!"
Sage snapped to attention and dashed over. "Cye! How the heck did you get down there!?"

"Sehkment put me down here and I'll be dead if you guys can't get me out of here!" said Cye. It was so good to hear his voice again, even if he was in life threatening danger.

Rowen gasped. "Is he down there?" Sage turned his head and nodded. He turned back to the panel and hollered over his shoulder, "Cye, hold on, I think I've almost got this dumb thing figured out."

I watched the rope dipped, then lifted, and dropped him over by where I was kneeling. I helped untie him and I hugged him. "I missed you, why did you have to leave?" I asked.

"Yes, why DID you have to leave?" I looked up to see Ryo towering over us. There was murder in his eyes.

Rowen came over as well. "Ryo, lay off him. I'm sure he had a good reason to leave. That message he left on the answering machine, that was sincere," he said, kneeling down in front of Cye. "Did you come after us?"
"Yes," he said softly. "I missed you guys so much."

"Then why didn't you come back?" I asked.

Cye looked at the ground. "I was afraid to."

"Why? We're your friends, aren't we?" said Sage.

"Well, remember when I spent about a month absolutely disturbed?"

"Yes," said Ryo, "I remember that. You were weirded out beyond belief."

"Well, that was Sheila's fault. That night, well, I, I," said Cye.

Sage's eyes narrowed. "What happened? What did she do to you that got you like that?" he asked.

Cye sighed heavily. "Well, it was muddy, as you know, and I got really dirty because a car splashed me. So, Sheila let me get washed up. But then she started getting ideas, if you know what I mean by ideas. I told her no, but she persisted. I was overpowered and she. . . she. . ."

"Oh no, Cye," I said, holding him tightly.

"It's, it's okay, it's in the past, there's nothing we can do to change that, especially now," he said.

Sage asked the major question. "But what does that have to do with you leaving?" he asked.

Cye gulped. He took a deep breath, looking very, very nervous. "Sheila got pregnant that night."

The room fell silent, save the bubbling of the acid. "What?" asked Sage, his eyes getting wide.

"Whatever she was on, if she was anything, it failed. She left because she didn't want to show, or else she'd be found out. When I went on that walk that night, I met up with Sheila. Our baby had already been born. She wanted to put her in the orphanage. I wouldn't let her. I'd heard too many stories, especially from you, Ryo. I took her. But, I was too frightened to go back to you guys. She threatened to kill me. She threatened the baby. I was frightened, so I fled to Tokyo. I've been living there with Ariel ever since," said Cye. Ariel. That was why she was so familiar. She looked just like Cye. I hit myself mentally for that one.
"Ariel?" said Rowen. "That sweet little girl? So that's why they wanted her so badly. She's yours."

"Yes," said Cye. He gulped. "If you guys want to disown me after all this-"

"No, never in a million years," I said. Cye looked at me curiously. "You've been my best friend since we were twelve. And we can still be best friends. We would have understood. And we would have killed Sheila."

The others all forgave Cye for leaving. I was in shock beyond belief, but we had to figure out what was going on first. Cye then told us how Anubis told him what was going on in his dream, about how Sehkment had kidnapped poor Ariel, and that his friend Kojiro Tomae was the bearer of Icefire and that Yuli was Chrono. THAT was another eye opener. That was when Cye recalled that Sehkment had talked about some nasty stuff he was going to do to Ariel, so we all took off.