So you all liked the gladiatorial combat, did you? Good! But enough of this
chitchat, I'm sure all you readers would just LOVE to know what's going to
happen next, right? Well, keep reading and be patient! The story starts
just below!
Disclaimer: Fools, I have no time for this!
Scales and Arik walked up the streets for the temple. After Scales' incredible win in the arena, they had all gone to a public bath to relax. (Of course they did it in different sections, you perverts!) Afterward, Caesar had to leave for an important meeting with the Senate. He told them that the temple should be open by now, so they could head there if they liked. Although they could have warped there straight away, there was something to be said for strolling up through the beautiful city to reach their destination. Besides, it wasn't really that far away to begin with, so why not enjoy the view? Arik started a little conversation. "I thought you were very good out there, Scales." He said. "Really? Why thank you! That means so much coming from you." She said happily. Arik glanced at her. "Exactly what is that supposed to mean?" "Uh, nothing. Hey, you know Brutus is going to kill-" Scales started. Arik panicked and clamped her mouth shut. "Keep it down! Nobody is supposed to know about the assassination?" he whispered. She blinked as he let go of her mouth. "But if you know about the plot, why don't you warn Caesar ahead of time so he won't get killed?" Arik sighed and kept walking. "For the same reason I can't tell Hercules about the Hydra poison, or Cleopatra about Mark Anthony, or Napoleon about Waterloo, or any of my other friends how they will die. It is forbidden to my family line to mess with what is fated to be. Caesar is destined to die at the hands of Brutus, and preventing that would break my family's honor as well as radically alter the future you are accustomed to." "Oh." Said Scales a little sadly. "A pity. I kind of liked Julius." "Yes, so do I." Said Arik. "It also hurts me that I can't warn Darius that the vision of Atlantis sinking was not only true, but will happen in only a decade from when you met him. If I inform him of the disaster and he prepares for it, that would completely change your future, as I said." "Well that stinks. Guess that means you can't just go through time and kill Hitler or Osama Bin Laddin or any of the other evil men throughout history either, huh?" asked Scales. Arik nodded. "I wish I could, but as I said, it is not permitted. Sauron has already messed up part of the time line by killing Hercules prematurely, and I'm sure he's doing other things that are changing it as well. I see no way of fixing things, but we can at least try and stop him before he goes too far, right?" Scales nodded. "Now let's change topics. I want another race! First person to the temple wins!" Scales grinned. "Okay!" They started running. They darted around people, animals and chariots as they dashed up the hill, soon reaching a mostly empty and unoccupied area surrounding the temple. They raced into the temple courtyard and skidded to a halt in horror. The courtyard was filled with dead bodies, blood staining the marble tiles that made up the floor. Up ahead, the temple laid wide open, the doors ripped off their hinges and lying battered just inside the building. "My God..." she said. "Sauron's been here." Arik said angrily. "We're too late." Scales narrowed her eyes. "There may still be some people inside. We should see. Come on!" She started for the temple doors, stepping gingerly over the corpses. Arik reluctantly followed. They went through the wrecked doors and into the temple atrium, where the statue of Jupiter stood, unchanged except for the fact that its right hand was empty. There were a few blood stains on the walls and floors. Scales saw an old man slumped against a wall, breathing weakly. "Arik, come quick! There's someone alive here!" Arik got over to her as she bent over the old man. "He's been badly hurt." He said after a moment of examination. "I think I can help him though." He took out the Master Ruby and held it over the man's chest. The jewel glowed faintly. "Are you healing him?" asked Scales. "Something like that, I'm using the Ruby's temporal powers to rewind some of the areas of his body to prevent them from getting damaged. Neat huh?" he said, smirking. The old man groaned and opened his eyes faintly. "Who-who is there?" he rasped. "There's no need to worry, sir. We're here to help." Said Scales. The man's eyes widened. "The monsters! They-they came in here and assaulted us! They desecrated Jupiter's sacred temple!" "And took the gray jewel in that statue." Added Arik, still concentrating on healing the man, obviously a priest. The man blinked. "Jewel?" He laughed. "Oh no, they didn't take the jewel. We conjured it to the underground temple before the one with the scars over his eyes could get to it." Scales and Arik looked at the priest in disbelief. "You mean the jewel is still safe?" Scales asked. The priest nodded. "Yes, just very well protected. Why?" "Sir, it is of the utmost importance that we get that jewel." Said Arik. "Oh? And why is that?" asked the priest suspiciously. The reptiles looked at one another, at somewhat of a loss. "Um..." said Arik. "We're messengers of Jupiter!" Scales said abruptly. The priest and Arik stared at her for a second. "Oh? And what proof have you of this?" asked the old man. "Arik's healing you, isn't he? I would think only a god's emissary could heal a man without any medical equipment." Scales pointed out. The old man thought a moment. "Well, my pain is slowly receding thanks to this weird jewel your friend is using on me. I guess your story is valid. Okay, if you want the strange jewel that other emissary of Jupiter gave us years and years ago, you have to push the big toe on the statue's right foot." Scales walked over to the statue. "This thing?" Scales asked, pointing to the toe. "Yeah, that's the one." Said the priest. Scales pushed the toe. The statue rumbled and rolled away from its place on the floor, revealing a large hole. "Cool! Nice secret passage." Scales turned to Arik. "Arik, I need you to stay here." "What?" Why?" he complained. "Because you still need to heal the priest and anyone else who Sauron and his goons may have injured. And somebody needs to explain this all to the authorities if and when they show up." Scales explained logically. "I'll be back as soon as I get the Ruby, okay? Bye!" She jumped into the hole. "Watch out for Foutch, the Guardian!" the priest yelled after her. "Guardian? Great, she gets to fight AGAIN while I have to stay behind. I feel I should be mad, yet..." Arik paused. "Why can't I stay angry at her?" "Who are you talking to?" asked the priest. Arik hesitated. "Um, please stay quiet! You don't want me to lose my focus and ruin the healing, do you?" "Oh, right, sorry!" said the old man, shutting up.
Scales used her jets to slow her descent. She hovered down the pit and landed at the bottom. A tunnel was waiting straight ahead. She walked through the tunnel and came out into a large chamber containing the entrance to the temple. It was an ornate structure jutting from the back wall, with four thick pillars supporting the roof. The large archway leading into the temple had two green doors, one of which was open. The structure was yellow, by the way. As Scales started towards the doors, a larger imp than the ones back in Greece jumped out from behind a pillar and started attacking. Scales jumped over the imp's fireballs and Homing Kicked right into the monster's face, smashing him into a pillar. Before the imp could move, Scales hit him over and over again with her tails and claws until the critter finally gave up and fainted. Scales walked away and entered the temple doors. She found herself in a large room with a greenish floor and yellow walls. There was a pair of carved stone slabs sitting on the ground near the door. There was a leaf motif on the middle of the floor, and a door at the back of the room. Of course, that's not what grabbed Scales' attention. What grabbed her attention were the dozen big eyeballs bouncing towards her! She hit the attacking eyes with her tail multiple times until they popped, leaving her alone in the room. Jumping over the goo that was all that remained of the eyeballs, Scales walked to the exit and went through it. She followed the corridor through the door as it curved to the right, coming pout in a tall room with a ramp on the wall. The ramp went up the sides of three walls and stopped at a bridge leading to the exit. As Scales started for the ramp, a pair of giant caterpillars scurried down and attacked her. She hit the bugs with an onslaught of kicks and claw swipes until they were both dead. When the bugs were gone, she started up the ramp. She reached the top and crossed the bridge, going through the door. She was now in another large room. It was square, with a few ledges low on the walls. The floor was a huge mass of poisonous thorns. A pit was in the middle of the briar patch, also comprised of thorns. A couple of giant caterpillars were scurrying around on the ledge closest to Scales. She shot energy balls at them until they died, then jumped to the ledge. When she was on the ledge, she noticed a green wall sticking out of the thorns to the left of the pit. A large and pretty stained glass window was placed in the wall, and Scales could see a path going behind it. She had to get there! After all, she had no idea where else to go. She jumped from her ledge to the wall of the room, which was covered in deep carvings that she used as handholds and footholds. She shimmied along the carvings until she reached their end, dropping down to a long ledge that went all the way along the walls and behind the stained glass window. Scales followed the ledge along the wall. At one point, a giant thorny root erupted from the wall and swiped at her. She shot at it with an energy ball, causing it to retract into its hole. As she passed it and started behind the glass window, it came out again. Apparently these roots were only temporarily down. Scales continued down the ledge, coming out from behind the window. She saw another ledge ahead of her that led into a door, but a thorny root was coming from the wall just above the ledge. She shot the root, then jumped to the ledge and walked away quickly before the root could recover. She entered the door in the wall and followed the passage beyond. Another root ripped out of the wall on her right. She shot the root and turned the corner up ahead, and was almost hit by another root! She shot it and proceeded down the corridor into a vaulted round chamber. In the middle of the room, floating in a very shallow pit, was a big purple flower whose petals were arrayed like a platform. Arrows were carved into the floor of the pit, all pointing to the flower. Curious, Scales jumped onto the flower's petals, which surprisingly enough easily supported her weight. It was even more surprising when the flower suddenly started floating into the air! Scales watched in awe as her flower started to fly down the passageway she had just used. Worrying that the root would destroy the flower if it got hit, Scales shot both roots in the corridor when they got close. When the flower floated back into the thorny room, it followed the ledges Scales had used in reverse. She shot the roots when they emerged from the walls, and stayed on the flower as it neared the room's entrance. Instead of going through the door, the flower descended into the pit of thorns. After a minute or two of going down, the flower got near the bottom of the pit and started floating towards a diamond-shaped stone door set among the thorns. Since the flower looked kind of fragile, Scales worried that it wouldn't survive a collision with the door. She started pelting the door with energy balls until it finally blew apart right before the flower crashed into it, allowing Scales to go through. She was now in a corridor curving around in a partial C. The floor and left wall and ceiling of the corridor were covered in thorns. As the flower started down the corridor, Scales saw what appeared to be a flame- thrower up ahead. As she got near, the triangle on the wall spewed a jet of flame, setting fire to the flower! As the burning flower kept floating and deteriorating, Scales jumped and hovered to a large ledge jutting from the right wall before the flower could die on her. She saw another flower waiting for her and jumped to it. As it started floating further down the corridor, Scales moaned when she saw another flame-thrower set in the left wall. Fortunately, she could see another purple flower hovering in space only a little further ahead. As the flame-thrower torched the flower, Scales hovered to the next one and stayed on as it started floating towards another diamond-shaped stone door. She started blasting it with energy balls until it shattered, allowing the flower to go through safely. The temperature rose dramatically. Scales was now in a very deep shaft. At the bottom, she could see lava. The walls were, as usual, completely covered in thorns except for the one straight ahead. The flower floated to the clean wall and began moving down. As it did, roots erupted from the wall to swipe at the flower, Scales blasted every thorny tendril before it could touch the root, keeping her transport safe. As they got further down the shaft, the heat got greater, considering the lava. Scales was shocked when the flower started wilting from the intense heat. It disintegrated, leaving Scales with nothing to stand on. As she fell, she quickly activated her jets and began hovering down the shaft. She landed on a large ledge above the lava and went through a door on it.
She went through a short corridor and entered a cavern full of lava. Ahead of Scales were a series of platforms forming a string of stepping stones curving a little to the right and heading for a ledge. Each platform was a little taller than the last, making for tall pillars by the end of the string. Scales jumped to the first platform. It started to sink into the lava! She quickly jumped to the next one, expecting it to sink as well. It did. She jumped from platform to platform, each sinking consecutively, until she reached the last platform/pillar and jumped to the triangular green ledge jutting from the wall as her platform started to sink. She heard flames crackling and looked to her left, seeing a flame-thrower mounted in the wall between her and another triangular ledge. Scales waited until the flame-thrower was off, then quickly hovered to the ledge before the flames could come back on. She jumped and started hovering across the lava to the next ledge, which was on a different wall. Another root ripped out from the wall above the ledge before she even got there. She blasted the root, landed on the ledge, and ran away before the root could recover. She got to the end of the ledge and saw the exit door on the far wall up ahead. A platform led to the door, but it was too far away to jump or hover to. Scales saw a triangular switch in a setting that looked like fire placed in the wall near the platform. Curious, Scales shot an energy ball at the switch. The ball exploded in a shower of sparks, and the switch slowly went into the wall. It clicked, and popped back out. As what sounded suspiciously like a timer started, a platform extended out of the wall and stopped right on the edge of the door platform. Scales jumped and hovered to the new platform as the ticking grew faster. She ran onto the door platform just as the timer stopped, and the platform retracted into the wall. Scales proceeded through the door. She was in another large lava chamber. Scales was on a ledge that went down and right along the wall, curved around at a landing as the wall changed directions, and stopped. There were a few ledges around the room, and a flame-thrower or two. In the middle of the room was a huge pillar on a platform. Several ledges stuck out of the pillar. The whole pillar was made of several different rotating segments, with a stream of yellow lava pouring onto the platform from an overhead vent every several seconds. Scales walked down her ledge until she reached the end. She jumped across a gap to her right, landing on another ledge. She hovered from the ledge to the turning platform in the middle of the room. She started running away from the lava as it cascaded down from above. She had to jump over the blast from a flame-thrower mounted on a nearby wall, but got in range of a ledge as the lava stopped momentarily. She hovered to the ledge, then looked around for where to go next. She saw a good portion of the wall was covered in deep carvings. Gripping the carvings, she started to climb up it like she had the wall in the thorn pit room. She went up and to the left as she attempted to get to the next ledge higher up the wall. She dropped to the ledge and looked around. She saw a sealed door next to a triangular switch on a ledge higher up on a different wall. How could she get there? She looked at the turning platform and got an idea. When one of the ledges on the pillar turned towards her, she hovered to it. As the ledge started to turn into the lava stream, she pressed her back to the wall, hoping she could avoid the lethal magma. The heat from the yellow lava seared her flesh as she passed near it, but left her otherwise unharmed. When she was away from the platform, she jumped up, grabbing the edge of a different platform. She pulled herself up, pressed against the wall as the lava passed by, and jumped to the next platform. She continued going up the spinning pillar, jumping from ledge to ledge until she was at the very peak. As she went past the lava flow again, she jumped off the platform and hovered all the way down to the door ledge. She shot an energy ball at the switch, activating it. The door rumbled and rose up, then immediately started to close! Scales somersaulted under it quickly and found herself in a small, pretty but nondescript room. She saw a corridor on her right and entered it. Inside the corridor, a few baby caterpillars ambushed her. She killed the insects easily and went down the corridor, coming out into another room. A pit of thorns lay between her and a ledge with a huge pentagonal door on it. The door was split into two parts, one light, one dark. A triangular switch was set into the wall next to the door. A thorny root was growing from the floor in front of the door and thrashing about. Scales blasted the root back into its hole and hovered over the gap. She shot a ball at the switch. The two door segments parted a few inches. A timer started. Scales blinked. There was no way she was going to fit through there. She threw another ball at the switch. The timer reset and the door opened a little more. Getting the idea, Scales blasted the switch until the door opened wide enough for her to fit through as the root woke back up. She shot at the root and ran through the door before the timer went off and the thing started to close. When the door shut, she was on the other side. She was now in yet another lava-filled chamber. The room was a little long and winding, so it isn't worth describing prematurely. Scales was on a ledge that wound around the walls to her right, like the one in the room with the turning pillar. She walked all the way around the ledge to the bottom and saw a pillar in the lava below. She hovered down to the pillar. She hovered from there to the wall of a ledge platform jutting from the wall. It had ornate carvings which she used to climb to the top. As she started walking along the ledge, a huge portion of the wall that had thorns growing out of it pushed outwards, blocking her path. The block then slowly started to retract into the rest of the wall, then move out again. Scales timed the moving block and ran past it, going to the end of the ledge. She hovered to a tall pillar in the lava and jumped from there to another ledge that went along the wall and around a corner. Scales walked down the ledge and turned the corner, seeing it kept going a little bit and had another moving thorny block on the end. Across the lava stream below was the start of another ledge, with another moving thorny block moving at the beginning of it. Scales saw she would only be able to hover from the second ledge from the end of the first, but the blocks moved at different rates, which would make it difficult to time them properly. Then she got an idea. When the block on her ledge had moved back far enough, Scales ran to the end and jumped off, hovering for the second ledge. Instead of landing on it, she dropped out of her hover and grabbed the edge of the ledge. She waited until the thorny block started to retract, then pulled herself up and ran away from it. She got to the end of the ledge and saw a series of pillars leading away to her left. She jumped to the first pillar and started hovering across them, following the path they made. Up ahead she could see a ledge, but a thorny block had moved completely out of the wall and left no room for Scales to get past. As she got closer, she saw a triangular switch on the wall. She blasted it, and the block retracted as the timer started up. Scales quickly jumped across the remaining pillars and pulled herself onto the ledge. She ran past the block as the timer went off and the thing pushed out of the wall again. She followed the ledge as it went up the wall at the end of the room and into a corridor. She walked into the corridor and entered a large room. This room had several pillars surrounding a high platform rising from the ground. A staircase led up to the platform. Recalling this style from the last two temples, Scales rushed up the stairs, thinking she had reached her goal. She got to the top of the stairs and walked onto the platform. As usual, sitting on the platform was an altar, and on the altar was...nothing? "What? Where...where is the Ruby?" Scales asked in shock. She growled. "The old man lied to us!" Furious, she lashed out a kick at the altar, shattering it and revealing a hole in the floor. She blinked, looking down the hole, which led to another room. She grinned. "Another secret passage! Clever of these guys." She jumped into the hole and fell down a tunnel, landing in the next room. The heat rose considerably. The room was filled with ultra-hot yellow lava. The chamber was round, with a ledge that encircled half of the wall and a diamond-shaped stone door that was half covered by lava. A giant caterpillar scurried towards her, trying to attack. Scales killed the insect, then pondered what to do next. The door was the only exit, but how was she supposed to get through it without getting fried by lava. Scales had a thought and registered the heat with her sensors, then calculated it with the thrust given off by her jet anklets. After a moment, she came to the conclusion that due to the immense heat rising from the lava, her anklets could actually allow her a limited flight, as long as the heat kept coming up. To test this, she jumped up and hovered off the ledge. She stopped moving forward, and was pleased when she didn't start slowly dropping. She had been correct, she could fly! She flew down to the door in the lava and blasted it open, then went through, entering a narrow tunnel that quickly got larger. She flew down the tunnel as it curved to the left, blasting any roots that came out of the walls and dropping to a platform at the end of the tunnel. She saw the lava going through a narrow slit in the wall, but where could she go? She looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling lined with thorns. Smiling, she flew up to the hole, entering a large passage completely covered in thorns. She used the heat from the lava below to get to the top of the passage, careful not to touch the thorns above her. She then started flying out of the heat, losing her lift and merely hovering again. She hovered down the passage, shooting all the roots that attacked her, landing on a handy green ledge. A bunch of baby caterpillars tried to attack her, but she kicked them off the ledge and into the thorns. She saw what looked like a fan set into the wall nearby, turning and blowing a current of air towards a hole in the thorny wall. A flame-thrower spurted fire near the hole. Scales hovered off the ledge and into the air stream generated by the fan. It blew her towards the passage in the wall. She quickly hovered over the fire from the flame-thrower and went through the hole in the wall, careful not to touch any of the thorns. She found herself able to fly again, this next room was full of lava. She skirted the lava surface, heading for a triangular hole in the back wall. She dropped into the passage and walked forward, following it to the beginning of a long, narrow room with lava streaming forward and thorns covering the walls and ceiling. Scales started flying over the lava, very careful not to get too close to either deadly obstacle. She had to time her way past flame-throwers set in the walls as well. She passed through a small opening in the thorn wall and in the lava and continued down the passage, turning to her left as the area got wider. She flew around, able to maneuver better and dodge the thorny roots that tried to attack her. She continued to blast the roots until she reached the end of the passage, a diamond-shaped stone door set in the thorn wall. She blasted it to pieces, then passed through the door. She was now in a room where yellow lava cascaded down from parts of the ceiling. She had to weave her way through the area to avoid the lava falls. She reached the end of the room and blasted open another door, passing through to another chamber. There were some more lava falls she had to watch out for, but not as many as in the last room. She flew around the falls and saw a few platforms. She stopped on one of the platforms for a breather, then took off again, heading for a corridor set in the wall of the room. She landed in the corridor and started walking along the curves, coming into a large room. A winding bridge led over a lava pit to a big alcove with a square platform on it. Scales walked across the bridge and into the alcove. She was attacked by a group of baby caterpillars, but they were no match for her. Once they were eliminated, she stepped onto the platform. She saw a door was set into it. She smashed it open with a Homing Kick and fell into it. She landed in a large cave, on a ledge filled with, you guessed it, lava! There was a fan behind her that was creating an air stream. She started her flight, the fan pushing her deeper into the cave. She worked her way around the numerous lava falls and barely made it through a triple lava spill. After making it through the falls, she followed the lava below as it streamed downward through a sloping tunnel. As she continued down the slope, thorns covered every inch of the walls and ceiling. The flow of lava kept rising and falling over little hills and stuff, and the ceiling and walls closed in and widened randomly, making it a little hard to move through the remaining openings. After navigating down the thorny lava passage, Scales finally reached a long, straight corridor of lava with absolutely no thorns leading to a big diamond-shaped stone door. Scales started flying down the corridor, relieved when the door opened automatically as she approached. She flew through the door and looked around in excitement, not believing where she'd ended up. She was in a mammoth cylindrical chamber, extremely wide. Lining the walls were noble looking statues of the Roman gods. Lava flowed from spaces between the gods, falling to the floor far below. A lake of lava made up the floor of the chamber. A giant pillar rose from the lava, extending to the ceiling. Lava spouts streamed down from triangular holes in the pillar. Much further down were a series of platforms forming a loose ring around the pillar. There were four bridges extending from the pillar, going over the platforms and to towers rising from the walls as lava cascaded all around them. Three of the bridges had stalactites underneath them, and one bridge led to a tower with a door in it. Several smaller pillars rose out of the wall in the lengthy gaps between bridges. Scales was so busy taking it all in, she didn't notice the monster rising up behind her until it was too late. Hearing a noise, she looked around and saw Foutch, guardian of the temple. The beast was made completely of rock and stone, yellow in color. Oddly enough, he looked exactly like Axel! "Uh, hi there..." Scales said uneasily. "Nice day, isn't it?" Foutch responded by knocking her out of the sky, sending her hurtling to the lava below. Scales frantically activated her jets and found they were malfunctioning due to Foutch's attack. They were only strong enough to slow and control her descent at the moment, and even then it seemed like they could conk out at any moment. The anklets sputtered and finally shut off when she was ten feet above one of the platforms in the lava, causing her to hit the ground roughly. She groaned and got to her feet. Her repair bugs would fix the anklets, but they wouldn't be completely fixed for about twenty minutes. Her mood worsened as Foutch dropped from the sky, hovering to a halt in front of her. Scales knew from previous experience with Axel that her attacks probably wouldn't work on Foutch. So what would? She suddenly remembered the stalactites underneath the bridges. A plan formulated in her mind. Foutch started floating towards her, arms stretched out. "Catch me if you can, gravel-for-brains!" Scales taunted as she ran from the monstrous Guardian. Foutch followed, preparing an attack. It threw fireballs at Scales, trying to knock her off balance and into the lava. Scales dodged the fireballs as she ran along the winding platform. Foutch punched the ground with both fists, sending out a wave of fire that raced after Scales. She was almost at the end of the platform by then, and jumped over the gap to the next one right as the wave was about to hit her, going over it. She landed safely on the next platform and kept running. Foutch started throwing fireballs again, still trying to nail her. She dodged the fireballs and jumped to the next platform, going over the fire wave Foutch generated. She ran along this platform, going under the first bridge. She skidded to a halt when she was past the bridge and waited for the Guardian. When Foutch was right beneath the stalactite, Scales shot it with an energy ball, knocking the stone formation loose and dropping it on the Guardian's head. It struck Foutch's head and broke apart. Foutch was relatively unharmed, aside from the fact that its head was cracking up. "This is gonna be tougher than I thought." Scales muttered as she ran away. She dodged fireballs and leaped over fireballs and platform gaps as she ran away from Foutch, heading for the next bridge. After several harrowing moments, she got Foutch right where she wanted it and blasted the stalactite down from the bridge, cracking the Guardian's head severely. Foutch shook, obviously angry. It began throwing fireballs at a faster rate, furious that she had damaged it so badly. Foutch was tired of throwing waves and balls, so generated something new. When Scales jumped over a gap and no fire wave passed beneath her, she turned around to see what was wrong. Foutch was holding its hands as if it was gripping something. Flames shot up, and a swirling pillar of fire formed between the Guardian's hands. Foutch released the pillar at Scales, sending it roaring down the platform after her. Scales gulped and moved faster, jumping from platform to platform in an attempt to stay as far away as possible from the fire column. As the pillar got closer, Scales suddenly jumped high and to the right, off the platform. The pillar roared past, dissipating as it struck the bridge up ahead. Scales managed to activate her damaged jets, allowing her to get back on the platform before they sparked and shut down again. She ran and jumped the rest of the way to the bridge underside, dodging the occasional fireball and wave. She passed the bridge and turned around, waiting for Foutch. When the stone monster was in position, Scales blasted the stalactite. The stone formation fell from the bridge and smashed through Foutch's damaged head, the pointy tip emerging from the Guardian's bottom. The rock monster wobbled and fell to the ground, disintegrating in a swirl of dust. Scales cheered. "Oh yeah! Nothing can beat this girl! Now, how do I get out of here?" She wandered down the remaining platforms, getting closer to the last bridge. She saw a floating vine and tried to jump to it. It took a few tries, but she managed to grab the vine. She pulled herself up and started swinging. When she built up enough momentum, she let go and shot for the fourth bridge, landing on it. She walked along the bridge to the door in the pillar on the wall and entered. She saw a hole in the hollow interior of the pillar. She jumped in the pit and landed in front of a door. She went through the door and came to a large circular room with a staircase leading to a platform emerging from a pool of lava. Hoping this was finally the end, Scales walked up the stairs to the platform. At the top was an altar, holding the gray Chronos Ruby! "Woohoo! Got it at last!" yelled Scales, grabbing the Ruby. "Time to get out of here. Arik must be worried sick. Chaos Control!" She vanished in a flash of green light.
She reappeared back in the temple of Jupiter, where Arik was waiting, looking somewhat angry. "There you are! What took so long?" Scales frowned. "The temple was trickier than I thought, okay? My anklets are broken and I'm severely dehydrated, but I managed to get the Ruby!" Arik blinked. "Sorry, Scales. I've just been stuck with that old man ever since he left. He kept asking me what Jupiter's like, is Venus really that gorgeous, does Bacchus throw good parties, and I had no way of answering him!" Scales relented. "Okay, I understand why you would be angry if you were stuck here for so long. I think I had a tougher time, though. That temple was the hardest yet!" "Really? Well, you can tell me all about it when we get home over dinner. Come on." Scales took his hand. "Chronos Control!" They warped away.
Later at the hut, Scales told Arik everything she had gone through in the temple as they ate dinner, including her battle with Foutch. "Sounds like you had a fun time." said Arik. Scales chuckled. "Yeah, aside from the threat of imminent death it was a barrel of laughs! But from what you said earlier, you didn't have an easy time either." Arik grinned. "The priest healed properly and insisted I help his friends. I healed all of them, despite the irritating questions they asked of me. Other than that, it was fine." Scales chewed on another hunk of meat. "So, what did you do while you were waiting for me? You know, after you healed the priests?" Arik shrugged. "Well, I just sat down and did nothing, getting more irritated as time went on. I was worried about you, to tell the truth." Scales snorted. "Moi? You needn't have worried, Arik. I was fine." Arik cocked his head. "If you say so. Hey, how about I try and get the next Ruby? You've done enough work for the both of us!' Scales frowned. "Are you sure you want to try the next one by yourself? The protections for the Rubies so far have been quite formidable." "I'd at least like to try." Said Arik. "And if I get into any trouble, I can just signal you with the Master Ruby. So how about it? Can I try and get the next Ruby myself?" Scales thought a moment. "Yeah, all right. I think it's time you got a chance to prove yourself capable." Arik smiled. "Thank you Scales." Scales started to get up. "Well, I'm bushed. Ready for bed?" Arik got up. "Yeah, okay. See you in the morning, Scales." They headed for the ladder, climbed up to the second story, and went to their respective rooms.
After a quick bath, Scales lay down in her nest. She was unable to sleep. She sighed and sat up. What am I doing? She thought. I love Arik, don't I? Why am I waiting around to see if he feels the same way? If I wait too long, I could miss my chance forever! He could get hitched to a different raptor, a woman who's all wrong for him! I can't let that happen! "That does it!" she said out loud. "I'm going over there right now to tell him how I feel!" She got up and headed for the door.
Arik lay down in his nest and curled up, trying to sleep. He couldn't. He sat up and began pondering his friendship with Scales. She's the most incredible girl I've ever met. He thought. We both have a lot in common. We lost our families, we suffered trauma and hate those responsible for our pain. Darius, you were right. She is the one for me. "That does it!" Arik said out loud. "I'm going over there right now to tell her how I feel!" he got up and headed for the door.
Scales burst out of her room at the same time Arik came out of his. "Arik!" she said. "Scales!" he said. There was an awkward pause. "Um, good night!" "Good night!" Arik replied. They both went back into their rooms and started berating themselves for the missed opportunity.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (Gasp) HAHAHAHAHA! Eh heh, sorry. Hope you liked this chapter! Time to talk to Scales! Scales: Why didn't Arik and I get together? I was ready! Me: No you weren't. AHAHAHA! Scales: Stop that! You're changing Pi2, and it's freaking me out! Me: Sorry. Anyway, how was the level? Scales: Extremely difficult. Is it really that hard in Rayman 2? Me: Harder, when you consider the fact that all he can do to attack is throw his fist at things. Scales: So, where are we going next? Me: You'll see. I'm disappointed-I mean glad!-that Arik is finally falling for you. Scales: I'm getting a happy ending, right? Me: Of course. You and Arik will be able to spend eternity together. Scales: We'd better. Me: You will, you will! I promise! Anyway, we don't have any gifts or questions, except a request from 217. Scales: What is it? Me: He says Fluffy isn't dead. The program you rolled over has regenerated. The only way to destroy it is to reduce it to dust. Scales: (Pulls out Fluffy hard drive.) Huh, you're right. Well, there's only one way to remedy that! (Tosses Fluffy into the air.) Serpent Strike! (Green snake shoots towards hard drive and obliterates it, reducing it to dust.) Yeah! Get out, you weird program! Me: I hope you're happy, 217. And if Fluffy still isn't dead, then I have a gift for you that will ensure she never bothers you again! If Fluffy's a she. Which I'm not sure of. (Holds up disk.) I hold here the most powerful computer virus ever created, Project Cyberstrike! Scales: What's it do? Me: The Cyberstrike virus is the cybernetic Antichrist! No computer or program can resist it! All defenses or virus killers, no matter how strong they may be, crumble before the might of Cyberstrike! It devolves programs as complex as an artificial intelligence prototype to a piece of data too weak to figure out what 1+1 is! Scales: Wow! Me: Why, with a virus this powerful, an individual could cause a planet's entire global computer network to irreversibly crash, throwing it into anarchy and chaos! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Scales: You're creeping me out again. Me: Oh, sorry. Anyway, take this virus with my blessings! (Disk vanishes.) There, he took it. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Scales: Bye now. Hopefully, Arik and I will be able to admit our feelings to each other next chapter. Me: (Muttering.) Not if I have anything to say about it. (Louder.) Please review!
Scales and Arik walked up the streets for the temple. After Scales' incredible win in the arena, they had all gone to a public bath to relax. (Of course they did it in different sections, you perverts!) Afterward, Caesar had to leave for an important meeting with the Senate. He told them that the temple should be open by now, so they could head there if they liked. Although they could have warped there straight away, there was something to be said for strolling up through the beautiful city to reach their destination. Besides, it wasn't really that far away to begin with, so why not enjoy the view? Arik started a little conversation. "I thought you were very good out there, Scales." He said. "Really? Why thank you! That means so much coming from you." She said happily. Arik glanced at her. "Exactly what is that supposed to mean?" "Uh, nothing. Hey, you know Brutus is going to kill-" Scales started. Arik panicked and clamped her mouth shut. "Keep it down! Nobody is supposed to know about the assassination?" he whispered. She blinked as he let go of her mouth. "But if you know about the plot, why don't you warn Caesar ahead of time so he won't get killed?" Arik sighed and kept walking. "For the same reason I can't tell Hercules about the Hydra poison, or Cleopatra about Mark Anthony, or Napoleon about Waterloo, or any of my other friends how they will die. It is forbidden to my family line to mess with what is fated to be. Caesar is destined to die at the hands of Brutus, and preventing that would break my family's honor as well as radically alter the future you are accustomed to." "Oh." Said Scales a little sadly. "A pity. I kind of liked Julius." "Yes, so do I." Said Arik. "It also hurts me that I can't warn Darius that the vision of Atlantis sinking was not only true, but will happen in only a decade from when you met him. If I inform him of the disaster and he prepares for it, that would completely change your future, as I said." "Well that stinks. Guess that means you can't just go through time and kill Hitler or Osama Bin Laddin or any of the other evil men throughout history either, huh?" asked Scales. Arik nodded. "I wish I could, but as I said, it is not permitted. Sauron has already messed up part of the time line by killing Hercules prematurely, and I'm sure he's doing other things that are changing it as well. I see no way of fixing things, but we can at least try and stop him before he goes too far, right?" Scales nodded. "Now let's change topics. I want another race! First person to the temple wins!" Scales grinned. "Okay!" They started running. They darted around people, animals and chariots as they dashed up the hill, soon reaching a mostly empty and unoccupied area surrounding the temple. They raced into the temple courtyard and skidded to a halt in horror. The courtyard was filled with dead bodies, blood staining the marble tiles that made up the floor. Up ahead, the temple laid wide open, the doors ripped off their hinges and lying battered just inside the building. "My God..." she said. "Sauron's been here." Arik said angrily. "We're too late." Scales narrowed her eyes. "There may still be some people inside. We should see. Come on!" She started for the temple doors, stepping gingerly over the corpses. Arik reluctantly followed. They went through the wrecked doors and into the temple atrium, where the statue of Jupiter stood, unchanged except for the fact that its right hand was empty. There were a few blood stains on the walls and floors. Scales saw an old man slumped against a wall, breathing weakly. "Arik, come quick! There's someone alive here!" Arik got over to her as she bent over the old man. "He's been badly hurt." He said after a moment of examination. "I think I can help him though." He took out the Master Ruby and held it over the man's chest. The jewel glowed faintly. "Are you healing him?" asked Scales. "Something like that, I'm using the Ruby's temporal powers to rewind some of the areas of his body to prevent them from getting damaged. Neat huh?" he said, smirking. The old man groaned and opened his eyes faintly. "Who-who is there?" he rasped. "There's no need to worry, sir. We're here to help." Said Scales. The man's eyes widened. "The monsters! They-they came in here and assaulted us! They desecrated Jupiter's sacred temple!" "And took the gray jewel in that statue." Added Arik, still concentrating on healing the man, obviously a priest. The man blinked. "Jewel?" He laughed. "Oh no, they didn't take the jewel. We conjured it to the underground temple before the one with the scars over his eyes could get to it." Scales and Arik looked at the priest in disbelief. "You mean the jewel is still safe?" Scales asked. The priest nodded. "Yes, just very well protected. Why?" "Sir, it is of the utmost importance that we get that jewel." Said Arik. "Oh? And why is that?" asked the priest suspiciously. The reptiles looked at one another, at somewhat of a loss. "Um..." said Arik. "We're messengers of Jupiter!" Scales said abruptly. The priest and Arik stared at her for a second. "Oh? And what proof have you of this?" asked the old man. "Arik's healing you, isn't he? I would think only a god's emissary could heal a man without any medical equipment." Scales pointed out. The old man thought a moment. "Well, my pain is slowly receding thanks to this weird jewel your friend is using on me. I guess your story is valid. Okay, if you want the strange jewel that other emissary of Jupiter gave us years and years ago, you have to push the big toe on the statue's right foot." Scales walked over to the statue. "This thing?" Scales asked, pointing to the toe. "Yeah, that's the one." Said the priest. Scales pushed the toe. The statue rumbled and rolled away from its place on the floor, revealing a large hole. "Cool! Nice secret passage." Scales turned to Arik. "Arik, I need you to stay here." "What?" Why?" he complained. "Because you still need to heal the priest and anyone else who Sauron and his goons may have injured. And somebody needs to explain this all to the authorities if and when they show up." Scales explained logically. "I'll be back as soon as I get the Ruby, okay? Bye!" She jumped into the hole. "Watch out for Foutch, the Guardian!" the priest yelled after her. "Guardian? Great, she gets to fight AGAIN while I have to stay behind. I feel I should be mad, yet..." Arik paused. "Why can't I stay angry at her?" "Who are you talking to?" asked the priest. Arik hesitated. "Um, please stay quiet! You don't want me to lose my focus and ruin the healing, do you?" "Oh, right, sorry!" said the old man, shutting up.
Scales used her jets to slow her descent. She hovered down the pit and landed at the bottom. A tunnel was waiting straight ahead. She walked through the tunnel and came out into a large chamber containing the entrance to the temple. It was an ornate structure jutting from the back wall, with four thick pillars supporting the roof. The large archway leading into the temple had two green doors, one of which was open. The structure was yellow, by the way. As Scales started towards the doors, a larger imp than the ones back in Greece jumped out from behind a pillar and started attacking. Scales jumped over the imp's fireballs and Homing Kicked right into the monster's face, smashing him into a pillar. Before the imp could move, Scales hit him over and over again with her tails and claws until the critter finally gave up and fainted. Scales walked away and entered the temple doors. She found herself in a large room with a greenish floor and yellow walls. There was a pair of carved stone slabs sitting on the ground near the door. There was a leaf motif on the middle of the floor, and a door at the back of the room. Of course, that's not what grabbed Scales' attention. What grabbed her attention were the dozen big eyeballs bouncing towards her! She hit the attacking eyes with her tail multiple times until they popped, leaving her alone in the room. Jumping over the goo that was all that remained of the eyeballs, Scales walked to the exit and went through it. She followed the corridor through the door as it curved to the right, coming pout in a tall room with a ramp on the wall. The ramp went up the sides of three walls and stopped at a bridge leading to the exit. As Scales started for the ramp, a pair of giant caterpillars scurried down and attacked her. She hit the bugs with an onslaught of kicks and claw swipes until they were both dead. When the bugs were gone, she started up the ramp. She reached the top and crossed the bridge, going through the door. She was now in another large room. It was square, with a few ledges low on the walls. The floor was a huge mass of poisonous thorns. A pit was in the middle of the briar patch, also comprised of thorns. A couple of giant caterpillars were scurrying around on the ledge closest to Scales. She shot energy balls at them until they died, then jumped to the ledge. When she was on the ledge, she noticed a green wall sticking out of the thorns to the left of the pit. A large and pretty stained glass window was placed in the wall, and Scales could see a path going behind it. She had to get there! After all, she had no idea where else to go. She jumped from her ledge to the wall of the room, which was covered in deep carvings that she used as handholds and footholds. She shimmied along the carvings until she reached their end, dropping down to a long ledge that went all the way along the walls and behind the stained glass window. Scales followed the ledge along the wall. At one point, a giant thorny root erupted from the wall and swiped at her. She shot at it with an energy ball, causing it to retract into its hole. As she passed it and started behind the glass window, it came out again. Apparently these roots were only temporarily down. Scales continued down the ledge, coming out from behind the window. She saw another ledge ahead of her that led into a door, but a thorny root was coming from the wall just above the ledge. She shot the root, then jumped to the ledge and walked away quickly before the root could recover. She entered the door in the wall and followed the passage beyond. Another root ripped out of the wall on her right. She shot the root and turned the corner up ahead, and was almost hit by another root! She shot it and proceeded down the corridor into a vaulted round chamber. In the middle of the room, floating in a very shallow pit, was a big purple flower whose petals were arrayed like a platform. Arrows were carved into the floor of the pit, all pointing to the flower. Curious, Scales jumped onto the flower's petals, which surprisingly enough easily supported her weight. It was even more surprising when the flower suddenly started floating into the air! Scales watched in awe as her flower started to fly down the passageway she had just used. Worrying that the root would destroy the flower if it got hit, Scales shot both roots in the corridor when they got close. When the flower floated back into the thorny room, it followed the ledges Scales had used in reverse. She shot the roots when they emerged from the walls, and stayed on the flower as it neared the room's entrance. Instead of going through the door, the flower descended into the pit of thorns. After a minute or two of going down, the flower got near the bottom of the pit and started floating towards a diamond-shaped stone door set among the thorns. Since the flower looked kind of fragile, Scales worried that it wouldn't survive a collision with the door. She started pelting the door with energy balls until it finally blew apart right before the flower crashed into it, allowing Scales to go through. She was now in a corridor curving around in a partial C. The floor and left wall and ceiling of the corridor were covered in thorns. As the flower started down the corridor, Scales saw what appeared to be a flame- thrower up ahead. As she got near, the triangle on the wall spewed a jet of flame, setting fire to the flower! As the burning flower kept floating and deteriorating, Scales jumped and hovered to a large ledge jutting from the right wall before the flower could die on her. She saw another flower waiting for her and jumped to it. As it started floating further down the corridor, Scales moaned when she saw another flame-thrower set in the left wall. Fortunately, she could see another purple flower hovering in space only a little further ahead. As the flame-thrower torched the flower, Scales hovered to the next one and stayed on as it started floating towards another diamond-shaped stone door. She started blasting it with energy balls until it shattered, allowing the flower to go through safely. The temperature rose dramatically. Scales was now in a very deep shaft. At the bottom, she could see lava. The walls were, as usual, completely covered in thorns except for the one straight ahead. The flower floated to the clean wall and began moving down. As it did, roots erupted from the wall to swipe at the flower, Scales blasted every thorny tendril before it could touch the root, keeping her transport safe. As they got further down the shaft, the heat got greater, considering the lava. Scales was shocked when the flower started wilting from the intense heat. It disintegrated, leaving Scales with nothing to stand on. As she fell, she quickly activated her jets and began hovering down the shaft. She landed on a large ledge above the lava and went through a door on it.
She went through a short corridor and entered a cavern full of lava. Ahead of Scales were a series of platforms forming a string of stepping stones curving a little to the right and heading for a ledge. Each platform was a little taller than the last, making for tall pillars by the end of the string. Scales jumped to the first platform. It started to sink into the lava! She quickly jumped to the next one, expecting it to sink as well. It did. She jumped from platform to platform, each sinking consecutively, until she reached the last platform/pillar and jumped to the triangular green ledge jutting from the wall as her platform started to sink. She heard flames crackling and looked to her left, seeing a flame-thrower mounted in the wall between her and another triangular ledge. Scales waited until the flame-thrower was off, then quickly hovered to the ledge before the flames could come back on. She jumped and started hovering across the lava to the next ledge, which was on a different wall. Another root ripped out from the wall above the ledge before she even got there. She blasted the root, landed on the ledge, and ran away before the root could recover. She got to the end of the ledge and saw the exit door on the far wall up ahead. A platform led to the door, but it was too far away to jump or hover to. Scales saw a triangular switch in a setting that looked like fire placed in the wall near the platform. Curious, Scales shot an energy ball at the switch. The ball exploded in a shower of sparks, and the switch slowly went into the wall. It clicked, and popped back out. As what sounded suspiciously like a timer started, a platform extended out of the wall and stopped right on the edge of the door platform. Scales jumped and hovered to the new platform as the ticking grew faster. She ran onto the door platform just as the timer stopped, and the platform retracted into the wall. Scales proceeded through the door. She was in another large lava chamber. Scales was on a ledge that went down and right along the wall, curved around at a landing as the wall changed directions, and stopped. There were a few ledges around the room, and a flame-thrower or two. In the middle of the room was a huge pillar on a platform. Several ledges stuck out of the pillar. The whole pillar was made of several different rotating segments, with a stream of yellow lava pouring onto the platform from an overhead vent every several seconds. Scales walked down her ledge until she reached the end. She jumped across a gap to her right, landing on another ledge. She hovered from the ledge to the turning platform in the middle of the room. She started running away from the lava as it cascaded down from above. She had to jump over the blast from a flame-thrower mounted on a nearby wall, but got in range of a ledge as the lava stopped momentarily. She hovered to the ledge, then looked around for where to go next. She saw a good portion of the wall was covered in deep carvings. Gripping the carvings, she started to climb up it like she had the wall in the thorn pit room. She went up and to the left as she attempted to get to the next ledge higher up the wall. She dropped to the ledge and looked around. She saw a sealed door next to a triangular switch on a ledge higher up on a different wall. How could she get there? She looked at the turning platform and got an idea. When one of the ledges on the pillar turned towards her, she hovered to it. As the ledge started to turn into the lava stream, she pressed her back to the wall, hoping she could avoid the lethal magma. The heat from the yellow lava seared her flesh as she passed near it, but left her otherwise unharmed. When she was away from the platform, she jumped up, grabbing the edge of a different platform. She pulled herself up, pressed against the wall as the lava passed by, and jumped to the next platform. She continued going up the spinning pillar, jumping from ledge to ledge until she was at the very peak. As she went past the lava flow again, she jumped off the platform and hovered all the way down to the door ledge. She shot an energy ball at the switch, activating it. The door rumbled and rose up, then immediately started to close! Scales somersaulted under it quickly and found herself in a small, pretty but nondescript room. She saw a corridor on her right and entered it. Inside the corridor, a few baby caterpillars ambushed her. She killed the insects easily and went down the corridor, coming out into another room. A pit of thorns lay between her and a ledge with a huge pentagonal door on it. The door was split into two parts, one light, one dark. A triangular switch was set into the wall next to the door. A thorny root was growing from the floor in front of the door and thrashing about. Scales blasted the root back into its hole and hovered over the gap. She shot a ball at the switch. The two door segments parted a few inches. A timer started. Scales blinked. There was no way she was going to fit through there. She threw another ball at the switch. The timer reset and the door opened a little more. Getting the idea, Scales blasted the switch until the door opened wide enough for her to fit through as the root woke back up. She shot at the root and ran through the door before the timer went off and the thing started to close. When the door shut, she was on the other side. She was now in yet another lava-filled chamber. The room was a little long and winding, so it isn't worth describing prematurely. Scales was on a ledge that wound around the walls to her right, like the one in the room with the turning pillar. She walked all the way around the ledge to the bottom and saw a pillar in the lava below. She hovered down to the pillar. She hovered from there to the wall of a ledge platform jutting from the wall. It had ornate carvings which she used to climb to the top. As she started walking along the ledge, a huge portion of the wall that had thorns growing out of it pushed outwards, blocking her path. The block then slowly started to retract into the rest of the wall, then move out again. Scales timed the moving block and ran past it, going to the end of the ledge. She hovered to a tall pillar in the lava and jumped from there to another ledge that went along the wall and around a corner. Scales walked down the ledge and turned the corner, seeing it kept going a little bit and had another moving thorny block on the end. Across the lava stream below was the start of another ledge, with another moving thorny block moving at the beginning of it. Scales saw she would only be able to hover from the second ledge from the end of the first, but the blocks moved at different rates, which would make it difficult to time them properly. Then she got an idea. When the block on her ledge had moved back far enough, Scales ran to the end and jumped off, hovering for the second ledge. Instead of landing on it, she dropped out of her hover and grabbed the edge of the ledge. She waited until the thorny block started to retract, then pulled herself up and ran away from it. She got to the end of the ledge and saw a series of pillars leading away to her left. She jumped to the first pillar and started hovering across them, following the path they made. Up ahead she could see a ledge, but a thorny block had moved completely out of the wall and left no room for Scales to get past. As she got closer, she saw a triangular switch on the wall. She blasted it, and the block retracted as the timer started up. Scales quickly jumped across the remaining pillars and pulled herself onto the ledge. She ran past the block as the timer went off and the thing pushed out of the wall again. She followed the ledge as it went up the wall at the end of the room and into a corridor. She walked into the corridor and entered a large room. This room had several pillars surrounding a high platform rising from the ground. A staircase led up to the platform. Recalling this style from the last two temples, Scales rushed up the stairs, thinking she had reached her goal. She got to the top of the stairs and walked onto the platform. As usual, sitting on the platform was an altar, and on the altar was...nothing? "What? Where...where is the Ruby?" Scales asked in shock. She growled. "The old man lied to us!" Furious, she lashed out a kick at the altar, shattering it and revealing a hole in the floor. She blinked, looking down the hole, which led to another room. She grinned. "Another secret passage! Clever of these guys." She jumped into the hole and fell down a tunnel, landing in the next room. The heat rose considerably. The room was filled with ultra-hot yellow lava. The chamber was round, with a ledge that encircled half of the wall and a diamond-shaped stone door that was half covered by lava. A giant caterpillar scurried towards her, trying to attack. Scales killed the insect, then pondered what to do next. The door was the only exit, but how was she supposed to get through it without getting fried by lava. Scales had a thought and registered the heat with her sensors, then calculated it with the thrust given off by her jet anklets. After a moment, she came to the conclusion that due to the immense heat rising from the lava, her anklets could actually allow her a limited flight, as long as the heat kept coming up. To test this, she jumped up and hovered off the ledge. She stopped moving forward, and was pleased when she didn't start slowly dropping. She had been correct, she could fly! She flew down to the door in the lava and blasted it open, then went through, entering a narrow tunnel that quickly got larger. She flew down the tunnel as it curved to the left, blasting any roots that came out of the walls and dropping to a platform at the end of the tunnel. She saw the lava going through a narrow slit in the wall, but where could she go? She looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling lined with thorns. Smiling, she flew up to the hole, entering a large passage completely covered in thorns. She used the heat from the lava below to get to the top of the passage, careful not to touch the thorns above her. She then started flying out of the heat, losing her lift and merely hovering again. She hovered down the passage, shooting all the roots that attacked her, landing on a handy green ledge. A bunch of baby caterpillars tried to attack her, but she kicked them off the ledge and into the thorns. She saw what looked like a fan set into the wall nearby, turning and blowing a current of air towards a hole in the thorny wall. A flame-thrower spurted fire near the hole. Scales hovered off the ledge and into the air stream generated by the fan. It blew her towards the passage in the wall. She quickly hovered over the fire from the flame-thrower and went through the hole in the wall, careful not to touch any of the thorns. She found herself able to fly again, this next room was full of lava. She skirted the lava surface, heading for a triangular hole in the back wall. She dropped into the passage and walked forward, following it to the beginning of a long, narrow room with lava streaming forward and thorns covering the walls and ceiling. Scales started flying over the lava, very careful not to get too close to either deadly obstacle. She had to time her way past flame-throwers set in the walls as well. She passed through a small opening in the thorn wall and in the lava and continued down the passage, turning to her left as the area got wider. She flew around, able to maneuver better and dodge the thorny roots that tried to attack her. She continued to blast the roots until she reached the end of the passage, a diamond-shaped stone door set in the thorn wall. She blasted it to pieces, then passed through the door. She was now in a room where yellow lava cascaded down from parts of the ceiling. She had to weave her way through the area to avoid the lava falls. She reached the end of the room and blasted open another door, passing through to another chamber. There were some more lava falls she had to watch out for, but not as many as in the last room. She flew around the falls and saw a few platforms. She stopped on one of the platforms for a breather, then took off again, heading for a corridor set in the wall of the room. She landed in the corridor and started walking along the curves, coming into a large room. A winding bridge led over a lava pit to a big alcove with a square platform on it. Scales walked across the bridge and into the alcove. She was attacked by a group of baby caterpillars, but they were no match for her. Once they were eliminated, she stepped onto the platform. She saw a door was set into it. She smashed it open with a Homing Kick and fell into it. She landed in a large cave, on a ledge filled with, you guessed it, lava! There was a fan behind her that was creating an air stream. She started her flight, the fan pushing her deeper into the cave. She worked her way around the numerous lava falls and barely made it through a triple lava spill. After making it through the falls, she followed the lava below as it streamed downward through a sloping tunnel. As she continued down the slope, thorns covered every inch of the walls and ceiling. The flow of lava kept rising and falling over little hills and stuff, and the ceiling and walls closed in and widened randomly, making it a little hard to move through the remaining openings. After navigating down the thorny lava passage, Scales finally reached a long, straight corridor of lava with absolutely no thorns leading to a big diamond-shaped stone door. Scales started flying down the corridor, relieved when the door opened automatically as she approached. She flew through the door and looked around in excitement, not believing where she'd ended up. She was in a mammoth cylindrical chamber, extremely wide. Lining the walls were noble looking statues of the Roman gods. Lava flowed from spaces between the gods, falling to the floor far below. A lake of lava made up the floor of the chamber. A giant pillar rose from the lava, extending to the ceiling. Lava spouts streamed down from triangular holes in the pillar. Much further down were a series of platforms forming a loose ring around the pillar. There were four bridges extending from the pillar, going over the platforms and to towers rising from the walls as lava cascaded all around them. Three of the bridges had stalactites underneath them, and one bridge led to a tower with a door in it. Several smaller pillars rose out of the wall in the lengthy gaps between bridges. Scales was so busy taking it all in, she didn't notice the monster rising up behind her until it was too late. Hearing a noise, she looked around and saw Foutch, guardian of the temple. The beast was made completely of rock and stone, yellow in color. Oddly enough, he looked exactly like Axel! "Uh, hi there..." Scales said uneasily. "Nice day, isn't it?" Foutch responded by knocking her out of the sky, sending her hurtling to the lava below. Scales frantically activated her jets and found they were malfunctioning due to Foutch's attack. They were only strong enough to slow and control her descent at the moment, and even then it seemed like they could conk out at any moment. The anklets sputtered and finally shut off when she was ten feet above one of the platforms in the lava, causing her to hit the ground roughly. She groaned and got to her feet. Her repair bugs would fix the anklets, but they wouldn't be completely fixed for about twenty minutes. Her mood worsened as Foutch dropped from the sky, hovering to a halt in front of her. Scales knew from previous experience with Axel that her attacks probably wouldn't work on Foutch. So what would? She suddenly remembered the stalactites underneath the bridges. A plan formulated in her mind. Foutch started floating towards her, arms stretched out. "Catch me if you can, gravel-for-brains!" Scales taunted as she ran from the monstrous Guardian. Foutch followed, preparing an attack. It threw fireballs at Scales, trying to knock her off balance and into the lava. Scales dodged the fireballs as she ran along the winding platform. Foutch punched the ground with both fists, sending out a wave of fire that raced after Scales. She was almost at the end of the platform by then, and jumped over the gap to the next one right as the wave was about to hit her, going over it. She landed safely on the next platform and kept running. Foutch started throwing fireballs again, still trying to nail her. She dodged the fireballs and jumped to the next platform, going over the fire wave Foutch generated. She ran along this platform, going under the first bridge. She skidded to a halt when she was past the bridge and waited for the Guardian. When Foutch was right beneath the stalactite, Scales shot it with an energy ball, knocking the stone formation loose and dropping it on the Guardian's head. It struck Foutch's head and broke apart. Foutch was relatively unharmed, aside from the fact that its head was cracking up. "This is gonna be tougher than I thought." Scales muttered as she ran away. She dodged fireballs and leaped over fireballs and platform gaps as she ran away from Foutch, heading for the next bridge. After several harrowing moments, she got Foutch right where she wanted it and blasted the stalactite down from the bridge, cracking the Guardian's head severely. Foutch shook, obviously angry. It began throwing fireballs at a faster rate, furious that she had damaged it so badly. Foutch was tired of throwing waves and balls, so generated something new. When Scales jumped over a gap and no fire wave passed beneath her, she turned around to see what was wrong. Foutch was holding its hands as if it was gripping something. Flames shot up, and a swirling pillar of fire formed between the Guardian's hands. Foutch released the pillar at Scales, sending it roaring down the platform after her. Scales gulped and moved faster, jumping from platform to platform in an attempt to stay as far away as possible from the fire column. As the pillar got closer, Scales suddenly jumped high and to the right, off the platform. The pillar roared past, dissipating as it struck the bridge up ahead. Scales managed to activate her damaged jets, allowing her to get back on the platform before they sparked and shut down again. She ran and jumped the rest of the way to the bridge underside, dodging the occasional fireball and wave. She passed the bridge and turned around, waiting for Foutch. When the stone monster was in position, Scales blasted the stalactite. The stone formation fell from the bridge and smashed through Foutch's damaged head, the pointy tip emerging from the Guardian's bottom. The rock monster wobbled and fell to the ground, disintegrating in a swirl of dust. Scales cheered. "Oh yeah! Nothing can beat this girl! Now, how do I get out of here?" She wandered down the remaining platforms, getting closer to the last bridge. She saw a floating vine and tried to jump to it. It took a few tries, but she managed to grab the vine. She pulled herself up and started swinging. When she built up enough momentum, she let go and shot for the fourth bridge, landing on it. She walked along the bridge to the door in the pillar on the wall and entered. She saw a hole in the hollow interior of the pillar. She jumped in the pit and landed in front of a door. She went through the door and came to a large circular room with a staircase leading to a platform emerging from a pool of lava. Hoping this was finally the end, Scales walked up the stairs to the platform. At the top was an altar, holding the gray Chronos Ruby! "Woohoo! Got it at last!" yelled Scales, grabbing the Ruby. "Time to get out of here. Arik must be worried sick. Chaos Control!" She vanished in a flash of green light.
She reappeared back in the temple of Jupiter, where Arik was waiting, looking somewhat angry. "There you are! What took so long?" Scales frowned. "The temple was trickier than I thought, okay? My anklets are broken and I'm severely dehydrated, but I managed to get the Ruby!" Arik blinked. "Sorry, Scales. I've just been stuck with that old man ever since he left. He kept asking me what Jupiter's like, is Venus really that gorgeous, does Bacchus throw good parties, and I had no way of answering him!" Scales relented. "Okay, I understand why you would be angry if you were stuck here for so long. I think I had a tougher time, though. That temple was the hardest yet!" "Really? Well, you can tell me all about it when we get home over dinner. Come on." Scales took his hand. "Chronos Control!" They warped away.
Later at the hut, Scales told Arik everything she had gone through in the temple as they ate dinner, including her battle with Foutch. "Sounds like you had a fun time." said Arik. Scales chuckled. "Yeah, aside from the threat of imminent death it was a barrel of laughs! But from what you said earlier, you didn't have an easy time either." Arik grinned. "The priest healed properly and insisted I help his friends. I healed all of them, despite the irritating questions they asked of me. Other than that, it was fine." Scales chewed on another hunk of meat. "So, what did you do while you were waiting for me? You know, after you healed the priests?" Arik shrugged. "Well, I just sat down and did nothing, getting more irritated as time went on. I was worried about you, to tell the truth." Scales snorted. "Moi? You needn't have worried, Arik. I was fine." Arik cocked his head. "If you say so. Hey, how about I try and get the next Ruby? You've done enough work for the both of us!' Scales frowned. "Are you sure you want to try the next one by yourself? The protections for the Rubies so far have been quite formidable." "I'd at least like to try." Said Arik. "And if I get into any trouble, I can just signal you with the Master Ruby. So how about it? Can I try and get the next Ruby myself?" Scales thought a moment. "Yeah, all right. I think it's time you got a chance to prove yourself capable." Arik smiled. "Thank you Scales." Scales started to get up. "Well, I'm bushed. Ready for bed?" Arik got up. "Yeah, okay. See you in the morning, Scales." They headed for the ladder, climbed up to the second story, and went to their respective rooms.
After a quick bath, Scales lay down in her nest. She was unable to sleep. She sighed and sat up. What am I doing? She thought. I love Arik, don't I? Why am I waiting around to see if he feels the same way? If I wait too long, I could miss my chance forever! He could get hitched to a different raptor, a woman who's all wrong for him! I can't let that happen! "That does it!" she said out loud. "I'm going over there right now to tell him how I feel!" She got up and headed for the door.
Arik lay down in his nest and curled up, trying to sleep. He couldn't. He sat up and began pondering his friendship with Scales. She's the most incredible girl I've ever met. He thought. We both have a lot in common. We lost our families, we suffered trauma and hate those responsible for our pain. Darius, you were right. She is the one for me. "That does it!" Arik said out loud. "I'm going over there right now to tell her how I feel!" he got up and headed for the door.
Scales burst out of her room at the same time Arik came out of his. "Arik!" she said. "Scales!" he said. There was an awkward pause. "Um, good night!" "Good night!" Arik replied. They both went back into their rooms and started berating themselves for the missed opportunity.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (Gasp) HAHAHAHAHA! Eh heh, sorry. Hope you liked this chapter! Time to talk to Scales! Scales: Why didn't Arik and I get together? I was ready! Me: No you weren't. AHAHAHA! Scales: Stop that! You're changing Pi2, and it's freaking me out! Me: Sorry. Anyway, how was the level? Scales: Extremely difficult. Is it really that hard in Rayman 2? Me: Harder, when you consider the fact that all he can do to attack is throw his fist at things. Scales: So, where are we going next? Me: You'll see. I'm disappointed-I mean glad!-that Arik is finally falling for you. Scales: I'm getting a happy ending, right? Me: Of course. You and Arik will be able to spend eternity together. Scales: We'd better. Me: You will, you will! I promise! Anyway, we don't have any gifts or questions, except a request from 217. Scales: What is it? Me: He says Fluffy isn't dead. The program you rolled over has regenerated. The only way to destroy it is to reduce it to dust. Scales: (Pulls out Fluffy hard drive.) Huh, you're right. Well, there's only one way to remedy that! (Tosses Fluffy into the air.) Serpent Strike! (Green snake shoots towards hard drive and obliterates it, reducing it to dust.) Yeah! Get out, you weird program! Me: I hope you're happy, 217. And if Fluffy still isn't dead, then I have a gift for you that will ensure she never bothers you again! If Fluffy's a she. Which I'm not sure of. (Holds up disk.) I hold here the most powerful computer virus ever created, Project Cyberstrike! Scales: What's it do? Me: The Cyberstrike virus is the cybernetic Antichrist! No computer or program can resist it! All defenses or virus killers, no matter how strong they may be, crumble before the might of Cyberstrike! It devolves programs as complex as an artificial intelligence prototype to a piece of data too weak to figure out what 1+1 is! Scales: Wow! Me: Why, with a virus this powerful, an individual could cause a planet's entire global computer network to irreversibly crash, throwing it into anarchy and chaos! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Scales: You're creeping me out again. Me: Oh, sorry. Anyway, take this virus with my blessings! (Disk vanishes.) There, he took it. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Scales: Bye now. Hopefully, Arik and I will be able to admit our feelings to each other next chapter. Me: (Muttering.) Not if I have anything to say about it. (Louder.) Please review!