You know, between my Physics, Chemistry and Math classes, I have no idea how I'm still able to write one of these a week...

(Dew/Char): *whistling, hopping up behind Omniflyer*

Oh. That's how.

(Dew): Darn right. Don't worry, everybody, we'll make sure he updates with some regularity!

That he will. You should really get a job working as, like, a motivational instructor. You'd make millions.

(Char): We already do.

You get paid for this?!

(Dew): Sure. All muses get paid by Imps to watch over particularly evil authors.

Why do you get paid and I don't?! I'm doing all the work!!

(Char): People like us more. ^_^

\/_\/* I give up...



Disclaimer: I don't own Microsoft. I mean, Golden Sun. Uhh...and Microsoft. Yes, I...don't own Microsoft....don't.

Don't.



A/N: This chapter switches back and forth between the present and the past. I tried to get some italics working, but my computer hates me, like certain muses I could mention. So, the chapter starts in the past and works from there. I apologize for any confusion.



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Chapter 11

Revelations

10 minutes pre-Venus Flare.

It had been a year and a half since the incident atop Mount Aleph, inside the sacred Sol Sanctum.

Inside the Elemental Star Chamber, where the whole quest was set in motion.

Since then, they'd travelled across fields, plains of ice, through mountain ranges and deserts, and climbed two of the legendary Lighthouses of Alchemy.

And they were still atop one, now.

To one side of the lighthouse, Isaac stood, his friends behind him, the people to whom he would give everything and ask nothing in return, the people who he would fight alongside and defend with his life.

On the other side, Saturos and Menardi of the Fire Clan, standing, holding the Venus Star, ready to toss it into the beacon's pit, but waiting until these nuisances were out of their way.

They would be in for a long wait.

********************

The sound of metal ringing against metal resonated throughout the old prison system. Isaac was struggling for position against the one foe he never thought he would have to face again.

Saturos, disguised as Dodonpa, deflected Isaac's parry-turned-slash, and shoved him away. He leaped back, and emitted a brilliant flash of light, which nearly blinded the other Adepts, and when it receded, Saturos stood, in his normal appearance, no longer masquerading as the former leader of Lunpa, but now in his old body. With the hallway too narrow for the other Adepts to come beside Isaac, they simply watched as their leader faced off against Saturos. Just as fast and deadly as ever, if not more so, Saturos charged against Isaac, and the two were set again in a deadly battle.

********************

Five minutes pre-Venus Flare.

"This is where it ends for you!" Menardi cried, dashing towards the Adepts.

"Saturos is mine!" Isaac cried, taking a weak slash at Menardi as he passed her, who deflected it easily.

"Let me help you," Mia said.

"No," Isaac replied. "Keep an eye out for the other two and stay back; get ready to heal somebody if they need it!" Mia bit her lower lip, as if trying to hold down an argument. Isaac began his duel with Saturos, and she didn't want to distract him

"Well, well," Saturos said, circling with Isaac around a middle point, as though moons around a planet. "After all this time, even this far from Vale, you still chase us? I must admit, your tenacity is quite admirable."

"Yeah, well, we'll just see how much you admire me once I've ended your quest," Isaac said.

"Tsk, tsk," Saturos clucked mockingly, "don't you know how to take a compliment?"

"Not from you," Isaac said, launching himself at Saturos.

********************

"What are you trying to prove, Isaac?" Garet asked.

"Let us help you!" Jenna called into the fray, but Isaac was too busy to answer them.

"This is crazy, we need to help him!" Mia said worriedly.

"We have to respect his wishes," Felix said.

"Wishes or no, he's going to get himself killed," Picard said.

"If he can hold his own against Dullahan, he can hold his own against Saturos," Felix reasoned.

"That wasn't Dullahan," Ivan said, keeping a firm grip on his staff. "That was just an imitation."

"Yeah, a half-pint," Garet joked. Ivan grimaced at him.

"I'm not waiting anymore," Mia said. "We have to help him!"

"As appreciated as the thought is," Isaac called back, "it's not necessary."

"Yet," Mia said darkly. "Remember what happened last time you said that?"

********************

Three minutes pre-Venus Flare.

"As appreciated as the thought it," Isaac called back, "it's not necessary." Mia wavered, poised between listening to Isaac and going to help Garet and Ivan with Menardi when Saturos got the chance he was looking for and hit Isaac with a huge slash. Isaac crumpled to the Aerie floor.

"No!" Mia cried. "Isaac!" Saturos ginned maliciously at her and laughed, but was quickly silenced by a flurry of Ice Missile attacks that left him quite winded and injured.

Mia dashed over to Isaac and focussed all of her energy into Ply. A blue aura surrounded her entire body instead of only her hands, and instead of the normal fairy that floated down to heal the wounded, a whole crowd of the winged creatures floated down to the ground to assist Mia in her purest hope to heal Isaac, and bathed him in the light of Mercury and healed him totally.

And Mia realized she had learned the power of Pure Ply.

********************

"You needed my help before, Isaac!" Mia said. But Isaac as too busy parrying and countering attacks to reply. Isaac danced around Saturos' thrust and slapped his hand with the flat of the Sol Blade. Saturos dropped the Bloodlust Katana. Isaac pointed the Sol Blade at Saturos' throat.

"Don't move. You're going to pay for this war for a long time," Isaac said quietly. Saturos just laughed.

"You fool. Didn't I tell you about the power of Transmute Psynergy?" he laughed.

"All you got was some fancy sword that didn't help you at all. Big deal," Garet said.

"I got a lot more than that," Saturos said, looking at the Katana on the floor. "I got a weapon that doesn't need me for it's power." Suddenly the fire in the metal intensified in power, and it released a large explosion of plasmatic fire that struck Isaac directly, before he had any time to prepare a defence. Isaac slumped to the floor, bleeding and burned badly. "Case in point."

"Isaac!" the others cried, and Mia rushed over to him to cast Pure Ply. Garet leaped over both of them, unsheathing his Murasama. The cursed spirit of the Murasama revealed itself, and tried to curse Garet. However, his Cleric's Ring absorbed the spirit, and Garet drew the sword successfully with no ill effects. Garet started muscling with Saturos for position, who raised the Bloodlust Katana again and simply laughed.

Meanwhile, Mia was healing Isaac with Pure Ply and enlisting Picard's and Felix's help to carry him off away from Saturos.

"You never change, you know that, Isaac?" Mia said softly to him. "This is the same thing you did to me last time you fought Saturos..."

"At least...I'm consistent," Isaac groaned, and slowly took her hand. She squeezed it back and tried to help Picard and Felix get him out of the prisons as fast as possible. Ivan, Sheba and Jenna led the way, and Garet was holding off Saturos as well as he could while trying to keep sight of the others.

Finally, as soon as the others had Isaac clear of the hallway in which Saturos was still fighting, Garet leaped back and dropped a Smoke Bomb to temporarily befuddle Saturos. While Saturos was trying to regain his senses, Garet hightailed it for the others, and they all ran as quickly they could through the corridors looking for the exit, slowed by the recovering Isaac. Mia was still trying her Pure Ply every couple of steps (Isaac didn't even know how she was using it so often).

The group was running (or hobbling, in Isaac's case, thanks to the unrelenting Pure Plies from Mia) when Saturos' voice rang throughout the hallways.

"You fools! Did you honestly think I would let you escape so easily?!" he called.

"Let us escape?" Garet mocked. "You couldn't have stopped us. I'm too strong for you!"

"Only with cheap items, you Mars Adept wannabe..."

"What?!"

"Why do this, Saturos?!" Isaac cried, trying to ignore the pain of the burns.

"Do you really want to know why, Isaac? You already know..."

********************

12 minutes after the Venus Flare

The Fusion Dragon, the last ditch effort made from the joining of Saturos and Menardi in a weak form of Transmute Psynergy in order to defeat Isaac's party, stumbled to the floor and broke back into Saturos and Menardi.

"I can't believe... we lost," Menardi whispered, and fell into the now half-lit beacon pit. Saturos fell after, and the Adepts turned their attention to Felix and Sheba. But before anyone could move, the lighthouse split in half, and the beacon's power shot up from the recesses of the well, where Saturos and Menardi were falling. The energy shot up and engulfed Menardi, killing her instantly.

But Saturos was falling to the side of the beam. He landed on the bottom of the pit, where the well was curved. But just before he would have rolled into the beacon, the lighthouse split in half due to the sudden onslaught of Venus Alchemical power being unleashed upon the world. Saturos kept falling past the well and the beacon's light and landed at the bottom of the lighthouse behind a statue, just short of where the rising waters were flooding. Everything went black for him.

Saturos woke up to the sound of footsteps and voices.

"Can we not get out?"

"It's flooded."

"Flooded?"

"Totally flooded with water."

"How did that happen?"

"You're the smart one!"

"We'll have to find another way out..."

"That's fine."

Saturos heard the footsteps pass him, and stop to take one last look at the waters just a few feet from him.

He could have reached out and grabbed Isaac.

No. Better to wait and strike back later.

Wait for revenge.

*********************

"I can't believe it," Garet said quietly.

"If only we had been paying more attention..." Ivan trailed off

"You could have killed me there like you killed Menardi," Saturos cackled. "But you didn't, and now...now I get to hurt you where it hurts most." He laughed even louder, as though dipping fully into insanity now. "I strike back at you by striking at your home...we'll see how long you can remain the strong hero when your world is dipped into darkness. When all around you is lost and you finally let go, Isaac of Vale...that's when you will die for good!!" And the laughter receded into nothingness.

"Talk about a sucky piece of news," Garet said softly.

"Doesn't matter," Felix said. "We'll just have to end this war faster. We need to stop this from carrying on."

"How do we stop it?" Picard wondered. "If we can't deliver Dodonpa, or at least the fake Dodonpa to Lunpa, then they'll continue this war until either they win, or they're defeated. They won't stop now!" The Adepts travelled in silence, pondering this newest revelation.

"There must be something we're overlooking," Sheba said. "Something simple."

"Let's worry about it once we're free of Lunpa," Mia said. "We need to get out of here while we can."

So the Adepts left the castle, Cloak up, and wondered what they could do now. They reached the outskirts of Lunpa and retreated in the caravans just as Sol was rising, and just six hours away from the beginning of the second battle.

It was going to be another long day.

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Are you happy now? I gave you an update without a cliffhanger.

(Dew): The looming threat of war doesn't count as a cliffhanger?

Not really. I mean, there are far worse things I'm going to do.

(Char): ... going to?

Uh...no...I mean...

(Char): ...

To the rest of you (I should end this before they hurt me...), please review.

(Dew): *laughing* It's funny because you said before I hurt you...