Hi people! I'm back! It's almost my birthday, so I'm thrilled. And no, I won't tell you how old I am. Thanks to Mei Cera a.k.a. Gensui Meia and Artificer Urza for reviewing.
And Cera, that has got to be the corniest review you have ever submitted. As punishment, I'll include more scenes of your disliked pairing. Evil, aren't I?
Oh, and Happy Birthday in advance to Artificer Urza. You're the second person with the same birth date as me!
Disclaimer: BoF is Capcom's! How many times do I have to say this?
Legend:
+++~Change of scene~+++
^^PoV^^
^~*^~*Flashback*~^*~^
The Dragon Warrior Chapter Four: AftermathThe shrine was trembling violently. Gunthar was dashing as fast as his legs could carry him, panting and gasping for breath. The walls of the underground passages seemed to pulsate and bulge in and out with every single tremor. The very floor appeared to heave up and down, glowing in a strange way. Gunthar did not like those signs, for they gave him a sense of foreboding of the things to come.
Behind him the roar of gushing water rose in rhythm. The great pressure exerted by the tumultuous cascade of water must have broken through his magical barrier! Gunthar then knew that if he failed these passages within the next minute or so, the water would catch up with him and inevitably sweep him to his death. Even if he did survive it, the injuries sustained would not be light.
He ran faster. He knew that ordinarily no other priest would be this far down in the passages, so he did not have to worry about anyone else being hurt. But there might be others closer to the main shrine, and that was to be fretted about. However, worrying about his personal safety was already a great enough chore. He really didn't need the extra pressure at the moment.
He was tiring rapidly. Gunthar was not a young man. If it had been about 20 years ago, he would have no trouble with running such a distance. But now at the age of 48, he was no longer at his physical prime. 'Too much soft living doesn't help either…' Gunthar thought a little ruefully to himself.
Huff. Huff. Just. A. Little. More. Gunthar knew he was getting closer. But, unfortunately, so were the torrents of water. He still had some time though. He halted about 100 meters from the stairs that would lead to safety. Magically projecting his voice, Gunthar yelled, "Everyone! Get out of the tunnels NOW! There's a flash flood!"
That yell could have been fatal for him. In the time that it took for him to project his warning, the water had rounded the last corner and was now hurtling at full speed towards him. Gunthar swore, something he normally wasn't supposed to do, and started sprinting towards the stairs.
It was just a little too late. Just as he reached the steps, the water reached him and engulfed him. He was swept away like a rag doll in the onrushing torrent.
+++~ At another set of stairs further down the passage~+++
Bandon, a junior priest, had been tidying one of the chambers in the passageways when he heard High Priest Gunthar's voice magically project a warning. He immediately ditched his broom and sprinted towards the nearest exit, all the while thinking, 'Why would there be a flash flood right now?"
He reached the stairs. There were many other priests, both junior and senior ones, and all of them were jostling each other to go up to the safety first. Human survival instinct, at its best and worse, was at work here.
Perhaps it was the ominous sound of onrushing water that signaled the coming of the flash flood. People started shoving each other even more desperately to get out as quickly as possible. Bandon shook his head. This was not good. At this rate he would never make it out. He then turned and started further along the passage towards a lesser-known passageway he had discovered while cleaning sometime back.
Bandon had almost reached the secret passage when he faintly heard screams from where he had been at the previous set of stairs. 'Fools,' he thought a little contemptuously. He then quickened his steps.
The sound of the rushing of water grew in volume. Bandon had reached the passageway out. He was about halfway up the passage when the rush of water hurtled past underneath him. "That was close," he murmured to himself. He was about to continue upwards when a familiar aura jolted his senses.
Turning sharply, he scuttled back to the edge. A familiar figure was being borne on the onrushing water. The High Priest! Without hesitation, Bandon swung himself out as far as possible and caught hold of one arm of the unconscious Gunthar. Then with the practiced ease born of hauling whole nets full of fish at the fishing village where he grew up, Bandon hauled Gunthar to safety.
Puffing slightly from the effort, Bandon just managed to drag the High Priest out of the passage. He collapsed in a heap next to the still unconscious Gunthar, trying to get his breath back.
"At least we're safe now…" Bandon said aloud even as he leaned over Gunthar to check the nasty head injury on the High Priest's forehead. Almost as if in sudden contradiction to his words, there was an ominous rumbling, cracking sound, shortly followed by a sizable chunk of the ceiling landing with a heavy thud right next to him.
"Alright, correction. We are so definitely not safe now," Bandon commented as he looked up at the cracking ceiling. Hefting the limp body of Gunthar onto his shoulders, he grunted and swiftly exited the crumbling chamber.
The shrine was in an uproar. The very walls shook and heaved, and even the supporting pillars had cracks on them. Pieces of the ceiling had already crumbled and fell in great chunks. There were people who were unable to get out of the way in time trapped underneath the debris. No one bothered to help them, however. Everyone was making a mad rush for the exit.
It was to this chaotic scene that Bandon, burdened with Gunthar on his back, came upon. "Damn," Bandon muttered. Under ordinary circumstances, priests were not supposed to swear, but Bandon didn't give a damn about that at the present.
He managed to come up with several new swearwords when he saw that there were still people trapped under the debris with no one to help them, even as he strode purposefully towards the exit. All his instincts told him to help, but he could not afford to stop, not with him carrying the High Priest and all. He gritted his teeth and moved on.
The shrine continued to shudder and groan as it slowly, but surely, came undone at its seams. Everyone that could possibly have made it out on their own two feet had gathered on the wide plains right in front of the collapsing shrine. Bandon had deposited Gunthar on the ground, and several other priests were currently performing some rudimentary healing magic on the wound to stop the bleeding.
There was a profound silence amongst the crowd as they witnessed the shrine, first crumbling, then groaning like a woman in labor, on its last legs. The marble colonnade in front of the shrine had already been reduced into rubble, and the rest of the shrine seemed to be following in its footsteps.
C-cr-crack! The right wing of the shrine disengaged itself from the main body of the shrine and slowly sank into the ground (1). The left wing also met with the same fate.
Now all that was left of the great shrine was the main section. It too, did not show any signs of lasting any longer. It seemed to shudder even more violently, and as part of it had already started sinking into the ground, it appeared to freeze for a single instance, before crumbling into a massive heap of rubble with a great sigh.
The crowd looked on in silent disbelief. Some of the older people fainted from the shock. The Great Shrine of Ladon was no more.
+++~ Later, in the palace~+++
"WHAT????!!!!!!!!! What happened to the shrine?!" King Rayne exploded at the messenger in knelt down before him.
"Sire, the Shrine of Ladon has just collapsed for no apparent reason that we can explain. The High Priest may be able to shed some light on the matter, but he's currently in no condition to seek an audience with Your Majesty…" The messenger replied, looking just a little apprehensively at Rayne's shocked and infuriated face.
"What's wrong with Gunthar?" Rayne, having finally gotten a hold on his emotions, queried the messenger.
"He has been injured, Your Majesty. It was a fairly nasty head wound, as the healers have informed me. But they are confident of treating him. It would take some time though…" The messenger delivered the rest of his report, visibly relieved that the King did not show any more outward signs of fury.
Rayne sighed. His day was not going as well as he had hoped. As if to add to his worries, Schala suddenly stormed in, her face filled with a kind of dread.
"Did you see Ryu? He said he was going to the shrine for a walk…" Schala began, and Rayne suddenly felt cold inside. Did his nephew get out in time?
There was a respectful knock on the door. Everyone turned to see a man dressed in a healer's garb stride in.
"Your Majesty, the High Priest is conscious and seems to have something important to report to you. He is however still not fit to walk yet, so may I entreat Your Majesty to come with all possible speed to his chambers?"
The healer had almost finished delivering his message when Rayne swept past him with Schala at his side.
+++~At the chamber where Gunthar is~+++
"How is he?" Rayne queried the healer in charge.
"We have done everything we can, Your Majesty, but the wound is grave. If he survives tonight then there is still hope for him, but now all we can do is to wait and hope," the healer answered gravely.
"Your…your…Majesty…listen to…me…" It was Gunthar. Rayne came quickly to his side.
"What happened? Why did the shrine collapse?" Rayne asked urgently.
"The Orb…is gone…Gold Dragon…there was a boy…blue haired…" Gunthar was not talking coherently now.
"It's Ryu! What happened to him, to my son?" Schala gasped in worry. Rayne too was stunned also by the news that the Orb of Testing was gone, as were all others in the room.
"The boy…passed the test…Gold Dragon…the Orb…went into him…it flew away…the Gold Dragon did…" Gunthar was definitely not all right now. His eyes were wide, and little shocks ran through his body, making him jerk and tremble uncontrollably.
"Please, leave him be. Your questions are distressing him greatly. His condition will worsen if you continue to press him for more answers," the healer's voice was firm and brooked no challenge from the surrounding people.
Rayne sighed. The High Priest had answered a few questions, all right, but those answers had in turn given rise to even more questions. He looked at his sister's pallid face. She had not taken the news very well. First she lost her husband indirectly due to the test, and now she also lost her son for the same reason.
Still, there were other matters to see to. In a crisp voice, Rayne ordered all that were present not to reveal the true cause of what had precipitated the fall of the shrine, and also not to mention that the Orb of Testing was lost. He then gave orders for his troops to search for Ryu, as well as to check with the people in the surrounding area to see if they had seen where the Gold Dragon had gone.
After all that was done, Rayne turned to a silent Schala and gently led her back to her rooms. He knew that it was a great blow to her, this unexpected disappearance of Ryu.
Cyrus, her husband and a great friend of his, had reportedly been killed, on his way to undergo the test, by a group of demons. His body was never found, and Zaine, who was with him, was the only survivor, and he had brought back Cyrus's pendant with him as proof of his death. Schala wept for days after that, although she never truly believed that Cyrus had perished. That incident took place only a few months before Ryu was born.
+++~In Schala's room~+++
^^Schala's PoV^^
I sat down numbly on the edge of my bed. Where was Ryu? Was he safe? Tears were streaming down my face, but I didn't even notice. All I knew was that I could have stopped him from going to the shrine earlier, then all of this would not have happened.
This gift, no, it's a curse, of mine, had always plagued my life. Sometimes I would just suddenly get little flashes of what was yet to be, and if it was something bad and I had failed to prevent it from happening, I was always overcome by an enormous sense of guilt. Not even my parents knew of this, or my brother Rayne, and I didn't even tell Cyrus about it.
Cyrus… As usual his name would conjure up all sorts of wonderful memories for me. But it also brought back the time where I saw him for the last time.
^~*^~*Flashback*~^*~^
"Cyrus!" A young woman of twenty-one with long, flowing blue hair scurried with surprising agility to greet her husband (2). The young man in question was tall and blond, with eyes a deep sapphire blue. His features were finely chiseled, and he could well have been a model for a statue. Even white teeth showed as he smiled at his radiant wife.
"Well now, Schala, what did I tell you about running around while you were four months pregnant?" Cyrus scolded her gently, trying hard to keep a stern expression on his face. Schala put on her best puppy-dog face and smiled winsomely at her husband.
Cyrus sighed. He could never say no to her when his mischievous wife decided to turn on her not inconsiderable charm. He gazed down into her gorgeous emerald eyes and grinned at her, saying, "All right, you're forgiven. But have you thought of what we are going to name our son (3)?"
Schala nodded and answered, "What do you think about the name Ryu?" Cyrus smiled, "Whatever you think is best, my dear. I'll have to leave to go and undertake the test now, though…"
A sudden sense of foreboding went through Schala. "No, you can't go!" Schala cried out rather desperately. Cyrus looked surprised.
"Why not, my dear? Besides, this is an opportunity of the lifetime. Not many people are deemed worth of undertaking the test. Anyway, I won't be gone for very long, so you don't have to worry, alright?" Cyrus soothed his anxious wife.
Schala reluctantly agreed, but deep down in her heart something was screaming a warning.
Later, much later actually, word came to Schala that Cyrus was dead, killed by a roving group of demons. Zaine handed a bloodstained pendant that Schala had given to Cyrus, as all he could find was that. Not even Cyrus's body could be found.
^~*^~*End flashback*~^*~^
I broke down after that, crying myself to sleep on my empty bed.
+++~Three days later, in the Imperial Study~+++
"Your Majesty, there has been reports from some peasants that they saw a dragon rising from the shrine's direction and heading into the northern mountains. I have already sent my men to scour the mountains for signs of the boy Ryu. But so far there has been no results." The commander of the Imperial forces in the capital, General Debonair, reported.
This did not please Rayne. Schala was getting more and more depressed, and she steadfastly refused to let anyone come near her. He was on the verge of delivering a blistering reply to the general, but at the last moment held his tongue. It wasn't Debonair's fault, after all, and he had no right to be surly with his troops.
He dismissed the general, and then went silently back to his thoughts.
+++~In Riana's room~+++
Riana sat by her window. She was greatly upset by this turn of events. By eavesdropping on her elders, she had surmised that Ryu had somehow vanished, and also that everyone was baffled by the fact that they have yet to find him.
She was obviously downcast and understandably short-tempered the past few days. Somehow, she felt that it was her fault that Ryu disappeared without a trace. She desperately wanted to find him and then apologize to him, not caring if she would have to throw her pride out of the window.
All this was however, not to be, for they never saw Ryu again, at least not for another twelve years…
+++~When Ryu had first woken up~+++
^^Ryu's PoV^^
Owww…my head hurts… Where am I? I got up unsteadily to my feet, shaking my head to clear my blurry vision.
I was in an enclosed valley, it seemed. The moon glowed brightly in the dark night sky, and lent an unearthly sense of unreality to the scene in front of me. I wandered aimlessly for a while, trying to get my bearings, and then I felt the hairs on my neck stand straight up.
Unconsciously, I fell into a fighting stance. How in the world did I do that? I don't ever recall having fighting lessons…
But quick as I was, I was much slower than the one I faced. Right after I had gotten into position, I found myself on my butt a moment later.
"Ouch! That hurt! Who's there?" I grumbled.
"Who are you? And how did you get here?" A voice rang out clearly in the darkness.
I blinked, and then I saw a man dressed in rags and holding a staff standing right in front of me. His eyes were a strange milky color, and they didn't seem focused. That was odd.
And then it hit me. He was blind! But then how did he manage to topple me off my feet then? Sheer luck? No, that was impossible. At least something told me that wasn't the right answer…
He repeated his question. I opened my mouth to answer, and then I stopped. Who am I? I tried hard to remember, but came up blank. Then I tried thinking about how I got here.
Disconnected images flashed past my half-closed eyes. Another awareness. Blood. Rage. Terror. Screams. I shied violently away from the faint memories, willing them to go away. But it wouldn't leave my mind. Instead it continued to assault my mind. I screamed and blacked out. Again.
^^Man's PoV^^
I was getting ready to rest for the night when I felt an incredible surge of energy disrupt the calm energy field in my valley. Startled, I braced myself on my staff and rose to my feet. Then I followed the magical trail to where the energy had originated.
It was night. I knew that, felt the cool breeze stroke my cheek. But night or day meant little to me, for I was blind. Guided by my acute hearing and almost phenomenal sense of detecting the energy fields that every living creature possessed (4), I followed after a moving creature.
I struck once I was within range. Then I immediately realized that the 'creature' was a human. And one of my clan too, a Light Dragon, judging from his aura, although it seemed that his aura was mixed with some Dark Dragon aura in it. I was of the Dark Dragon family, so I knew. I quickly reduced the force applied, but still it was enough to sweep him off his feet.
The person cried out in pain, and I realized then that it was only a little boy. Now that truly mystified me. How did a young lad come to possess such an incredibly strong aura?
He did not answer when I asked him how he got here. I was surprised to see someone else here too. According to my own best knowledge, there were no entrances or exits to this valley. Except through the sky. But how? The boy was too young to have been able to transform into a strong enough dragon to fly over into the valley.
I repeated my query, but again he did not answer. I could sense doubt and fear in his aura. Then suddenly, his aura grew more agitated and then he screamed and collapsed. Startled again, I dragged him haphazardly back to the cave where I lived…
Footnotes:
(1): It sank into the ground because the foundations under it had already crumbled, and also remember that there was this maze of passages underneath the shrine, which amounts to a whole lot of empty space for it to sink into.
(2): Agility is surprising for a woman who's several months pregnant.
(3): They know about the gender of the baby before he was born because they can cast a spell to check the gender.
(4): Every living thing has an aura, kind of like the Force in Star Wars. And so, since the guy is blind, he relies a lot on that to guide himself. And who is he anyway? Find out for yourself!
Aha! Another one done. Quite a bit of action, wouldn't you say? But I still think that there are some parts of the chapter that are incredibly crappy, so please try not to be mean about it since I've already admitted it. Plenty of hanging threads unsolved so far…and I shall continue leaving people in suspense…oh well, since it's a few more hours to my birthday…Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me…and people, R+R!