Author's Note:
Rio: Hey, all! How are you on this lovely Saturday?
Ryu: Hey, Rio... WHY IS THIS SO SHORT?!?!
Rio: HEY, it IS five pages! But that's the way things worked out. I wanted to cut it off where I did, it seemed to say "end here".
Ryu: But, next chapter you said you would do Lemuria....
Rio: Oh, don't worry. Next chapter is Champa and Lemuria.
Ryu: Blue haired people and Felix/Picardness!
Rio: *nods*
Ryu: ^.^ *is happy*
Fantasies of the Open Mind:
Chapter Seven: Playing With Power
Jenna turned to look at her brother, meeting him stare for stare. Felix broke their starring contest first and sighed.
"Who knew?" he asked quietly. "If you didn't confide in me, who did you tell?"
"I didn't tell anyone. Picard found out, though. I asked him not to tell you."
"Why?" Felix asked.
"Because he didn't know me."
"You thought I would find out more than what you were ready to show?" Felix smirked.
"Yes, but you figured it out anyway." Jenna said, seeing the satisfied look on her brother's face.
"Not all of the details, just most of them." Felix murmured. "You can use that burst brooch to free the trident piece from the ice. Bring it down to the others when you get it. They should have made their way back to the ship." he smiled, "For some strange reason they think you were cold. " He smirked, a rare thing for Felix which made Jenna wonder exactly how much Felix really knew.
As she watched her brother walk away, Lunitari materialized where she had been before. "I like him. You have a cool brother Jenna."
Jenna raised an eyebrow. "I do?"
Solinari also materialized. "Yes. He is going to pretend that he didn't see you. It will help to protect your new identity from the others until you are ready to tell them."
Jenna stared at the two ghosts. "And you figured this out how?"
Lunitari smirked. "Your mind may be blocked from us because you are our guarded, but other's minds are not."
Jenna thought about this. "Oh."
The ghosts were right. Felix greeted Jenna furiously when she arrived back at the ship with trident prong in hand, but she saw the small smile that he gave her before the acting started. The thought passed through her head that Felix must know the abilities of the ghosts, but she suspected as much.
She left the prong with Felix and left for the prow of the ship. This was beginning to be her patented spot. She should just carve her name on the top of the dragon's wooden head. And now she had some issues to deal with.
"How did Solinari do that?" she murmured looking at the pendant, tracing the figure engraved on the smooth mettle.
"Its actually a very simple process." he answered. "So simple in fact Dark Mage babies could do it."
"Well excuse me for not being a baby then." Jenna muttered before starting in surprise.
"That realization took way to long." Saturos remarked, his ghost balancing perfectly on the dragon head prow.
"I still don't understand your logic Felix. " Picard said frankly. "Yes, you need more practice steering the ship. Yes, the trident is interesting. Yes, I want to see what it looks like... but don't we need to do something along the lines of getting to Lemuria or lighting the Lighthouses?"
"World's not destroyed yet, can wait longer," was Felix's grammatically incorrect sentence fragment.
Picard sighed. Was there really any way to reply to that?
"So if reviving is so easy for a Dark Mage, why can't I do it?" Jenna glared at her two familiars.
"One, we don't have the right materials to complete the spell. Two you don't have enough power to resurrect on your own and would therefore have to work off our power. And three, before you interrupt me, we don't have enough power as ghosts to help you." Lunitari explained.
"Yes. You could perform the spell, providing we got the right materials. However the strain on your magic and ours would probably kill you in the process." Solinari said quietly, "Something I'm sure your lover would not be please about."
Saturos choked on whatever air was passing through his form's throat at that moment and Jenna turned red, not in anger but in embarrassment. Lunitari grinned. "Well now we know what to do to shut them up." she giggled. Solinari merely smiled. He knew that they were not lovers, but why not have a little fun at his guided's expense?
"Felix I saw us pass around that misty area back there! You went around Lemuria didn't you?" Kraden was not pleased with Felix at the moment in time.
"Must have slipped my mind." Felix murmured trading look for look with Kraden.
"How could getting to Lemuria slip your mind?" Kraden was almost yelling, thankfully Sheba was up in the crow's nest and Jenna was at the prow so only Picard heard Kraden's ranting.
In fact Picard only heard one of the uncomplimentary things that Kraden was ranting at Felix, pardon, his Felix, before seeing red. Stalking over to Kraden he heard the tail end of what Felix was replying.
"...I don't recall you steering the ship."
"Well maybe I should, then we would get to where we should be going!" Kraden snarled at Felix. Felix raised an eyebrow, Kraden was over reacting way to much, what could he really be angry about?
"I doubt you could steer the ship Kraden. " Picard cut in smoothly, eyes snapping in anger. Picard himself was surprised at how calm he seemed. Picard did not loose his temper often, but when he did a volcano had less force. "You don't have enough upper body strength."
Felix was looking at Picard with a questioning look but Picard chose to ignore it. Kraden was also surprised, but nodded. "Yes, I see. I apologize Felix, I don't know what came over me."
Sheba slid down the ladder that lead up to the crow's nest. "There's another tower up ahead. It looks just like the last one!"
Jenna also joined the group, looking more relaxed then she had been before, "When will we land?"
Sheba sighed, "Well I tried to tell you all before but you were all talking," a pointed glare was sent at Kraden, Felix, and Picard.
"So-" Jenna started to ask but a gentle bump and rocking of the ship answered her question. She watched at Picard winced but attempted to hide his cringing. But he did have a point, wood plus rocks often equaled sinking ship.
The previous towers that the group had scaled or walked through were in pretty good condition, being as one was on top of a rocky ridge and other was in the middle of a frozen wasteland. This last tower was in the middle of a forested area of relatively warm climate. Therefore it was overgrown with vines and broken in many places, even to the point where the group could walk through a break in the wall when the door seemed locked.
Kraden looked around the first room they came to, a room which was broken by the age of time and the vines of ivy which had only helped in its deterioration. "This is a run down place isn't it. Are we sure that it's worth climbing?"
While Felix nodded Jenna tensed. Something felt wrong. Lunitari affirmed this, whispering in Jenna's ear, "There is another entity here, and it's angry." Jenna frowned. For some reason she felt that Kraden was in trouble. Her suspicions were confirmed when a torrent of sand fell down on Kraden's head through a hole in the roof. She smiled, maybe she should stick with the group for this one.
As they scaled the tower it became more and more apparent to Jenna that the entity within the tower did not like Kraden's remark, as the situations Kraden found himself in grew worse and worse, even to the point where Felix's Sand psyenergy from Gaia Rock didn't work on him so he was swept away by a large rock carving. She found the situations funny, after all Kraden hadn't apologized to the entity for his earlier comment and for the ones he made when something happened to him. She forgot for the moment that Kraden didn't know of the entity as she watched Kraden tumble down a waterfall of sand.
They were just at the top of the tower when Jenna caught Felix's pointed look before he lead the group in one direction. She got the hint that meant for her to go the other way and silently thanked her older brother.
The outside of the tower was like the others, and like the others she caught sight of a metallic twinkle as she ascended to the last prong's pedestal. She picked up the prong but no spirit greeted her. She frowned as she sensed Lunitari and Solinari's puzzlement. If there had been guardian ghosts for the first two prongs why was there not one for this prong.
"Maybe it is angry." Saturos murmured, responding to her call. "No one has apologized for Kraden's remark yet."
"Yes, but that was Kraden's remark, not mine. And he deserved it too, for disrespecting this place." she looked around, "It's a lot more advanced than anything we live in nowadays."
"Thank you." a voice murmured. "At least the young have not been infected with the stupidity of the older generations." an inky specter formed standing on the pedestal. He was dressed in black armor and leather, a male with the same type of stance that Saturos was fond of standing in, a stance which said "I have more power than you so get away from me". He had dark purple eyes which glittered with black irises. He had unnaturally white skin, and the black clothing made it stand out even more, the only blemish being a scar which ran from above his right eye to below it, but the eye itself was undamaged. His hair was black, cut shorter than both Lunitari's and Solinari's, which fluttered around his face and shoulders.
"And what might your name be?" Lunitari asked.
He looked at the female ghost for a few seconds as if contemplating whether or not to answer. "My name, First, is Nuitari."
Lunitari's eyes widened. "How-"
"Do I know who you are?" the specter scoffed, "I think the most powerful Dark Mage in existence ought to be able to recognize historical figures."
"Most powerful?" Jenna was making quick calculations in her mind.
"Yes, he has extraordinary power. " Saturos commented. "His ghost figure can become solid for lengths of time."
Jenna's eyes widened when she realized that Saturos was right, the specter was not floating on the pedestal, he was standing on it!
"I have heard of the Powerful One." Solinari said, bowing to Nuitari. He turned to Lunitari, "He revolutionized how Dark Mages were treated, and brought in a Golden Age for our people. Supposedly he was created in Hades's image."
"Why?" Jenna asked.
"Because I created more than half of the spells of the Dark Mages." Nuitari answered, walking down to where the other ghosts were.
Solinari nodded, "It was his spell that I was using when they killed me."
Nuitari's eyes softened. "I was able to watch that. Completely disgusting, murdering out of fear like that."
Saturos and Jenna watched the three ghosts converse in low tones. "They seem to be getting along." Saturos remarked.
Jenna smiled, "Yes they do. It's rather convenient isn't it?"
"You mean how you have the three most historically know Dark Mages at your disposal?" Saturos asked.
"I didn't even think about that." Jenna said thoughtfully, "I was just thinking that with Nuitari's power I won't die when doing my first resurrection."
Saturos looked at Jenna suspiciously, "No... you won't."
Author's Note:
Ryu: Thank you to everyone who reviewed with their answers to our question! As you might have figured out from Saturos's lack of response, the end result was "C".
Rio: Oh, and before we leave you, (and before someone asks me) my work on my second fic, The Reign of Something Different will not interfere with my Saturday updation of this fic. Because I started it first, it gets worked on first. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, The Reign of Something Different, is a Legend of Zelda fic, Paring: Link/Sheik(Fierce Deity). Check it out if it interests you!
Ryu: Bye all! ^.^
signed,
Rio Scar, the FlowerofBlackFire