Love Bites

"Sit!" Ivan shouted, trying to look very scary for a short Jupiter Adept.

Garet perplexedly did so, falling to his knees and looking weirdly up at Ivan. Surely being a slave didn't mean that he had to be treated like a dog? Well, it was either that or no bodyguard to protect him from insane Venus Adepts. At least he suspected Felix might be insane after hearing the news. Then Garet realised how stupid it was to be scared of somebody who might be his brother-in-law. Might be. If he ever got the chance of propose to Jenna and she accepted.

"Beg!" Ivan was clearly enjoying this, being able to tell Garet what to do and get away with it. This was his chance to make the Mars Adept look like a complete fool, treating him like some common pet dog. It was very fun and Ivan hoped he would be able to do it for a very long time.

Garet frowned, raising his hands in the air and trying to do his best at looking like a begging dog. He was sorely tempted to just throw Ivan about with a Pyroclasm, he knew Ivan was making a fool of him. At least there didn't seem to be anybody watching which was a relief.

"Roll!" Ivan demanded, looking condescendingly down at Garet and trying not to burst out in fits of riotous laughter.

"Why do I have to roll?" Garet asked, giving Ivan a very suspicious look. "You're tricking me, aren't you?"

"Well, I'm your bodyguard," Ivan shrugged. "You have to do what I tell you. Now be a good boy and roll over, or else I might just throw the towel in, go and find Felix and let him know where you are. I'm sure he really wants to talk to you right now. Roll!"

"I don't have to put up with this..." Garet muttered, lying down on the ground and rolling over. "I could just give you a toasting, you know. You're going to pay for this afterwards, I mean it. It's not funny making me look like a fool."

"You are a fool, Garet," Ivan tutted. "Now go and jump in the river!"

"What? No way!" Garet exclaimed, looking ashen. "I can't swim!"

"Ah, that's a pity. I had forgotten..." Ivan shook his head and threw his arms up in the air. "Well, jumping into the river's out of the question so... I know, I'll buy a bag of sweets and I can make you do tricks with them. How does that sound?"

"That sounds lousy," Garet got to his feet and brushed off his dirty trousers. "I must be the most horribly treated slave in the whole of Weyard..."

"Well, life's tough," Ivan smirked. "Just got to put up with the ups and downs of life."

Felix knelt down in front of the tree and scooped up the rope and dishcloth. He quickly figured out that these must have been the articles Jenna used to hold Garet prisoner but it seemed Garet actually used his brain for once and used his Psynergy to get himself out. Felix was shocked that Garet could possibly have remembered to do such a thing, he bet it must have taken Garet a while.

'Well, if he's not here, there's no use in being here,' Felix dropped the rope and dishcloth and set off towards Kraden's cottage. 'Kraden may have seen him, so I'll ask him. I won't bother to ask the whiney moron that's fixing the roof, all he does is go on and on about Mia. It's sickening!'

"Whoop! Yay! Yahoo!" Alex was shouting, doing a jig on Kraden's roof. "I've actually finished the first task! Now... what was next on the lift? Maybe I could jump off Gaia Falls next... anything to win Mia's heart! I must do everything on that sacred list! My precious!"

Felix was scared by the sight of Alex dancing on Kraden's roof and also pertubed at the thought of Alex being willing to jump off Gaia Falls. Sure, he could warp and levitate... as the Mercurian had just demonstrated by warping off the roof... but still, jumping off Gaia Falls did sound pretty foolish. Shaking his head, Felix approached the front door and pushed it open.

"Kraden?" Felix called. "Are you in there?"

"Ah, Felix!" Kraden appeared seemingly out of nowhere and made the Venus Adept jump. "Have you come to listen to one of my lectures? Is that Alex almost finished yet, I'm sick of listening to his incessant whining."

"Er, yes, he's gone," Felix managed a forced smile. "I don't want to listen to a lecture today, thank you, maybe another time..." 'More like a hundred years...' he thought sourly, remembering how badly the last one had gone. "Um, have you seen Garet around?"

"Why, yes, I did happen to see Garet passing by a while ago," Kraden paused. "He took great joy in taunting Alex, I am very proud of Garet, he has surely grown somewhat in the intelligence stakes if he knows who to pick on. It seems like only yesterday he was setting hedges on fire by accident because he couldnt control his Psynergy..."

"Did you see where he went?" Felix interrupted. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy listening to Kraden's stories (Okay, maybe he didn't really) but he really was in a bit of a rush. Who knew where Garet was, what he was up to now. "I'm in a bit of a hurry."

"You young ones are always in a hurry nowadays!" Kraden harrumphed. "Why, back in my day, we learned how to take our time and not to rush everything, we would process everything at a slow, leisurely pace and if something could not be done in a day, it would be continued the next day. What is with you lot running around helter-skelter, I can barely keep track of you lot!"

"I don't know..." Felix grinned nervously, backing out of Kraden's cottage at a speedy rate. "I've... got to do something... uh, bye, Kraden!" He hurriedly turned and ran off before the old man could trap him and start lecturing him on something that was completely irrelevant and did not matter. He had to find Garet after all.

"... and then this really big boulder came charging through the village and it smashed several houses in..." Sheba was currently telling her scary version of the storm that took place just over three years ago, using the accounts she had gained from certain Valeans to put her story together. "There were three people in the river too, and they were hanging onto wooden poles by their fingernails!"

"Whoah..." Feizhi trembled, going very pale at the thought of such a thing happening. "What happened then?"

"The boulder landed in the river and squished the three people hanging on!" Sheba exclaimed dramatically, a gust of wind swirling around her. "They heard cracking, like bones! And then they never found the people who got hit by the boulder! And that wasn't it either... three years later, that mountain exploded and there was lava flowing everywhere, everybody had to run for their lives or be encased in lava forever!"

"So where did the lava go?" Feizhi asked sceptically. Sheba's tale was certainly out of this world. Mt. Aleph looked completely harmless, she just didn't believe it was capable of exploding and covering an entire village in lava.

"The Mercury Adepts all washed it away," Sheba said quickly, pleased that she had come up with such a quick lie. "It was probably a waste of time though."

"Wh-why?" Feizhi asked, appalled that Sheba said it was a waste of time.

"I heard that the village was going to sink," Sheba widened her eyes and tried to look perfectly innocent. "Vale, Mt. Aleph, all of it is going to disappear into the ground and if we don't get out, we're goners. But the problem is, nobody knows when it's going to happen so be very careful, okay? I'd hate to see you disappear into Weyard, moles and humans just don't mix, alright?"

"Moles?" Feizhi laughed nervously. "Yeah, okay, moles, right. There's an evil colony of moles that's going to... dig underneath and make Vale and Mt. Aleph sink? Sure, I got you, I understand perfectly. This sounds like a very dangerous place, are you happy living here?"

"Oh, yes!" Sheba nodded. "I'm perfectly safe... we Adepts are always trained for dangerous situations, but I'm not sure about you... even if you can see the future, you won't know when it will happen, do you?"

"No... no, I don't..." Feizhi trembled. "C-can you? See the future too, I mean?"

"Oh yes!" Sheba answered in a serious tone, trying to sound even more dramatic than before. "I see red rivers, forests being devoured in waves of orange fire, the earth being torn up and flung asunder, the wind tearing up everything in its path and leaving destruction in its wake! Do not belittle the power of the wind, it shall be the undoing of Weyard!"

"That's so sweet..." Feizhi lightly patted Sheba on the head, then turned around and walked off towards the inn, chuckling softly.

"Don't patronise me..." Sheba grumbled, walking away in the opposite direction and feeling utterly humilated. She had nearly convinced Feizhi of pretty much everything, only to ham it up by being completely overdramatic. Never mind, she could compensate for it by flash frying a stray Mars Adept or something, it wasn't the end of the world. And she and Ivan had successfully tricked that traveller by the gate anyway. Okay, so they hadn't exactly tricked him, just made Vale's past sound worse than it was, if that was even possible.

"Found Garet yet?" Picard asked as he found Felix walking around Vale, presumably looking for Garet still. "By the look on your face, probably not."

"I swear he must be hiding from me!" Felix exclaimed. "Maybe he's got some really guilty secret or something... I'll worm it out of him sooner or later, when I find him! Whatever is he thinking? I know he's got a lack of brains, but marrying my sister? Already?"

"I think you just need to cool down a little..." Picard said cheerfully, clapping Felix on the back. "Fancy it?"

"Cool down?" Felix glared at him. "Whatever are you talking abou-" He was suddenly drenched by Picard's psynergy.

"There you go," Picard smiled and walked away, whistling a tune.

"You're dead meat," Felix scowled, wringing out his wet hair. "That was a very unfunny pun too! Cool down? You're insane, nuts, completely crazy... I don't want to share my room with you anymore, maybe you should go and sleep in some creepy, dark place, in a coffin or something... oh well, better get back to looking for that idiot..." And with that, he set off to continue his search for Garet.

"Do you think Ivan and Sheba really will fall for the notes thing?" Mia asked of her boyfriend in concern. "They might just spring us instantly and we'll be so busted, they might shock us or something."

"Don't worry about it, Mia," Isaac leaned in for another kiss. "Lets just continue to make the Mudshippers very happy."

"Sure, Isaac, sure," Mia kissed back. "But don't overdo it."

"It's possible to overdo it?" Isaac looked stunned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if I..." Mia suddenly flashed into freaky fangirl mode, stars shining in her eyes, her hands clasped together and her mouth wide open. "Oh, I love you so much, sweetikins, snugglebunny, Isaac-poo! I want to be with you forever and ever, and our hearts will beat as one and all that mushy stuff we do!"

"Okay, Mia, okay..." Isaac chuckled. "You're beginning to scare me now, honestly."

"Maybe..." Mia slipped back into normal Mia mode. "What scares me is the thought of your Mom making more pancakes for us. What scares you, Isaac?"

"Hmm, fighting a fifty headed dragon on a lighthouse... alone... without you by my side..." Isaac shuddered and took Mia's hands in his. "Always be by my side, Mia, because I swear never to leave your side... well, unless you're going to the toilet or something."

"We'll be together always," Mia smiled. "I'll fight all the fifty headed dragons in the world by your side."

And then Isaac and Mia melted into yet another passionate kiss, caring not for the villagers who walked past and gave them weird looks as if they had never seen two people in a stable, loving relationship before. But then, some Valeans could be pretty weird. Like the Valean who eats a ton of food and makes holes in people's roofs, or the Valeans who like to be temporarily mute.

"This is so unfair..." Jenna muttered, watching the happy couple from her bedroom window. "I could be in a romantic, fluffy scene with Garet right now but I tied him to a tree and he's probably starving right now. Maybe I should have tied Kay to the tree instead, but she's the type of person who would roast me just for looking at her!" She shuddered, and then smacked her forehead as she realised how silly it was for a Mars Adept to be scard of being burnt by another Mars Adept.