The Saturn Adept

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

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A/N: Oh, yes, Azu's back! And before you ask, Japan was so-so. Good food, loads of shopping, too much walking, too much time in cars, and evil second cousins! That, and my grandmother's house is downright spooky. It creaks. Everywhere.

I know most of you are expecting like three chapters because of my absence... But... ah... Heh... I'm not writing any more in advance nowadays... I'll try and write this real quick and start on the next to post soon after the fifth chapter, but I wouldn't bet on it. What with me and my problem with jetlag and all...

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"omg wheres xanaeya!11?"

As soon as Jenna heard the first garbled words, she just knew bad things were headed her way again.

But hey, when you worked alongside an Evil Proxian Redhead that you guessed had a crush on your brother, and your best friends were under the Equally Evil spell of some weird blonde assassin chick, bad things were just bound to come your way. (1)

"Isaac, look..." Jenna started, taking a step towards him. Isaac, however, was apparently being told by that invisible, unbreakable bond that linked him with Xanaeya that the girl was in Utmost Peril, so that meant he was going to go save her and look like an idiot at the same time.

"omfg waht did u do 2 hre!1?" He screamed. Jenna backpedaled as his sword came flying out of its sheath, doing the stereotypical glint-in-light as he held it aloft.

"Uh..." Jenna squeaked, the back of her knees bumping into the arm of a chair.

"Isaac, stop." Marie commanded, rising and holding her palm vertically at him. Jenna watched, bewildered, as Isaac's weapon dropped to the ground with a clunk and his fiery blue eyes fell into some glazed over, blank stare. His arms fell to his sides, and his feet moved into a normal standing position.

Jenna attempted to get something out of her mouth, but her voice box had broken in a timely fashion. The cynical part of her mind was saying snidely, I totally saw THAT one coming, but the rest of her brain had stopped dead in its tracks, similarly to Isaac.

"Don't worry," Marie turned to Jenna, a smile on her pretty face, hands clasped before her, "he can't hurt you now."

"...What?" She managed to say. Brilliant way to impress the... THING, Jenna, said the cynical part of her mind.

"I stunned him. It's a skill I learned very early in my life... Rather useful when it comes to violence," said Jenna's nonexistent-but-supposed-to- be-related-cousin.

Because you don't know HOW to fight, right? Snickered Jenna's cynical mind.

Get out of my head, Jenna snapped mentally back at it. It is quite disturbing, to have some cynical thinking going on in your head without you being consciously aware of it, you know.

"But I... he..." Jenna gestured frantically with her hands, not sure of what to say. Marie looked sadly down at the ground.

"He does love her... But whether she truly loves him back is certainly a question. But since Xanaeya is unconscious, I suppose it's for the better for him to be like her and be unconscious as well." The smile returned, tenfold, and Jenna actually had to squint to see past all the blinding golden light.

How she knew Isaac was in love... No, wait, under Xanaeya's spell, was also questionable. But Jenna's mind (nor her mouth) really felt up to much more thinking, and so, she plopped herself into the chair she had ran into, sighing. A nap would be nice. But she knew she'd have weird dreams revolving around cackling, loads of fire, green soup, and a barbecued sparrow. She just knew she would.

"I'm going for a walk," Jenna announced then, pushing herself up from the chair and grabbing her usual short cape from beside the door. "Keep an eye on those two... lovebirds... for me, will you?"

"Okay!" Marie said energetically, smiling, her perfectly straight white teeth gleaming at Jenna ferociously. The Mars Adept winced and ducked out the door, running as fast as she could from the hellhole known as her home.

Why did this have to happen?

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Jenna sighed, dragging herself along a path that eventually led to somewhere. She didn't feel bothered enough to check out her surroundings and figure out where she was heading, but it didn't really matter. As long as she got herself well away from that evil... place... Oh, her home! How she wanted her home back... The one that wasn't infested with lovesick, babbling swordsmen, crazy harem-owning assassins, and nonexistent distant royal relatives.

Hey, wait a minute. Jenna stopped in her trudging and considered Marie's royalty. Since Marie claimed to be a cousin, that meant Marie's mother was an aunt, and her aunt had to be royalty. Unless Marie was adopted, and...

Jenna grimaced and sighed. A girl Marie's type just had to be adopted. So maybe she wasn't royalty. It would've been awfully nice to be a princess, and have nice clothing and only the best hairdressers to do her hair... And be away from this wretched place...

So wait, how was she a cousin, if she were adopted? She claimed to be a cousin, after all, but if she were adopted, she wasn't blood related...

Jenna felt considerably better. She definitely didn't want to be related to a girl like Marie, princess bloodline and pretty hair or not. She was just too... perfect... to like. Ever.

It made Jenna glad for the boys she had grown up with, despite them being idiots and all.

She sighed and looked up, noticing that the waterfall was coming into view. Joy. Some beautiful scenery will be sure to cheer you up, sneered the cynical mind that had apparently sneaked back in sometime. Jenna was too stressed, too tired, to really care.

Something was different about that waterfall, though...

Maybe it was the fact it was spurting out silver water?

Nuts. Something – or, more likely, somebody – had enchanted the waterfall. That meant...

She had to investigate! And terminate!

Shoving her sleeves up her arms as she went, Jenna stalked over to the waterfall's edge, thinking how pleasantly the water could boil if she threw several Dragon Fumes at it, potentially burning anyone inside...

Well, it was impossible to jump into the waterfall, what with its powerful surge and everything. But Jenna knew better. There were loopholes. (If a girl like Xanaeya existed, there had to be loopholes, there had to be!) She looked around. Nothing suspicious. (Another to add to that growing list of 'As to be Expected's.) Jenna glanced up and down the waterfall itself. Nothing different, aside from the obvious color change. She wondered for a moment if the mayor had gotten sued by a random Valean yet, for possibly poisoning their water supply, or something. He'd probably blame Garet, and, if she knew Garet, he'd probably still be back at the plaza. Unless his scary male-yet-maybe-female brother (Sister?) hauled him back to their house.

Unlikely, however.

Jenna kicked the stone cliff, having nothing else better to do. A piece of the wall, which resembled a craggy doorway, pulled itself back, then raised itself upwards, until it disappeared completely. A long passageway full of glinting blue and purple crystals greeted Jenna.

"How typical," she muttered, then walked in cautiously.

There was a melodic voice singing a song with strange, but easily flowing, words. She followed it, constantly jabbing herself on sharp, disguised-as- pretty-things crystals. Muttering something about interior decorating, Jenna rubbed her knees as she limped deeper into the cave – what could be our heroine's ultimate death!

I'm sorry, it's the jetlag speaking. Anyways, Jenna came to a crossroads, each tunnelway dark and rather forbidding.

"Why do I get the feeling this is ripped from another video game?" Jenna hissed to herself, shoving the nagging cynical voice out of her head for the second time that day. She had to find her way by that annoying song, after all... (2)

Worst of all, when she went and stood next to each passageway, the singing didn't get any louder or fainter. Jenna considered just going back out – the place just reeked of bad things, after all – but when she turned around, she found that she had lost her place. And all the doors looked exactly the same, with exact crystal placement and all. Had some creepy interior decorator done all this to confuse any bumbling idiots that happened to get in?

Hey! went Jenna's cynical mind.

Turning around and around in circles, Jenna tried to remember which door she had come in through... But it seemed like the room moved with her, making it all the more difficult. Jenna finally stopped after some time, clutching her head in dizziness, and sighed. Could her day possibly get any worse?

Why yes! went Jenna's cynical mind. It was promptly slapped with a tuna.

There was the soft rustling of heavy robes behind her, and Jenna turned around slowly, her mouth and eyes already set in a look that read, "Another one?"

A petite woman dressed in winter robes that matched the color of the (dratted) crystals stood in front of a random door. A cloth was draped over her eyes, and Jenna found being able to only see this woman's nose and mouth was rather disconcerting. Her hair, long, ankle length, was a cream color and clipped with numerous pins, strings of pearls, and other trinkets.

Jenna pondered briefly if she should ask the mystery woman about the small, angrily twittering bird caught in a nasty looking knot of hair, jewelry and brooches. She decided not to. If it wasn't Felix, the birds could worry about themselves. They weren't as being negatively affected as the humans, anyways!

Well, aside from being caught in this woman's hair...

"Child," the woman said quietly.

"Um," Jenna responded.

"Are you one of them?"

"Wh-what? One of them? Who?" Jenna blinked, leaning forward to catch any words. She spoke awfully quietly.

"One of them?" The woman asked again, a little louder. "Are you... gifted?"

"With Psynergy?" Puzzled, Jenna decided that asking numerous questions was the only way she'd get any answers. (Kinda ironic, went the cynical mind. It was once again slapped with a fish.)

"No... No, I don't think you are." She sounded relieved. Then something clicked within Jenna's mind.

"Oh! Oh, you thought I was one of those... those... wannabes that call themselves humans?" What else could one call them? Well, Jenna could think of numerous rude names, but she wasn't sure if the other girl would appreciate them much.

"Yes, one of... them. You aren't, are you?"

"No! Never! I'd never want to sink to their level..." Jenna said. It was the first time she'd come across an anti-them supporter. At least, she guessed this weird lady was. She couldn't help but grin.

"Good. Good, very good..." The woman murmured, turning slightly away form her.

"Huh? Why do you say that?"

"Well..." The lady hesitated. Jenna wanted to tear the stupid cloth over her eyes off, it bugged her.

"Say... Do I know you? You seem really... familiar." Jenna said, taking a step forward.

"Uh, er... Perhaps you've seen me in your dreams... I, um... We've never met in this plane."

"Plane?" Oh, great. "By any chance, are you one of them? By the way you talk..."

"Don't you dare insult me that way!" The woman snapped, reaching for something hidden inside her cloak. Jenna froze. The woman sighed, then relaxed again. "I'd never join their evil ranks. They turn our friends against us by mind-control, make us look non-existent..."

"So you're..." Jenna started carefully, an index finger pointed at the mysterious woman.

"I hate them." She said coldly, simply. "But in order to defeat them, I'm helping them."

Jenna didn't understand that logic, and voiced her confusion. The woman smiled thinly.

"You see, all of them eventually come here. The waterfall's rather alluring to their kind, you probably know... And I meet them, talk with them. Make them feel special, as though I don't appear to anybody else except those that are Chosen, are True Ones, are Guardians, and all that. I give them advice, compliment them, give them worthless trinkets..." The woman voice took a bitter edge, one that Jenna herself knew – she used it quite often as well. "And they're too stupid to realize I'm simply tricking them into giving me their trust!"

"Wow." Jenna said, blinking down at the sparkly floor. Glancing around at the pretty crystals, pools of silver colored water, and general sparkliness, it was no surprise they liked this place. "Er, well..."

"And as I understand it, you're attempting to fight them as well, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Jenna sighed. "But it's a nightmare... One of my partners got kidnapped by a... a... male one, and the other one's holed up in her room, ticked off at me. And I have a best friend immobilized by beauty, one speaking some weird language and threatening me, a random princess for a cousin, and some weird girl that's pulling all the strings but thinks I'm her best friend," she ticked them all off on her fingers as she went. She thought the woman was looking at her sympathetically, but then, the dratted cloth made things uncertain.

"I know how you feel." So it was sympathy. Jenna always claimed sympathy was useless, but she realized how much she needed it. So few people understood the horridness of these... things... "I'm harassed by them daily."

"Ugh." was all Jenna could muster in response. The woman smiled slightly.

"I'm not sure how to help you, to be honest... But since we're both working for the same goal, I'll tell them that... They should trust you. Because that's how you're trying to rid of them, right?"

The Mars Adept nodded.

"And so, once they trust you, they'll begin to tell you things... Little details. Pay attention to those; they're priceless in order to defeat them."

"Okay..." Jenna said, fingering a strand of loose hair. "Details? But I suck with details..."

"I'll help you. They believe I'm their One True Goddess or something, so we can compare notes and things."

"Right. Well, I'll... um..."

"Go back to your home, Jenna. Rest up."

"How do you know my name?"

The woman took it in stride. Jenna was still suspicious, though. She knew telling this complete stranger her plans and hatred against them was really unwise, but it was too late now... "Well, I do know you, actually. From a time ago. But you won't want to hear it, it'll resemble one of their pasts..." The woman sighed, waving a gloved hand tiredly. "Now go, Jenna."

"Er, okay..." The woman turned to leave, and the bird finally broke free. Jenna watched it chirp happily for a moment, then she blurted, "Were you the one singing?"

"No, it was the bird," and for a moment, Jenna thought she was serious, as her voice wasn't airy or sarcastic. "Yes, it was me, Jenna."

"Oh... I... see." Jenna looked around hopelessly for a moment, trying to find clues to unravel this woman's identity. "Um, so you did know about that bird stuck in your – "

"Yes, I did. Pesky little thing. And I know you don't like it, Jenna, but return to your home now. I'll be seeing you in a while, right?"

"Yeah..." And the woman left, disappearing into the tunnel she had been standing in front of.

Jenna thought a moment, then turned and walked into the tunnel opposite of the one the woman had disappeared into. After some turns and considerations to double back, Jenna found herself back in the sunny rays of Weyardian sun, next to the waterfall. As she walked out, the door slid back the way it had opened for her. Then, with a sigh, she decided to return home, mentally steeling herself for any sudden glaring smiles or scorching fireballs that may be thrown her way.

"JENNA!" Someone screamed. Jenna turned around quickly, searching for the voice.

"Sheba?" She blinked, seeing the short blonde running up to her, tearing up grass and flowers as she went.

"You can't trust her!" Sheba yelled, eyes wide with terror. "She works for Alex!"

"Alex?" Jenna stared. "...The bozo's still alive?"

"Ye – "

Behind Jenna, Mt. Aleph exploded.

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END CHAPTER FIVE

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(1) – I'm sure you've noticed the Random Capitalization by now. ;) Suethors tend to have Random Capitalization everywhere... And some good authors do it, too, but I'm not sure why the hell they do. But it's pretty annoying, after some time, hmm? (I mean, when Everything's Capitalized, how Do You Know when Sentences Start and All That? I Mean, Really.)

That last part in parentheses had a joke at the end. Hopefully, you caught it, and my jetlagged mind isn't just telling me you readers are attentive enough to figure it out. Did that make sense?

(2) – Randomly and totally ripped from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when Link has to find Saria by listening to that stupid, really headachy tune Darunia (Was it Darunia? I haven't played OoT in AGES...) likes doing his daily workout to. I hated that part.

Er... Cliffhanger? ; This chapter came out reaaal smoothly. I really appreciate it, dear computer. :Pats computer lovingly:

Isaac: omfg! waht did u do 2 hre!1?

XD I loved that part, personally. (Like Isaac would say that in the first place!)

Oh, and much love to those of you that humored me and told me that you loved Xanaeya. :)

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