Vyctori: BRUNT TO DEALTH?!?!?!?! WHO THE HECK WOULD DO THAT TO HIM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? ::deep breath:: Ok, I'm better now, but I'm gonna have to borrow Vilya's OBHL big stick. The "registered trade mark" sign was an arrow sign before I uploaded it. Unfortunately, I can't comfort you on the Sat issue without giving away some good stuff. Still, I can thank you for having so much good artwork of Picard Piers; that's where I owe a lot of my description of him for this chapter.
Vilya: ::from behind Angry Reviewer Shield:: It's not like he's dead; he's a Mercury Adept for crying out loud! With Breath, Spring and Fizz!
Alexditto: Thanks for the tip! You're very helpful.
End of Response Section
Sorry about leaving you guys with that cliffhanger for so long. I just couldn't decide whose perspective the chapter would start with. And fine, it's short. I promise the next one will be longer.
Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Golden Sun, any of its characters, senators, banishment, arguing, the phrase "The metal stick", newsladies or pranks.
………
"Face it, Andrew: he's not coming back," declared the gray-haired senator seated before him.
Andrew stood his ground. (He would have sat his ground, but he wasn't permitted to sit on account of their difference of rank.) "The sire has always returned in the past; he will again. Whatever happened to the fact that he hasn't even been gone for a month yet? What's the amount of time that the Senate must wait for him to be presumed dead? Five years, is it not?"
"When you take into account that no one is permitted to leave, if he isn't dead, he should be banished," said another.
"And let the entire world witness his nearly eternal youth? I think not," countered a third.
Good old Lord Crest. While he never openly sided with Andrew, the man would find and flaunt the flaws in any plan to rid their land of her ruler. An excellent tactic of discouragement. If Crest could be allowed time to foster the reality of how obscure the Majesty's banishment was… Then all I need to do is get out of his way for him to discuss it, Andrew concluded.
As if on cue, a Djinni flew through the window at top speed and lighted on his shoulder. Once the creature of Jupiter was sure all had seen it, it Set itself.
Picard needs you right now. Get Quartz or Dew, but preferably Tinder,Gust told him with urgency.
A parting excuse, three Djinn and a ship ride later, Andrew saw a few things he thought he'd never see in the act of boarding the Seamist from his own humbler Boreas. As he jumped up to the wings of the great ship, he saw people he didn't know. Foreigners. The shock from that alone was so great he nearly didn't grab onto the ship's side.
There were four, no, five of them. Four of them, two men and two women, were standing back from the fifth. The fifth, most likely the oldest of the group was kneeling by something and surrounded by Djinn.
The recognition of what the something was sent him vaulting over the Seamist's side on onto her deck. He didn't even remember closing the distance to the side of the man lying in his own blood. He didn't pause to wonder how a statue had fallen on him from nowhere either.
With the full sight of man's face, Andrew found he couldn't breathe. Unheeding the words of the old foreigner, he slowly bent and with a hand hesitant of touching his superior, tapped the man's cold cheek. He found the act of inhaling impossible. No…
{Hello! Unleashing us anytime soon?} Tinder inquired, spurring him on. {He's not dead yet!}
R-r-really? he questioned the Djinni, unsure yet hopeful.
((I've seen dead people and that is not a dead person!))
And so, after a brief struggle to find his voice, he called out each Djinni's name in turn. From Tinder, came warmth. From Quartz, came feeling. From Dew, came that little shock of wetness good for waking people up. Please work, please work, please work…
Andrew watched and listened with concealed joy when the other's golden eyes opened as he rasped out ten words: "Lifting Gem, in my pocket. Get this off of me."
………
Standing back along with his cousin and friends, Matthew watched the newly arrived man. Looking to be around forty or so, it was apparent that he cared much for Picard. Might be his dad, he speculated. I wonder if the hair's genetic. The man shone as three more monsters flew out of him and into Picard. How many of those things are there?
"So far, twelve if I haven't counted any twice," Jen answered.
What? Oh, he had said that aloud, hadn't he? He turned his attention to something more usual and less unnerving: Makrina and Satornil arguing.
"Let me see your shoulder!" she protested, grabbing his arm.
"It's fine!" he insisted, yanking his arm away.
"Then why wouldn't you let me see it!" she countered.
"Because it's fine!" Nice tactic. Satornil knew that if Makrina smiled, his resolve would be thrown over board. Now she was so ticked there was zero chance of that happening.
Without warning, a cold chill went down his spine. Satornil and Makrina seemed to have felt it too as they had both shut up. Satornil's mouth had fallen open as Makrina's did the same.
Matthew felt a slight tug on his arm. "Look," his cousin said.
Azure rings floated up from the stranger's feet to disappear at his head. That wasn't the strange part though. Oh no, it was the freakn' floatn' statue!!! "Is that…real?" he breathed.
The four of then watched in a stupor as Picard pulled himself out from under it, pushing and pulling weakly with his arms and legs. Doc helped him sit up once out from under the shadow of the floating relic. Picard himself generated more blue rings and seemed to be relieved from pain by it.
"What happened?" Picard inquired.
"You were shot," Doc supplied. "Where are we?"
"Near Lemuria but I didn't want to bring the rest of you with me," he answered as if it made perfect sense. "Wait, where's the arrow?" he asked, completely serious.
"You were shot by a gun." He continued at Picard's blank look. "You know, a gun. The thing the burglar was holding."
"The metal stick?"
Doc gave him a "Are you serious?" look. "Yes, the metal stick."
Picard considered this for a moment, muttering something along the lines of "What a small rifle", before greeting the older man. Who immediately started babbling in some language. Picard held up a hand and the flow of words stopped instantly, allowing him to speak.
Something tells me that's not his dad.
In fact, it was as if the roles were reversed. Picard's calmness seemed to flow into the other man as Picard spoke to him. Every once in a while he would gesture to the foursome still standing back or to Doc who was clearly not following the conversation.
Once done speaking, Picard stood and turned to them. "I'm sorry about all of this. I'll take us back right away," he promised as his hand searched for something in his pocket. He suddenly had the look of one about to board an airplane when he finds his ticket's gone. "Gust, Breath, drop the illusion; I need to be able to see myself."
Wha- oh!
Suddenly it was different man standing there. No, it was Picard, but his hair was long and tied back in a braid above some sort of headband that, in the back, continued down past his elbows. It was a light blue touched by splashes of creamy gold.
Gone were the jeans and gray T-shirt; he was now donned with a jacket with the color of a dark sea at night over shirt the same shade of his headband. Both had very short sleeves and were rather tunic-like, the shirt going past his waist and the jacket to his knees. Their edges were lined with more of the golden color and marred only by a fierce bloodstain.
In place of his sneakers were boots almost knee high, blue once again with a brown fold-over at the top. In another time, he could've been a brave and wounded captain setting out on an adventure of mighty importance with his headdress rippling in the salty breeze.
Right then, he was a teenager frantically searching through his pockets.
He turned and spoke frantically to the other who shook his head and held up a pink-red gem as if to say "That's it."
Picard paled. "Uh-oh."
………
Sitting on the lumpy couch, Ian flipped through the channels. Soap opera, soap opera, real opera, history channel, Spongebob Squarepants, might come back to that, Spanish channel…
What was the point of cable if there still was nothing to watch? He checked the newly programmed clock on the VCR. 5:36. Twenty-four minutes to Stargate.
He continued flipping until he heard a news lady remark: "…Valley History Museum. The burglar was caught but the witnesses got away in a matter of speaking."
The image in the corner of the screen grew to something Ian could make out. It was a shot from a security camera in a dimly lit room. There was only one person in the shot. Ian assumed it was the thief. "The robber, now identified as Robert Hunter, was attempting to steal artifacts from the Chamber of the Sun exhibit earlier today."
The clip played until a pair of people, one blond, one black-haired, came in through one of the two doors. The black-haired one grabbed at his shoulder. "It's unknown if this student, identified as Satornil Dolgorukii, was shot or simply had a pain of his own. But this unidentified young man," the clip fast-forwarded and four more people entered, "who was in the effort of calming Hunter down was nailed by a bullet."
A gunshot sounded and a blue-haired man fell. Then he glowed. Could that've been… No way. The newslady seemed to not notice the glow.
The clip slowed down and focused on a speeding blur. "This is at one fourth the actual speed and whatever this red thing is, it's going faster than a bullet." The blur zoomed about before ramming past Hunter and into the statue had had been removing artifacts from. The statue fell in slow motion, landing atop the blue-haired man. The shot included a close-up of his face. It was Picard!
"Hunter ran at the sound of the alarm set of by the little UFO, but this is where the story gets peculiar." The clip zoomed out again, focusing on the group.
Picard started to glow, and blue rings of light surrounded him. The rings spread until they enveloped the group and Ian couldn't see any of them. Then just like that, they were gone. The rings, Picard, Satornil Dolgorukii, everybody. In their place was a small block on the floor.
"Gone leaving only one trace," The clip changed to a close-up and well-lit shot of the block. It was small, but cool looking. It was either blue or dark purple and shone in an interesting way. "but not a very good trace with six people missing. Satornil Dolgorukii and Makrina Zoshchenko." A picture of the pair filled the screen.
"Cousins Matthew and Jennifer Gardner." Another picture appeared, one that Ian knew. It had been taken right before Math's trip to Russia. Ian knew on account that he had been in it; the news people had edited him out.
Ian turned the TV off. Suddenly watching Teal'c kick butt on the Sci Fi channel wasn't as important to him anymore.
It had to be some kind of prank. It had to be. His best buds couldn't be missing. Could they?