Vyctori: Yes, Lord Conservato is finally dead. You have no idea how dead. But you will. Oh, and sorry for the confusion, but it was the Teleport Lapis, not the Black Orb.
Alexditto: I changed it to "color of a dark sea at night". I'm not really sure where the previous comparison came from, though. But they will use Psynergy. Kinda', sorta'. Eventually. Also, that wasn't meant to be foreshadowing but there are definite possibilities for. ponders
BTFreek: Thanks!
Eternal Outcast: Yeah! Why don't more people like Proxans? shrugs Oh, well. Sorry about confusing you; I seem to be doing that to people a lot. --;;
Kadevi: Thanks! I like being original.
Akiko: Cool! Another major author reviewing me! O
remba1: Sup, to you too and I don't really know why I'm responding to your review like this 'cause I could just pick up the phone and call you or just talk to you tomorrow unless you're reading this on a Friday or a Saturday or are sick or something, but I'm responding to you anyway! Isn't that great? Hey, look! I haven't used any periods either!
Yoshimi Takahashi: Yet another major author! 0 And since you asked so nicely, well, here you go. You're going to have to wait a while if you want me to update Golden Sung, though.
End of Response Section
Hey, I said this chapter would be long and here it is: twice the length of the last one. That means I expect your reviews to be twice as long.
I'm saying this once again, just to try to avoid anymore confusion, Italics will be used for dreams/flashbacks/other weird thingies.
Disclaimer: Rallalon doesn't own Golden Sun or any of its characters, the word "Boomarangeantoodooloodoos!" that was used in a response to Khorne, the ChaosMage because it belongs to remba1, old puffballs, skiffs, funny accents, tugs/yanks, relics and wooden swords.
………
{How in Weyard can you lose the Teleport Lapis while teleporting?!}
I don't know Torch, but I'm starting to think I should've brought Forge instead! Picard argued while steering the Seamist.
{Garet liked me better!}
As if that made any difference in recognizing him.
Ah, at last! The entrance to the docks! Why did he find that so relaxing? He was going to have to confront the senators again. He hated that. This just wasn't his day.
A quick glance told him that all workers supposed to be building and adding onto the tunnels were nowhere to be found. Not good. He was probably already assumed dead. And with him finally dead, why continue the attempt to make Lemuria flourish in hopes of one day being ready to rejoin the outside world?
Echo, go warn the senators I'm coming. They'll want time to prepare and if they don't get it, there will be chaos, and I will be blamed for it.
"I'm on it!" the Djinni called back, already flying off.
"He's on what?" Crade asked. He seemed to be the only one still talking to him after his little "transformation". Except for Andrew, but only at times direct order would silence the boy. Thankfully, he was back on the Boreas and sailing behind them.
Picard laughed. Boy. He needed to decide wither he should act his age or act his appearance. How he waited for his first gray hair! Even with, the old puffballs would still forget he was older than they were. Old puffballs. He found he couldn't stop laughing.
"Picard?"
He stiffed his laughter. "What, Dr. Crade?"
"What's Echo on?"
"Telling the senators I'm alive."
"I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it." What?! The man looked positively serious! It had to be a joke.
He laughed. "Of course! They've only tried to assassinate me once! That's two less then the last bunch."
Crade raised an eyebrow. "Assassinate you from what?"
So here ended the fun. It was nice while it lasted. "The throne of Lemuria," he muttered to the ship's helm.
Crade seemed to sense his damped mood. He was silent for a while. Then…"Why are they staring at me?" he inquired, pointing to a small group of young fishermen out on a skiff. Who immediately looked away.
Then again… who said the fun had to end right away? "I'll ask them," he assured Crade before cheerfully calling out the boys in Lemurian. "Ahoy! Never seen a foreigner before?"
The three looked at each other, trying to get someone else respond to him. After all, there was only one person with a winged ship. Finally one, appearing to be the oldest, not that appearance counted for anything, yelled back: "No, sire!" He found the nerve to summon up some curiosity. "What is his business here? If I'm not being too forward, Majesty!"
"He's a doctor of archeology! Guess who he's studying!"
Laughter escaped the boy and one of his companions. "Farewell, Majesty!" he called out as the Seamist sailed past. The other two echoed him.
"Pray that it is so! I've already been shot by a stick today!" The look on their faces was priceless.
So much for today being bad, he thought with a smile as he reported back to Crade. Not too bad at all.
The feeling didn't last long. The instant the Seamist was docked in her usual spot with the Boreas next to her, the task of confronting the senators loomed over him like a dark cloud.
Leaving brief instructions with Andrew to show the foreigners around and warning Crade of the incessant questions he'd be asked, he disembarked and strode purposefully ahead. He had to stop himself from looking back wistfully at his ship. He sorely missed the days when he could just hop onboard and sail to wherever his heart lead him. Even after a million years, he still wasn't used to political duties and the restrictions that came with them.
Up the misty stairs, he climbed, breathing in the salty air, trying to find his inner center from which he would not be shaken. A simple trip to the outside world was nothing he could be given penance for, but he hadn't had a simple trip. He'd brought outsiders back. The secret of Lemuria was leaking even as he approached the Senate House. He could turn that to his advantage in making Lemuria rejoin the world, but the kingdom of barely three hundred people wasn't ready yet. His own ignorance of modern weaponry was enough to show that.
{Even worse, you've lost the Teleport Lapis.}
((Is that even possible?))
[Apparently.]
With his hands folded behind his back and his chin up slightly, the most regal position he could carry off, he walked up the last steps to the where he would soon be debating; only remembering to Restore his clothes to their normal, unbloodied appearance at the last moment. The last thing he wanted the senators to think was that he was an injured and easy target.
Upon entering, Echo alighted on his shoulder, briefing him on what had happened, quoting the words of the senators exactly. "Crest was winning them over on how banishing you was a bad idea when I came in."
About time they figured that out. "And what did you tell them?" he prodded as he made a beeline to the conference room.
"That outsiders had come. I didn't say how, just that you were with them. And that it might be hard getting them back home."
"And what, do they want to keep them here like they did Lunpa?"
"No. When you consider how long he's been dead, it'd be a wonder if they've even heard of the man."
Picard's mood sunk even lower. "Seems so…"
"Picard, I'm sorry."
"Shh!" he shushed, stopping at the great and heavy wooden doors blocking his path. "I'm going to make an impressive entrance." He dug around his pocket once more until he found what he was looking for. He then clasped his hands behind him again, hiding the item from view.
"Force."
The doors sprung open, not hard enough to send them flying off the hinges, but not weak enough to let them close immediately. All talk quieted in a heartbeat. He walked though at an unhurried pace, seeming confident that the doors wouldn't close in front of him. With a perfectly straight face, he slowly paced around the table to his seat, eyeing each senator carefully.
Each glance he received only cemented what he had thought previously. This will take awhile…
………
Matthew wasn't sure if he should be bored out of his mind or ready to jump out of his skin. Andrew had been taking them on a tour of…wherever they where. He was starting to feel like he had been kidnapped to a bizarre summer school. First it was Picard with the monsters and teleportation, now it was droning Andrew with the funny accent.
Fine, so maybe Picard had a funny accent, too. But even with the monsters he was towing around, Matthew was still disappointed to see him go.
And Andrew wasn't exactly droning. He was just impressed by history a lot more than Matthew was. Doc seemed to be having fun despite how bad Andrew's English was. He seemed to have trouble with his numbers, calling things hundreds of years old and saying he remembered when they where built.
Currently, the group was inside a building that he had called "the palace". Matthew would've said it was a mansion at best. Still, the ancient construction was impressive, in a ruin-like sort of way. It gave him the feeling of amazing age, even more of it than the exhibit at the museum did. It didn't give him the feeling that he was disturbing something that should be left alone, though.
He could easily imagine knights, bruised and bloody, running down the hall to warn their ruler that they were under siege. That's how old it seemed, that there'd be knights. No, it was older than that, so old he couldn't make a comparison.
Maybe Andrew's right to be that impressed. That still didn't make Matthew want to tune in though. Huh?
He had felt something, a… a tug. Maybe just his imagination playing tricks; he was stressed out enough for it to be.
"Matthew!" Jen called as the rest started moving off to another section of hallway. She was going around the corner slowly, trying not to lose either their guide or her cousin.
"Coming," he assured her. He was when he felt the tug again. Without a conscious decision, he turned about and strode to a door he hadn't been though. Come to think of it, Andrew hadn't even mentioned what was inside. He paused.
The tug came back, harder, longer. A yank. Matthew's hand flew to the handle. He hadn't wanted to, but in a way he didn't understand, he just had to. He turned it, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
It was dark. The only light, besides that shining in though the doorway, was flowing down between small cracks in the ceiling, illuminate motes of dust floating about. Matthew had thought the room had simply fallen into disuse and was about to leave when the tug hit again.
So he stayed.
His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. The room was small and rectangular, he could see that easily. Some public bathrooms were bigger, but certainly this was no lavatory.
The long wall without the door in it was lined with bookshelves. A library? He'd finally found one smaller than Doc's. There, against the left wall, were a couple chairs for the readers to sit in.
Matthew heaved a sigh. From disappointment or relief, he couldn't tell. He had expected something, something that could've drawn him in here. Maybe it was just my imagination. It had done things like that to him enough.
No. He didn't need the tug to tell him to be there. He walked to the center of the room and took everything in. There was a cabinet on the same wall the door was in. He hadn't noticed it from his prior position.
He went forward to peer at the contained items though the murky glass of the cabinet doors. Finding it was too hard to see in the dim lighting, he gently opened them and peeked in.
A bunch of green beads strung together with a coarse string and a metal staff. Another staff, wooden this time with red stripes. A heavy looking sword, in a sheath with a square bottom. Beside it, a black book decked with strange symbols. Yet another staff, green until a little bit before the yellow top that made Matthew think of a horse with a spiky mane.
His heart skipped a beat for an unknown reason, at the sight of the next item: another shealthed sword. The shealth was leather and long, with metal at the bottom, most likely so the blade wouldn't stab its way through.
That was what had tugged at him. That was why he was there. He couldn't explain it, but as strange as it was, it felt right; he was supposed to be standing before this weapon. At any other time, he would've felt like a fool reaching forward for the hilt. Not then. Not for that hilt.
The blade made a slight whisper slipping free of its shealth. The blade was in his hand and still the whispers continued, forming undeterminable words. Matthew felt a presence as the whispers grew in volume, showing themselves to be part of a language he didn't know. Still more the volume grew and with it, his understanding of the words. The presence was stronger.
Matthew wheeled about, the blade in his hand shining without reflecting. The glow caused him to look down at–
–the wooden sword skeptically. "I thought you said I'd get a real sword."
"And you have a real sword. Made from wood," his strangely colored comrade said. "Come on, more practicing, less whining."
He sighed. "What now?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Stances," was the one-word reply as the older flowed into a starting position.
Bait the Fish. Good for testing your opponent's strength and easy to counter from unless the opponent uses a thrusting technique, he mentally recited as he copied. Striking Eagle…
The pair went from stance to stance, practicing a deadly dance. On and on, they went as Sol moved ever lower, allowing the chill of Luna to retake the already freezing landscape. The only sound that could be heard was the cry of the wind, the sound of wooden weapons cutting though air, the crunch of the snow under-foot.
And the constant criticisms of the swordsman to his squire: "Lower your left arm. Do you want a blade up your armpit?" "Turn your hand around. No, the other way." "Loosen up your hand; this isn't time for a death grip." "Faster!" "Don't twitch! The transition from stance to stance should be smooth and leave no more openings than necessary!"
And finally: "Let's see how much you've improved." It was the moment the squire both longed for and dreaded. It was the ending of the lesson. And the beginning of the bruising.
Maybe he would've done better if he had a more positive mind set, maybe he would fight better if his life depended on it, maybe a true sword would make him good enough.
Maybe Sol would turn green.
Crack!!! The wooden blades hit, one strong and true, the other only managing to block.
Crack, crack! Crack!! The pair danced on, the swordsman striking, flowing, moving, the squire tired and weakening. Soon the swordsman would stop and let him rest. Just one more attack…
Clang!!!!!
Vibrations ran up Matthew's arm unpleasantly and strong enough to make him drop the blade. What the...? He found himself staring into a pair of golden eyes. Mariner…what? When did he get here?
Picard immediately snatched up the sword and sheathed it before returning it gently, but quickly, back to it spot in the cabinet. "See? Simple," the blue-haired man said, directing his comment toward the doorway.
And there everyone was, staring at Matthew like he had gone insane.
He took a few moments to summon up what he said next, not quite sure he wanted to hear the answer. "What happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," Jen replied. "You said you were coming."
"You scared the heck out of us," Doc admitted. "You didn't respond to anything. Well, besides what Picard just did."
This made him more uncomfortable than anything else had yet. "And what did you do?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. If it shook, Picard took no notice.
"I recognized the sword-work you where doing and predicted when you would be off balance. I was planning to shock you out of it and my plan seems to have succeeded," he explained, holding up a blade of his own as proof.
"Sword-work?" The only sword-work Matthew could do was the little fencing he had learned at camp. The very bad fencing he learned at camp.
"It might've been an effect from keeping the Sol Blade so close to the Tomegathericon for all these years." Whatever that meant. "Perhaps we should continue this in the morning?"
"What?! You said you could take us back today!"
"Matthew, right now, it's tonight," Makrina corrected.
"How…? I-I just picked that thing up. Just a couple seconds ago."
"How do you feel?" Picard asked.
His arms hurt like he'd been lifting weights all day. Not that he'd admit it. "I feel… fine."
With those three words, he fell asleep on the spot.
………
Satornil closed the door to the room he'd been given for the night. It wasn't big or fancy, but the bed looked comfortable, there was a rug instead of the cold stone floor, he had a window with a good view and curtains, and the window had a desk and a chair under it.
As much as his friend's issue was bugging him, his own weighed much more heavily on his mind. So he closed the curtains, grabbed the chair, and jammed it under the doorknob.
Knowing that he would stop if he lost momentum, he threw off his shirt and took a tentative glance at his shoulders. What he saw made him want to puke. What had once been skin hardened into a fingernail-like substance was now harder looking.
With a gulp, he poked it. Bone hard. There was no feeling, no pain, no nothing. The no pain when he prodded the border between skin and…whatever it was. Before that would've killed. But not now.
The only other difference that he could see was that it was dividing up into little plates.
Scales.
………
Picard made his way down to the Seamist. He only slept on the ship when he was out sailing/adventuring, wanted to stargaze, or needed to relax. It felt like all three as he took in the beauty of a cloudless night.
No one was up at this time, making it easy for him to get to the docks without having to deal with anyone. Sometimes it felt like Andrew was the only one on his side and sometimes he would rather to not have the boy on his side. It was obvious he meant well, but he just got annoying sometimes.
Completely alone, not even with Shade or Spring, he boarded his ship. Hmm? If he was completely alone, then why did he sense a large amount of Psynergy nearby? He had accredited it to the group of Adepts that had been on board previously, but none of them were aligned to Jupiter.
His senses directed him to the statue lying on the deck. An after effect from being Lifted? No, Andrew had done that, and even with all his strength, he wouldn't have equaled the might contained in the relic.
Then what…? he pondered as he bent down for a better look. Even though all he had to see by was the light of the moon and stars, he saw a glass case set into the statues hands. He had noticed it before but had paid it no mind. Now he did.
There lay the source, or sources, for the Psynergetic power. But what was inside?
The mariner grinned at the sight of the four small items within. Earlier that day, he had been shot, then had had to speak with a roomful of ticked off puffballs for hours, and had just found out that the Sol Blade was probably cursed.
But who said it couldn't be a good day?
………
He watched her pray at the monument as he had seen her do countless times. Her head was bowed, her white hair tied back loosely, the halos of Psynergy making her look like the angel he knew she was. So peaceful looking.
Then why did his gut say otherwise?
Her flow of Psynergy slowed to a stop as she turned and raised her violet eyes to his. "Felix! You're still here."
"As if I'd be anywhere else. What's the forecast for the morrow?"
It took her a while before responding. "It'll be the most beautiful day you'll ever see."
"And it'll be the same for you, unless your days are that much better than mine."
Sheba didn't respond immediately. She gazed at the buildings around her, her home of Lalivero. She wore an expression he had only seen once. And had never wanted to see again. Mariner had worn that look when leaving Lemuria. His gut screamed out a warning.
She hugged him tightly. "I-I love you." Her voice wavered as badly as it had when she had said those words for the first time.
"I love you, too." Instead of taking comfort in that, she started to shake in his arms. Was she crying?
"Felix, I-I," she took a breath to steady herself. "I'm going to die today."
He pulled her closer protectively. "No, you're not."
"My heart's going to give out in a few moments."
"No, it's not." He insisted from pure stubbornness.
"I saw it, Felix."
He winced. Her ability to foresee things, a power he was thankful for, a power he despised. He couldn't protect her from what she saw anymore than a rock could fly.
Sheba gasped in pain, clutchig her arm. "Cure. Cure!" Nothing; her pain persisted.
"F-felix…." She breathed. She didn't inhale after that.
His gut said it was pointless but he tried anyway. "Revive! Revive!!!" He sent all his Psynergy into her trying to wake her. He found nothing to waken.
Just like that, she was gone. Gone like Saturos and Menardi. Like Karst, Agatio and Alex. Like Mia, Isaac and Garet. Like Ivan, Hama and Kraden.
Like Jenna.
How could she be so cold in the noon heat? How could she be so limp in his embrace? Where was the laughter in her eyes, the warmth of her gaze that was now so empty? Where was the presence of her Psynergy, with its feel of a caressing breeze? Why had her loving heart failed her?
Not knowing the answers or even who she was, Matthew cried in his sleep.