Alexditto: Yay! I'm not as confusing anymore! The ice sword was inspired by Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. (Except in those books, it was a sword of fire.)
Vyctori: Have no fear, the Proxshipping is here and staying (see second flashback). I don't really consider Satty and Menny to be Felix's foster parents, but like Saturos is kind of a big brother to Felix. In my little world of interpretation, Satty was 23 when he died and Menardi was a year younger. Talk about an early death.
Kadevi: Memories, say you. Read on and find out, say I.
GoldenDaydreamer: Thanks.
BTFreek: He changes languages because he thinks that he is and/or really is Felix. As Felix, he wouldn't speak English.
Vilya: There's a lot of no one knowing things, but that's just part of the suspence, right?
End of Response Section
Out of curiousity, I've been doing what you might call research on Lemuria a.k.a. Mu a.k.a. the Motherland. Lemuria is apparently a "hypothetical continent thought by some to have existed long ago, now supposedly covered by the Indian Ocean." Too bad I'm placing it in the Altantic for this story.
This info and more was found at and its links. Do not own.
A couple chapters ago, Picard mentioned that "…instead of ending, the world grew and changed." I've been thinking of Weyard as the world somewhere between Pangaea and the present day world. Isn't continental drift fun?
Just in case you wanted to know.
Also, this chapter I'm starting "Create a Senator." That's right, you get to make up a Lemurian (or Muian, Muan, Muese. Take your pick) and have him or her be in the fic! Try to come up with a water relating last name. Picard Piers, King Hydros, Oliver Crest, you get the idea. They may not have a really important part in the fic, but they're needed.
Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Golden Sun, any of its charaters or items, Proxan curses, the Atlantic Ocean, cut momentum, rural Canada or vacations(although she needs one).
………
It roared, delighting in its winged might. Rage set alight its blood as it spilled that of others. Instincts pushed out emotion and logic. An insane fiery rush over-whelmed thought.
And in that rush, only one thing was clear: it was under attack. It roared louder and fought back, burning its opponents. Charring them. And soon, killing them They had no chance against it; it was unstoppable.
One of its heads reached down, hungry for a kill, for more than just the smell of blood.
That was where it changed, where thought resurfaced past exhilaration. Thought came with an array of emotion. Emotion came with a feeling that made it want to vomit.
It was controlled by instinct, proving it– them to be the monsters their adversaries thought of them as. They were hit with a new resolve: the battle would be won with them as humans or not at all.
They fought to separate their minds even as they fought the four Adepts. Never before had they become a dragon together; they hadn't had enough Psynergy to transform on their own this time. They were confused; whose thoughts were whose?
They were hit by a familiar sharp searing pain, the pain of transformation. The Fusion Dragon imploded on itself with a roar, folding inward and showering scales over its surroundings until it split into two halves.
Completely naked, Saturos stumbled forward with his arm still attached to Menardi's. His foot landed on a sharp shredded piece of his armor, causing his feet slid out from under him, throwing him backwards. And dragging Menardi back with him.
"Saturos!"
Felix! The boy hadn't left! What had the idiot been thinking?!
The pair tumbled down the shaft of the Lighthouse, arms now separate but fingers still intertwined. Menardi gave his hand a slight squeeze. He squeezed back.
"Menardi!" the boy cried from above before calling out for his 'big brother' again.
"Saturos."
What? One moment he had been free falling towards his death and now he was standing on solid ground in a small dim room with some kid resting his hand on his shoulder. Normally, he would've been slightly touched by the display of trust (after all, if he just tensed like so, his scales would change to spikes and fuzz-head would have a great need for a bandage), but this wasn't a normal time.
He batted the boy's hand off and stopped in mid-motion. Burning Mars… I'm a flaming sandskin…
"What?" another asked, a young woman this time and vaguely familiar. The boy was to busy gaping to say anything. The kid looked like he had seen a ghost.
Did I say that aloud? he thought but was rudely interrupted halfway though by…something.
What the hell did I just say?
What? What was going on? Those weren't his thoughts. It felt sort of like he was still fused.
"What's a…sandskin?" his mouth said without permission. Very much like he was still fused: only bits of control here and there. But then, who was he fused with? And why had only the last word sounded right? He had understood the other words, but barely and his understanding felt sluggish and slow.
"A 'sandskin' is a Proxan slang term," the boy instructed him. "It's their word for outsiders and not exactly polite."
I know what a sandskin is!
"Well, then why did you ask?" inquired someone who really sounded strange, like a lot of people saying the same words with different accents at slightly different times. The speaker flew up and zoomed around the boy's head. It was one of the elemental creatures!
Remembering his last encounter with one (and twenty-seven others) only too well, he lashed out without stopping to think. The Mars Psynergy struck out and hit –
"Shade!"
– a blue and watery wall before disappearing in a cloud of steam.
What did I do? the other inside him thought as the body turned to see a man standing with his arm outstretched to welcome back a Mercury based beast.
………
The Atlantic Ocean gleamed, its waves decked with sparkling diamonds in the morning light. It was a beautiful and breathtaking sight to see, the ocean at daybreak.
Zephyr blasted across the ocean at top speed, loving every second of the salty experience. He dove though the crest of a wave before blasting back up to the clouds. He spiraled ever higher into the wet mist, and upon breaking up past the tops of the Mercury formations, plunged back down.
Slow down! You don't even know where you're going!
Realizing Gust's point, Zephyr slowed to a normal Djinni speed. It wasn't always fun being the fastest; it meant he had to wait for everyone else.
The good part about being fast was that he was sent on these kinds of things. Namely, speedy retrieval. Gust would show him a rough estimate of where the Teleport Lapis was, then Zephyr would be on his own to get the item, with only his Psynergic senses to help him.
After years of being cooped up in Lemuria, this was going to be fun.
………
"This is just…weird," Jen stated.
Makrina murmured an agreement in Russian.
"The fact that there's a dead guy in my head? Yeah, I'd say so," Satornil remarked.
To Jen, there were three things that could be going on. It was either (a) Satornil was catching the crazy, which made sense, (b) Satornil had a split personality, which made nearly as much sense, or (c) there really was a dead guy inside his head.
Satornil yelled out in another language angrily. It sounded like it was similar to or the same one Matthew was using. He then calmed down and muttered something in Russian.
Either (a) or (b). "What'd he say?" she asked no one in peculiar.
"The shouting I won't translate on account of how over half of it are curses," Picard replied, "But the Russian was something like 'I don't know why you're in there, but I want you out.'."
"So you really think there's a dead guy in Dolgorukii?" Makrina asked skeptically.
"'More like know,'" Echo said from his perch on Matthew's shoulder where he had been whispering in his ear. "'I don't know who the body belongs to, but there is definitely someone else in there. Saturos of Prox.'"
Satornil gave a slight jerk and focused his reddening eyes on Math. "Felix?"
Matthew nodded.
"I think they might have the same thing happening to them," Crade announced. "The…in lack of a better word, intruders are in fact the people you told me of, aren't they, Picard?"
Picard nodded. "Their memories at least. I'm not sure how they acquired them, but they're probably the reason for Satornil's new split personality."
"Not just memories," Echo interrupted. The Djinni flew over to Picard. "Set me."
"Set," Picard said and his eyes widened as the Djinni disappeared into him. "That's not possible," he remarked before going off in some other language.
That the little beast in inside you? Yeah, I'd say so.
"Tomegathericon ei," Matthew responded simply, gesturing with the book.
"What does he mean?" Crade asked Picard, as Echo had temporarily disappeared.
"The Tomegathericon specializes in awakening sprits," Picard explained. "We usually used it to revived each other if we got knocked out." Jen was tempted to ask who "we" was. "It might've revived the pair somehow."
"But, even if what you're saying is true, wouldn't they be revived in their own bodies?" Jen inquired.
That cut Picard's momentum.
"Well…Matthew and Satornil are…kind of…in a way…Felix and Saturos," Crade supplied.
"And how does that work?" Makrina demanded.
Picard and Crade exchanged glances before once again saying in unison, "It's complicated."
Stop trying to stall, would you? "Try us."
Picard had to stop and think for a moment. "You could call it…reincarnation."
You expect me to buy that? she thought and said aloud. She reached over to Matthew and grabbed to book out of his hands on an impulse. "That this book can bring people back from the dead?!"
Upon contact with the book, Jen became aware of whispering voices, muttering half-forgotten words loud enough to hear, but soft enough to be unclear. Math's eyes widened. "Jen-
–na, you shouldn't mess round with that thing!" her brother scolded. "You don't know what that thing can do!"
"Oh, come on, Felix. What harm could it do?" she asked, flipping through the ancient pages as her brother prepared dinner. Picard had needed to use a Restore just to get it into at workable condition. Now all she needed to do was figure out how to read it. "Picard agrees with me, don't you, Picard?"
"I'm with your brother on this." So her trump card trumped her. Usually, he could be thrown off guard enough to agree quickly. After all, the Lemurian didn't do well with stress. "It was supposed to go to Akafubu, and I don't trust anything that has to do with him. It's amazing how many Babi's there are in the world."
While he didn't do well with stress, it was clear he was good at grudges. Even though he hadn't told what exactly he had against the man, it was clear Babi had done him, or someone close to him, a great wrong. As for Akafubu, the reason of the grudge was obvious.
"If you don't trust anything that has to do with the witch doctor, why'd you personally make sure we took the book?" Sheba asked, returning from a firewood run.
"Because," was Picard's one-word reply.
"I would think someone your age would be above revenge," the Child of the Gods teased.
"I wouldn't think a toddler such as yourself would even understand such concepts," the banished heir to the Lemurian Throne teased back.
"Aren't we getting a bit off topic?" Felix asked, grabbing the Tomegathericon right out of her hands.
"Are you all right?" Matthew asked her, holding the black script. Hey, she could understand him now!
What's going on? The thought popped into her head without permission along with a wave of confusion. Confusion that wasn't Jen's.
But Jenna's.
………
No normal guy Gary's age would get up with the sun. Most normal guys didn't have Officer Jerra for a father. Note to self: never ask if I can help dad with something. Unfortunately, he already had. The result: going through pictures of how his girlfriend disappeared.
"Okay, son. Here they are," his father said, handing him the photos.
Jen, Matthew, blurry thing… What the hell? Gary did a double take at the fourth picture. "It's Captain Picard."
Apparently that wasn't the response his father was expecting. "What?"
"He's got a ship. I've only met the guy once," Gary explained, "and that was because Ian rammed a soccer ball into his head."
"Does…Picard have a last name?" his father asked.
"Dunno," was the reply.
His father gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't know," he corrected, obviously annoyed at more than Gary's bad grammar.
Maybe I should start using "ain't". I ain't doing nothing, he thought with a grin threatening to form on his face. I ain't got a lead for you, so you can cut it with the "nice daddy brings his kid to work" act. The thought wiped any traces of a smile from his face.
His father sat down on the bench beside him. "Speaking of Ian…"
Is this going to be another "play nice with the wuss" talk?
"…I'm glad to see you two have been getting along so well. He's had a hard time with his parent's divorce and all but it's good to know that someone's there for the kid." Did his father even pay attention to anything else besides work?
"So," Officer Jerra continued, "I know that we've been planing that vacation for a long time, but…"
But you can't leave your work and are hoping that Mom, Kayla, Eric and I can have a nice time without you. Where does Ian fit in?
"…maybe we could bring Ian and his mother along, get them away from the city and everything. How about it? That fine with you?"
Did Gary want to spend a week in rural Canada with the dork? Did Gary want to spend a week away from home in rural Canada with his girlfriend missing? Did Gary want to spend a week in rural Canada, period?
No.
But did Gary want to spend time with his dad as far as possible from anything and everything that had any connection at all to the police department?
"Yeah."
………
"So now everyone but Dr. Crade and I has some sort of spirit in their head?" Makrina asked, staring at the group of three possessed people talking in the corner. Every once in a while Jen or Satornil would come over and say what the ghosts thought was going on.
"I don't either if that counts for anything," Picard stated. "Apparently not," he added at her look.
"Why don't we, though?" Dr. Crade asked. "It can't just be because of the book. Only Jen touched the…Tomegathericon? Only Jen touched the Tomegathericon directly before the…reawaking of her previous self. Math the sword when he spaced out. Satornil had…well, he had Math's hand on his shoulder."
"It might have something to do with that. The Sol Blade was a familiar object to Felix, and Felix was familiar to Saturos, as were both Felix and the Tomegathericon to Jenna," Picard listed.
"Excuse me, but I, uh, we would like to speak to you." Yep, Satornil just kept on getting weirder and weirder. "In private."
A quick walk to the hall and instead of talking, the pair (or group of three, depending on your opinion) was sharing a rather uneasy silence. After what felt like hours of fidgeting, Satornil spoke in Russian, as not to let any eavesdroppers understand: "Do you have anyone…you know."
"No."
"Earlier, did you…kind of…remember something?"
She hesitated before answering. "Not completely. I mean, Echo came in and…interrupted."
"What…what do you think would've happened had he not?" Satornil asked tentatively.
"This," she replied, reclaiming her grasp on his ears that now feeling a little…pointy. Not letting that stop her, she pulled down slightly.Slowly, ever so slowly, he put his arms around her. And then–
–his lips came down on hers. Her head spun, lost in a flood of emotion. Was it her heart she felt pounding or Saturos's? Maybe their hearts were bouncing off each other; they were so close together she couldn't tell.
What felt like a second later although it could've been hours for all she knew, Menardi found herself leaning against Saturos's chest and that her arms had moved to around his neck.
"I love you," he whispered into her ear.
"I love you, too," she whispered back.
………
Officer Jake Jerra was having his last day at work before he went off on vacation. He, the world's biggest workaholic, was going on vacation.
And it couldn't have been at a worse time: "Any new information on the disappearances?"
After pulling so many strings to get off for the next week and a half, he had one of the biggest cases he had ever had on his hands. Six people were missing, two of them from Russia, making the case an international issue.
"Only a little, Mark," he told his partner, seated at his desk in their small corner in the police department. "Gary thinks the unidentified man's name is Picard, a little over twenty, and might own a boat."
"A little?" Mark Deyward scoffed. "It's our best lead on him so far. There's still nothing on where they went off to, how they did, or why. None of this makes sense."
Jake knew his partner continued speaking but his attention was fixed on something else. What was that? He could've sworn he'd seen something purple hovering over by the closed door to the Evidence Room. It was more like a closet, but a name was a name and no one saw any reason to change it.
"It anyone figure out what the Rock is?" he interrupted, realizing something else that had been puzzling him.
Mark gave him an annoyed look. "I was just telling you. It's not made of any known element. Freaky, but true. And remember the rings you saw on the tape? Apparently, one of the researchers was holding it, he saw rings pop out, and he was at his house in three seconds flat. Straight out of a sci-fi movie."
Jake was torn between believing him and laughing in his face. He arched an eyebrow. "Really."
Mark nodded. "I couldn't believe it either. And I was in the room when it happened; I didn't even see the rings, but I saw him disappear. Speaking of the room, I looks like someone forgot to close the door again."
Mark strode over, and just as he was about to push the closed, Jake saw the purple thing zoom out. Jake rubbed his eyes. Maybe he really did need the vacation.
………
Gust hovered impatiently in a cloud. Zephyr would be able to sense and find him there. That was if he ever got back. That Djinni enjoyed going off on his own too much for Gust's liking.
It's not fair. Zephyr got to go flying around town because he was fast enough not to be seen but he had to stay in a boring, wet cloud.
Gust! Gust!Zephyr had returned. In fact, he had returned so fast that he didn't have enough time to stop and rammed into Gust. That small fiasco nearly made the speedier Djinni drop the very important item he was carrying between his legs.
You got it?Gust asked irritably.
Got it! Let's get this thing back to Lemuria!Zephyr shouted as he raced off.
Why can't we just use it and Teleport there?Gust muttered to the speeding Djinni, nearly out off speaking range.
This is more fun!
Gust had to admit flying at top speed was fun. And he better have all the fun he could while he could. After all, saving the world again might not be all that enjoyable.