incomplete13: Sorry about not putting any of your people in the last chapter or even responding to you. I only got your review after I had posted chapter 10.
BTFreek: Actually, Math's deep slumber will come in handy later in this chapter, so we don't really want him to be waking up quite yet. As for the stuff you've guessed about, (1) no, I'm not planning on doing that because I'm not really fond of mudshipping, (2) yes, they'll meet and Math/Felix will literally fall, (3) yes, the Lighthouses have been out for a long time, (4) not sure yet.
Vilya: They're not evil; they're just doing what they think is right. No, Sheba will not be a boy! I was considering making Alex a girl, but I had a really hard time writing him as a her. It's part of the reason this chapter took so long: I gave up on it and had to rewrite a lot of it.
Vyctori: Don't worry, not even Oliver knows what to think about Oliver. And yes, Menardi, we really need him for the plot: he has to get run-over. But do you mind if I borrow the line: "...'dead person' living inside of her..."?
Shadow ScytheX: Thank you!
"Kupo" person: Thanks and I'll try to.
End of Response Section
Ok, it's been a while since I've updated, but it's only been... checks calendar chokes on tea A MONTH AND A HALF?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
3/21/04
Ok, I've fixed the ending. Unfortunately this means that the next chapter will take even longer to do since everything has been changed by my adding 454 words to the end of this chapter. I'm sorry I haven't been updating a lot recently, but life doesn't seem to want me to use the computer.
Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Golden Sun, any of its characters, or items, bad moods, living oxy-morons, or the titles "Defender of the Waves, Overseer of the Sea, Rider of the Water Dragon, Ruler of the Great Land of Lemuria, Mercury Adept of Forms Three, Lighter of the Beacon, Mariner of the Winged Ship, or the Chosen Master of Water."
.........
After four hours on a ship with seventy-two of the same kind of creatures that had killed him, Saturos was in a very bad mood. It didn't help that the ship seemed intent tossing his stomach around.
Their stomach.
Fusion was one thing but this was another. Thanks to Felix, he had learned that not all sandskins were bad, but far to many of them had cursed at his appearance for Saturos to approve of the group as a whole, much less want to be inside and/or part of one. He was a Proxan and proud of it.
It was simply too much; he couldn't be dead. Not yet, at least. He still had so much left to do.
But he was dead. And in a sandskin's body. It wasn't right.
Satornil looked over to Felix and Picard, forcing Saturos to see the pair as well. Felix was joking with the other man, trying to guess his age.
"You. Are. Old," he finally stated once it became clear the boyish appearing Lemurian was into his ten thousands at least.
"Maybe you're just very young," countered the Lemurian.
"I am seventy-five years old and dead! You are really old." Felix seemed to be taking light his death, something Saturos doubted he could ever do.
In Saturos's perspective, Felix had been an eighteen-year-old boy just a few hours ago. Then Saturos had died and pulled Menardi down with him. And little Felix had grown up.
That was what stung off the most; he had never seen Felix reach his peak of swordsmanship, to see the Lighthouses lit, to complete his duty. Felix was his responsibility; Saturos looked after the kid and stopped him from getting killed.
But Saturos had died, and Felix had grieved then grown up. To be seventy-five. The boy had surpassed him in age and wisdom. Houres, the boy wasn't even a boy anymore! He had even completed what Saturos could not.
All because Saturos went and tripped!!! He was completely useless! For that one little thing, he had died and pulled Menardi down with him.
He had killed Menardi...
He was worse than useless! He couldn't do his duty or protect those close to him. Quite the opposite! He was a dull-edged sword with a poisoned hilt!
Are you... ok?
The sooner I get to being dead like I'm supposed to the better. He was even a burden on the sandskin. Now, that's useless.
"You don't really mean that, do you?" What? Oh, he had spoken aloud.
Saturos studied the blue-haired man for a moment. He appeared to be the second oldest of the Lemurians on board, but he was by far the most enthusiastic. Lemurians... He would've been thrilled to meet a legendary Lemurian what felt like six hours ago. Of course, to him it was six hours; to the rest of the world it was hundreds, thousands of years. Maybe even millions.
"You don't really mean that?" Andrew repeated.
Satornil, deal with him.
Me? He's talking to you. You deal with Andrew.
Fine... "Well, I am dead, aren't I? I just happen to be taking a little break on my trip to the world of the dead by possessing some idiot's body against both our wills."
"It's reincarnation. It's what my people believe in," Andrew explained cheerfully as Satornil fumed.
"You know what my people believe in? We believe that when those that have been deemed worthy die, their sprits change into dragons of light and are guided by Tiamat, a dragon of shining flame, to a land where it is forever warm. You see any dragons around here?"
"Well, the Seamist looks a lot like one." The Lemurian was an idiot, a living oxy-moron. He might just have been trying to cheer him up, but Saturos was in no mood to consider that.
"That's- that's great. I'm, we're going to go talk to...that guy now," he hurriedly excused himself.
"Did he mean that I'm you?" Satornil asked. Saturos could feel the boy's fear of a "yes" answer. Wait... Saturos could feel Satornil's emotions.
Saturos stopped in his tracks (not a very hard thing to do as the heaving of the ship barely left him with the ability to stand). Now those were some frightening ideas. "Even if that's true, you're not me. You're me reincarnated. There's a difference."
"Like what?"
"You two do realize you're talking out loud," Jenna or Jen pointed out from across the deck.
"Yeah, so what?" they replied defensively.
"Well, we're worried about it, too."
"Oh."
.........
Felix watched in amusement as Andrew roamed around the deck, looking for someone to talk to. He had so far bugged the flude out of Saturos/Satornil and was moving on to the other Proxan/Russian. Still, he couldn't blame him for his curiosity. A civilization without Psynergy, but with something called "science"...
It was like a dream: Saturos and Menardi were back. But shouldn't he be talking to them or something?
((You're afraid,)) pointed out Echo.
Afraid of what?
((You're grown up. You're older than they are even if it doesn't look like it on the outside.))
True. Your point?
((I'm getting to that! You've realized that not all the things they've done are right. There were other paths they could've taken that wouldn't get anyone killed. They just didn't see those paths in time. And just think about it: your daughter was older than them when you died!)) That was disturbing. ((The reverse is also true; you're afraid they won't like the man you've become.))
Alright, I get it now.
((I'm not done yet! I still have to tell you about– ))
Echo, you may have gotten smarter, but you never did learn how to shut up, did you?
There was no response except for a offended feeling Felix knew Echo was showing on purpose.
"Felix? Are you alright?" Picard asked suddenly.
"What? Uh, yeah, I'm fine."
"It's just that you've got a white-knuckle grip on the helm. Mind if I take it?"
"Your ship," he replied, stepping aside. A new thought struck him, making him steer the topic off in another direction. "How do you know the Lighthouses need to be relit?"
"Go to sleep with a headful of Jupiter Djinn and you learn things."
"Like that sleeping with any sort of Djinn in your head is a bad idea?" Felix offered.
"No... well, that too. But it gives the effect of being a Jupiter Adept. On a lesser scale, of course. That's why having Matthew asleep is handy; he can dream of where the Mercury Lighthouse is. And so-"
"And so it saves a lot of time wandering around trying to find it just because we don't know what it looks like and therefore can't Teleport to it!" Felix finished excitedly.
His sudden increase in volume caused more than one person to look his way. The Lemurian by the name of Oliver Crest stared at him longest, finally distracted by Andrew who had begun to get on Crade's nerves. Not everyone had the pacience of a Lemurian.
"Keep your voice down," Picard ordered in a hushed voice. "But don't whisper; that attracts attention too."
"I take it you've had some practice at this."
"Plenty."
"What's the deal with Crest?"
"He's here to make sure I don't do anything 'rash or unwise.' The other Senators made him come."
"'Other'? He's a Senator? Maybe you should reconsider doing this now–"
"No!" The Lemurian hastily lowered his voice. "No." The old mariner gave a sigh. "The power of Psynergy is draining from the land. Right now I can be sure that there are at least three Mars Adepts and one of Venus in the world. Possibly more. At any other time I would doubt it."
"It's that bad?!" Felix asked in surprise.
"Let's put it this way: the ratio has gone from one in fifty being an Adept to one in a million. When the factor of how many people in the world still meditate to the level to consciously use Psynergy is added in... I wouldn't be able to find two Adepts that were alive at the same time, let alone three. And then there's no telling if one of them would be Mercury or two of them having the same alignment. It has to be done now; there is no other choice!"
Felix chose his next words carefully, trying not to show his hope as if doing so could stop it from being squished. "How do you know there's a Jupiter Adept around?"
"You, Jenna, Kraden, Saturos, and Menardi are reborn, and I believe I've already found Isaac and Garet. Your incarnations were all in the same town, Makrina and Satornil visiting from the cold northern country of Russia where Matthew was staying for a while; everything is repeating itself. Differently, sure, but it's repeating."
Felix found it hard to breathe. "So... Sheba?"
Picard grinned knowingly. "Being a Jupiter Adept, she might've already remembered you."
"I'm in. I'm so in, you can't get me out."
"I wouldn't want to," Picard replied, an amused expression spreading across his face.
"Still... the Senators will kick you out for sure," Felix reminded, waiting to see the gulp or wince that was sure to follow.
Picard just laughed. "I'd like to see them try."
He was a little too happy for the situation. "I'm serious; Hydros has got to be dead by now as well as Lunpa, and it's not very likely the new one would be very sympathetic to your case- Why in Weyard are you laughing?"
Picard seemed to consider his word choice while he stifled his laughter. "Actually, I think I'll be very sympathetic to my case."
"You mean...?"
Picard nodded. "Now I get to be introduced as Defender of the Waves, Overseer of the Sea, Rider of the Water Dragon, Ruler of the Great Land of Lemuria, Mercury Adept of Forms Three, Lighter of the Beacon, Mariner of the Winged Ship, the Chosen Master of Water, the Mighty King Piers. And that's the short version."
"Not bad for the son of a fisherman," Felix remarked dryly. The day got weirder by the second.
"Not too bad at all," Picard agreed. "Just don't call me any of that."
.........
"May!" Gary exclaimed upon seeing his younger cousin waiting for him by the baggage pick-up of the Attawapiskat Airport. The small ten-year-old he remembered had become nearly average height after six years, her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, dyed black. It may have been six years since he had last seen her, but she was still recognizable.
But there was at least one major difference: there was a guy with her. Gary felt protectiveness welling up inside of him. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling for him and occurred because he didn't have many friends; he didn't want to lose the few he had. Ironically, this led him to be hostile to and make enemies of a good deal of people. Ian for example: Ian had had a crush on Gary's girlfriend since the first grade and so Ian had been picked on since the first grade.
"Hey, Gary!" she replied gleefully. "Who's your friend?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," Gary said, raising an eyebrow. "And, uh, this is Ian. Say hello, Ian."
"Um, hi," Ian greeted nervously.
May smiled softly in that reassuring way she had, before getting distracted by how Gary's little brother had started to excitedly greet her. "Hi, Eric. You've gotten taller!" Of course the kid was; the last time she had seen him, he was four!
After that, Gary's sister Kayla pulled her away from the main group, claiming she needed May to "show her where the bathroom was." Yeah right, they were probably going off to talk about May's new boyfriend in private.
Eric had then turned his attention on trying to find his bag where he had stored a gift for his favorite (and only) cousin who he really liked. Gary's mom had gone with the girls either because she actually needed to go or wanted to know about mystery man, too. Most likely both. Ian was, thankfully, in conversation with his mother and wouldn't bother Gary for a while.
Unfortunately it left Gary with mystery man. "I take it you have a name." That was about how friendly Gary could get.
"Friends call me Xander," the black-haired teen replied. He looked to be about eighteen or so.
Xander? What kind of name is that? "Is that short for anything?"
"Alexander," Xander supplied. "I have a friend who's a Buffy freak and after she called me it once, it just stuck. And you're Gary, right?"
Gary nodded, keeping an eye on the luggage retreval conveyer. "About May –"
"We're not dating," Xander interrupted. "We just met at the dye shop."
Did that mean... "You're a bluehead?" May had been having her hair dyed ever since she entered school. People tended to stare at blue-haired kids, no matter what age group.
It was Xander's turn to nod. At closer look, the black color of his hair did seem like it was dyed. "So, changing topic, why did May bring you along?"
"Simple: she wanted to meet you guys here and she doesn't have a car."
Gary's eyebrow rose again. "You have a car?"
"Well...no. It's my dad's. But that's how you're going to get to May's place. Two of you at least."
"Alright," he replied, grabbing his trunk off of the little waist-high conveyer belt. "What are we waiting for?"
.........
"Picard, should it be taking us this long to get to land?" Jenna asked impatiently. Maybe as a sixty-eight year old woman she had been a little bit more patient, but she had gone to sleep and woken up sixteen again. If it weren't for her real body being dead, it would be a fun situation.
"Actually, yes; the world has grown. And we're waiting for Gust and Zephyr. Zephyr for speed, Gust to keep him in line."
"Why? And why do we have the rest of the Djinn with us?"
"The Djinn wanted to come; I wouldn't have been able to stop them from doing so if I tried. As for Gust and Zephyr, I needed them to get something. Once they return, we wait until Oliver needs to use the pot and then Teleport out to the location Matthew dreamed of."
Jenna nodded, but raised an eyebrow. "We wait until he uses the pot?"
"Well, we can't have him seeing us Teleport off or coming with us. Oliver's honest; he'd have to tell the Senate everything he saw and there are some things the Senate's best off not knowing about. We'll have to leave Andrew, too. The boy talks a little too much."
.........
Zephyr, you twit!Gust snapped. He had been doing that a lot. Why couldn't the Djinni understand that Zephyr wanted to have a bit of fun? Picard wants, no, he needs the Lapis back as soon as possible! Why won't you just Teleport back to him?
Gust was really getting on his nerves. Fine!
And with that Zephyr Teleported, leaving a very annoyed Gust behind.
.........
"Aahh!" Andrew yelped at the sudden appearance of the Jupiter Djinni and nearly fell over the side of the Seamist in his shock. He didn't know many of the Djinn by name but there was only one this fast little guy could be. "Don't do that, Zephyr! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
Zephyr gave a apologetic squeak and zoomed off, something between his legs. What was that thing? It had a definite feel of Psynergy to it; that even Andrew could sense without touching it.
Oh well, Djinn were strange and King Piers had lots of items that fit that description; a egg-sized jade that made the ship hover, a small square piece of reddish rock that caused tremors, a white brooch with a red stone of some kind in the center that made things explode, a black ball that appeared to have a red outline whatever way you looked at it with the power to make its wielder invisible in the dark. The last seemed to be a bit of a pointless power; who needed to be unseen when it was already too dark to see? It even gave the wielder an aura of Pysnergy when it was in use, making the wielder visible to the trained eye. Pointless.
It may have been pointless to Andrew, but the King treasured the small sphere. Supposedly it had belonged to the father of King Piers before a thief by the name of Babi took it.
Andrew wasn't sure he even believed in Babi even though the tale of how Babi and Lunpa came to Lemuria had been one of his favorite stories as a child. That might be the reason he didn't believe; King Piers had told him other stories that were most definitely not true. The "Wise One," for example: it was a floating rock with Psynergy!
Maybe Lunpa was real at least; Lord Aquae claimed he had found a book written by the man called "The Great Adventures of Lunpa". It seemed Lunpa had had a bit of an ego problem, but the book would be a fun read when they returned to Lemuria.
Despite himself, Andrew wished he was still a child so the King would read to him like he used to. It had been so long since the day King Piers had taken him in, Andrew could barely remember what life had been like before hand. He remembered his mother well enough; he had visited her once a decade or so since the incident. It was his father he had difficulty remembering. That wouldn't have been a problem if his mother hadn't murdered the man.
But such was life when one was the son of Rebecca the Killer.
.........
Ian was in a car with the same person who had bullied him since the first grade and two people who were the next closest thing to complete strangers. The only difference from complete strangers was that he knew their names. Not much of a difference.
The plan of the car ride had been go straight to May's house but had quickly evolved into a trip to someplace Gary, May, and Xander called "the Blue Lighthouse" because apparently it was fun to try to get to the top of it. Not they had ever succeeded.
Personally, Ian would rather have waited with his mother, Mrs. Jerra, Kayla, and even the incredibly hyper Eric for Mr. Jerra to arrive. At least he sort of knew those people. Or, better yet, he could've gotten on a plane and gone to Russia to see his father.
Of course those where fantasy and Ian didn't really have much of a say in the matter.
What else was new?
.........
"...and that's why the windows in airplanes are slightly rounded instead of rectangular; otherwise the outside of the plane would start to crack and break apart. Obviously, that would make the plane crash," Dr. Crade concluded.
Oliver Crest was having the most interesting day of his life. First, he had had to manipulate the King of Lemuria in order to make his near treason un-treasonous. After that, he had been tasked with the responsibility of supervising the King's actions; the very idea was unthinkable. Next he had been given the duty of killing the King, to commit treason, if the action was "called for." It was more than apparent that the other Senators (minus Aquae and Murray who didn't have the stomach for even the thought) actually wanted him to commit the murder and say it was "called for."
The boulder had been steadily growing and getting colder by the minute.
And now, he was learning about flying machines from a sixty-year-old man. He couldn't decide which was more foreign to him: that metal machines could fly or that a boy of sixty could look like he was a thousand.
Dr. Crade was sixty and yet he was a man instead of a child. Oliver had appeared younger than the girl Jen when he was sixty. Somehow Dr. Crade was much more mature than Oliver had been at the same age.
But as Picard had said, "When a Lemurian is slowed, all of him is slowed. With few exceptions." What the exceptions were was sleeping, digesting, and fast thinking; unfortunately, Picard was most likely the only Lemurian capable of "fast thinking" so that part didn't count for much.
And speaking of digestion... "Excuse me, Dr. Crade. I must... see to a few things."
"What kind of... things?" Even if he had the appearance of an old man, he was still as curious as a child was.
A Venus Djinni landed on Oliver's shoulder. "Go through the main cabin, then to your left and around the corner. It's the last room on the right." The elemental's voice wasn't the insulting chorus Oliver had heard before, but a voice that had a strange quality to it, as if rocks and trees where speaking.
"You're not Echo," Oliver thought aloud. So which other Djinni could talk?
"That's the best compliment I've been given in years. I'm Flint," the creature replied and hopped off.
Without the company of the Djinni, Oliver went below deck in hopes of finding the chamber pot. Because of how Lemurians are "slow"ed, they're slow to forget, but they're also slow to remember. This means they have notoriously bad short-term memories unless they work at making it otherwise, so Oliver happened upon a storage room, the first door on the right.
With a sigh, Oliver turned back to ask what the directions were again.
Then he felt it: a massive amount of Psynergy being used. It was from the deck! Oliver raced back, luckily with very little distance to race across for he was rather out of shape. He bounded into and through the main cabin, opened the door, plunged out onto the deck where he was immediately surrounded by the loops of blue Psynergy.
They thickened, surrounding him completely, blinding the out-of-breath senator with their azure light. The ground lurched unpleasantly under his feet. And just as suddenly as they had appeared, the blue rings disappeared.
Unsteady, Oliver stumbled, fell to his knees and placed his hands on the deck for support. But it wasn't a deck anymore, but a blackish rock-like substance. The air smelt strange, wrong. Where was the salt? The sound of the ocean? What happened?!
"Oliver!"
Oliver looked up. There was Picard and the outsiders standing on grass off of the rock. Strange, there was a white line painted on the rock a little away from the edge. What is that for? he thought, standing up slowly.
"Oliver!" Picard cried again, trying to warn him of something, but his next words were drowned out by the most unpleasant sound. It was like a strange horn, and it was coming from his right. "Halt!" The sound abruptly stopped, as did the huge monster of metal that had been about to run Oliver over. It pulsed with the faint glow and object got when Psynergy had been used on it.
He shakily stood up. "What... what happened?" he tentatively asked his king while all of the others in the group walked away from the strange road, into the trees on the side.
Picard sighed. Whither from the question or the mental strain of keeping the metal monster still, Oliver didn't know. "Be assured; everything will be explained to you once we're back on the ship. But for now, follow me and don't leave my sight; the world has changed in ways not even I fully comprehend." And with that, he went off in the direction the foreigners had gone, still shining with the Psynergy the kept the car in place.
"Has the plan changed?" he inquired, carefully picking his path between trees while the king simply strode ahead, as if he were walking on a level floor. If Picard had done some more of his fast thinking, it would mean trouble for both king and lord.
"No."
"Then why..." The realization dawned on him as he tripped over some underbrush. Lords really weren't meant for hiking! "You've been planning this all along!" He hated being left out of a ally's plan.
Picard kept walking, his face straight, his body relaxed although he was still using Halt. How long could he keep that up? "But what have I been planning?"
Oliver had only the foggiest, but he wasn't an idiot, whatever Lord Conservato thought. "Something you don't want the other Senators to know about. Something that will force Lemuria to join the outside world." That was a given.
"In part. But what?" They were approaching a clearing with some sort of building in it. "I'll give you a clue," he said, stepping out into the clearing. "What is that?"
Oliver stumbled out of the woods behind him and looked to the building to which the king was pointing. And there, a majestic azure tower rose out of the over grown grass, gracefully reaching toward the sky. Here and there, blocks of it had turned into rubble over great mounts of time and climbing vines attempted to cover the entire structure, but even this could only add to its beauty. It was grander and had lasted longer than any other building in the history of the world, even the Palace of Lemuria. It was breath taking.
"Oliver?" Picard prodded.
"I have no idea."
"That is Mercury Lighthouse. And today is the day its beacon will shine once more."
Oliver could only stare, his hand reaching toward his knife hidden in his coat, his mind locked onto one thought: the action was called for.