Cloud-123: Updating…
TemplarofNi: Very freaky, indeed. I still haven't figured out when I'm going to wake Garet up. Maybe next chapter.
The 8BTFreek: Is Venus Lighthouse "in either the US or Western Europe"? Umm… No. I think a couple chapters back there was a comment about where Sheena lives. But to save you from using the back button to find out, I'll give you a hint: the land to the right of the Kragol Sea breaks, and the Sea joins with the ocean. What present day land feature do you get? The Gulf of Mexico. As for the topic of E3, I've been searching my Nintendo Power for even the slightest hint of GS3 and finding nothing. ::sigh::
MiraiEvo: Lookie, lookie; I've got a cookie! ::calms down slightly:: I think I might bring the other Proxans around, but I'm not too sure about Kraden.
AmandaZgreat: The cat thing was based on a cat by the name of Ringo(what's the kitty version of Bingo? Ringo, with a song included). He will meow loudly for you to pet him, he will purr when you enter the room, he will rear back on his hind legs just so he can rub his head against your hand. But touch his paws or tail or try to pick him up…
Potato Man: Really? Uh-oh. ::comes back in about an hour:: The upload thing has gone nuts! Still, I've kinda got it fixed. I guess…
Shadow's Pain: It's sort of odd that you think so, because I don't feel I did Felix's death justice or Picard's reaction to it. Still, thank you.
End of Response Section
For the last month of school or so, everyone's rushing to get everything done, study for finals, complete random projects the teachers keep springing on them and etc. Everyone notices that. But on the last day, when everything's done, the teachers have absolutely no idea what to do. Ironic, no?
Ok, ok, I'm getting to the point. School is out = more writing time = longer chapters/shorter update waits = the fic is done before 2005! I'm not completely sure about the last part, but it seems a fair estimate.
(Little Random Comment: when you can spell Great Gabomba off the top of your head, you know you're obsessed with Golden Sun.)
Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Golden Sun, any of its characters, places or items. Nor does she own auras, convulsions, songs by Weird Al, airplanes, logic, or inclinations. However, she did make up the Stuff-The-Djinn-In-The-Cannon Game (and if you're very, very lucky, she might explain the rules to you).
………
Andrew was worried as he questioned the foreign archeologist. However, with King Piers being King Piers, that was a common state for him to be in. If it weren't for him, no Lemurian would ever have use for the word "reckless".
The king was lying on the deck of the ship, as if asleep. One detail that proved him not to be was his fluctuating aura of Psynergy. One moment it was there full force, the next it was nearly completely gone. And for the incredibly large amount of Psynergy King Piers had, that was no small feat. Still, it was full force for brief periods of time, and that was far better than it being gone all the time as it had been before. Any minute now, he would wake up.
As if Andrew's though had summoned the action, King Pier's body began to convulse in a manner that suggested he was attempting to free himself of something. The was a sharp intake of breath, a pause, and three words spoken in Lemurian as he breathed back out. "Farewell, Mercury Lighthouse…"
Andrew cocked his head, an action that occurred whenever he was confused. King Piers was talking to a Lighthouse?
He gave a mental shrug; he had realized early on that he had two options in his life that could never overlap. He could have a normal life, or he could give his services to King Piers who didn't want his services anyway.
King Piers won hands down.
Said king opened his eyes and blinked at the sky. Within moments, he was attempting to sit up and Andrew had to help him or risk his sovereign hurting himself. There was actually an extremely small chance of that harm happening, but with so many things going on that seemed intent on damaging the man, Andrew was taking absolutely no chances.
Without a word, King Piers looked about the ship, his eyes lingering on the clouds of Djinn circling around the new red-haired arrival and the one that responded to both "Matthew" and "Felix". Andrew wasn't too sure on the details, but it seemed that there was a pair of people occupying the one body, one of which was an old friend of King Piers.
Unbidden, a surge of envy rushed through him. Felix was clearly considered an equal, if not slightly superior in some areas. (But only slightly. No one could be too much better than the king in anything.) King Piers had told him stories of Felix and other old companions as well as the tales of Lunpa and Babi; he had a great respect for all of them, excluding Babi.
Andrew was well aware that his respect for his ruler bordered on hero worship, but frankly, he didn't care. He had long ago realized that his main goal in life was to earn the respect and/or friendship of King Piers. Unfortunately, he was too scared to ask if he had succeeded yet.
"Well, Andrew, I must say this," King Piers began, "you don't realize how confining your body is until your mind is sucked out and returned to it; I nearly panicked for a moment."
And before Andrew could come up with a reply to this odd bit of information, somebody else panicked. A young male voice yelled in fear of something and the sound of a person dashing to a door before slamming it closed behind him reach his ears. The cloud of Mars Djinn sank to the deck dejectedly. The girl Jen(na) walked over them and attempted to console them, but by the sullen peeps and drooping tails, it was clearly not working.
"What do you suppose that was about?" Dr Crade asked.
"Some people find Djinn frightening," King Piers explained, holding back a grin. "I can still remember Uncle Leon's reaction to Shade and Spring. To put it simply, he was… surprised."
Uncle Leon? The king rarely mentioned his relatives, although it was a well-known fact that Lady Hydros was his closest living family member. True, she was his cousin a few hundred times removed, but she was still his cousin.
"So you've finally come to," an annoyingly calm and charismatic voice stated.
Andrew was jerked out his thoughts of genealogy to witness what was the first time he'd ever seen King Piers glare at someone. Another well-known fact was that in the Senate Meetings when the situation called for it, King Piers would glare. Anyone could glare, but only King Piers could glare, and there was a major difference between the two.
In one of the many centuries when Lord Globule Aquae was bored, he had documented the behaviors of the leading politicians of the time. The "King's Glare" was described as a very rare event that took place only as a last resort and "for good reason. Besides how it could somehow become less potent, so long as there is one Senator that remembers the 'King's Glare', another such glare is not necessary. The individual on the receiving end(in this case, Lord Conservato) will, despite himself, squirm in his seat and possibly break out into a sweat and experience great feelings of guilt and personal inadequacy. As the previously mentioned emotions were clearly displayed in the individual's posture(the only way a Conservato cannot conceal his stronger feelings completely), the incentive to crawl under something wet and slimy before proceeding to die there must be extremely strong. As for the on lookers, they are unexplainably convinced that the receiver of the glare is somehow in error(which, in this case at least, he is). However, the onlookers also experience a strong incentive, this one instructing them to do nothing worthy of receiving a glare."
When Andrew had first read that paragraph and several others on the "King's Glare", which must have been "refined and honed over long millennia as a swordsman refines and hones his skill", he hadn't believed it, but he had memorized it. It was good to think that his sovereign had a special trump card with which he could vanquish all. Still, he had always believed Lord Aquae to have been elaborating or embellishing or simply making it up out of an ordinary glare.
At once it became clear Lord Aquae hadn't been exaggerating; he had been understating.
………
Evan was amazed at how fast the arrangements had been made. He was expecting to call his sister up and exchange emails for a couple months before actually visiting her. Now he was on the plane with his dad and would get to China in two days. The two days would be taken up mostly by waiting for the connector flights, not the flights themselves.
His dad had said it was a matter of schedules. For Evan and his sister Zheng Hua, it had to be during school vacation; Evan because he learned, and Hua because she taught. Thankfully, her subject was English, so communication wouldn't be a problem.
Evan's dad's job was with a clothing manufacturing company, and although Evan wasn't too keen on the details, Mr. Hame was nearly always coming back from or preparing for a business trip. Those trips cut huge chunks of time out of the possible visiting occasions. On the plus side, all those trips racked up Frequent Flyer Miles, so when a time was picked out, they would be able to go for almost free.
It turned out that the soonest compatible time started today and ended in a week. Normally, the Hame family wouldn't even think of going on such short notice, but the next time was nearly a year away.
It wasn't as if Evan was complaining about it either. Because they moved more years than they didn't, Evan had mastered the art of packing quickly, a very handy trait. When you can pack for a weeklong trip for China in less than two hours, you know you've got something good.
Slightly bored, he took the little thing of headphones he had been given and plugged it into it place in the armrest and gazed out the circular window. Why were they circular anyway?
"And watch the wind blow by…"
Strangely fitting song for a plane… he thought, watching the clouds.
He blinked. He could've sworn he'd seen… Probably just some bird.
Just some purple bird.
………
He should've done it. Gotten it over with when he had the opportunity. An opportunity that might not come again. He should've, but he hadn't.
Lord Crest knew agonizing over wouldn't help, yet…
Now the man had even more allies. Maybe that Alex fellow would help him. He seemed to hate Picard. But it also appeared one of the reason's Picard disliked him was because he couldn't be trusted. That was a problem.
He took a breath and ordered his thoughts:
Step one: Stop undo-able damage. If that cannot be done, proceed to
Step two: cover-up as much as possible. At the current rate they were gaining passengers when the stated goal was to return them to their homes, that was getting less and less possible. That led to
Step three(a): If Picard's actions could not be stopped, he needed to be stopped from acting, which meant
Step three(b): Picard needed to go back to Lemuria or go six feet under. The former would be preferable because the latter would be… unpleasant and give him nightmares for years. It could also be difficult without
Step four: securing an ally.
Therefore, he should get the ally for just in case, but not openly and without letting on that he knew Picard detested the man and vice versa. That could led Picard into wondering of his loyalty and that was the last thing he wanted. Correction, the last thing he wanted was his current task. Still, better a quiet stab in the back than a noisy, messy frontal assault. Better that he wouldn't have to look Picard in the eyes when…
Oooh, he was going to vomit.
But a small thought grew and grew the more he thought about it. Maybe the two options in step three(b) weren't the latter instead of the former or the former instead of the latter. It could be quite possible the options were the latter instead of the former or the former with the latter. The former with the latter with him dead on top.
And maybe Melana as well.
The lord stifled a few curses and held back the urge to kick something. They had been playing him so well! He just hadn't noticed before in his anxiety of being picked and then of what being picked meant. They could very well just want Picard to be picked off, giving him any excuse. But they also made this fool proof, sending along a man whose death, if he was killed instead, or punishment would give them the most to gain.
He had simply accredited the unusually fast decision to the lack of time and Lord Murray's habit of making snap decisions. One must have mentioned to the young Murray boy about him foiling some effort that wasn't in favor of the king. Naturally, with his record of siding with the king, Adrian Murray would figure to send someone who he believed sided with the king as well. But that would mean he knew some of what was coming and therefore had been told by someone. A safe bet was Lord Globule Aquae, but that was only part of it.
Young Adrian was much more involved than he let on. Far more. He couldn't be even half as naive as he pretended to be. Lord Aquae was apparently a very good teacher. A bit absent minded perhaps, but that gave him a slight advantage of unpredictability as well as the disadvantage of a bad memory.
He might have two good allies there. If this wasn't just mere speculation. If they hadn't set him up to be killed if he failed. If the pair didn't want him killed in the process. If all the other senators didn't expect the action "to be called for" and given the dagger just in case. If…
There were far to many "if"s. He needed to know solid facts, and if he didn't get them, he might not have a need to them ever again. A dead man with a dead daughter needed to know nothing.
Should he tell Picard or finish him off? Any siding with him that was that open was a severe no-no. But finish him off? Could he do that? Did he have the physical ability or the will? One without the other would be pointless; he could be dead both ways. He had a sickening feeling he'd find out the answers soon enough. In fact, he felt he already knew them.
Could he kill Picard? Even with his own life at stake, did he had the will to commit murder in cold blood? Maybe it he had been extremely angered, but…
He leaned against the wall and sighed.
But Melana was in danger too.
"I won! I won this time, Daddy!"
He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that, if it came down to it, he would. If he didn't vomit first.
………
Gary shoved the feeling to the back of his mind. He felt as if he was about to remember something, something more important than he could imagine, so important that it scared him. It scared him enough that he refused to do it.
What if that feeling was what had made everyone go mad?
He was past beginning to feel that this had been a bad idea. He knew it was. The thought of impressing his dad by figuring out a case by himself had quickly lost its novelty. That novelty was quickly replaced by dread.
How was he going to get back? Would they kill him if they found out their mind games weren't working? Would they –
"Gary?"
He looked up from his small spot of cabin floor to see Mr Lord Crest Person. So he had gone below deck too.
"Why are you down there?"
"There's…thingies out there!"
The older man looked slightly puzzled for a moment. "'Thingies?' Oh, you must mean the Djinn. They are… intimidating as a group but an individual Djinni can actually be fairly good company."
"Jeanie?" Gary asked in confusion. "As in 'I dream of'? Or the blue guy in Aladdin?"
The references were clearly lost on Crest. "I don't think so. They are, to the extent of my knowledge, beings with life-force formed of physical Psynergy or beings of living physical Psynergy. They do not seem to age. At least," he added wryly, "not anymore than Picard does."
Picard… There was a lot more to him than he let on. Did Crest's comment mean Picard was an old man in a young man's body? Or maybe he was one of those people that looked about twenty when they were thirty-five.
But Picard didn't seem to be that old, at least in his prior encounters with the guy. But one would also think Crest to be in charge of the operation here, but he was clearly not. In fact, it had seemed that, before they had departed from the Blue Tower that Matthew had been in charge, a situation that went very much against his character.
Of the three people who could be in on this (the blue-haired man who had stayed on the ship counted too), Picard made the most sense.
"Who's Picard?" Gary asked, deciding not to let on that he had met him before.
"Remember the unconscious man?"
"Ok, so he's Picard. But who is Picard? Like, his last name or something."
Crest gave a slight smile. "He's Picard Piers, King of Lemuria."
Gary nodded. Wait… "Excuse me?"
………
Despite how the Djinn hovered about him, Matthew had no fear of them as he leaned against the Seamist's rail. Felix trusted these creatures; therefore, Matthew did too. He was realizing what an important part of life trust was. It was one of the things Felix highly valued, and although Matthew had only known his for a few hours tops, he was confident in Felix's values.
Although Picard was clearly not confident in Felix's decision making skills.
"Why?" Picard demanded, fixing the pair of them with an intense and furious gaze.
"Why what?" the bewildered Venus Adept asked back.
"Why did you bring Alex along?" The edge to his voice said quite clearly that he would hold with no nonsense.
Matthew was scared as heck of Picard, but Felix's presence seemed to dampen all of his fear down, including everything from the Lemurian to the Djinn. Strangely, the fear was replaced with a sudden unease whenever it occured to him that he was on a boat. On water. With no land for miles. Where he could drown.
But now Felix was experiencing something akin to embarrassment and a sort of incentive to crawl under something wet and slimy before proceeding to die there. There was also something else woven between these: it was the feeling you get when you realize the roles are reversed. That the follower has become the leader. On one hand, you're proud of them. On the other hand, you really don't want them to be better than you. You want them to be good, heck, you want them to be great, but you still don't want them to be better than you.
However, it seemed Picard's rage was like a flash flood, and now after the flooding of the surrounding terrain (people) and damaging it (hurting their feelings), he found some damage control was needed. He studied the expression on Matthew's face for a moment before figuring he knew what happened. "Alex used the trust angle, didn't he?"
Wow, the guy was good! "Yeah," Matthew agreed, his apprehension displaced momentarily by admiration. If Picard could ascertain the truth just by looking at a person's face… That was some talent!
Picard leaned next to him with a sigh. "Felix, I know you want to trust people, but at least use some logic."
"I did."
"Felix, remember when I asked you why you went through all the trouble getting my orb back for me?"
He tossed a piece of deadwood on the fire, careful that it wasn't green. The last time he had done that, it had felt as if he had tossed himself into the flames. He regarded the blue-haired man through the flickering fingers of flame. "Why do you ask?"
It was Picard's first night sleeping out with them as part of the party and they were on guard duty. Most of the time, they simply used one person for the watch, but because of some weird Lemurian aging thing and how Picard's Psynergy skills had grown while they explored the Great Gabomba, Picard's sleep pattern had been thrown off. Now Picard figured he could sleep two hours or so less and take a longer shift, but Jenna seemed intent on making the two of them bond, forcing Felix to share those two hours with him. Even with those two hours awake in addition to his own reduced shift, he was still sleeping a little bit more than he had before Picard had joined up with them.
But now he had to deal with the guy talking. And expecting him to respond! "Well," Picard explained. "everyone thought I was a pirate. But not you four. Why?"
"Because 'everyone' isn't always right," Felix said bitterly. Why did he have the feeling that this would be one of those people who kept asking questions with no respect for the silence?
"How so?" the mariner asked, his interest, unfortunately, piqued.
"You're not a pirate," Felix pointed out..
"But there's more to it, isn't there?" Receiving no answer, he continued his investigation. "What happened?"
Felix tossed in another piece of firewood, perhaps a bit harder than he should've. Sparks and embers flew up, burning brightly before fading. "What makes you think something happened?"
"People usually don't draw into themselves for no reason; what's yours?"
"You said 'usually'." He poked the fire with another stick, releasing more embers into the night sky. Greedy red tongues licked at the stick, their saliva setting the wood aflame. Felix tossed it into the ravenous blaze.
He stared at the small piece of wood consumed by the large fire. Fire ceased to exist without wood, but wood lived better without flame. But not this wood. Not that fire.
He felt tears threatening, threatening so hard he couldn't hold them back. He bowed his head, letting his hair tumble to hide his eyes, obscure his face. "You're going to freeze your eyes shut, leaking out of them that way," he remembered Saturos say. "And where's the point in going blind?" But of course Proxans didn't have tears. They weren't much in the way of facial expressions, either.
"And you're avoiding the question. Look," Picard said, unaware of Felix's quiet tears, "if I can trust you to carry my Orb, you can trust me with a simple answer. Why would you reach out to a person and then proceed to ignore them?"
Good question. Felix answered slowly, forcing back this sorrow; there was no point to being depressed. "I… I guess I like to think that…" He looked around for more wood and stopped talking, hoping Picard would take the hint or interrupt impatiently, deciding the wait for the answer wasn't worth while.
He didn't.
His hand landed on a few more sticks, nothing more than tinder. He began to strip them of their bark, tossing each strip in one by one. "If a person can be falsely accused of… piracy or whatever… then can't another be accused of something else, just as falsely?"
"'Innocent until proven guilty'," Picard agreed.
Felix stared at him for a moment, wondering if the other knew he had gotten it backwards. Although, in Lemuria it could be different. Or maybe Picard was simply stating an ideal.
He knew Picard wanted a response, but he didn't give one to him, and threw in another piece of wood instead. Sweat broke out along his brow as he realized it had been partly alive. The green wood would burn slowly, but it would keep him hot, if a trifle unpleasantly.
Picard opened his mouth again to speak and dozen questions flashed through Felix's mind. Which would be have to answer? None seemed appealing.
But surprisingly, it wasn't any of the awkward inquiries he had imagined. Instead: "So you trust the unlikely… because people don't trust you when they should?" the Lemurian asked, piecing it together. "And so you don't want to do to others what others do to you?"
"Yes," Felix admitted as Matthew tried to cope with remembering one of Felix's memories. "But it's better for someone to be keeping an eye on him."
"Mia could've done that. We could've left them all there, involving no one else, and Mia could've finally settled with him the way she'd always wanted to. Instead, he's tagging along and we have to 'keep an eye on him' for the entire remainder of this trip. This trip that we're barely a quarter of the way through!"
"We haven't even been a day yet," Felix commented. "What's four days to you?"
Picard let out a laugh, his anger evaporating like water on a hot sidewalk. "There have been some centuries that have felt shorter than today."
Felix raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
Picard nodded. "It's odd," he said. "You've probably raised that eyebrow a thousand times, and now that you're dead, I finally see it."
"It's because my hair's dead too," Felix clarified.
They both let out a stressed chuckle.
"So tomorrow it's Venus Lighthouse?" Felix inquired.
Picard nodded. "We should probably rest here tonight, each of us with a Jupiter Djinn."
"Sounds good… But about bringing people along…"
Picard let out a laugh. "This is what you're stressed out about? I'm not going to change my mind about that, and there'd be no stopping you, not to mention her. Of course Sheba's coming along. So long as her incarnation doesn't mind, that is."
"She won't mind," Felix assured him, although it seemed to Matthew that the Venus Adept was trying to reassure himself more than Picard.
Matthew wasn't very comfortable with the emotions he was sensing from Felix. It was a half-desperate longing fueled by sorrow and love. And it gave Matthew the feeling that he was snooping around in something private, something that he was too young for. Felix was a man in love; Matthew had hardly gotten to the "teen in like" stage of his life. If tomorrow was when they'd find the woman or not, making Felix's feelings intensify either way, then Matthew wanted it to be today for as long as possible. What if Felix wanted to kiss her or something? The Proxans had it ok; fine, Makrina already had a boyfriend back home, but there had been a sort of attraction between them for as long as Matthew had known them. Felix was in love with someone whose incarnation Matthew had never met! There was a big difference!
No one else was too keen on going to sleep right away either, and the Proxans thoroughly resisted the idea of sharing their mind with a Djinn. What ended up resulting was an argument followed by the closest thing to a party that had been on the Seamist since all the Adepts had been alive in their own bodies. The night passed by in jerks, leaping through a game of Stuff-The-Djinn-In-The-Cannon (it resulted in Cannon being "accidentally" blasted out of the device that bore his name[several of the Mercury Djinn were whistling loudly after that]) and then dragging out horrendously when it fully occurred to everyone that the one toliet was a pot. Gary who was very… ill at ease with his present company laughed at the various plays Oliver and Picard acted out as the main characters while Andrew took care of the bit parts. Afterwards, May and Jen had an idea about Echo's echoing capabilities, and the Djinni discovered himself acting as a boombox. Oliver was… confused to say the least at what the others called "music"; Ian giving the Echo the memory of half a dozen songs by Weird Al for him to repeat probably didn't help, but at least one of the songs was "just six words long". Halfway through "Dare to be Stupid", the Proxans/Russians went off by themselves to have a private conversation that was immediately picked up on by the Djinn. It didn't really help the Fire Adepts' opinions of them very much.
Thankfully, they did have food; the Seamist was stocked with enough supplies for a month voyage with eight passengers and seventy-two Djinn, proving Andrew had been prepared for nearly anything. Dinner was rather strange with Picard realizing he'd forgotten how to cook, Makrina's skills being tainted by Menardi's, and Gary's complete distrust of the food that Andrew ended up preparing. At this, Saturos started to tell the story of "The-Thing-We're-Assuming-Is- Semi-edible -And-So-Are-Tentatively-Calling-It-Food". Moral of the story: leave the cooking to Felix.
Sleeping arrangements were arranged slightly awkwardly with two or three to a room and one Djinni per person(the Proxans and Oliver were excused from the Djinn part as having a Jupiter Djinni would be pointless if the person never dropped off to sleep). Makrina/Menardi, Jen/na, and May/Mia were together, being the only (human) females on the ship. That meant they also got the biggest room. Felix/Matthew and Saturos/Satornil put themselves in charge of watching Alex/Xander while Ian/Isaac consented to share a room with Gary(neither got much sleep). Andrew, still suffering from the trauma of having his king disappear and returning wounded, insisted on keeping watch over Picard the entire night(neither of them got much sleep either). As for Crest and Crade, they stayed in the main cabin swapping stories about Alchemy and technology until they both dropped off to La La Land.
…In the morning…
Matthew! Get up! A bright light flashed in his eyes.
"Ah!" Had he been laying in his bed at home, Matthew would've fallen out of it with a yell. As it was, he just yelled. "I'm not –" A yawn cut him off. "I'm not a morning person…" he concluded. He was standing by a window of a room where it seemed a few people had slept the night before. He head was positioned so he was looking out of it, right into the sun, which was a fair bit above the horizon. The wooden, carpet-covered floor rocked slowly up and down. Where was he again?
You aren't a morning person, someone familiar agreed. And you're very forgetful too.
"Wha…" Another word was swallowed by a yawn.
Quite abruptly, memories of the prior day flooded to the surface of his mind.
"Oh."
"Come on, we've already had breakfast and you're dressed; let's go."
"That's my mouth; quit using it," he grumbled.
"It's nice to share," Felix replied. A memory of his daughter surfaced where he had said the exact same thing. "Otherwise people get their feelings hurt," he had continued, all those years ago.
They made their way up to the deck in silence until Matthew just had to ask. You really miss them, don't you?
Math's head nodded without permission. It's weird knowing even your great-grandchildren are dead. But, then again, it's weird being dead, period. I don't really remember anything in between my last climb up Venus Lighthouse with Picard and waking up in your body. And I don't know what will happen to me after this. It would be cruel to you if I stayed in your body, and I have no idea if I can even leave or what will happen to me after I do. Felix's uncertainty came through to Matthew although the swordsman did his best to quell it.
Matthew tried to steer the conversation away from thoughts of the beyond. Venus Lighthouse? Isn't that where we're going?
Felix nearly made Matthew nod again by accident. And it's were Saturos, Menardi and I died, he said with a touch of apology; he knew it would be bizarre to have someone control him that way.
But Matthew wasn't paying attention to the unconscious apology. You what?
They died in a fight, and when I knew I was going to die soon, I figured I wanted to die there. Just do yourself a favor and don't fall off of it.
Wouldn't dream of it, Matthew replied truthfully as they opened the door to the deck.
"Took you long enough!" Jen called.
Ian gaze a smile from Isaac's amusement and allowed him to say, "Isn't it ironic that of all of us, it's Felix who has an incarnation that sleeps in."
Matthew grinned. Friendly teasing wasn't something he minded at all, so long that it remained only teasing; otherwise, he never could've become friends with Satornil.
"Everyone get in close or grab someone," Picard called, standing next to Andrew.
Andrew's the one that dreamed of the location, Felix explained as Matthew edged in close, but didn't bother to hold on to anyone. Picard could've just asked Ether to show it to him, but he didn't have the heart to leave the guy behind.
"Ready?" Picard asked.
Everyone murmured their agreement and Andrew started the Teleportation.
Rings started at the bottom of his feet and worked their way up, expanding as they went before they shrank and disappeared half a foot above Andrew's head. The loops of Psynergy expanded, encompassing the entire group in their azure glow. Faster and faster they rose, until it seemed they were inside a balloon of the psychic energy.
Any observer would see a sapphire sphere swallow up the dozen. When the rings slowed and cleared, they would know that the group had gone elsewhere. But where elsewhere would be completely unknown.