Chapter 5
Rei sighed. (Now I remember why I only played this game once after I beat it, it's so slow...) She looked around, making sure she hadn't forgot anything. She was in the plant room, a dark, small closet of an exhibit with fake interpretations of deadly vines and herbs scattered around on either of the two large altars on each side of the room. The boys were carefully avoiding the far altar after Rei's warning of an ash Ixupi. (Let's see... I got the jar from the shelf, is there anything else?) "That's it," She called. "The Atlantis room's next." She spun around, giving her skirt a tug after a cold draft aired up her back. (Stupid skirt.)
Relena waited with Quatre and Trowa in the Ancient Animals room. Relena was looking very dejected, no surprise after Duo had cheerfully suggested she do something useful and hold the books. Relena had dropped the books on the fish showcase.
Rei walked nonchalantly out of the room and made her way around the mountain of sticks that made up the griffin nest and stopped. (There were supposed to be creatures in the Atlantis exhibit, I should remind the guys.) "Hey, there should be those-"
"We know." Wufei said shortly.
Rei stepped back. "I need to get something, um..."
"We will take care of the enemies. Relena, go with Rei." Heero commanded, glancing at Relena.
"But, why?" Relena protested.
"It will keep you out of the way, now go." Wufei almost snapped.
Relena flinched, but obeyed, practically storming out of the room. Rei looked at Heero a moment and followed. Heero returned the look and pulled out his gun and turned to the Atlantis door as Rei closed the outside door behind her.
She looked across the room to see Relena marching up the steps to the library. "We're going up there in a minute, but we have to get a brochure here first." Rei walked in the opposite direction to a small work desk in the corner of the lobby and opened a drawer. Pulling out a pamphlet, she leafed through it stopping on the inside page that had a small chart of colored skulls and exhibit names on it. She smiled and stood up, looking over at a very impatient Relena waiting on the library stairs.
Rei took her time walking over, glancing over at her discarded high heels and smiling vaguely at the idea of hitting Relena over the head with them. (Stop it, Rei. You have no real reason to hate her. Except that she's a snobby little-)
"Are you going to make it over here today?" Relena snapped.
"We need something else first." Rei growled, turning into the office. Relena didn't follow.
Rei ignored the faint music drifting from the fireplace and went over to the bulletin board. There were a few newspaper clippings tacked onto a large map. Rei looked it over before snatching a pen and scrap of paper from the desk behind her and copying the longitude and latitude of a small symbol circled in green.
"Are you done yet?" Relena called from the lobby.
Rei double checked the coordinates and folded up the paper. She looked down. (Great. No pockets.) After a few moments hesitation and a few exasperated sighs from outside, Rei tucked the small pen and paper inside the white fabric stretched across her chest. (Oh well. They do it in the movies.)
She stepped carefully out of the room and looked up for Relena. The girl was still standing on the steps and was casting Rei a particularly irritating, condescending look.
Rei rolled her eyes and brushed past her up the stairs.
Inside the library, Rei made her way carefully around the table. She glanced back and resisted a laugh. Relena stood angrily in the doorway, arms crossed and a scowl etched into her face. Rei looked back at the ladder she had almost gone up earlier. (Can't believe we forgot to go up and get the talisman.) She started up the ladder and was suddenly grateful Heero had stopped her earlier. (This would give little braided jerk a nice look up my-)
"Would you hurry up!" Relena commanded from the doorway.
Rei suppressed her retort, but slowed her ascent a little, just to spite the little wench. Once at the top, Rei looked around at the small bookshelf. (Good, no creatures. Now, where's that talisman?) She shifted her weight and saw the large, white marble statue behind her, rising like a marble angel against the wall. Rei looked up at her for a moment before reaching over to the base of the statue. There was a sudden explosion of gunfire and Rei started, almost losing her balance.
She looked back at the library below and saw Relena not looking at her, but with her back turned, staring out into the lobby. Rei turned back to her work and slid open a panel in the statue's base. Inside rested a small bull's head, coppery mud colored like all the other jars and talismans.
Snatching it up, Rei held it to her chest and carefully made her way down the ladder. She looked down and realized that she was right above the spot where Heero had shot that first creature. (It's gone...) Nothing remained of the body but a very faint dusting of ash.
Rei hopped down and felt with a burst of sense that the talisman she held against her chest was cold. It sent a line of goose-bumps down her arms and she held it a bit away from her chest. "We should get back now." Rei said absently to Relena, sliding around her through the door.
"Don't order me around!" Relena cried indignantly. Suddenly finding a store of anger, Relena grabbed Rei's arm, causing her to spin around, almost dropping the talisman. "And another thing. Stay away from my Heero. Don't think I can't see through you, you little tramp. I know you're trying to do, and you are mot going to steal him away from me. He and I have something special and you can't break that."
Rei sneered and twisted her arm easily out of Relena's grip. "And I'm happy for you. But I couldn't care less about 'your Heero'. All I want is to get out of here and back home, which seems is going to take a while if you don't stop acting like a jealous brat and grow up some." With that, Rei spun around and walked with as much dignity as she could, back to the Ancient Animals room.
As she stepped through the doors, a strange music reached her ears. She walked forward, looking around for its source. A snort marred the tranquility of the instant. "Didn't you say something about music meaning danger?" Rei turned around at Relena's once again, condescending voice. "Why are you just walking into it? Shouldn't we wait for the guys?"
Rei shook her head and turned back around, still following the music. It drifted from the open Atlantis doors. Rei peered in and noticed three spots of dust on the short set of stairs in front of her. The boys were at the far end of the hall. Across the floor was an enlarged version of the map she had seen in the office, with columns lining each side of the hall, leaving about four feet of room to the wall. Further down, there was a large, green-ish stone face turned out from the wall it was attached to, like a door. Behind the face was a round chamber, covered in blue, underwater murals of sirens and mermaids. There was a panel on the far wall as well.
Rei paused at the bottom of the steps, listening to the beautiful music. (It sounds like a piano or something...)
She walked down the hall. She smiled and leaned against the open stone face-door. There was a small piano against the wall and Quatre was sitting in front of it and playing wonderfully.
Suddenly, a booming, deep voice echoed through the hall. "Welcome to Atlantis."
The music abruptly stopped and there were several clicks as the boys unlocked their guns and trained it on the entrance. Rei dropped to the ground to avoid being shot. The voice continued. "For decades, the mystery of Atlantis has perplexed the world."
Rei stood up and growled, recognizing the voice. Relena stood at the top of the stairs, crushing herself against the wall. The deep voice continued to echo through the hall. Rei dropped her head into her hands. "You pushed the button, didn't you?" She asked irritably.
"So? You didn't say anything about these buttons." Relena cried indignantly.
"All they do is give an introduction to each room. True they're not dangerous..." Rei trailed off, her eyes going to the ceiling in annoyance.
"Relena, from now on. Do not touch anything." Heero commanded, tucking his handgun back into its invisible holster.
The voice stopped booming. Rei almost felt sorry for Relena with her now crestfallen expression, and looked at Heero, asking silently if he could do something.
Heero looked up and, seeing Rei's expression, responded negatively with a slight jerk of his head. Rei pursed her lips and looked back up at Relena, but instantly regretted it, as she was now marching down the steps, giving Rei a very fine death glare.
Rei rolled her eyes. (Why did I just feel sorry for her?)
Relena continued down the hall and stopped right next to Heero, as if sending a silent message to Rei. Rei ignored it and looked over their shoulders at Quatre.
"That song was beautiful. Where did you learn to play like that?"
Quatre shrugged his lithe shoulders. "I picked it up a while ago."
Duo leaned over to Rei and spoke to her behind his hand, but letting his voice carry to the others. "Quatre's and arist-o-crat. He can play anything."
Quatre hid his embarrassed smile and simply shrugged once more.
"Was that door supposed to open?" Trowa asked quietly, waving a hand to indicate the stone face Rei was leaning on.
Rei stepped up and looked into the dark doorway in the wall. "Yes, did you all figure that out?"
Wufei nodded curtly. "It was fairly obvious. The panel plays a song and even gives the notes, and there just happens to be a piano nearby. Quatre played the song, and that thing opened."
Rei nodded and closed her eyes. "Alright. Seems like you guys aren't brain-dead after all." Her eyes opened and snapped to Duo whose eyes also snapped away from where they shouldn't have been. "At least most of you aren't." She looked over and concealed a smile as Relena glared at Heero, who was staring Duo down. "Well, I have one more thing to do in here..." Rei said loudly, changing the subject.
She walked over to the statue of the god Poseidon, who sat on a stone crest of waves near the bottom of the steps. He held an orb in his and there were several rings attached to it, each intersecting one secured by a small red button.
"Now what were the coordinates..." Rei muttered and reached into the fabric of the top of her shirt and pulled out the slip of paper. There was a muffled growl from the other side of the hall and Rei looked over to see Relena trembling with anger and the other boys suddenly finding the room they were in very interesting. Rei looked at them strangely. (What?) All of them, even Heero, had a slight tinge of red coloring their faces. (What happened?) Then it hit her. She clenched her jaw and opened the paper with more force than necessary. (Immature...)
She read the coordinates over again and searched the sphere for the right button. The others came silently up behind her, all but Duo staying a bit behind her. Duo, however, leaned up and peered over her shoulder, at something a little different than the paper she was holding. After an annoyed glance and a hard elbow, Duo backed away a few steps. Holding his ribs.
He pulled in a few steady breaths. "Whew. You got a lot of power there..."
Rei hesitated, looking for an answer. "I, I work out." She averted her gaze back to the sphere. "Here it is!" She smiled and pushed a particular button. A small platform, about a foot wide circle rose out of the floor.
"What is it?" Quatre asked politely.
"It's the coordinates for Atlantis, the real one. They were up in the office and you have to find them on this ball for the Atlantis on this floor map to come up." Rei calmly explained. "Inside the platform, there are floor maps and a jar." Rei frowned. (Another jar.) She looked down at the talisman in her hands. "You can go look at them if you want. I think we're going to need a bag or something. We have to keep these jars and talismans together."
"There was a shoulder-bag in the office. I'll go with you." Heero said, stepping away from Relena.
"You don't-" Rei protested, not wanting to make Relena hate her more.
"You shouldn't be out there alone." Heero commanded and led the way from the room.
Rei stood for a second and passed the talisman in her hand to Relena quickly and quickened after Heero. She didn't see the fierce look Relena burned into her back.
Once outside in the lobby, Rei risked a conversation. "Heero, we should talk."
"Relena is neither my girlfriend nor my wife nor anything else she may have told you." Heero explained shortly.
Rei held up her hands as though keeping her hands out of it. "She only told me that you two 'have a special bond'." Rei snorted. "Like I care."
Heero stopped and looked at her. Rei looked back, suddenly regretting what she had said.
Heero looked back to the door in front of them. He calmly pushed it open and stepped inside. Rei swallowed heavily and followed.
They looked around for a second, until Heero grunted and tossed over a large, black shoulder bag. "Hn."
Rei caught it and opened it. "Papers, newspaper...nothing important." She overturned it and dumped the lot on the floor. "This'll work." She threw it over her shoulder and noticed with a slight tinge that when she walked with it on her shoulder, the bag chafed against her legs. She frowned.
Heero passed her on the way out and paused next to her. "I can take that." He took the bag from her shoulder and slung it across his own. Rei's eyes stayed on his back as he walked out the door and stopped a second, waiting for Rei to follow.
So how was that chapter? One of my longer ones I would have to say... Well, I hope you liked it. I tried to deepen the feelings a little, but still keep the characters...well, in character. Well, let me know how this was, review!!!!!!!!
Rei sighed. (Now I remember why I only played this game once after I beat it, it's so slow...) She looked around, making sure she hadn't forgot anything. She was in the plant room, a dark, small closet of an exhibit with fake interpretations of deadly vines and herbs scattered around on either of the two large altars on each side of the room. The boys were carefully avoiding the far altar after Rei's warning of an ash Ixupi. (Let's see... I got the jar from the shelf, is there anything else?) "That's it," She called. "The Atlantis room's next." She spun around, giving her skirt a tug after a cold draft aired up her back. (Stupid skirt.)
Relena waited with Quatre and Trowa in the Ancient Animals room. Relena was looking very dejected, no surprise after Duo had cheerfully suggested she do something useful and hold the books. Relena had dropped the books on the fish showcase.
Rei walked nonchalantly out of the room and made her way around the mountain of sticks that made up the griffin nest and stopped. (There were supposed to be creatures in the Atlantis exhibit, I should remind the guys.) "Hey, there should be those-"
"We know." Wufei said shortly.
Rei stepped back. "I need to get something, um..."
"We will take care of the enemies. Relena, go with Rei." Heero commanded, glancing at Relena.
"But, why?" Relena protested.
"It will keep you out of the way, now go." Wufei almost snapped.
Relena flinched, but obeyed, practically storming out of the room. Rei looked at Heero a moment and followed. Heero returned the look and pulled out his gun and turned to the Atlantis door as Rei closed the outside door behind her.
She looked across the room to see Relena marching up the steps to the library. "We're going up there in a minute, but we have to get a brochure here first." Rei walked in the opposite direction to a small work desk in the corner of the lobby and opened a drawer. Pulling out a pamphlet, she leafed through it stopping on the inside page that had a small chart of colored skulls and exhibit names on it. She smiled and stood up, looking over at a very impatient Relena waiting on the library stairs.
Rei took her time walking over, glancing over at her discarded high heels and smiling vaguely at the idea of hitting Relena over the head with them. (Stop it, Rei. You have no real reason to hate her. Except that she's a snobby little-)
"Are you going to make it over here today?" Relena snapped.
"We need something else first." Rei growled, turning into the office. Relena didn't follow.
Rei ignored the faint music drifting from the fireplace and went over to the bulletin board. There were a few newspaper clippings tacked onto a large map. Rei looked it over before snatching a pen and scrap of paper from the desk behind her and copying the longitude and latitude of a small symbol circled in green.
"Are you done yet?" Relena called from the lobby.
Rei double checked the coordinates and folded up the paper. She looked down. (Great. No pockets.) After a few moments hesitation and a few exasperated sighs from outside, Rei tucked the small pen and paper inside the white fabric stretched across her chest. (Oh well. They do it in the movies.)
She stepped carefully out of the room and looked up for Relena. The girl was still standing on the steps and was casting Rei a particularly irritating, condescending look.
Rei rolled her eyes and brushed past her up the stairs.
Inside the library, Rei made her way carefully around the table. She glanced back and resisted a laugh. Relena stood angrily in the doorway, arms crossed and a scowl etched into her face. Rei looked back at the ladder she had almost gone up earlier. (Can't believe we forgot to go up and get the talisman.) She started up the ladder and was suddenly grateful Heero had stopped her earlier. (This would give little braided jerk a nice look up my-)
"Would you hurry up!" Relena commanded from the doorway.
Rei suppressed her retort, but slowed her ascent a little, just to spite the little wench. Once at the top, Rei looked around at the small bookshelf. (Good, no creatures. Now, where's that talisman?) She shifted her weight and saw the large, white marble statue behind her, rising like a marble angel against the wall. Rei looked up at her for a moment before reaching over to the base of the statue. There was a sudden explosion of gunfire and Rei started, almost losing her balance.
She looked back at the library below and saw Relena not looking at her, but with her back turned, staring out into the lobby. Rei turned back to her work and slid open a panel in the statue's base. Inside rested a small bull's head, coppery mud colored like all the other jars and talismans.
Snatching it up, Rei held it to her chest and carefully made her way down the ladder. She looked down and realized that she was right above the spot where Heero had shot that first creature. (It's gone...) Nothing remained of the body but a very faint dusting of ash.
Rei hopped down and felt with a burst of sense that the talisman she held against her chest was cold. It sent a line of goose-bumps down her arms and she held it a bit away from her chest. "We should get back now." Rei said absently to Relena, sliding around her through the door.
"Don't order me around!" Relena cried indignantly. Suddenly finding a store of anger, Relena grabbed Rei's arm, causing her to spin around, almost dropping the talisman. "And another thing. Stay away from my Heero. Don't think I can't see through you, you little tramp. I know you're trying to do, and you are mot going to steal him away from me. He and I have something special and you can't break that."
Rei sneered and twisted her arm easily out of Relena's grip. "And I'm happy for you. But I couldn't care less about 'your Heero'. All I want is to get out of here and back home, which seems is going to take a while if you don't stop acting like a jealous brat and grow up some." With that, Rei spun around and walked with as much dignity as she could, back to the Ancient Animals room.
As she stepped through the doors, a strange music reached her ears. She walked forward, looking around for its source. A snort marred the tranquility of the instant. "Didn't you say something about music meaning danger?" Rei turned around at Relena's once again, condescending voice. "Why are you just walking into it? Shouldn't we wait for the guys?"
Rei shook her head and turned back around, still following the music. It drifted from the open Atlantis doors. Rei peered in and noticed three spots of dust on the short set of stairs in front of her. The boys were at the far end of the hall. Across the floor was an enlarged version of the map she had seen in the office, with columns lining each side of the hall, leaving about four feet of room to the wall. Further down, there was a large, green-ish stone face turned out from the wall it was attached to, like a door. Behind the face was a round chamber, covered in blue, underwater murals of sirens and mermaids. There was a panel on the far wall as well.
Rei paused at the bottom of the steps, listening to the beautiful music. (It sounds like a piano or something...)
She walked down the hall. She smiled and leaned against the open stone face-door. There was a small piano against the wall and Quatre was sitting in front of it and playing wonderfully.
Suddenly, a booming, deep voice echoed through the hall. "Welcome to Atlantis."
The music abruptly stopped and there were several clicks as the boys unlocked their guns and trained it on the entrance. Rei dropped to the ground to avoid being shot. The voice continued. "For decades, the mystery of Atlantis has perplexed the world."
Rei stood up and growled, recognizing the voice. Relena stood at the top of the stairs, crushing herself against the wall. The deep voice continued to echo through the hall. Rei dropped her head into her hands. "You pushed the button, didn't you?" She asked irritably.
"So? You didn't say anything about these buttons." Relena cried indignantly.
"All they do is give an introduction to each room. True they're not dangerous..." Rei trailed off, her eyes going to the ceiling in annoyance.
"Relena, from now on. Do not touch anything." Heero commanded, tucking his handgun back into its invisible holster.
The voice stopped booming. Rei almost felt sorry for Relena with her now crestfallen expression, and looked at Heero, asking silently if he could do something.
Heero looked up and, seeing Rei's expression, responded negatively with a slight jerk of his head. Rei pursed her lips and looked back up at Relena, but instantly regretted it, as she was now marching down the steps, giving Rei a very fine death glare.
Rei rolled her eyes. (Why did I just feel sorry for her?)
Relena continued down the hall and stopped right next to Heero, as if sending a silent message to Rei. Rei ignored it and looked over their shoulders at Quatre.
"That song was beautiful. Where did you learn to play like that?"
Quatre shrugged his lithe shoulders. "I picked it up a while ago."
Duo leaned over to Rei and spoke to her behind his hand, but letting his voice carry to the others. "Quatre's and arist-o-crat. He can play anything."
Quatre hid his embarrassed smile and simply shrugged once more.
"Was that door supposed to open?" Trowa asked quietly, waving a hand to indicate the stone face Rei was leaning on.
Rei stepped up and looked into the dark doorway in the wall. "Yes, did you all figure that out?"
Wufei nodded curtly. "It was fairly obvious. The panel plays a song and even gives the notes, and there just happens to be a piano nearby. Quatre played the song, and that thing opened."
Rei nodded and closed her eyes. "Alright. Seems like you guys aren't brain-dead after all." Her eyes opened and snapped to Duo whose eyes also snapped away from where they shouldn't have been. "At least most of you aren't." She looked over and concealed a smile as Relena glared at Heero, who was staring Duo down. "Well, I have one more thing to do in here..." Rei said loudly, changing the subject.
She walked over to the statue of the god Poseidon, who sat on a stone crest of waves near the bottom of the steps. He held an orb in his and there were several rings attached to it, each intersecting one secured by a small red button.
"Now what were the coordinates..." Rei muttered and reached into the fabric of the top of her shirt and pulled out the slip of paper. There was a muffled growl from the other side of the hall and Rei looked over to see Relena trembling with anger and the other boys suddenly finding the room they were in very interesting. Rei looked at them strangely. (What?) All of them, even Heero, had a slight tinge of red coloring their faces. (What happened?) Then it hit her. She clenched her jaw and opened the paper with more force than necessary. (Immature...)
She read the coordinates over again and searched the sphere for the right button. The others came silently up behind her, all but Duo staying a bit behind her. Duo, however, leaned up and peered over her shoulder, at something a little different than the paper she was holding. After an annoyed glance and a hard elbow, Duo backed away a few steps. Holding his ribs.
He pulled in a few steady breaths. "Whew. You got a lot of power there..."
Rei hesitated, looking for an answer. "I, I work out." She averted her gaze back to the sphere. "Here it is!" She smiled and pushed a particular button. A small platform, about a foot wide circle rose out of the floor.
"What is it?" Quatre asked politely.
"It's the coordinates for Atlantis, the real one. They were up in the office and you have to find them on this ball for the Atlantis on this floor map to come up." Rei calmly explained. "Inside the platform, there are floor maps and a jar." Rei frowned. (Another jar.) She looked down at the talisman in her hands. "You can go look at them if you want. I think we're going to need a bag or something. We have to keep these jars and talismans together."
"There was a shoulder-bag in the office. I'll go with you." Heero said, stepping away from Relena.
"You don't-" Rei protested, not wanting to make Relena hate her more.
"You shouldn't be out there alone." Heero commanded and led the way from the room.
Rei stood for a second and passed the talisman in her hand to Relena quickly and quickened after Heero. She didn't see the fierce look Relena burned into her back.
Once outside in the lobby, Rei risked a conversation. "Heero, we should talk."
"Relena is neither my girlfriend nor my wife nor anything else she may have told you." Heero explained shortly.
Rei held up her hands as though keeping her hands out of it. "She only told me that you two 'have a special bond'." Rei snorted. "Like I care."
Heero stopped and looked at her. Rei looked back, suddenly regretting what she had said.
Heero looked back to the door in front of them. He calmly pushed it open and stepped inside. Rei swallowed heavily and followed.
They looked around for a second, until Heero grunted and tossed over a large, black shoulder bag. "Hn."
Rei caught it and opened it. "Papers, newspaper...nothing important." She overturned it and dumped the lot on the floor. "This'll work." She threw it over her shoulder and noticed with a slight tinge that when she walked with it on her shoulder, the bag chafed against her legs. She frowned.
Heero passed her on the way out and paused next to her. "I can take that." He took the bag from her shoulder and slung it across his own. Rei's eyes stayed on his back as he walked out the door and stopped a second, waiting for Rei to follow.
So how was that chapter? One of my longer ones I would have to say... Well, I hope you liked it. I tried to deepen the feelings a little, but still keep the characters...well, in character. Well, let me know how this was, review!!!!!!!!