And now for chapter three!
Jenna: You took your time.
Well, if you must know, I have my mock tests in a few weeks in preparation for my GCSEs.
Jenna: And that means what to me?
Let's just say I have annoying tests that I must revise for.
Jenna: O…k.
Never mind.
Black Demon567: You really think it's getting better? Thanks! Me so happy. I hope you do update Misfit's sequel. I'll review it when I finish reading it.
Dracobolt: Thanks. Yeah, I kinda do need a beta reader. If anyone's offering I'd be very grateful. About the song lyrics, I'm trying to make it different from other music related stories. Usually they just have a long section of lyrics. I'm trying to make the lyrics part of the story so I'm sorry, I don't really want to cut down on it. Like I said before, if you want me to include a song you know since I'm gonna try to put a song in each chapter just put it in a review or send me an email.
Spirit Seer: Thanks. I'm glad to have a new reviewer. I hope you stick around and read some more.
Kodoku: Don't worry. I won't hunt you down…yet. Thanks. I love all these nice reviews so keep them coming!
Well, let's get this party started!
Jenna: Oracle doesn't own Golden Sun and probably never will, but she does own this story so get reading!
(And for those who are interested, the song featured in this chapter is Toploader- Dancing in the Moonlight. If you have not heard this song, LISTEN TO IT! It's the best song ever! That is all.)
Chapter Three- Love, Hate and Scooters
Candles lit the otherwise dark room. Men and women edged carefully around tables to take food to the customers. In the corner of the restaurant by a rain covered window, a couple sat talking, their fingers entwined with each others. Two empty plates sat in front of them ready to be cleared away by their waiter.
"Tonight has been really wonderful," Garet said, smiling at Jenna. "I'm glad you wanted to come."
"Of course I wanted to come."
Garet's smile grew. Jenna really did look beautiful tonight in her ruby red long sleeved shirt and blue jeans with the sparkling pattern running up her left leg. She looked too good for him and his scruffy shirt and slightly too baggy jeans, but she looked happy. He'd never seen her this happy before. Apart from when she was with her brother. That twinge of guilt throbbed in his chest painfully, but he ignored it and continued to gaze at Jenna.
"By the way, thank you for asking your sister to give me an alibi. At least Felix thinks I'm having a night out with the girls instead of a night out with you."
"I guess she can be an alright sister sometimes, but she never would have agreed to this if I hadn't promised to let her come to Halo on Friday."
"If she hadn't agreed, we wouldn't have gotten past Felix. You've got to give her some credit."
Garet's face became rather angry looking and his gaze dropped down to the table top at the sound of Felix's name. Sighing, Jenna gripped Garet's hand softly.
"Forget about what happened today. It wasn't your fault or Felix's."
No answer came from Garet.
"Garet, please! It doesn't matter now!"
"It does! You can't let him treat you like that!"
"Like what!"
"Like a child! He doesn't give you any freedom!"
"He does! He's just looking after me!"
"By refusing to let you date me!"
"Garet, I thought you of all people would understand, being a brother yourself. Don't you feel the same way about Kay?"
For a moment, Garet seemed speechless. He'd never thought of it that way.
"I guess, but I wouldn't tell her who she could and couldn't date. That's just mean!"
"Are you saying Felix is mean!"
"No! I just think his ideas are stupid!"
"Oh! So, now you're saying he's stupid!"
"No, no! That's not what I meant…Jenna, please…"
Jenna slowly shook her head and pulled her shaking hand away from Garet's.
"I'm sorry Garet. Talk to me again when you know what you mean."
Without another word, she pulled her black jacket over her shoulders, stood up and walked out of the restaurant into the rain. She'd disappeared into the crowd in moments.
"Jenna!" Garet cried after her, throwing some money down on the table to take care of the bill before running out of the rain too.
Rain ran through his hair and down his face as he searched for her, but she was already long gone. He sighed sadly and put his hands in his jeans pockets. He'd really blown it this time. Sighing again, he started walking slowly down the street. Although it wasn't a particularly cold night, a shiver suddenly went down his spine. He turned, getting the feeling that he was being watched. No one was looking at him though. Everyone just wanted to get out of the rain.
Garet shivered again and turned back to look down the street. To his surprise, the road had cleared and all the people that had been right beside him a moment ago had disappeared, leaving him completely alone.
Now completely scared, he pulled his jacket tighter around himself and pushed his dripping hair out of his eyes.
A finger suddenly tapped him on his shoulder making him spin around once more.
A tall man stood behind him, a little older than himself with long blue that rippled down his back and over his shoulders like a waterfall. He was wearing a long dark trench coat which he pulled off when he'd caught Garet's attention to reveal blue and green robe-like clothes. Rain continued to fall on his pale skin, but instead of soaking him like it was doing to Garet, it sank into him becoming part of his very skin and giving him an unearthly glow.
"Who…who are you?" Garet asked timidly, holding his arms up in front of his chest protectively in case the man tried to attack.
The man only laughed at this.
"Don't fear me. I won't hurt you. I only want to speak with you. My name is Piers."
The same familiarity that had filled Garet earlier that day flowed through him again when he heard the man's name, but this time he felt nothing except trust.
"What do you want?"
"To speak with you, Garet," Piers repeated with a friendly smile.
"And how do you know my…"
"Name? I know much more than just your name, Garet. I know you better than you know yourself which is why I need you. You and your friends."
"I don't understand," said Garet.
"You will. I can not force you to help me, but I can show you the truth. Garet, this world is not your true home."
Piers moved forward with amazing speed and placed his right hand on Garet's forehead before the red-head could even react.
Instantly, Garet's eyes became lifeless and blank as images passed through his head. A storm, a boulder falling, a room filled with beautiful lights and four statues of women, the same room collapsing and filling up from the bottom with lava, four tall towers lit from the top by four orbs of light and finally a photo-like image of eight people joking around. He could see himself, Isaac, Ivan, Felix and Jenna as well as two strange girls and the man named Piers. Everyone looked so happy and carefree, but it quickly changed to a picture of the group lying dead on the floor in a pool of their own blood.
The images ended and Garet's mind went blank.
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"MIA! For God's sake stop!"
The next morning, Mia and Sheba could be seen speeding around a corner and down a small lane.
"Mia, this is a one way street!"
"What's your point?"
"YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"
Under her helmet, Mia smiled and revved up the engine. They shot down the road, past several parked cars, people who stopped to stare at the pair and houses that resembled nothing more than blurs to them until they nearly reached the turn off onto the next street.
"MIA!"
"What?"
"CAR!"
"Huh?"
"THERE'S A CAR COMING!"
True enough, a red car had just turned onto the road and was heading straight for them. Making a split second decision, Mia swerved onto the pavement, dodged the car and bounced back onto the road again.
The rest of the journey only seemed to take a few seconds at the speed they were going at before they reached the college car park and Mia parked in an empty space. She switched the engine off and carefully pried Sheba's arms from around her waist.
"That was some ride, wasn't it?" Mia giggled as she pulled her helmet off of her head and shook her dark chocolate hair out from under it.
Sheba gave her friend an angry glare before placing her own helmet on the back of the vehicle.
"Tell me again, why did I agree to let you drive me here today?"
"Because you were late, you'd missed your bus, you didn't fancy walking here this early in the morning and you know you loved it really."
Huffing angrily, the smaller blond grabbed her bag from the back of the machine and headed over to the steps leading into the college building. She was closely followed by the brunette who'd finished her ritual of locking up her 'baby' as she liked to call it so that it wouldn't be stolen.
Sheba turned to Mia at the door and asked, "Whatever possessed you to buy that scooter in the first place?"
Mia grinned, shrugged and pushed open the white doors at the top of the steps.
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Later that morning, the two girls had taken their usual places at the back of the Physics classroom next to some of their friends and were patiently waiting for the lecturer to arrive.
"Were you two at the party last Friday?" Feizhi asked as she turned around in her chair to look at the girls behind her.
"Yeah! I didn't see either of you," Hama added.
"Of course we were there!" exclaimed Sheba as if they'd just insulted her. "What kind of people do you think we are!"
"Hi guys!" another girl cried out as she rushed towards them.
"Hi Kushinada," the others all chorused.
"Everyone had a good weekend?"
"I guess so," Hama sighed, sliding down in her chair. "Apart from the fact that I can't find any time to do all of my coursework and the exams are right around the corner."
As soon as she'd said 'exams' all of the others put their hands over their ears and began to cry 'lalalala!' which gained them a few strange looks from the other students. After they'd finished and Hama had whacked them all around the head, Sheba leaned forward with an excited gleam in her eyes.
"Everyone, guess where Mia and I will be this Friday night."
"Annoying the heck out of us?" Kushinada guessed.
"Stuffing your faces while watching TV?" Feizhi asked.
"Studying?" Hama questioned.
Sheba was about to answer when she suddenly realised what Hama had said.
"Studying? Are you mad? No, we're going to Halo to see Critical Hit perform live!"
"Oh yeah, and I'm going to London to meet the Queen! As if Sheba!" Feizhi laughed, turning her back on her friend to sit in her chair properly.
Whipping something out of her bag, Sheba held two small cards attached to a long chain over Feizhi's shoulder so that she could see them as well as Hama and Kushinada.
"Backstage passes!" Kushinada exclaimed. "How on earth did you two get those!"
Sheba pointed at Mia and said, "Her kind, very well built cousin gave them to us. We're gonna meet the band and everything!"
Mia gave Sheba a well deserved punch in the arm for the 'well built' comment about Alex, and then nodded her head to indicate that Sheba was telling the truth.
"Quiet everyone!" a voice called out from the classroom door.
An elderly man stood there with his arms full of papers and folders. As soon as the class quieted down, he made his way to the front of the room and placed everything he'd been carrying on his desk.
"Trust Professor Kraden to come in just as the conversation's getting good," Feizhi complained.
The others grinned and prepared for an extremely boring lesson as usual.
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The images wouldn't go away. They filled his senses until he found that he could almost touch this strange world. His mind buzzed with memories he was sure he'd never had. Voices mingled with the images, echoing all around him, calling out to him.
"Garet! Please wake up!"
"I'm so sorry Garet! Don't leave me!"
"I never meant to hit you! I just…I'm sorry!"
"Just open your eyes, Garet!"
'The voices…they're so familiar…' he thought wearily.
Slowly, Garet managed to force his eyelids open and blinked his brown eyes. What he saw came as a shock. It was the image from his dream. Four faces cut and covered in the violent red of their blood. He gasped and blinked again to try to erase the terrifying picture from her mind. But he soon realised that this was no longer a dream when Jenna jumped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Oh thank God! Are you alright!"
Blinking a few more times, Garet looked around in a daze, trying in vain to ignore the pounding in his head.
"Yeah, I think so. What happened? Where am I?"
"Well, you're back in our hotel room, but we're not sure what happened," Isaac answered, sighing in relief that his friend was alright. "We were kinda hoping that you'd be able to fill us in on the details."
Garet continued to look around the room, recognising the TV, the large windows, the pile of suitcases in the corner and the sofa he was lying on that made up the hotel room they'd booked into the night before.
"How'd I get here?"
The three boys exchanged a glance while Jenna propped Garet up against the pillow behind him and then sat next to him.
"It was just after Jenna had returned from her evening with Kay," Ivan started, making Jenna squirm in Garet's arms. "We were just beginning to unpack when we got a call from the reception that someone wanted to speak to us and was waiting downstairs."
"We went down and there you were, unconscious in the arms of a man," Felix continued. "The same man that stopped me and Jenna outside that train station last Friday. He passed you to me and Isaac then said, 'I'm sorry. I did not mean to hurt him.' What did he mean? What did he do to you?"
Garet looked slowly down at his shaking hands.
'What did he do to me?' he thought fearfully.
He closed his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest. The images continued to flash through his mind as if they'd been burned onto the inside of his head.
Everyone was shocked when they saw a tear slide down his cheek.
"Garet…?" Jenna started, hesitating slightly. "He didn't…do anything…I mean…he didn't…hurt you, did he?"
Garet's eyes shot open.
"NO! He didn't hurt me at all!"
He stopped and scanned his mind, trying to remember what had happened.
"I'm not sure what he did, but it wasn't anything bad. That I'm sure of."
"What do you think he wants with you?" asked Ivan.
There was a pause before Garet answered, "Help."
Isaac gazed thoughtfully at his friend and could clearly see how certain Garet was of this. The red-head wouldn't lie about something like this. Jenna too. She was positive that the man had no intention of hurting her that night at the station no matter how much Felix had disagreed.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Isaac heard Ivan ask. "We could…postpone the performance…"
All three band members stared at Garet, waiting for an answer.
"I'm fine, really. We're not going to give up on this gig. We've worked too hard to get it. We need it."
He pulled himself up off of the sofa and walked shakily to where his drum kit was.
"Garet!" Jenna called after him. "You should rest for a while until we know you're feeling better."
"I am feeling better," Garet answered as he picked up his drum sticks and sat down on his stool next to the drums.
He started to gently tap one of the drums in time to a song he was humming softly. It was his way of relaxing and the other boys were used to it now so they left him alone.
Recognising the song at once, Felix sat on the arm of the sofa and picked his keyboard up from the floor next to his remaining bags. He looked over at Isaac and Ivan with a grin and began to play the first few notes of the song.
The two blonds eventually got the picture and picked up their own instruments, taking a seat where Garet had been previously lying.
On cue, Isaac began to sing.
"We get it on most every night
when that moon is big and bright
it's a supernatural delight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight."
There was a pause where Garet simply look a bit confused, then grinned and continued to play as Felix pressed down the black and white keys of his keyboard.
"Everybody here is out of sight
they don't bark and they don't bite
they keep things loose they keep it tight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight," Isaac sung, before Ivan joined him in the chorus.
"Dancing in the moonlight
everybody's feeling warm and bright
it's such a fine and natural sight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight."
Again, there was a pause where only Garet and Felix played, and then Ivan began to sing again.
"We like our fun and we never fight
you cant dance and stay uptight
it's a supernatural delight
everybody was dancing in the moonlight."
"Dancing in the moonlight," Isaac joined in.
"Everybody's feeling warm and bright
it's such a fine and natural sight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight."
Felix smiled, really getting into the beat of the song as he played his keyboard solo creating a jazzy music effect.
"We get it on most every night
and when that moon is big and bright
it's a supernatural delight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight," repeated Isaac.
"Dancing in the moonlight
everybody's feeling warm and bright
it's such a fine and natural sight
everybody's dancing in the moonlight."
Garet smiled weakly at his friends as they finished and thanked them.
"If you don't mind, I'd really like to be alone to think about some things for a while."
He walked into one of the rooms at the far side of the living room with his drum sticks still in his hands and gently closed the door on his concerned friends.
The springs in his bed creaked as he flung himself onto the white cotton sheets without even looking at the mess he'd created in the room when he'd tried to unpack earlier.
Slowly, he rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. It really disturbed him that he could barely remember what had happened to him earlier, but the strange images were the only things he could think of. They wanted to take over him, force him to remember the events that he'd apparently forgotten.
He held his head in pain and groaned as his head ache increased.
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
Garet sprang up when he heard the familiar voice. The man named Piers stood in front of the door staring at Garet with brilliant golden eyes.
"How'd you get here? What do you want with me?"
"I'm truly sorry Garet. I didn't intend to cause you any unnecessary pain," Piers said, ignoring Garet's questions. "But I can help you."
He took a step forward making Garet crawl backwards across his bed.
"NO! Please! Don't come near me! I…ARGH!"
The closer Piers came, the more the pain grew and the faster the images flashed through his mind, now centred around the group of eight people lying dead on the floor.
"You see it, don't you?" Piers asked slowly, lowering his head to look sadly at the floor. "I remember that day too. The day we were murdered."
"Mur…dered?" Garet gasped in pain.
"Yes. It was an ambush. We didn't stand a chance. Only I survived. My Lemurian healing abilities saved me. Unfortunately, everyone else had died before I could help them. I only wish we could have foreseen the attack. Sheba had been mumbling about troubling dreams for days, but even she couldn't predict what would happen. But now we have a chance. Now we all exist again and we can stop…"
There was a loud bang on the door which sounding like two boys trying to break their way in.
Piers turned to Garet and gave him a small smile.
"I don't have much time. Please, trust me."
Nodding, Garet stayed still and allowed the blue-haired man to approach him.
"Why me?" he asked, as Piers placed his hands on either side of his head. "Why'd you come to me?"
"Because you listen to me. Ply."
In an instant, the pain disappeared and as a bright flash filled the room, so did Piers.
"Garet!"
There was another bang on the door, then it shot open and Isaac, Felix and Ivan tumbled into the room.
"Garet! Are you ok!" Jenna asked from behind the boys.
"Y…yeah," he answered shakily.
Whatever happened next, Garet had the feeling that his friends and himself were directly in the middle of it.
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And that's chapter three.
Jenna: Very good. WHY MUST YOU BE SO MEAN TO POOR GARET!
I don't know really. I thought about having Isaac as the guy Piers talked to, but it sort of fitted in after Garet's fight with you.
Jenna: I would never fight with my Garet. I love him too much!
Of course Jenna. Anyway, again, please send any ideas for songs and whatnot. Also, read and review. You should know what to do by now.
Jenna: Peace…
…Out!