Legacies
A Sequel to Crossing of the Paths
By MMM/AJ
A/N: Tests, projects, papers, quizzes, endless study guides, rinse, lather, repeat. Throw in a little writing now and then and you get my life right now. Thus is why this chunk took a few extra days (half a week) more than expected. Ah well, it was still fun to write. I'm slowly gaining on my grades now and things are looking better. But I don't expect even a slight reprieve until the end of the quarter. Enjoy!
Chapter XVI – A5
Ashley was in the deepest sleep she had ever experienced in her life when she suddenly felt the infuriating sensation of someone shaking her awake. She wanted to scream in rage at the loss of her relaxed state and she nearly did as she woke up.
"What the hell is it already" She snapped and opened her eyes. As soon as her eyes were open however, she saw what was up.
The hotel room was totally trashed, everything had been totally wrecked. The TV was smashed in, pictures ripped from the walls, dressers crushed, and water was seeping along the floor from the bathroom. Tanis had shaken her awake, and a look of sheer terror was on his face.
"The Jewels and the Medallion are gone!" Tanis said hysterically, his psychic voice wavering in Ashley's head.
"Wha...what?" Ashley stammered as adrenaline blasted her awake.
"Someone entered our room at night, destroyed everything without waking us, and took the Jewels and Medallion!" Tanis said. "It's terrible, my father specifically warned us not to let them fall into the wrong hands!"
Ashley stood out of bed and felt for her backpack. She looked down and saw that it had been ripped open and all her stuff was scattered across the floor. What was left of her money was gone too, along with all of her spare food and water. Her survival gear, flashlights, toothbrush, all of it was gone. All that remained were her Pokemon Trainer's supplies, three full restore potions, five spare ultra balls and her Pokedex. She instinctively felt at her waist and was relieved to find that all of her Pokemon team was still there. Dumb luck and tiredness might have saved them from being snatched.
"They didn't harm you either?" Ashley asked.
"No, I am untouched. But they might as well have killed me for the importance of those items lost!" Tanis lamented, now pacing the remnants of the room in his nervous fervor.
"Listen! As long as we've got your psychic powers it shouldn't be a problem to track those items down!" Ashley shouted.
Tanis stopped his pacing and turned to face Ashley. "You're absolutely right." He said. "Give me a moment."
Ashley watched as Tanis sat and concentrated. Not a single emotion played out on his face as she observed him. She hoped that a housekeeper didn't come by anytime soon, she couldn't afford to pay to have the room fixed. At last Tanis stood with a look of determination and resolve.
"I've found them. A gang of regular human thieves stole them, so they're not in dangerous hands at the moment. But that could change at any time, we need to go retrieve them at once." Tanis said calmly.
"Good, let me pack my stuff into a pillowcase and we can leave immediately." Ashley said, bending over the strewn array of her remaining possessions.
"Yes of course. I've already pinpointed their energy signatures 15 miles due north, I can teleport us to them directly since they're so close." Tanis said.
"Won't that use quite a lot of your energy?" Ashley asked as she stuffed her items into the relatively small pillowcase.
"It seems my powers have been growing steadily, especially since I bonded with the jewels last night." Tanis said. "I can do it with relative ease."
"Right," Ashley said, tying a knot in the open end of her pillowcase, "I'm ready. Let's go."
"Grab my arm." Tanis said.
Ashley did so and the both of them dematerialized. Their timing was perfect too, as a housekeeper came to the door of the room just minutes after they left.
Ashley still held in her mind that she would never get used to the feeling of teleportation. It felt like her organs had all shifted around inside her, but she knew it untrue. Still, she couldn't help feeling her torso with her hands after coming out of the teleport to see if everything was in order.
"That house, over there." Tanis said, pointing to a dilapidated old log cabin standing on the top of the hill.
"So what's the plan?" Ashley asked.
"Simple. I'll paralyze them, we recover the gems, and then later we find a more secure way to store them at night while we sleep." Tanis said.
Ashley chuckled. "Sounds good to me."
The two of them crept up to the door of the house and paused to listen. There were two voices inside, just barely audible to Ashley's ears.
"I can't believe we hit all those hotel rooms and trashed them without waking everyone up! Dude, it was awesome!" One voice exclaimed.
"Listen yeah, about that. When we were trashing this one room, you remember an especially large guy in one of the beds?" The second asked.
"I think so, some guy with feet bigger than clown shoes. He had some funky looking jewels just lying on the bedside stand. I didn't bother to look."
There was a slight pause before the talking continued. "Those things look like they're made out of glass, probably worthless. I'd say toss em out, we don't want our fence to think we're tryin to rip him off."
There was a sudden shuffling and popping sound from inside the room, and both of the thieves screamed at once, but Tanis had not yet entered.
"What do you want from us?" The first voice said, fright obvious in his tone.
"The white and black gems, we must have them." A familiar, hissing voice said. The air seemed to shudder at its words.
It was at this point that Tanis burst through the door, paralyzing the two thieves and stopping to see who had threatened them. Ashley jumped in beside him and her jaw dropped in paralyzing surprise. The sight before her was more shocking than frightening, before them was one of those red robed figures that they had encountered before, only hits hood was down. It was not human, rather it looked exactly like Tanis except that it had the purest crimson skin and fur. It looked over at them expressionlessly, like its mind was empty.
"So you've come as well." The chilling voice said.
Suddenly Ashley felt her entire body seize up in one great spasm and she fell to the wooden floor as stiff as a board. She felt a burning, stinging presence in her mind, like someone was forcing a red hot poker into her skull. She wanted to scream, but her body was totally paralyzed. She saw Tanis burst into action and watched as he did battle with the red robed copy, they exchanged energy sword blows at lightning speeds. Then Ashley felt someone step on her leg and the red robed one tripped and fell face first on the floor. Tanis leapt forward and stabbed his energy sword into the creature's spine and suddenly the paralysis was lifted from Ashley. She stood in a jolting fashion and watched Tanis grab this red doppelganger by its neck and hold it to eye level.
"Now, your mind will show me why you're doing this, Ares!" Tanis growled.
"You're a fool." The red one said. "The only thing that you will find out today is that I am not the great blood lord himself, but only a humble servant."
"Then tell me what he's trying to do!" Tanis yelled, shaking the copy furiously. It gurgled and let out a monstrous laugh.
"you will find out sooner or later! Now then, for loyalty!" The creature said, and then suddenly fell limp like a rag doll."
"Wha, what happened?" Ashley asked, wondering what had happened to Ares' servant.
"He erased his own mind, it's totally blank of all thought or information." Tanis said and threw the body down to the floor in disgust. It landed with a soft thump and did not move.
"We should collect the gems and leave now, we need to find out what Ares is planning." Tanis said.
Ashley got back up and walked over to the two unfortunate criminals who were now huddled trembling in the corner.
"We'll give you the stupid jewels, just leave us alone!" One of them said, his tone truly reflecting how he was backed into a corner and fearing for his life.
The other thief handed the jewels to Ashley more than willingly. Tanis walked over to them and their cringed, expecting death.
"There was a light blue Medallion too, you stole it along with the jewels. Give it back as well." Tanis said calmly to them.
"We can't, those men in black who were with the red monster took it already!" the second thief said.
Tanis suddenly turned and smashed his robotic arm into the table in the center of the room. The wood shattered into hundreds of pieces and the table collapsed like a tissue.
"Please don't kill us! It wasn't our fault!" The first man said, nearly in tears from terror.
"No, it is not your fault totally. The only thing I'm going to do is wipe your memory." Tanis said, regaining his composure.
"You're going to what?" all three humans in the room asked in equal confusion.
"Ashley, please accompany me out so we can leave them be." Tanis said, gesturing towards the door.
Ashley shrugged, not wanting to cause further conflict, and began walking out the door. Tanis followed her and the thieves said not a word as they left swiftly and without explaination. Then Tanis closed his eyes fro a moment as he walked alongside Ashley. A few moments later he opened them again and looked at Ashley.
"They didn't need to remember the past twenty-four hours' events do they?" Tanis asked emotionlessly.
"I suppose you're right." Ashley said,. "Where do we go from here?"
Tanis was silent for a moment as he stopped walking. He raised his hand silently toward the south. "I was not able to get much from that blood servant's mind, but I could determine that he originated from an installation almost four hundred miles south."
Ashley did a double take. "Did you say four hundred miles?" She gasped.
"Yes." Tanis replied succinctly.
"But....how will we get down there? We can't just teleport since you've never seen the place!"
"Have you ever flown on an airplane before Ashley?" Tanis suddenly asked.
"No, why?" Ashley asked, wondering why he had changed the subject.
Tanis grabbed Ashley's arm gently and closed his eyes. Ashley felt he center of gravity shift and suddenly her feet left the ground. She wasn't initially frightened because Tanis had done this once before in the Team Rocket Hideout, but as they flew higher and higher and began to pick up speed, she found herself growing extremely uncomfortable.
"Are you sure you have enough energy to take us all that distance?" Ashley asked, not realizing that her grip was now extraordinarily tight around Tanis' real arm.
"Most certainly, it's a trifle to me now."
Ashley looked down at the ever shrinking ground and swallowed hard. She hoped the ride wouldn't last too long, she felt her stomach start to churn.
"I wonder how the birds can do this" Ashley thought to herself.
Chapter XVII – R5
Ruru woke up that morning with more energy than she had ever had before. Just as the sun peeked through her window and hit her eyelids, she popped awake, jumped out of bed, and prepared for the day at a pace that she had never achieved before. She was skipping down the palace steps and whistling merrily, and approached the Great Hall to meet up with Kalana and start the day. When she opened the small wooden door at the back of the great hall it was totally empty inside, not a sign of any other Gerudo except one form lying face down at the head of the table.
Ruru rushed up to the form to see it was Kalana, alive and well and holding a sheet of parchment in her hand like she had just been reading it. The solitude of the great hall was unheard of at this time of morning, normally cooks and servants would be bustling about preparing breakfast for the palace's inhabitants. Now here was only Kalana, seemingly frozen in lament over a single sheet of paper. Ruru took the paper and Kalana didn't make any protest. The paper read;
SUMMONS
Hylian Queen her majesty Sirpala has called issued a summons to Elder Kalana of the Gerudos, Brother Dregar of the Gorons, and Abaim of the Sheikah.
Purpose: Accusations of raid on Royal Hylian Treasury, losses totalled at 15,000,000 Rupees.
Time: Today at high noon
Failure to attend will result in declaration of full scale war against the people who do not send the summoned delegates. Punishment for delegates not attending is death.
There was nothing Ruru could say, she simply sat down next to Kalana and placed her own head down onto the table. She wondered how and why the raid had taken place, and knew that there was nothing they could do about it except attend. If they did not, they would surely be branded the perpetrators, but if they did, it would be sending a message to the rest of the races of Hyrule that the Gerudos were subservient to Hylian will.
"We have to go, you know?" Kalana suddenly said.
"Yes, otherwise there would be no dispute that we were the ones who committed the act." Ruru said. "But what if the others don't show up and we do? That could damage our relationships with Dregar and Abaim."
"Either way, the only possible win situation involves us attending, so we might as well be present. It is the best action available." Kalana said, her voice holding back a flood of anger and suppressed stress.
Ruru stood and looked up out of the windows that lined the ceiling of the Great Hall. The sun was still relatively low in the sky, and the light was flowing in at quite an angle. They would have enough time to make it to the castle and to make a few stops along the way.
"We should go now." Ruru said.
"What for? That'd give us an extra half hour of waiting." Kalana said, lifting her head off of the table.
"I want to make a pit stop along the way." Ruru replied.
So the two of them rode out into Hyrule once more, the hooves of their horses gracefully covering the great distances in minutes. The Gerudo trained stallions were bred for the highest physical endurance possible, and they could cover Hyrule field in a manner of hours. Once at least one hour of travel had passed, the small ranching town by the name of Lon-Lon came into view. Ruru signaled to her sister that it was there that they would make their pit-stop. Arriving at the borders of the town, they hitched their horses and Ruru led the way through the dirt roads. Cucco breed chickens ran rampant through the streets and the air smelled of feed and manure. Ruru walked past a small general store to an even smaller run down one room shack. The wood was rotting and the door was hanging by one hinge, so the whole thing looked as if it could collapse at any moment.
"You remember the time when those mages from the southern lands invaded Hyrule ten years ago?" Ruru asked suddenly as they approached the shack.
"Yes, why? What does that have to do with this old dump?" Kalana asked almost patronizingly.
"Well, you remember how we had to find a place to hide out until they were defeated don't you?" Ruru asked. "This little beauty of a cottage here was my hiding place. I never really bothered to tell you because you were busy telling your stories about how you had hid in the ruins of the Shadow Temple."
"Oh yes, I remember that. Quite a frightening place, even if it is only at a fraction of its former horrors."
"Listen, the point is that I left some things here after the Siege of Hyrule was broken, a few very old and powerful magical artifacts that we could use." Ruru said, pulling the door down off of its remaining hinge.
The inside of the hut was eerie, the warped wooden boards that made up the walls let in lines of light that were swerved and unnatural. There was a single shelf inside covered with grey metal ration cans, most of which were opened and empty. A few leftover ones which had not been open were now swollen like rotting corpses, eager to spew their guts out at the slightest provocation. Ruru bent down and fiddled around with the ground underneath the shelf, mumbling inaudibly until something clicked loudly. A small secret compartment flipped open, revealing a set of small, colored gems. There was a red one, a blue one, a green one and an orange one. Ruru grabbed them and handed them to Kalana to look at and hold.
"It was 21 years ago when Mewtwo came to deliver his final farewell to us, and he was as old as a sage? Before he left to return to his world one final time, he left me these gems. He told me that, a year after receiving the whole Triforce that they emerged from his skull. He said that they contained the newly rejuvenated energies of the ancient Elemental magics, summoned to him by the Triforce itself and destined to replace the ancient Medallions of old. He told me that he didn't have a complete set either, he did not know why he had been denied the final two that represented Darkness and Light. But he did tell me one thing, to never use them unless I really need to." Ruru said.
"So, how is it that we truly need them now?" Kalana asked, now appearing very confused and worried.
"It's simple, I was walking down the stairs this morning and thinking our situation over and it dawned on me. Normally, Sirpala is the most skeptical, cynical, untrusting person one could meet. So why now would she suddenly change her tune and support the Iresians, believing their claims to have 30,000 soldiers without question? I think that they do have the soldiers, and that they took Sirpala out on a boat to see them as they floated in ships on the sea."
Kalana stared at the ground in silence as the two of them walked back toward their horses across the dusty little town.
"As much sense as that makes, I still cannot believe that transporting an army that large across the sea is possible!" Kalana said, her voice now much more tense.
"I know you need to cling to your hope now, but I can see it coming. We're setting ourselves up for a fall. The only way to stop it is to collect the sealed powers and artifacts of ancient Hyrule to combat the Iresian menace.
"But...how do you know all this?" Kalana stumbled in both words and walking.
"I cannot be sure exactly, but ever since I woke up this morning the world is many times clearer in my eyes and my mind has sharpened past razor grade. I can foresee the reactions for actions in everyday situations here now as well as political matters in the near future. It's almost like a third eye has opened that opens a window directly into the world for my mind to see without the interference of life's trifles."
Ruru knew the impact that these truths would have on her sister now too as well. They had always both unconsciously known that they shared a hidden empathic connection, and now that connection was amplified for both of them. Ruru could feel shades of Kalana's emotions and she knew it was working the other way around. The only explanation her now heightened mind could come up with was that she was now receiving the full powers of the Triforce of Wisdom.
Chapter XVIII – I5
It was darkest night now as Isaac continued the search for his companions. He had walked down from the remains of Magma Rock to the Gondowan Settlement to find that they had already left. He could no longer sense them anymore, and he now felt some of the power in his body recede. Now he was walking toward Kibombo, the next closest town and logically where his friends should be. A part of him boiled in unreasoning anger at them, they shouldn't be leaving him like this. Normally, he wouldn't get this angry this quick, but now his mind was burning with suppressed rage and he didn't know why.
Isaac was traveling around the bends of rivers as they slowly and surely led him South toward Kibombo, and the reflections of moonlight off of their waters had a somewhat calming effect on him. He noticed that oddly he wasn't tired or even the smallest bit sleepy, almost like he had slept all day. He walked the uneven, rocky ground of Central Gondowan with a willful stride, making time as best he could. He walked for hours, but he never felt any tiredness come into his leg muscles or any part of his body. He felt like he could walk forever, and in his mind he knew he would if he had to.
A large stony outcropping rose out of the ground ahead, and the trail Isaac was now following curved around it. It was at least fourteen feet high and he couldn't tell how wide or thick it was. He simply walked along the trail around it, only to find an ambush waiting for him on the other side. Around twenty of the familiar black clad men lunged at him as he rounded the boulders, he was caught totally by surprise. They tackled him to the ground, pinned him under all of their weight, and began yanking Djinni off of his armor.
Isaac wouldn't just let this happen however, he roared in rage and called up a massive psynergy blast. A ball of rife formed around him and expanded rapidly, throwing the men off of him and hurling them away like rag dolls. Isaac stood and felt that fifteen fo his Djinni were missing, and he saw that the men were getting up and running away instead of attacking him. He roared in rage and pulled four Mercury Djinni from his armor. He used them to summon Boreas, the god of the north wind. Miles away in an unknown region of the northern tundra, the wind god arose from his icy prison and let forth a torrent of ice shard to travel speedily south toward their targets.
Overhead Isaac saw the few clouds in the darkened sky part as the cloud of razor edged ice chunks screamed down from the heavens. He counted four seconds before he saw the shards land in a circle all around him. He felt the ground shake slightly under the force and knew that each of his assailants had been struck down. The ice had left a four foot ring around Isaac untouched, a summoned beast or god never harmed its summoner directly. In Garet's case earlier, the Meteor had only caused them harm by collapsing the mountain onto them. Isaac was unscathed from the rain of deadly ice.
Isaac waited the few minutes for the summoned ice to melt, it was not regular ice in the fact that it only stayed around long enough to fulfill its purpose. He then walked around the center of the storm at a constant radius from the center to find each and every one of the black clad men and looted the stolen Djinn from their crushed and lacerated bodies.
"Very good, young human. You control the powers afforded to you well." A sudden, chilling voice said to Isaac's mind.
Isaac wasn't in the least bit surprised. He turned to see another red robed figure behind him. It was identical to the one that he and Alex had fought.
"Now however, you must give me that power." It said again.
Isaac did not respond, rather he walked right up to the figure's robed form, grabbed its hood and threw it off. An oddly angled head, blood red skin and fur, and matching eyes looked back at him. A set of stubby horns crowned the head.
"Who are you?" Isaac asked confrontationally.
"It will not matter to you, once I have turned you back into the elements from which you are built." The creatures said without opening its mouth.
The red robed creature then pushed its arms out from behind its robes, revealing thin spindly arms and what looked like paws with three stubby fingers each. Suddenly, jagged glowing spikes of raw energy appeared in each of the creatures hands and took on the vague shapes of sword blades. It raised those glowing red blades at Isaac and suddenly flew forward at him, propelled an inch or two above the ground.
Isaac drew the Darksword and blocked, and in an instant the raw energy that the red robed creature was using melted right through the blade. There was a sudden blast of energy that knocked the both of them backwards as the blade was destroyed. Isaac landed on his rear end and looked up to see the two pieces of the Darksword hovering in the air and glowing with a horrific evil aura. Sinister shades and specters flew out of the melted parts of the sword, their shrieking and cackling filling the air. There was a sudden flash of light and a shockwave leapt through the air. Then the sword fell inanimate to the ground, no longer empowered by the evil entities that it had imprisoned.
Isaac stood and looked at the creature which had destroyed the weapon he had worked so hard to acquire. It was no standing again as well, a sinister smile spread across its face. This was the first time Isaac had seen it show emotion. It simply laughed at Isaac, standing there and filling the air with its hoarse guttural guffaws.
"For one who has lived their life in the pursuit of heroism and good, it is very ironic that you should carry a tool of such evil!" It laughed.
Isaac felt his blood boil in rage, he raised his fists and saw the energy collecting around them. Without his rational minds consent, he suddenly charged forward and punched the creature in its chest with enough force to crack concrete. It wasn't enough either, as it landed on the ground Isaac continued to pummel the creature mercilessly, he felt its chest cavity collapsing under his blows and continued until blood flowed out from under its robes. Once its torso was a bloody pulp, Isaac then broke both its arms and legs and was about to smash its head in when he heard its voice inside his head once more.
"Let the bloodlust consume you, finish me off now with satisfaction to the very end. Hope that you will be able to enjoy the same kind of experience again." It whispered weakly.
Isaac didn't hesitate. He jumped into the air and brought his knee down into the creature's skull, crushing it and bursting its brains forth. The air was suddenly silent again, and Isaac stood and looked down at his work. He felt the blood dripping off his gauntlets and his knee, and he felt a fulfillment in his mind like he had never felt when helping people. He began walking off and as the feeling faded, he suddenly felt an urge well up from within him, a want to feel that euphoria again. A small part of him hidden away in his mind cried out "why?", but it was now buried deep in his subconscious. He walked along the path again in the moonlight a changed man.
Chapter XIX – T5
It was the first time Tanis had actually tried flying in true life before, and he found that there was no other sensation that he knew of that could be compared to it. The air was bitingly chilly and the wind whipped and dried out his eyes, but his mind was in a state of bliss. Ashley was holding his arm in a vice grip and he could feel the fear emanating from her mind, but it did not interrupt his flight of fancy. He was one with the Earth's lifeblood of air currents as they both soared through the circling sky.
Passing through a thick and puffy patch of clouds, Tanis could feel the moisture condense on him and steal away his body heat. It was true, the clouds really weren't made of the cotton that they looked like after all. Winds swirled around them and buffeted them, causing Ashley to murmur with suppressed fright. Tanis just enjoyed the ride, letting the winds bob them up and down through the whiteness of the sky palace that they were traveling through. His lungs ached and he felt his feet and real arm start to feel numb just as they passed out of the cloud bank. The sun streamed down from the endless blue heavens above and warmed him again, and the stunning panorama that stretched before them was striking to one's soul.
An immense, noble thunderhead towered ahead, reaching toward infinity like a great white Greek column. The sun was now blaring down on it from directly overhead and it gleamed the purest white to put any ivory or lace to shame. The unique bubbles and formations taken with its colossal size gave it a powerful presence, a grandeur unmatched by man nor beast in any age. Its top was flattened like a glob of gel being pressed against an invisible pane of glass, a testament to the futility of anything Earthy trying to truly reach the outer limits of the galaxy. Miles below the grand storm cast a dreary shadow on the land below, small flashes of lightning visible in the shadows of the cell's underbelly.
"Are we going to fly through that?" Ashley suddenly asked, her voice cracking from the fear."
"I'm sorry, but yes. Bypassing the storm would add twelve hours to our trip even at my fastest speed. It spreads out for miles upon miles in either direction." Tanis said, still marveling at the magnificence of its beauty.
It did not take the two of them long to approach the storm front. As they came closer and closer, the column of shining vapor towered above their heads. Tanis for the first time realized how truly small he was. The boiling textures of the clouds became less pronounced as they approached, and the wind of the front hit them before the clouds ever did. Ashley shrieked as they were suddenly tossed through the air like specks by the storm's powerful winds, and Tanis struggled to hold course. They pressed through a wave of opposing winds, and Tanis consumed much more energy fighting him than he had going with them before. But as they began passing into the cloud banks, the winds died down and he was able to gain control. The thick vapors of the clouds around them blotted out the sun, the effective amount of light suddenly changed to levels normal to evening. They flew blind through the sudden murky grey, Tanis honing in on the psychic signal that he had tagged his destination with. It was a nifty trick that his father said had took him over thirty years to perfect. It was easy, so he had passed it to Tanis in his messages.
Only a few minutes into that sea of grey did the rain start to hit them. It started with a droplet hitting Tanis squarely on his nose, and soon hundreds more followed. Ashley complained loudly as the water drenched them, but Tanis told her that it would take up more energy than he could spare to raise a physical shield and deflect the rain. Soon they were both soaked through and the rain was blinding as it ran down Tanis' face and into his eyes. He didn't need to see physically to see the beacon though; he maintained his course constantly as the winds rose again and battered them wildly. The rain was icy cold and again Tanis felt his body begin to lose heat. The wind whipped them around and the rain lashed at them life cold steel knives. The howling sound of the maelstrom of air around them was deafening, and Tanis found himself beginning to worry if this was more than just a very powerful thunderstorm. The slow rumble of thunder below them was being drowned out by the wind's lamenting cries.
The air current around them continued to intensify, and Tanis felt himself losing control of their trajectory. He felt the wind drawing him forward, almost like a sudden low pressure ahead was sucking them in. He let it carry them forward for a moment until it swiftly began spinning them around. Tanis fought fiercely against it, but his power was being drained rapidly in his efforts and he was coming dangerously close to being tapped, which would mean a long fall to a quick death. He let go and the winds twirled them around blindingly fast, and Tanis held onto Ashley firmly with his robotic arm so she would not be ripped away from him. Tanis experienced nausea for the first time as he was spun hundreds of times in endless circles, sure that they were traveling in speeds in excess of one hundred and fifty miles per hour. All he could to was cling to Ashley and keep his eyes closed a tightly as he could. He felt a solid object solidly strike him in his stomach and he gasped as his breath was knocked out of him. His real arm lost its grip on Ashley but his robotic arm held fast.
After so many gut wrenching turns through the meteorological washing machine, Tanis and Ashley were suddenly flung free of the maelstrom when their centripetal force and momentum exceeded the suction power of the tornadic entity that had consumed them. It propelled them through the storm like a slingshot; they rocketed through the clouds like a meteor. The air friction slowed their speed rapidly, but when it lasted, it was Tanis' first time ever feeling such shearing and sickening forces acting upon his body. Once they slowly lost their forward momentum and began to fall downwards, Tanis resumed control. He slowly opened his eyes and saw everything was still grey around him, but now the winds were calm and the rain had mostly stopped. He looked at Ashley to see her eyes were still wrenched shut. She was holding onto his robotic arm like a maniac, and where he had gripped her, the metal claws had dug into her skin and drawn blood.
"I think we're clear of it now, I'm sorry for your arm." Tanis said, trying to coax a reaction from Ashley.
Failing to get the paralyzed girl to respond, Tanis proceeded onward toward their goal, reorienting them and flying very slowly to conserve energy. He had used a large portion of his reserves, and to make them stretch all the way to their goal he would need to fly very, very slow. The rain now caressed his quivering body gently, but the adrenaline still coursed through him at an amazing rate. It had been the first time in his life that he truly had no control over what might have happened, and it was shaking to him. It would take a long time for him to regain his confidence now, but the storm's reassuring rain massage helped soothe him for the rest of the way that they traveled in it.
A/N: So Ashley and Tanis have acquired new direction, and they go through a bit of a aggravation on their way. The Gerudos may be facing war with the Hylians, and Isaac is becoming a completely different person. What could happen next? Stay tuned, review, and find out!
