Chapter One: Child's Play
"Saturaaaaaaan!" Tori wailed. The young boy dashed through the streets of Goldenia, the small town he had lived in all his life. All fifteen years of it. He was chasing his friend Saturan, who had stolen his Move Medallion.
"Catch me, and you can have it back, Tori!" Saturan called from up ahead. The lanky, dark-haired boy was just a few months older than Tori himself. They had never bothered to determine if his hair was black, like his mother's, or brown, like his father's. Same with his eyes. His skin was tinged with the faintest hint of blue.
"I need it! Dad gave it to me so I could master Move!" Tori called to his friend. Tori was just barely shorter than Saturan. He had his father's brilliant blonde hair, and his mother's clear aqua eyes.
Saturan merely stuck his tongue out at Tori, turning so he could run backwards. Tori called on his Psynergy, clutching the Douse Drop in his pocket. He called up a cloud behind the unexpecting Saturan, turning the dirt road to slippery mud.
Saturan slipped, the medallion flying from his grasp. Tori leapt and caught it, sliding it into his pocket to rest beside the Douse Drop.
"No fair! You're a crossover Adept! That's cheating!" Saturan resembled a golem, covered as he was in the slow-drying, thick, sticky mud.
"So are you!" Tori retorted.
"Not really. You got earth and water. I got earth and fire, which half the time no one can tell the difference between anyway!"
"Excuse me." a different voice piped up. "What's wrong with fire? You should be grateful to have two elements!" A red-haired girl had come up, followed by a younger girl whose blonde hair appeared blue if seen in the right light.
"Awwww, Jasmine... He got me all muddy..."
"Saturan, you should be ashamed of yourself! Whining over a little mud. Come here, Alexei." She beckoned to the younger girl. Alexei came forward, calling on Douse and washing the mud from Saturan. He stood up, only to be berated more by his cousin.
"You are a disgrace to your namesake!" Jasmine told him vehemently. Saturan's eyes widened.
"Too far, Jasmine." Tori whispered. They all knew the story of Saturos and Menardi, and how they had given their lives for the good of Weyard. Thankfully, Jasmine was saved from replying by the calls of grown-ups.
"Torian, Alexiana!" came a call from one house. Tori and Alexei got up to go in.
"Saturan!" came another cry.
"Jasmine!" All the children were being summoned. They all went home to their respective parents for the night, waiting for the story that they knew would be told.
Isaac looked down at his son and daughter. "Nice job with the Douse, Tori." he said. "Way to show Saturan who's boss."
"Dinner, you three." Mia said from behind them. "And after dinner, a story."
Saturan picked at his dinner. Tonight was the big story theyĆd all been waiting for. The battles at the Mars Lighthouse. They were actually going to tell them in detail this time, not just summarize.
His father glanced at him.
"Saturan? You're not eating. Is everything okay?" Felix asked. Saturan looked up at his dad, surprise reflected in his dark eyes.
"Yeah, I'm just excited about the story." he said truthfully. Mariella laughed.
"Oh, darling. If you collapse from hunger in the middle, it does no good." she told her son teasingly. Saturan looked at his plate. He picked up his fork again and actually ate that time.
"Jasmine, dear, that was an awful thing to say to your cousin." Jenna told her daughter. "It was wrong to say that to him."
"I'm sorry, mother." Jasmine said. "It just slipped out. I didn't mean to."
"Yes, well. You know how we feel about that, especially your uncle Felix." Jenna said.
"I still don't see why you all worship them so much. They were thieves and kidnappers!"; Jasmine's dad Garet said.
"Garet, we've been through this. Yes, they kidnapped Kraden and I. Yes, they stole the Elemental Stars. But they were doing the right thing! You cannot fault them when you yourself would have stopped them and allowed the world to die!" Jenna said. "They realized what was happening, their whole town did actually, and they did something about it! That's why they're heroes."
After dinners, in three separate houses the children waited for their stories. Even being fifteen, being told stories of their parents' adventures never got old. The grown-ups prepared to tell of the Mars Lighthouse. It had been the hardest challenge to overcome, for more reasons than just the strong monsters that inhabited it.
"We had reached Prox." Felix told Saturan. "And we were welcomed as heroes. Everyone was so happy to see me, because they all knew what had happened to Saturos and Menardi, and were worried about me."
"I was so scared that he had died with Saturos and Menardi. The elder knew that they had been killed, because he sensed their aura vanish, but he had no idea what had happened to Felix. Then Karst and Agatio returned and said he wasn't coming back..." Mariella said. Felix smiled.
"Everyone was happy to see me, but they were so confused and surprised. Karst and Agatio said I wasn't coming back, because they assumed I'd just leave the task to them."
In a different house, the story went on.
"Didn't they get freaked out when they saw you and Isaac and Mia and Ivan?" Jasmine asked. All the children had all been told to refer to any of the grown-ups, excluding their parents, aunts, and uncles, by their first names. It was just easier that way. They had only met Piers once, when they were very little, but it applied to him too.
"Yes. Felix introduced us to Puelle, the mayor of Prox, and he recognized our names. All the warriors were worried at first, but we explained, and everything was fine." Garet said.
"They asked us to go after Karst and Agatio, so we did." Jenna said. "We weren't afraid of one more lighthouse." She glanced down. "But as we made our way through, we came across two flame dragons. They were easy to beat. But afterwards..."
Isaac looked down at Tori and Alexei. "The dragons were actually Karst and Agatio, changed form by the Wise One."
"Why would he do that?" Alexei asked. She was only ten, not really understanding the Wise One's intentions.
"We think he had two motives. He wanted to stop them from lighting the beacons, and he wanted to demoralize us by causing us to unknowingly murder people we knew." Mia said. "And he nearly succeeded. I have never seen anything more heartbreaking than Felix, sitting next to Karst, holding her hand and weeping as she told him to take the star and go. He was so distraught, even though they had been our enemies, because they had given their lives for a cause so noble, so... so..."
"I never regretted Saturos and Menardi's deaths as much as I did in that moment." Isaac told them.
"The Wise One is supposed to protect Weyard. Why would he stop them? You were trying to save the world!" Alexei cried.
"He was afraid of Alchemy." Tori told his sister.
"Right." Isaac said. "That's what we believe anyway. He met us on top of the lighthouse, determined to stop us. In a final attempt, he told us of Alex's betrayal, hoping that we would decide not to fulfill Alex's wishes."
"He wanted the Golden Sun." Mia said. "If we lit the last lighthouse, it would rise, and Alex would win. But we put the world first, and decided to stop Alex later." She was silent, and Isaac picked up where she left off.
"The Wise One called on a "miracle", as a last resort. He summoned a three-headed dragon for us to fight." Isaac said. "Kraden tried to stop us before the fight started, but we couldn't get away."
"It wasn't a dragon, was it?" Tori asked.
"Why do you say that?"
"The flame dragons weren't."
Isaac smiled weakly. "Right, Tori. The Doom Dragon wasn't really a dragon. The Wise One had changed my father and Felix and Jenna's parents into the dragon, forcing us to fight it. We won, and lit the beacon. Everything ended okay, though. Our parents were revived by the beacon's fire Psynergy. We made it back to Prox safe and alive."
"What happened to Alex?" Tori asked.
"Alex, I heard, tried to claim the Stone of Sages. But he didn't succeed, and was drawn into the earth with Mount Aleph. We came home, and found Vale destroyed. So we built this new town. Sheba and Ivan went back to Contigo to be with Ivan's sister, Hamma, and Piers went back to Lemuria."
"So I'm named after Saturos?" Saturan asked his father.
"Yes. We felt it would be fitting. Be proud of your namesake. You are named after one of the twelve heroes who saved Weyard." Felix said.
"Never be ashamed that you are half Proxian." Mariella told him. "You are no different than anyone else."
"Is..." Tori hesitated to ask the question. "Is Alexei named after Alex?"
"Yes." Mia said. "Names that contain forms of Alex and Mia are traditional in the Mercury Clan. We knew that our firstborn would probably have a better aptitude for earth Psynergy, so you were exempt from the tradition. Alexiana, we knew, would have an aptitude for water." Mia paused, then said, "My grandmother's name was Mianine. That's my full name, actually. Alex's full name was Alexos. Mianine and Alexos, the last true descendants of the Mercury Clan..."
"Wow..."
The four children went to bed that night, thinking about the things they had learned. Dreams came, of dragons and floating eyes, of winter-locked towns and sunny desert towns, of ancient cities and long-lost friends. They dreamed of the adventures long past, wishing for just a moment that their lives could have been that exciting.
