Hey y'all!! Happy 4th of July!! Yes, finally back with the 4th chapter. (Hey, 4th of July and this is the 4th chapter! Neat!) However, work-wise, that's not quite that long for this one if you take into consideration that I redid Chapters 1-3 (and they sound so much better in my eyes, plus I also reuploaded the 3rd chapter a couple of hours ago), uploaded another poem for "Golden Sun Poems", and reposted my Fruits Basket story, "The Legend of the Butterfly". But then again, the last time I uploaded was March... Um... Well, the 4th chapter's here, anyway. :)
So, if you get the chance, please go back and reread the first 3 chapters, and let me know if they do make more sense now or not. I'm really hoping so, but I won't really know unless someone tells me, so I really hope that you'll do that favor for me. Thank you so much:D
I think I'll leave the rest for the ending author's note. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Golden Sun. That belongs to Camelot. If you want to own it, ask them, not me. ;)
Chapter 4- Up a Creek Without a Paddle
Maria stood overlooking the living room, poised on the second floor balcony and hiding behind one of the wall extensions. She glanced around the corner. There didn't seem to be as many troops as she had originally thought. The commotion with Romano seemed to have thrown off her judgment on the scale of the attack. However, she had learned to expect the unexpected, and thereby not to judge only by appearance. There had to be more hiding from her view, for the element of surprise.
Maria growled under her breath, frustrated at the whole thing. Why did Mom and Dad have to choose this week to be absent?! she complained to herself yet again; then, after a moment's pause, pondered the benefits of attacking during a time like that. They had to be after Thana… well, maybe her, but she was sure that Thana had to be first on their agenda. 'Everyone' else was out of the house, so they couldn't have been after him... And it wasn't like their absence was a secret in the family, so it could've eventually reached their ears, especially with probable help from Romano. Maybe...? She sighed, confused. She didn't know what their true goal was, and mulling it over wasn't going to help her anyway. She heaved another frustrated sigh. She had to concentrate on the task at hand, not worry about 'what ifs'.
Maria looked up at the ceiling, trying to relax her tense muscles. Closing her eyes to allow some inner peace to enter and calm her restless soul, she prayed for her sister's safety, and for her own. But, Maria knew, that although she was the one that was riding into a battle that probably held grave peril, her sister was the one that was in the most danger. While she could protect herself, Thana's psynergy powers were not supposed to be manifested for anther few weeks, and Thana herself didn't even know they existed. Why did their Adept family have to be so darn strict?!
While Maria was fighting her own personal war, Thana was running steadily along the back side of the house, the strong wind whipping her short red-gold hair back and forth, like a small fire. She was grateful that she knew about the secret hole in the wall that separated her home from the woods. She felt ingenious, like she had outsmarted the enemy that had decided to invade her home.
Yet for how high she was feeling mentally, physically speaking, she couldn't have been feeling worse.
She was getting stitches she usually never got, shortness of breath she usually never felt, and tiredness in her muscles that she hadn't felt in a long time! She couldn't understand why she suddenly felt so much weaker.
Her head dropped a little as she felt her muscles tightening before she forced it back up a little higher and desperately tried to regulate her breathing. She was inhaling in gasps and she felt her chest tightening. Her neck and leg muscles were cramping bad. That shouldn't have been happening to her in the first place!!
Then, to top things off, she felt a sharp pain in her chest.
She finally stopped, Luna, Sol, and Mars stopping beside her.
"What's wrong, Thana?" Luna asked concernedly.
"I don't know," Thana responded automatically, before she could think. Then, as she was thinking about how she must either be going crazy or having a really bad dream, Luna said, with almost a smile:
"Don't worry. I am perfectly real and you are not going crazy. However, this situation is perfectly real, and while it may be strange to you, it can be explained later. Plus- oh! Sol and Mars arrived!"
"Yes, we've arrived," Sol grumbled, pausing in front of Luna. "We've been here since a few minutes ago!"
"You did?" Luna asked, acting innocent.
"Yes, we did!" shot back Sol. "We heard something was up and came straightaway!"
"Yeah, and there are some scary looking people attacking," inputted Mars. "So, where do I start firing fire?"
Luna almost chuckled. "No, Mars. We're not here to fight. We're here to protect Thana, and this isn't a good time for her to be going weak. I think you-know-what's beginning to manifest prematurely and no one simply noticed." (Unlike Maria, she was a bit more stringent with the family rules.)
"Are you sure?" Sol asked, looking concerned. "I know that should be a good thing, but this isn't a good time for the changes to be occuring."
"I know, but there's nothing we can do," Luna replied. "Besides-oh, no, Thana!"
Thana had never known what a seizure was, but she was sure that whatever it was, it was probably on par with it. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps and wheezes. She clutched at her burning throat, as though it might help her force oxygen down her air passages. She could feel her heart pumping wildly as she began to panic. She couldn't quell her shaking body. Her breaths were slowing, and Thana began to panic. Then she realized what she had feared.
It wasn't a seizure.
It was a really bad asthma attack.
"Hurry!" Luna cried to her. "Get your inhaler!"
Still struggling to take one full breath, she jerkily reached into her pocket and yanked out the inhaler. Finally, she pushed it into her mouth. Releasing the medicine in sporadic jerks, she hoped she wasn't beyond help.
Nothing happened.
Desperately, Thana tried again to inhale the medicine. She pressed it again, but her air passages still didn't open. Her vision went blurry from the extreme lack of oxygen. She felt herself losing control of her muscles. Her inhaler slid from her hand onto the grassy floor beside her. Dark spots danced before her eyes, followed by a stream of soft, speckled light. She felt herself falling….
Only she never hit the ground.
Seconds before the would-be impact, more light surged before her eyes, and, as if oxygen had suddenly decided it was time to fill her lungs, she could breathe normally again. She caught herself before she landed on the grass, looking down in awe and wonder.
She could hear Luna breathe a sigh of relief. She had never known cats could sigh. Then again, how was she speaking without moving her mouth…?
"I'm glad you're okay, Thana," Luna murmured.
Oh well. Leave it for another time. What had just happened to her anyway…?
Dazed, she slowly stood, then reached down with her left hand to pick up her inhaler, mentally saying a prayer of thanks. As she did so, something caught her eye.
Had one of the bracelets Maria gave her glowed…?
"Come on, Thana, Sol, Mars," Luna said, to each of them in turn. "We need to head to the woods as soon as possible. That's what Maria instucted."
"All right," Thana murmured, turning to the woods. "Let's go."
Maria inhaled a deep final, deciding breath. It was now or never.
She could sense Thana getting closer to the woods, so if she hoped to distract her sister's entrance, it would have to be now. Ah, she thought, a tactic worthy of "The Lord of the Rings"… She'd have to take that up to J.R.R. Tolkien sometime….
Chuckling quietly to herself, she soon stopped, knowing that she couldn't afford to wait any longer if she was hoping to distract their attention from Thana. Murmuring a quiet prayer for strength, she gripped her staff tightly, her knuckles going white. The staff soon pulsated with her psynergy. Smiling at the result, she prepared another dose of her power in her other hand, and leapt out of her hiding place and over the balcony rail, shouting her family's battle cry.
She landed gracefully in the middle of the living room, and right in the core of the enemy troops. Cries of alarm rang out on her existence, but Maria was already dealing damage. Pulses and beams of silver-blue psynergy flew from her palms and staff that they could not see. They watched blindly for a few seconds as they tried to discern what she was doing.
However, they immediately halted their inactivity when they began to feel her attacks. Soldiers were picked up by unknown forces and then thrown mercilessly against the wall, as more were lifted up and followed suit. Deep cracks lined tore up the wall from the force of the blows. Their bodies were seared and broken with as they were hit by the invisible psynergetic force. Blood dripped and poured down the walls in gushing streams, flowing in rivers on the floor.
The battle had only begun, and more than 20 men fell in the first 30 seconds.
Maria continued to fly like a ray of light that pierced the darkness. The soldiers looked on, frozen with fear and disbelief as she continued dealing damage, moving faster than they could keep up with. She rendered more unconscious with impact alone as her staff became a battering ram, clearing a path through the room as they were flung them against the wall. Bones cracked and shattered from impact.
It had only taken a minute for the large living room to become an up-close Roman coliseum battle royal.
As the fight continued, bodies continued to litter the floor, with destruction now targeting the room and furniture within it. The white floor tiles were now colored a crimson red, staining everyone's boots with the blood of those injured, but had not received enough damage to kill them. Maria didn't like killing. She just injured them so much they couldn't continue the fight, and then she could move them out with a transporting psynergy.
50 soldiers fell before 2 minutes were up. There was no furniture left in their original condition and the floor had cracks lining the once-polished, now-stained crimson tile from the force of Maria's psynergetic rampage.
Now 2 minutes later, the troops finally decided to awaken and fight back. They frantically scurried around, firing their weapons and filling the air with flying bullets and thick smoke. (Luckily for Maria that she didn't have to worry about her asthma in her Guardian form.) If they couldn't see her attacks, they would make it more difficult for her to target them until those that could be on par with her did arrive.
10 minutes and some hundred soldiers later, weariness was long-since begun to set into Maria from keeping up the form and psynergy attacks so long. She had consequently slowed herself down in an effort to preserve her strength. With her agility slowed, the soldiers were finally able to keep up with her for the most part, and hand-to-hand combat was added to the list of activities at the war party. Sweat dripped down the sides of Maria's face as she began to feel drained from the extended time, psynergy, and energy to fight in her other form. She decided to try conserving her psynergy and energy by slowing down a little more, not knowing how prolonged the fight might be and how much energy she may need later on. She could afford to slow down a little more, she hoped.
Even more soldiers began entering the fray, all swarming inside the battle like ants from an upset anthill. She didn't know where they were all coming from. Hopefully some were just a conjured illusion, to create an appearance…. But as a bullet whizzed by her ear, she knew at least some were real.
Maria soon found herself locked in hand-to-hand combat with several soldiers. She dodged knives and swords, along with the bullets from those on the balcony, as she parried those she was locked in battle with her staff and a knife she had managed to pull out during a brief second during the battle.
After several moments of intense attacking and parrying, she finally managed to disarm one with a high kick and sent him crashing into the wall, but in doing so missed the one that had been hiding in his shadow, waiting for an opportune moment to strike.
The moment then appeared like a strike of lightning, and he took it, lashing out with a knife that imbedded her side.
Maria screamed as she felt the blade pierce her body, and agonizingly wrenched the knife from her first wound in the battle. She regretted slowing down so much. She lost herself for a moment in the searing pain and energy began to surround her body. Maria whirled around and heaved the knife back toward its attacker. It sliced through his stomach as it pinned him to the wall.
A second later he disappeared in a flash of light, along with all the ones that had fallen out of the battle. The floor became clear, except for the debris, and she felt the weight of their size begin to lessen.
Gasping for breath, she dodged a couple bullets that were aimed for her stomach, and grazed her arm with one that had been aimed for her heart. A small stream of blood followed the one the in her side, and she gritted her teeth against the combined pain. She could hear the loud impacts as bullets, both aimed for and the ones that missed, were imbedding themselves into the walls. It was then that she finally realized the state of the living room.
Fissure like cracks lined the walls, several of which had gone beyond that and had caved in. The back wall window had been blown out and the glass lay glittering upon the grass with shards of what had been the windowpanes. Half of the wall where the window used to be was completely gone, with wall plaster littering the tile floor and wood hanging listlessly by splinters, all gone by a psynergy blast that Maria had aimed previously at a large group of soldiers. Mahogany end-tables lay in splinters and ashes beside the walls, and the sofas and love seats were now shreds. The colorful drapes and curtains that used to adorn all the windows had been reduced to less than shreds; they had been completely incinerated. The porcelain lamps were dust and the ceiling fan was sand, leaving nothing but the electrical cords it had once hung on. The tile floor had long, running cracks that spread out like branches on a tree. Some sections of the floor was finer than powder. The ceiling was scorched, and in some sections a small amount of dim light was filtering through small, burning holes. There was a strong wind in the room that was entering from the storm outside.
She had wondered why suddenly it had felt like she had more room to move, despite all the furniture. Now she knew why...there simply weren't any to run into anymore...!
Her parents were hopefully just going to bury her alive when they arrived back home... But then again...
She glanced back at the walls.
No way. She was so filleted, dead and buried, resurrected, and dead and buried again.
With this depressing thought, she knocked out several dozen more soldiers slightly harder than normal to vent some frustration, and the rampage continued.
"Who claims that a woman can't fight as well as any man?" Maria thought triumphantly a few minutes later, as she caught a soldier with an uppercut and knocked out his front teeth. He didn't even have time for disbelief, because in the next instant Maria threw a kick to his stomach that sent him sprawling across the floor, unconscious. The number of soldiers out of commission began to rise again, but the number that appeared to enter was rising more.
"I think this is going to get uglier," Maria thought disgustedly, "so, I think it's time to clear the trash. Again."
She activated her staff, causing the jewel to glow, then to pulsate. Swinging the staff around, she caught a soldier in the stomach and flung him against the wall. As she swung, she plunged the staff into the floor.
A bright flash of light encompassed the room.
The light faded. The bodies that had previously lain about the floor had disappeared.
"Nice one, Maria," she thought, complimenting herself before falling back into the pace of the battle. She finished stemming the flow of blood from her side and arm, though they hurt if touched.
Considering that she was the only one up against an entire army, being only a little battered was fantastic.
"Whoa!" Maria suddenly cried out, snapping out of her reverie. She dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding a slew of bullets that had been aimed for her head.
Quickly, she ducked behind a surprisingly mostly-intact fallen end-table that had somehow survived from Maria's original entrance. She did not feel like becoming Swiss cheese. She barely avoided another onslaught of bullets that became imbedded into the once-polished wooden tabletop, sending up a plume of dust and smoke.
While she was trying to catch her breath, she managed to sneak a glance over the top of the table and caught sight of where the attack was coming from- up above, from the second-floor balcony. Her eyes were full moons as they widened in shock. Was that-?!
"Oh, no!" Maria groaned. "Not machines guns, too!?"
Almost 10 minutes later, Thana found herself in the front of the woods, a broken metal gate, the gate that opened to her family's estate (at least she knew how the enemy got in), to her back, and 3 talking cats beside her and she dressed to run. Beyond the gate and wall, she could see her house from a distance. Her eyes went wide.
The front door had been knocked off its hinges, some of the windows were smashed, and debris littered the yard. Smoke was billowing out of the windows and doorway. Some of the walls had caved in, and she could see a silver blur every now and then from within the house. She could hear yells and shouts from within the ruckus, and wondered if it was her sister that was causing the commotion. If it was, Thana sincerely hoped that she was winning.
The whole front yard was alive with enemy activity. More groups of soldiers were entering the house, while some general-or-some-other-high-ranking-officer-that-was-apparently-leading-the-thing was standing out in front, shouting orders to everyone. Thana eyes narrowed as she looked upon the roundish figure calling the shots in the attack on their home. Her face went warm in anger. Through the building storm, she could almost feel the clouds lighten a little, and the wind picked up a little more. Startled at the sudden increase in light, Thana shrank into the shadows and greenery of the wall, trying to conceal herself. Luckily she did so, because another group of soldiers suddenly rounded the corner and walked straight toward her.
Thana felt her breath leave her body as she pressed herself closer to the wall and prayed that they wouldn't see her. As she realized herself, she thought about the cats, but realized that they had disappeared somewhere, probably beside her in the undergrowth. Slightly comforted that they wouldn't give her away when they were supposed to protect her, she hoped that these newer people would just walk on by, not noticing a thing...
They walked on by.
Thana sighed in relief, sliding forward ever so slightly.
"Hey, something moved guys!" It was the guy in the back of the group. He was searching the wall intently.
Thana froze, her blood running cold. She couldn't move; her muscles were frozen in fear. She felt like the leaves were rising up around her, making her smaller than she felt.
A guy with sandy-brown hair and a hat that shadowed half his face fell beside him, looking right where Thana was. Thana was sure he had at least seen her, and was also sure they could hear her sweating. "Whatcha talking 'bout, Brian?" he said at last. "There's nothin' there but your wild imagination. Again."
"But I'm telling you, I saw something along the wall!" Brian persisted.
His friend just scoffed under his breath and turned around to catch up to the group. "You're seeing things, again, Brian. You need to get your eyes checked, and maybe your brain while you're at it..." His voice trailed off as he started walking away.
Brian whipped around, his face flushing. Running after him, he protested, "I don't need to get my eyes checked! Nor my brain for that matter! But I know I saw something! I didn't..." Then the voices disappeared as they rounded corner and passed through the broken gate.
Thana slumped to the ground in exhausted relief. She said a silent prayer of thanks that she wasn't seen, and slowly stood back up. After waiting a few more moments up against the wall, during which she discovered that Luna, Sol, and Mars had disappeared.
"Hey! Luna! Sol, Mars! Where'd you go?" she whispered, but no answer came. Where could those cats have run off to?
She knew she couldn't simply hang around and wait for them to reappear, so she decided to make a break for the woods while the coast was clear. She took a deep breath to steady her racing heart, and then recklessly shot like a hare from her hiding place.
Then, like a jolt to her subconscious, Thana felt someone's presence and a bad feeling. She shouldn't have jolted out, but it was too late to turn back the clock! She tried to pick up her pace, because if they had a gun, which was most likely, it was harder to hit a moving target.
Her eyes began to drift, so Thana let them lead her. They landed on a section of shadowy branches on one of the trees in the forefront of the woods. Nothing, she thought, but then light flashed from within the tree. A dark form was huddled behind a clump of branches, blending in with the leaves. Thinking back to her exercise, the light would've probably come from a smooth surface, and on a gun, that was probably a scope, so…. She tried to increase her speed.
Her heart began to beat with the tempo of a wild drum.
The sniper rifle followed her a few more feet.
It locked down upon its prey.
A finger inched forward and slowly pulled the trigger.
Time seemed to slow as a muffled shot sounded through the stillness of the woods.
A blood-curdling scream pierced the sky like a lightning bolt from the storm. Then it began to fade, and a deathly silence cloaked the woods like a choking blanket. The trees trembled as if they could feel her pain, while the wind carried the dying cry away on its breath.
A/N: Well, what do you think? Is it flowing okay? Hope so. Please R&R!!! Thank you!!
Oh, also, has anyone solved the coded poem? Rozzlynn, Elf Princess Kiri? Anyone? 'Cause if you have, please let me know. I'm dying to know if anyone has cracked that puzzle yet. If not, good luck to those that are still having a shot at it!!
Also, I have summer homework (yes, poor me), and I'm only nearing half-way through. So, that's something else I'm going to be working on. The 5th chapter's practically done, but I'm thinking of finishing that half of my homework before I post it up, that way I can focus on my homework for a little while. Don't worry, it shouldn't take that long for me to finish the "The Lord of the Flies" half. We had to do journal entries on it, and I only need 1 and a half (out of 5) more to go. After that, hopefully sometime while I'm rereading (I already read it once during the school year) "Jane Eyre", I'll try to post up the 5th chapter. God willing, it shouldn't take that long, though, so don't worry.
So, 'till then:)
Later, y'all!! Happy 4th of July!!