Chapter Six: Pele's Tears

Once Poliahu was gone, the other heroes floated down to the sandy beach while Pharaoh touched down on top of the ocean, sending steam up from the ice as his blazing hot self touched it. He indicated the jacket and called out, "Pele, I believe something which belongs to your family is here."

Grinning with delight, Pele carefully made her way across the ice up to the jacket. She reached into its pocket and pulled out her family's Makua Stone. "Stay still," she told Pharaoh, holding the stone out towards him.

The Makua Stone glowed brightly with white light that shot out of it and surrounded the entirety of the Pharaoh's outline. Slowly, his body transformed back into flesh and blood which faded back to its normal peach color, and the white light turned the familiar shade of flaming red.

The fiery red light soared up into the air and formed itself into a red orb which swooped down to Pele and blasted right into her chest. She closed her eyes and sighed with delight as the warmth of her power flowed through her entire being. "Ahh, that feels so much better…" she murmured.

Opening her eyes, Pele bowed down to the Pharaoh. "Thank you so much for keeping my powers away from that witch and restoring them to me." She held out her hand towards the Makua Stone. Glowing with a white light, it floated up from his hand and directly into hers. "This should be returned to my family's home immediately-ooh, I can't wait to see the look on my sister's face…" she giggled. "I'll be especially pleased to let her know the plan was foiled by super-powered humans!"

Pele looked around at the teens. "All of you have such wonderful gifts," she murmured. "I do hope you'll continue to put them to good use."

"Considerin' how many bad guys just come ta us, it's not like we'll have much of a choice…" Joey muttered.

Pele floated up into the air and called out "Aloha!" to the others before she transformed into an orb of lava and soared away right above the ocean, sending her incredible warmth out everywhere and melting the frozen solid ice back into water, leaving the ocean calm and blue as though nothing had happened at all.

After this adventure, the rest of the heroes' vacation turned out to be pretty uneventful. Granted, Joey won the little 'contest' between him and Tristan over who could dunk the other underneath the water the most, Spencer did experience one wipeout when, supposedly, the sun got into his eyes, and Yuri ended up finding a rare wentletrap shell, but other than that, everything remained pretty peaceful and normal.

All too soon, however, came the morning of their departure.

Sadly, the teens packed up their bags, now filled up with various seashells, photos, and other little trinkets from Hawaii, checked out of their hotel rooms, and piled into the same limo from before which drove them all the way back to the airport. On the way, Joey and Tristan put the sunroof down and stuck their heads out to get one last whiff of the sweet-smelling Hawaiian air while the others gazed a bit morosely out at the paradise they were leaving.

Finally, the limo arrived at the airport. The teens gathered up their bags and were about to enter the place when a voice behind them called out, "Aloha!"

They turned around to see Pele running up behind them, waving one hand and holding onto a red woven purse decorated with seashells with the other. "Pele!" Yugi called out. "How is everything?"

"Wonderful," she smiled. "The Makua Stone is back where it belongs, my sister's being punished for even thinking about risking the entirety of humanity's life by giving some other goddess the stone to take my powers away, and Poliahu's gone back to some snowy mountain. Life is good right now." She reached down into her purse. "Anyway, I wanted to give you a token of my appreciation for saving my powers and getting the stone back, so…"

Pele pulled her hand, now clutching something, out of her purse. She opened it up to reveal seven beautiful, shiny black stones which were shaped perfectly like teardrops. "These are solid pieces of lava," she smiled. "On this island, they're called 'Pele's Tears'."

Spencer stared at her. "You're seriously letting us just take these?" he said.

She nodded. "Yep."

Joey picked up one of the stones and gazed at it. "What's so special about just takin' a little rock from Hawaii?" he asked.

Spencer rolled his eyes. "Because normally whenever someone does that Pele places a curse on them since the rocks are on what Hawaiians believe to be sacred ground."

Joey stared at the rock, then dropped it back into Pele's hand as though it had bitten him. She giggled and said, "Don't worry, these rocks are completely curse-free. That's why they're my gift to all of you."

After a bit of hesitation and some more reassurance from Pele that the rocks weren't cursed, the seven guys each reached out and took one of the smooth, shining tears from her palm.

When it was empty, Téa stared down at it as though she was expecting one to appear.

"Oops! I'm sorry, yours must still be in my purse," Pele cried out. She opened it up again and started frisking around inside of it, muttering, "Where is it, where is it…"

As she searched, Téa turned to her friends and said, "Why don't you guys go on ahead to our plane. I'll catch up with you soon."

"Dat's all right wit me," Joey said, turning and walking towards the airport door. "I need some of dat plane food; I'm starvin' here."

"Yeah, me too," Tristan agreed, following him as he held his free hand hand against his growling stomach.

"How can you two be hungry?!" Spencer cried out. "We just ate breakfast an hour ago!"

"Man, has it been dat long?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes and muttered, "I swear, those two have bottomless pits for stomachs…"

Once all of the guys had gone into the airport, Pele finally gave a cry of delight. "Ah-ha! Here it is!"

She pulled her clenched hand out of her purse and opened it up.

Téa gasped when she saw the Pele's Tear that lay on her palm. Unlike the others, this one was perfectly shaped into a shiny black heart.

Pele smiled as she took one of Téa's hands and placed the tear into her palm. "This I made especially for you, to remind you of the bond that's between you and your two friends in one. Don't ever let it wither and die." She winked. "Because trust me, girl, he is quite a catch."

With that, she turned and left Téa to stare down at her black heart. Smiling, she clutched the heart firmly in her palm and closed her eyes. She could almost imagine the same warm, tingling sensation that flowed through her when the Pharaoh had touched her cheek coming out of the stone and radiating throughout her entire body…

"Téa!"

She snapped out of her dreaming and turned to find Yugi standing in the airport doorway. "Everything okay?" he asked her with concern in his eyes.

Téa smiled and slipped the heart into one of the pockets on her carry-on bag. "Yes, everything's just fine," she replied. "C'mon, let's go-we have a plane to catch."

With that, the two walked into the airport and let the door shut behind them.