Golden Sun: The Sands of Time

I don't own this. Camelot owns this. I own French fries. Which are tasty. But you knew that, didn't you?

Chapter 2: Explanation

Alex blinked. He could feel the cold metal pressing against his skin, which warned him in no uncertain terms that one wrong move and he might suffer a rather grisly fate. Isaac was still staring at him an unreadable expression in his eyes.

" I asked you to explain. We may be well into the reconstruction, but most of us aren't too happy with what I presume is your doing. Namely, the destruction of Vale, our betrayal, and various other crimes I could think of."

"Yes, Alex. All of us would like to know why you did it." Another voice, softer and gentler, floated through the air, sounding like music to Alex's ears. Mia. Yes, that was Mia's voice. A second later, she stepped into his view. This was not the Mia he had once known, back during the long years in the wintry village of Imil. Not the Mia with the soft, gentle face and the kinds eyes. Now those eyes had hardened, and a mask of anger and distrust covered the face.

" Why, Alex?" The voice was soft, and yet accusatory at the time. "Why did you betray, and manipulate us all just to gain power? WHY?!" The last word was an outburst, a release of the emotion Mia had kept pent up in her ever since she had heard about his betrayal that fateful day.

Alex groaned softly. "I'll talk, provided you remove the sword from my neck."

"You are hardly in any position to make demands." A new voice pierced the area. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Lemurian Picard standing near the entrance. And he was right. Given his current situation, his terms were more likely to get his throat slit than allow him to sit up. And yet, he was aware of the sword no longer pressing against his flesh.

Sitting up, he realized that all the eight adventurers had assembled themselves in the cavern, and were staring expectantly at him. With a tiny sigh, he started to speak.

"I am rather certain, that by now, you would have realized the fact that I attempted to gain limitless powers by the usage of Alchemy-"

" Yeah!" An indignant voice belonging to Garet made itself heard throughout the room. "And using US to do the dirty work!"

Isaac laid a restraining hand on Garet, and motioned for Alex to finish his story.

"When the beams converged on Mt. Aleph, I assumed that I was able to absorb all the power of the elements. However, this was not to be. The Wise One challenged me to a match, one that I failed miserably. After doing so, he revealed that he had channeled part of the Mars Star into…… another individual. Thus, my strength was still far from infinite."

"Wait a second." Ivan piped up. Even if you lost part of the Mars Star's power, you already have the strength of the three other stars. Shouldn't you still have a lot of psynergy?"

"You do not understand." Alex sighed. "Consider the large Psynergy stone in the center of the town. You can use it's power nearly infinitely. But if you were to smash it, the pieces separated would only have limited uses. The pieces separate are far less potent than the pieces combined. Such is the same with the elemental stars. If all were complete, their powers would magnify into something far larger, far more powerful than one piece missing and separated. In any case, after the match, the resulting energy flow caused the mountain to split and trapped under the earth for over a month, living of the water of my psynergy."

"Fine, so that's what happened." Mia turned to Alex, a fire in her eyes. "What I want to know is – why? Why did you do it?"

Alex bowed and shook his head. " I did want the power, yes. However- "

"However what?" Mia snapped. "Tell us!"

" I would have already told you, had you not interrupted me."

Mia's hackles rose, as did her hand. " Maybe I wouldn't have had to interrupt if you weren't such an a- " Suddenly, she felt a hand holding onto her arm, preventing her from clocking Alex one. Turning, she saw Isaac shaking his head, mouthing "no." Relaxing her hand, she turned back to Alex, and crossed her arms.

" As I was saying, the power was not to destroy the world, or rule over it. On the contrary, I wished to use it to save Jorgmund."

Jorgmund? They had never heard of such a town before. Alex however, seemed deadly serious.

"I can tell from your face that you have never heard of it. Well, that's to be expected. Let me ask you a question. When you were in Prox, did anyone tell you about what was beyond the void?"

" No, but one boy said that they couldn't see the other side of the void anymore…" Felix offered.

"Exactly." Alex stood. "During one of my botched teleport trainings, I stumbled into the land beyond Gaia rift. It is an extremely harsh land. People there live in constant fear of wild raiders, who pillage and slay at whim. I hoped to absorb the elemental energies to save them."

There was silence in the room. Until Isaac broke it. "Right, then. I suppose we can be all ready to set off tomorrow."

"Excuse me?" Alex looked up.

" We have to help, right?" Isaac turned to the rest of the team. "We can't just let a town get destroyed by some dumb raiders, right?"

Nods, and murmurs of general agreement flowed through the room. Except for the rather obvious exception of Mia, who turned to Isaac angrily.

" Isaac, he's a cheat! We can't trust him! He's just doing this to betray us! I know it!"

Isaac sighed. "Mia. I know the possibility that he is lying to us. However, if he IS telling the truth, we cannot allow a town to be exposed to danger."

Garet, in the back, smirked to Felix. "That's his leadership role talking." Felix nodded back.

Mia slowly stood, considering. She knew that everyone else in the room agreed with Alex more or less. However, how could she tell them that she had such a strong feeling that Alex was only doing this to trick and kill them? Slowly, she tightened her grip on her staff. She wouldn't let Alex hurt them. She would keep an eye on Alex at all times. Reluctantly, she nodded at Alex.

Outside the sanctum, Sheba turned to Ivan. "What do you think?"

" About Alex? I dunno. He seems alright, but he's tricked all of us before."

Sheba nodded. "Yes. I feel that we'll need to keep an eye on him at all times."

Ivan nodded wordlessly, then turned to the inn. "C'mon, Sheba. Let's go grab our stuff."

Sheba followed Ivan, the strangest feeling of being slightly miffed at the back of her mind.