Well, I was convinced into picking up the slack on the Wonder Chef/Caleb series of fics for ToS, which means I'm juggling a lot more fics than I'm comfortable with, but at least these ones were completed long ago. So they were never posted anywhere. Go fig. Caleb's story is companion to Adam: Cast from Paradise, as the events in both occur at about the same time, running parallel until they reach the Wonder War event. Now, because things from Caleb's future is a little different from the series I've written so far here in his past, we can just blame ToS2 for that, since its timeline crashed with the one I had for my fics and so I had to speed up the events in the history Caleb has in his modern form. Did that make any sense? Oh well. I'll try to keep both of these updated at the same time.
Ch 4
"It be two days since Caleb leave for Vinheim. Are catacombs that big?" Pepper griped, pawing at her treats for the day. Raine put down the piece of chalk in her hand and turned from the wall of a nearby building that she used as a blackboard. The half-elf had made a great deal of progress in helping the mana beast speak well, especially when she handed out apples for treats, but there was still more to teach.
"Derris-Kharlan is planet-sized, so it's very possible that it could take that long for him to reach the castle." the half-elf replied gently, "Don't worry; I'm sure he's fine. With the strength and power of an angel and a human's intellect and emotion, Caleb should be able to handle whatever comes. Don't forget your lessons, Pepper. You're slipping." Pepper sighed and toyed with her fruit.
"Sorry. I still worry, though. Caleb is my guardian and my friend. I do not like thinking he might be hurt." she mumbled and speared a claw into one of her apples, holding it up for study. "I miss Wonder Chef's cooking. He made lots good things to eat." she added and popped the fruit into her mouth for chewing.
"I could try cooking something for you. How does a spicy cake sound?" Raine remarked cheerfully. Pepper's fur flared as her wings opened in a panic.
"No, no! Crazy lady cooking almost kill me!" she barked, falling back on her old speech, "Worse than Wonder Chef's fire goulash in Temple of Fire!" Raine frowned and folded her arms over her chest indignantly.
"It wasn't that bad. You're just not used to my unique way of cooking." she grumbled. Pepper shook her head and sat back down.
"Noo... I just have great distaste for Suicide Soup." she returned and looked over at the computers, "I think data crystal is full. Projector is flashing." Raine hurried over and checked the device, then halted the download and pulled the crystal free. Pepper closed her eyes and lifted her head, making a trilling sound before bowing her head down and dropping a new data crystal from her mouth onto the ground. She tilted her head at the clear blue stone and nodded. "I have made a new one. It is easier to make data crystals here. Maybe I can make a really strong mana crystal for Caleb to use!" she reported and brightened at the thought, "The strongest ones he has so far have six sides to them, so maybe I can make one with eight sides and then he can use even more magic!"
"Maybe." Raine agreed as she collected the new crystal and plugged it into the device, restarting the transfer of data, "Are you ready for your next lesson?" Pepper nodded, then voiced her readiness. "All right. Next, synonyms and antonyms..."
Caleb sat silently on the throne, head bowed as he thought through his situation once more. There was the feeling of déjà vu he'd continuously been experiencing ever since stepping foot in Vinheim, and now this strange connection with the floating throne room. The feeling of having stood in this place once before was powerful and unsettling. He scanned through the stories he'd heard of the battle that took place on this very spot, the evidence of which remained on the island, stains of faded blood, gouged rubble, burns, broken weapons and armors and shields, torn mana feathers of various colors. Caleb counted and named each item that belonged to each Hero of Union, then gazed distantly away as he pondered the history.
On this battlefield, the main players had been the eight Heroes of Union and Mithos Yggdrasill, who had finally gone completely insane after his sister chose death over life to keep the Great Seed alive. The doll frowned slightly, thinking carefully. Each of the Heroes had returned from the battle, so the soul in his possession, with memories of having been here, could not be from one of them. That left Mithos, but he was an impossibility. Mithos' soul had been taken into the Cruxis Crystal, freed, entered Lloyd's Exsphere to evolve it into a Cruxis Crystal, then left it for the Great Seed to help it germinate. After that, it disappeared, right?
"I don't get this. I feel like I've been here, but I haven't. And no one's told me about this place, or shown it to me or anything. So what's my deal?" he muttered and frowned again, "I shouldn't even be sitting here, just wasting time. I have to find that treasure box!" He looked around himself, straightening up in the throne, "Now, if I were Mithos, where would I hide a box of valuables?"
That strange feeling was gnawing at him again. Caleb got up from the throne and slowly turned to look down at it. He could feel a familiar tug that urged him towards a specific action and he obeyed it, reaching down under the throne. His eyes went wide and he gasped softly as he pulled a small, wooden chest from underneath the stone seat.
"This... this can't be happening... How could I have...?" he murmured in growing hysteria, then shut his eyes and shook his head, berating himself for letting hunches rule his actions rather than sound logic, "It's an obvious hiding spot, and Mithos was a child, after all. I shouldn't be reading too much into this. I was following an analysis of child psychology, and that of a highly disturbed child." He opened the box and was rewarded not only with a small tattered book, but also a collection of rings all shimmering brightly in the light of the mana around him. He brightened immediately, former panic forgotten. "Ah! This must be the collection of Rings of Pact that Mithos had! But the gems are dark... maybe their power left because Mithos lost the blessings of the Summon Spirits?" Caleb picked out one of the rings and studied it, a sudden thought making a smile grow on his face. "Hey, these gems correspond to the ten Summon Spirits... I can use the stones on Pepper's bell! Orator and Martel said long ago that I should find the gems that match the Summon Spirits and bring them to the mana beast clans. With them, Pepper will be able to manipulate the mana of other elements besides the ones she was born to use." He brightened, "She'll even learn to wield Dark and Ice mana! This is great! She'll gain immunity to those elements!"
He slid the box of treasures into his pack and ran back to the transporter, stopping only to pick up a few colorful mana feathers for later study. Elated by his discoveries, Caleb didn't think twice about running straight through the open door. The shouts of alarm from the patrolling angels he nearly ran into snapped him out of his bubble of joy fairly quickly, though.
"An intruder! There's an intruder in the castle! Get him!" the angels shrieked and raced after Caleb, spears and swords and arrows all aimed at the doll. The redhead yelped and ran for the teleporter up ahead, narrowly remembering his promise to Huron. He halted and spun around, calling up the mana within his body for a spell.
"Back off! Bloody Lance!" he yelled, skewering a few angels with the dark red swords and scattering the rest in a panic.
"The spells of Pronyma! The intruder knows dark magic!" they raged, the air filling quickly with the black feathers of dozens of angelic soldiers. Caleb ducked a flurry of arrows and cast the spell again, this time aiming it for the device behind him. "The transporter! The intruder destroyed the transporter!"
"What is the meaning of this?" a loud voice bellowed from above. The doll covered his head as the teleporter exploded into several pieces of broken and twisted metal and magitechnology. He looked up at a tall angel dressed in full armor and bearing two sets of black wings staring belligerently back at him. "You are the automated doll we sent into Welgaia to bring us the data! What is the meaning of this treachery? You will be punished for this!" the silver-haired angel fumed and lifted a device from its belt, pressing several keys on it.
"I'm guessing you're Lord Tsaneir of the Angels of Vinheim." Caleb returned coolly, placing his hands akimbo and tilting his head almost arrogantly, "Anyway, I never agreed to the revival of an insane angel, so technically I'm not betraying you." Tsaneir scowled and flew down from the catwalk high above the main floor. Caleb leaped back as the angel drew its sword and leveled it at him.
"You've sealed your fate either way, Doll." it growled, "The penalty for defying the will of the Angels of Vinheim is death!"
"My name is Caleb, thanks. And I can't die, so your threats are meaningless to me. I have all the power of you angels as well as the lightning fast brain of a machine and the soul of a living being." Caleb remarked smoothly and smiled, tapping himself on the chest, "So in reality, I'm the superior being, and the lot of you are feathered insects to me."
"Then we shall pit machine against machine and see if your precious soul is as useful as your magic and brain!" Tsaneir declared, flying up and out of the way to allow a squadron of Perfect Murder robots to stomp into the fray, their massive bodies containing enough explosive missiles, lasers and ammunition to launch a small siege on any city in the current world. Caleb blinked and tightened his fists, glaring at the group.
"Normally, I'd love to demonstrate my prowess, but I have other matters to attend to... such as the destruction of the file containing the identity of the Final Chosen!" he declared and leaped for a window, barely avoiding an assault of gunfire that ripped after him.
"After him! Stop him before he finds a way back to Welgaia and destroys the data!" Tsaneir shrieked, leading the Perfect Murders out onto the castle grounds. Several more robots joined the chase, fast floating Murders that carried a small payload of homing missiles and weak but accurate Raybits that fired bursts of electricity constantly as they zipped after the doll.
Caleb dashed for the circle of stones, hoping the gate into the Welgaia Catacombs was still open. He brightened at the sight of the violet swirl appearing in the center of the monoliths and ran faster, evading the incoming barrage of missiles and laser fire as best he could and yelping when one hit his shoulder and nearly knocked him down. The attack burned away the cloth and sent a searing pain through him that caught him by surprise. Light and Electricity, that was the mana contained in that shot.
Now, he was scared.
Leaping into the portal, Caleb paused briefly at the end of the short hall to look back and see if he'd been followed. For a few heart-pounding seconds there were no signs of the mechanical army, then the barrels of the Perfect Murders' silvery gun-arms began passing through the portal, followed by the rest of the robot monstrosities. Groaning softly, Caleb turned and ran on, thankful that he couldn't feel exhaustion from physical exertions like this. Raybits zoomed past him, startling the doll as they wove around themselves and came flying back, firing bolts of electricity in rapid succession. Caleb ducked the first onslaught, then leaped up and kicked at one of the machines, sending it crashing into another as he slipped by and continued his escape.
Where he couldn't go because of cave-ins, Perfect Murders smashed through with battering rams and missiles, circling around to cut off the doll before he could reach the exit. Caleb skid to a halt before one of them, immediately falling into a spell as a swarm of missiles came at him.
"Lightning!" he cried, sending the bolt slamming into the Perfect Murder before being thrown aside by the multiple explosions of the small red missiles that collided into him. He coughed and scrambled to his feet, renewing the spell as the robot flailed from the shock. "Come on! Fall apart already!" Caleb yelled, hurling another bolt after the machine. He glanced over his shoulder and hissed as Tsaneir rode on the shoulder of another Perfect Murder, a triumphant sneer on the angel's face as it pressed keys on the remote in its hand.
"You're going to learn what death is like, Caleb. You won't like it. I can guarantee it." the angel jeered, "And once I've killed you, I'll have my troops rebuild your body, so I can kill you again. And again and again and again! For all eternity! You shall be my personal toy!"
"You need counseling, man. That's just sick." Caleb muttered under his breath and narrowed his eyes at the angel, scanning the figure and analyzing the numbers, "Hey, wait... you're a woman? But why did the angels call you a lord?"
"Because I am a powerful general of Lord Yggdrasill's angelic army, you oversized plaything of the inferior beings!" Tsaneir snapped and curled a lip in a cruel smile, "So you know that I am a female now. Perhaps during our lessons in teaching you to fear destruction, we'll learn how much of you is modeled after that treacherous Chosen." Caleb blinked, then looked disgusted, backing away from the angel.
"Correction; that's sick!" he growled and suddenly yelled as the Perfect Murder ahead of him got over the second shock and fired a blast of laser fire at him. He lashed back with another bolt of lightning and cried as something pierced into him from behind. Tsaneir scowled at the Perfect Murder she rode on.
"What are you doing, you witless tin can? That's the testing probe, not a missile! Fire the proper weapon!" she snapped as the device in her hand beeped almost frantically, "I will rip apart whoever was mindless enough to arm this thing with testing probes!" She turned her attention to the device in her hand and frowned. "Mana signature reading complete? Base signature hidden by surrounding crystals... base signature is..." Tsaneir's mouth fell open in shock. "Th-that's impossible! The soul is...!" she gaped and looked up at the doll firing several more spells at the machine blocking her path. The shock turned to a victorious smile. "I knew it! And those heretics claimed he was gone from this plane... bah! Our Lord has returned!"
"Geez, this is taking forever!" Caleb panted, clothes tattering as he summoned the mana for another spell, "I didn't want to be forced to use this, but it looks as if I'll have to test it on you!" He straightened and closed his eyes, holding his hands out to his sides as black and frost blue mana swirled before his palms. A huge circle formed at his feet, shimmering as the mana lifted the remnants of his coattails and his loosened hair on the flow of energy. "I call upon the emptiness within your hearts to nullify the light of your lives!" Caleb declared and opened his eyes, bringing his hands forward suddenly, "Forsaken!" A tight sphere of mana formed in front of the Perfect Murder, a ball of black and frost blue that seemed to pull everything towards it. Mana flew from the machines around Caleb towards the sphere and Tsaneir clutched at her heart, gasping as she felt her own mana draining away. Eyes wide in awe and horror, she slid from the machine she rode upon and collapsed to the floor. Caleb held the spell until the Perfect Murder crumbled and fell in a lifeless heap, then pulled his arms open suddenly. The artificial void dissipated and Caleb slowly exhaled, glaring at the motionless machine before him.
"Don't ever make me use that again." he hissed, turning a cold gaze back at Tsaneir, "That spell was created for a specific reason, and I'm not supposed to use it on things like you."
"M-my l-lord... you need... a new host..." Tsaneir gasped out brokenly, "This doll... is not... worthy... of you... Not even... with... that spell..." Caleb's expression became puzzled.
"What are you talking about? I'm not your lord or anything." the redhead told her and shook his head, "You need to talk to a therapist or something. You're definitely psycho." With that, he darted off, leaping over the fallen machine and disappearing down the hall. Tsaneir struggled to get up as fresh units pounded into the corridor, along with several angels that went to her aid. She looked at the device in her hand.
"As long as he is in that doll's body, Lord Yggdrasill will not regain his full memory." she growled, mana beginning to return to her and recover her strength, "We must find the Final Chosen and transfer his consciousness. Only then will our Lord return to continue the plan for our Age of Lifeless Beings!"
Caleb passed through the final door and panted, bending on one knee to rest and recharge as the gate closed itself off to him. His clothes were a mess, he'd lost his ribbon again, he probably drained his free use crystal dry casting Forsaken, and those angels now knew of the catacombs connecting Welgaia and Vinheim. It would only be a matter of time before Tsaneir recovered fully and assembled a force to invade the city and steal the data she wanted.
"Freaking psycho angels. And that Tsaneir... brrr! I really should get a new face or something." he muttered and stood on unsteady legs. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, patting his worn satchel. "But at least I got what I went there for, and all of Mithos' old rings too! Pepper is going to be so excited!" He checked his internal clock and winced. "Ouch, three days passed since I first left here. I hope the girls aren't too mad."
They weren't angry, just very surprised to see the condition Caleb was in after he finally arrived at the information network in East Welgaia. Huron stood by impassively as the three friends reunited and chattered over the state the doll was in, searching for injuries and asking about the password he'd been sent to retrieve. Caleb waved his hands sheepishly, laughing nervously as Pepper and Raine sent a barrage of questions after him.
"You took too long! Next time, run faster!" Pepper barked at him, "Raine tried to cook something for me to eat and I thought I was gonna up and die!" Caleb blinked at her and brightened.
"Pepper! You can speak our language fluently now! Wow! That's amazing! Raine, thank you so much for helping Pepper learn all that!" he exclaimed. The mana beast sat back and humphed.
"It wasn't just Raine teaching me to speak fluently. This place also had an effect." the mana beast remarked, "With so much mana around me, my mind was able to mature sooner. You can think of me as having grown from being a six-year-old child to a sixteen-year-old teenager in less than a week."
"That's faster than your growth back on Symphonia." Caleb muttered, eyes still blinking in surprise.
"It's to be expected. Symphonia's mana level as a whole is still very weak. It'll take centuries before it can fully support the ecosystem, even with the Mana Tree and the mana beast clans working full tilt." Pepper pointed out and clacked, tail swishing behind her. "So did you find that thing you were looking for?" she asked, returning to a childish excitement for the moment.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I think." Caleb stammered and pulled out the box from his pack, "I found Mithos' box of treasures, but I haven't checked it all yet. All of his Rings of Pact are in here, though, so we can take those apart and set the gems into your bell, Pepper."
"Oh, you remembered what Martel and Orator said about me using all the mana in the world to support you!" the mana beast exclaimed happily and pranced around him, "Let's take them back to the meadow when we go home and get the blessings! I'll be able to pull mana from all the elements and send them to you once I have the blessings!" Caleb brought out the old book and gave it to Raine.
"I found this in here too. Maybe the password is written in there?" he suggested and set his pack down, "Also, I managed to rescue some of the books from the libraries, including one that was damaged by a Swordian." Raine was no longer listening, busy with her examination of the little book. Pepper sniffed at the bag and turned her interest to the box of rings, studying them intently. The doll smiled weakly and walked to the angel that stood nearby.
"Have you done as I requested?" Huron asked once Caleb stood before him. The redhead nodded.
"I destroyed the transporter, but Tsaneir followed me into the catacombs. I managed to lose her in there, but it won't be long before she makes her way through them and attacks this place. I'm sorry." the doll sighed, "She can still get to Welgaia, but it will take her two days at least to reach this place."
"That's all right. With that much time separating us, we'll be able to put up defenses that will bar her entry." Huron returned and studied him, "You've been heavily damaged, though. We can repair you if you like, perhaps even upgrade your systems. The mana beast spent an entire day developing a new mana crystal for you." Caleb blinked; this day was full of surprises.
"What kind of mana crystal?" he asked as he followed the angel to another building. Inside, a team of angelic scientists stood at various computers, scanning through data at speeds far greater than a human but still slower than a machine's. A table stood in the center of the room, a tray of tools, components and a shimmering crystal set beside it. Huron picked it up and showed it to him.
"Octagonal. This crystal has eight sides and far greater power than the six-sided crystals you use as your main source of mana. If a hexagonal crystal can run your systems for five years before needing to be changed, then an octagonal crystal will power you for twelve." the angel told him. Caleb stared at the gem in shock. "We are already prepared for installation, but we would rather wait to see if you wanted it." The doll remained silent for a moment, then looked up at the angel.
"I have something I wanted to ask, and it might be forward of me, but please at least hear my request." he began, "I've seen my friends, the Heroes of Union, undergo a certain change when they attain an amount of damage and stress that is tuned to each person. Lloyd called it an Over Limit. I've also seen that this state temporarily increases their power and defensive abilities. I've just come out of a battle for my own life that exhausted my free use mana crystal, and I see that the damage I inflicted on my enemies remained the same no matter how much damage I took." Caleb looked down at himself and frowned, "I can't go into an Over Limit. I was never programmed for that. I'd like to be able to achieve that kind of power so I won't be forced to use potent spells that could do more harm than good in battle."
The angels stopped and turned to listen to the doll, pensive expressions on their faces. Caleb swallowed and went on.
"Also, the fabric I'm wearing tears easily. My clothes are my armor and they are vulnerable to the elements. I'm barely clothed now because of all the fighting, so I'm hoping you might have a fabric or armor that I can use. Something that I can shape to resemble my suit and my favorite colors and won't be so easily destroyed." he added and rubbed his head, "I know it sounds like a lot I'm asking for, and it probably is, but if it's possible that you can help me with this, I'd be grateful." He smiled sheepishly. "That's basically it. The ability to have an Over Limit of my own, an upgrade to use the octagonal mana crystal, and a fabric that can replace my clothes for more durable wear; can you help me with any of that?"
"Actually, we can." Huron remarked and looked at his team of angels, "All that you have asked for is within our abilities to create using our magitechnology. The upgrades will take a day and a night, and we can have the fabric made to replace your old clothes in that same time. Is this agreeable?" Caleb brightened and nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes! Thank you very much, Sir Huron! I'll do anything else you ask of me for this great gift!" he exclaimed and climbed onto the table as the angels surrounded him, tools in hand and ready to begin. "Once I learn the identity of the Final Chosen, I'll be sure to destroy that file and locate the Chosen myself to have the Crystal removed and the host hidden away in a safe place. I just wonder how it is the Angels of Vinheim think they can get to Symphonia when Derris-Kharlan is sealed with that magic wall Lloyd erected?" He closed his eyes and went silent as he began to close himself from the mana flow of his Tri-Crystal System. Huron nodded at his team and the angels went to work, opening the doll for repairs and upgrading.
"What do they think they're doing to my guardian?" Pepper growled after several hours had passed and no sign of the redhead emerged from the laboratory. Raine shrugged as she continued to translate the book. "They were supposed to install my new crystal and then send him out to cook me a dinner!" she added indignantly, "They're taking too long!"
"I'm sure they're also repairing his damages. It looks like he ran into several of Mithos' angel guards in Vinheim." Raine muttered, "This book is his journal, a valuable piece of history indeed! We can actually read about his thoughts and emotions as his sanity begins to deteriorate! Unfortunately, this is not his entire journal, just one of many hundreds of books in a series, so it's not a complete history."
"So?" Pepper grumbled.
"This book happens to be the last one Mithos ever wrote in. So if I flip to the last page... ah-hah!" Raine remarked triumphantly, "He wrote about putting Colette into the mana transfer unit and getting ready to go and witness the rebirth of his sister. This was the last thing recorded by his hand, since it was there that we defeated him, and he never got his body back until we got to the throne room and he died there without laying pen to paper again." The white mana beast looked unimpressed.
"Again, so?"
"Well, he also made a note here. 'Speak her name and she will live forever.' That must be the password to the file on Subject A-481. He underlined it twice." Raine pointed out and closed the book. "So let's try it." She stood and headed for the computer, bringing up the file and waiting for the password entry dialog box to pop open. "Okay, now I enter the words Mithos wrote and..." The computer buzzed angrily and the box closed. Raine frowned and bent forward to study the screen. "Well, that was a disappointment! But it has to be correct, Mithos placed an emphasis on those words for a reason!"
"Maybe it's a clue to the password." Pepper remarked, resting a cheek on one paw as she stretched out on the ground. "If I was worried about a bunch of traitors running off to stop me from getting my Chosen vessel, then I wouldn't write the password straight out. I'd write a clue for myself to remind me what the password is." Raine straightened and lifted a finger into the air.
"Ha hah! Excellent point, Pepper! We must solve this riddle to uncover the secret of this file!" she declared and yawned, "In the morning. I'm so exhausted from this influx of information. And there are still all those books Caleb found... I'm going to be up to my eyes in historical text!"
"I hope Caleb comes out tomorrow." Pepper sighed, curling up as Raine set up a simple bed and got comfortable.