Mustafar

That helmet. That helmet has seemed so evil when she had first seen it. But when he showed her the young man underneath she was captivated. He was perfect then. And now...he was beyond perfect. Marina sighed as those thoughts swam through her mind. She was in her room laying down on her back.

But they had to be close to Mustafar by now. She stood and walked to the cockpit. Their E.M.T. was only two minutes. "I better get Balthier" she sighed. She went to Balthier's room where he was asleep on his bed. Marina walked over to him and frowned. He was sweating again. She put a hand on his forehead. Balthier's eyes shot open. "You okay?"

Balthier sat up and used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off of his face. He nodded. "I'm fine."

"Well we've arrived at Mustafar if you're ready." Marina followed Balthier back to the cockpit and ran a scan of the planet. "How the hell are we supposed to find it?"

"Well there's only three masses of land on the planet and none of them are very large."

"Where's the smallest one?"

"Two miles east."

Balthier nodded and turned the Strahl. He landed them carefully down onto the small mass of dried lava. It only took them an hour to thoroughly search the small area. They found nothing. Marina told Balthier how to get to the next largest land mass.

They had been searching for almost three hours before they spotted a rather large hole in the ground. Marina picked up a small piece of hardened lava and dropped it down the hole. It was about two seconds before the rock hit bottom.

"It doesn't sound that far. Do you want to go back and get rope?" Marina asked. All they had brought were flashlights. Balthier shook his head. "I should be able to lift you up high enough to get out." Marina nodded and went to jump down but Balthier's arm stopped her. "I'll go first" he told her.

Balthier jumped down into the dark hole and flipped on his flashlight. A long tunnel was in front of him and nothing was behind him. He moved out of the way so that Marina could jump down. "Ready!" he called. She jumped down and turned her flashlight on too. Balthier looked at her and held his arm out. "Up for a walk my dear?" he grinned. Marina smiled and hooked her arm with his. "Why certainly."

It was another twenty minutes before the tunnel veered sharply to the right. They entered a room where a ball shaped stone sat on top of a short stone pedestal. Around the stone you could see it a faint red glow. It was a dark red like blood in the middle and it grew to be a lighter red closer to the outside.

Balthier picked it up gently in his palm. It weighed no heavier than a piece of paper. "Lets go" Marina said. Balthier nodded as he stared at the key.

Balthier held onto the key as they walked back but when they reached the hole to get out he handed it over to Marina. He grabbed onto her waist and hoisted her up enough so that she could get her knee over the edge. Marina liked the feeling of his hands on her waist but it was all over too soon and they were already sitting back down in their chairs on the Strahl.

"So Kimino is our next stop?" Marina asked as Balthier flew the ship out of Mustafar's atmosphere. Balthier nodded but Marina frowned. "Balthier what is going on? You haven't been yourself ever since we heard your father say that he was going after that weapon. Whats wrong?"

"I'm fine I just haven't been feeling well lately. It'll pass in a week or so." Marina frowned but said nothing more about it.

I promise the next chapter will be longer! Thanks for reading!