Chapter 5
"Get out of here!" The Prince yelled through tight teeth when Farah jumped down in the middle of the battle. Farah shouted something in reply, but I couldn't quite make it out. As far as I was concerned, she was freaking nuts to be jumping in the middle of a battle. Then again, she also had a weapon. I didn't. I'm starting to feel a little left out over here! Think someone up there can spare some kind of sharp object I can use to hit things with?! Sigh.
I stood there watching until the Prince got rid of the last Harem girl. I jumped down as he was sheathing his sword.
"You know, it really sucks when you have to stand out of the way and watch everyone else have all the fun just because you're unarmed," I complained.
"You call that fun?" Farah asked.
"No, not really." I looked towards Princy, who was heading up the steps towards a bunch of glowing sand. Farah saw him, too and we both followed.
"What are you…" she began, then gasped when she saw him heading for the sand cloud. "Be careful!" He didn't seem to be listening. He drew the dagger and stabbed it into the middle of the sand cloud and absorbed it into the dagger.
"Sand," he said simply, "I'll take it where I can get it." My mouth nearly hung open. Wow. I mean, WOW. He was so… wow… when he did that… I had to repress the urge to leap into the air and shout, "COOOL!"
Anyways, we made our way around, finding the switch to the gate on the other side, and of course, the path around the palace would just HAVE to collapse! I took one look at the drop and immediately latched onto the prince.
"Mommy!" I squeaked pathetically.
"You have wings, but you're afraid of heights," the prince mumbled, rolling his eyes and shoving me off.
"It's not the height that scares me… it's a knowledge of what will happen if I fall…" I continued to back away from the edge. Obviously not up for an argument with me, the prince wall ran across, landing on a small rooftop below.
"Are you alright?" Farah shouted down to him.
"Stay there! I'll try to find a way in!" he called back to us. I watched him wall run around the corner, then sniffled.
"There goes a stupid, stupid man," I announced, then turned back to Farah and smiled cheerfully.
"So… pretty night, huh?"
"I suppose," she answered simply. I looked up at the sky. Lots of stars up there… but also a creepy, swirling vortex surrounding the top of the Tower of Dawn.
"Whoa! Creepy!" I exclaimed when I spotted it. Farah also turned and looked. "It's like a big… vortex thingy of lightening! I want one!"
"Zervan is up there…"
"Do you have any idea what that loony is up to, exactly?" I questioned.
"I don't know. But I do know that whatever it is, it's bad for the rest of us." I thought about that for a moment. I'd already played most of the series. I say 'most' because I haven't finished Warrior Within yet, and I know that there were several other games dedicated to the series, except they were for handhelds, which I don't have. But I have played The Two Thrones, and I know exactly what the Vizier was after: Immortality. But he wasn't about to get it, not as long as I had something to say about it!
Only a few minutes later, Princy appeared on the other side of the gate and let us in. I almost kicked my own ass when he informed me that there was another fountain down there and I'd missed it.
"It's so quiet out there… it's terrible," Farah said after a moment of silence, "But also… beautiful."
"Maybe to you," the prince snapped back, a little aggressively. I was a little tempted to tell him to watch it unless he wanted a fat lip, but I decided against it. The three of us ascended the stairs that were there.
At the top, Farah quickly brought the large crack in the wall to our attention, especially when she managed to squeeze through it to the switch on the other side.
"You're a skinny little thing," the prince observed. I couldn't help but feel a small pinch of envy. Why couldn't I be that skinny? No, I had to have a fat ass and huge boobs… how lucky for me, I just feel so gifted. Not.
Anyway, Farah pulled the switch and the prince and I followed her around the corner and into the warehouse.
"…What is this place?" the Indian Princess inquired as we observed the area.
"Beats me, but whoever designed it needs to have their brain removed from their skulls and looked at," I stated. I always hated this level…
"We'll need to find a way down to the bottom," the prince said, looking over the edge. I shrugged.
"While I'm tempted to say something along the lines of a thanks to Captain Obvious for his remarkable observations of the immediate situation, I would just like to state that there seems to be no other direction to proceed in except for the already suggested route. But… it looks like plenty of lever pulling will be involved here." At the first part, I earned a small glare from the prince, which I inwardly smirked at.
"And, prince, be careful of those pincher thingies. Get caught in one of them and you'll be heading back to Babylon in a coffee can." I could tell he wasn't quite sure what I meant exactly, but he understood the warning.
"Alright. Stay here," he ordered and wall ran over to the platform, taking care not to get caught in the pincher thingies, and pulled the lever there. The ramps on either side of the room then spurred into motion and rotated around. Farah and I quickly headed downward and I pulled the lever there. Once again, the ramps moved, and so on and so forth. We navigated the whole thing down to the bottom, where Princy-boy went down to fight the big ugly Sand thingies, Farah stood on the edge shooting at them with her arrows, and I was left with nothing to do but sit and watch. Not that I really wanted to go down there and get killed, mind you, but I was starting to feel a bit guilty not helping out in battles.
After that mess was over and done with, I pointed out the two loose boxes in the area so the prince could drag them out and over the two floor switches in order to get back up here. We ran around through a few halls, leapt over some pits and we came out in the zoo.
"Where are we?" Farah asked softly when we emerged from the halls and back outside.
"This was the sultan's zoo," the prince answered, looking around as if intrigued by the surroundings.
"Zoo?!" I exclaimed, "Cool! Where's the monkey exhibit?! And I wanna see the kitties!" …Yeah, not really smart on my part. Both the Prince and Farah turned to give me looks. "…Sorry?" I shrunk back a little.
We continued along the path, the Prince dealing with the few Sand dudes that tried to ambush us. While he vaulted and flipped all over the place to get the gate opened, I made sure to keep a close watch on the sky… I was almost certain that some birds were perched around here…
"You did it!" Farah exclaimed happily as the prince made it over the wall and opened the gate for us. We walked a bit further… and I found that I was right. I grit my teeth together as they left their perches at our approach. "Birds… I wonder how they survived the sands?" But I saw the look on the prince's face.
"I don't think they did survive," he said in a low, firm, ready for battle voice. He drew his sword.
"Birds?! I hate birds! They're so useless!" I complained. But that didn't stop them from attacking. I once again stood back, hoping that none of them would catch sight of me. Farah shot at them with her arrows, missing most of the time, leaving most of the work to the prince, whom wasn't doing so well. I cringed as another bird dashed forward and struck him with its beak. He swung at it, but missed. "Prince!" I shouted, "Block them! Then attack while they're trying to get away!" He threw me a quick glance, but tried my method. It worked, of course and soon, all the birdies were gone. "See? My methods keep working! Maybe that's an omen for you to start listening to me a little more," I teased as I strutted past the prince, my hand on my hip in a mock snob way.
"Just how exactly do you come up with all these methods of combat, Naomi?" he asked me somewhat suspiciously. "It couldn't possibly be all from simple observation." I just flashed him a mysterious smile and struck a goofy model pose.
"What's the matter, princy? You don't love me anymore?" I playfully stuck out my bottom lip at him and gave him my saddest puppy-dog eyes.
"I never loved you in the first place," he responded, obviously not understanding that it was a figure of speech. "And I just find it strange that you seem to know exactly how to defeat every enemy we've come across."
"Is now really the best time for this?" Farah interrupted, "We aren't making very good time by standing around being suspicious of one another, so can we please move on?" I could tell that there was a lot more the prince wanted to say to me. Questions that he wanted to ask but couldn't at the moment. Questions that sooner or later I would have to come up with answers for.
I dwelled on this while he once again played monkey boy and flipped around the area, opening gates, Farah crawling through cracks and whatnot. What the hell was I gonna say when he decided to ask me who the hell I really was, and where exactly I'd come from? I couldn't just say that I was from another world! I'd just have to say that I was from elsewhere… but then how would I explain my wings to him? And even if I could explain all that somehow, I'd also have to come up with a reason why I knew exactly how to fight Sand thingies. I was in a bit of a bind… I couldn't even tell him the truth!
Then my thoughts shifted to my wings again and the battle with the Sand King. I remembered when I'd kicked him in the face and brought him down. Now that I thought about it in past tense, it all seemed like a big blur. All I really remembered was that sudden feeling like I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I remember being on top of the railing, extending my wings and… Bam. I'd also gone much farther than I normally would have gliding.
I looked back at the white, feathery limbs and started wondering about them. Where exactly had they come from? And what was the connection between them and those fountains? And what did those voices mean when they said 'we've found you at last, Angel.'? I didn't understand it all, and I knew I wouldn't understand for a while.