Alaia Skyhawk: Well, cute stuff is over for now... here's the inevitable beginning of what's to come.
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I don't own Tales of Symphonia so please don't sue me. I do however own Krishka, Dallinius (Dalli), Aluran, the Alurannai and any OCs, except Sanaro and Annule, who belong to Mr Who 2123, Mika and Fiuras, who belong to WingedWithFireyMana, and Gaea Silverleaf, who belongs to Sparkling Moon Phoenix, so please don't steal them...
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Chapter 4: Shattered Youth
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Happy humming drifted silently on the winds, the young Spirit singing along in happy counterpoint to the song of his Tree. Seven years... Seven more years had passed in his simple life, flowing by with nary a waver in his day-to-day activities. He still indulged in exploring now and then, but as yet still preferred to stay close to the comforting voice of the Kharlan Tree. While above the ground here in this meadow it was barely a few inches taller than it had been after it was planted, he could feel its roots now spread across the entirety of the world.
Ratatosk stopped humming, looking up at the sky from his perch upon one of the Tree's branches. It was midday, time for him to make his daily check of the mana levels. He resumed humming, swinging his legs too and fro as he idly ran through the various areas in his mind. Everything from rocks to trees, to people passed beneath the veil of his awareness, the latter having increased greatly since the Summon Spirit Origin had indulged in some creation of his own. Humans and Dwarves had been added to the list of species on this world, although as yet the Elves knew not of their existence. Both had been created far away on continents distant from this vast meadow, and the now substantial elven town within it. He checked it all, every inch of the world, pausing only once when a tiny area of instability needed to be corrected. He was used to finding little bits now and then, and the correction was done absently before he dropped to the ground and set off towards the town.
He smiled as that small blot in the mana was smoothed away, his mind turning his attention back to his typically childish musings. He would watch the Lady's daughter again today, before going to take another look at the scattering of villages where the newly created Humans lay on the continent to the south. They'd looked a lot like the elves, but without pointy ears, and he'd gotten the feeling they were different in other ways as well. He wanted to observe them for longer than his last visit, to try and figure out how Origin had made them different from the immigrated Elves.
It wasn't long before he reached the town, familiarity now leading him to the home where the Lady lived. Her daughter was outside in the grassy area among the homes, playing some sort of game involving jumping over a rope that was swung round and round while singing songs. Ratatosk wanted to try that game someday, but because he was secret for now he could only watch and sing along silently with them. He was just finishing a verse on one of his favourite of the game songs when he frowned as a ripple reached his awareness. Reaching out to locate the source, he found a small instability again at the place he'd corrected just a short while before. Still frowning he fixed it, before once again he turned his attention back to the girl and her friends. He never tired of this, watching them play. He might not have been able to join in, but he could still laugh along with them, smile with them, even if he remained unseen and unheard. It gave him a feeling of being part of their lives, instead of being separate as secrecy forced him to be. He'd begun to feel a little lonely at times, but these days of watching the Lady's daughter play, and the songs of the Tree, brushed those feelings away like a warm breeze.
All too soon night began to fall, the elven children returning to their homes as Ratatosk returned to his amongst the branches of the Tree. The evening song began among the insects in the grasses, soft chirring heralding the time of rest and slumber. It was a magic all of itself, the night, one that Ratatosk now revelled in as surely as the brightness of the day. Feeling the creatures of this shadowed time begin to rise to go about their nightly business, he continued to smile contentedly before he stopped in his tracks, his expression frozen in sudden confusion.
The instability had come back, again, in the exact same spot as the first two times. He frowned and firmly gripped the mana in that area and put it back how it should be, only for it to return bare minutes later like a reeking corpse in the back of his mind. Growing inpatient he grabbed the mana again and slammed it back into line... before with a choked gasp he felt something push him back spreading taint in its wake.
The Tree cried out, as the taint brushed the edge of the root that lay close to the instability, Ratatosk teleporting away from the meadow with only the thought of protecting his mother in his mind. He appeared at the area of the taint, and what he saw terrified him as he had never been in his short life.
A dark rent split the earthen ground, a vile pit in the fabric of dimensions from which creatures of nightmare spewed into the air and across the land. Grasses withered as they passed, animals and insects either crushed by the taint or twisted by it into abominations themselves. In those few moments after he'd arrived Ratatosk could only stare in horror at what he knew was an invasion of his world, frozen in place until the Tree's pained cry at the spread of the taint spurred him into action.
The Demons all stopped and looked up as one, towards the point where white light began to blaze around a small form. A chorus of hisses and shrieks rose as they turned as one to attack, only for those calls to turn into wails of agony as a wall of pure mana was sent sweeping over them in a purifying wave. The Demons were vaporised, poisoned then destroyed by the mana as it touched them. The first wave of creatures gone, new ones began to emerge from the rift while Ratatosk called up the mana again and slammed it downwards through the rent in the world.
The ground shuddered at the force, an immense depression imprinted on this ground at the island's peak like a vast bowl. Teleporting to its centre, to where the rift now shone white with the purity he'd pushed through it, Ratatosk entered it and began to descend with fearful eyes at what he found within.
This place, it was like a bridge between worlds... a point in existence that was neither Symphonia nor the corrupt realm from which the creatures were coming. Roots from above were beginning to reach down through it, the Tree helping to bring the mana that was clearly deadly to these beings to this place for its child to use. Ratatosk gripped that mana, weaving it into a wall that he pushed ever downwards towards the misty bottom of this pocket of time and space and letting it destroy all the taint it touched... but defeating the smaller creatures that had risen upwards did not prepare him for the colossal beasts below.
Terror rose again, Ratatosk forced upwards by the blow of one such beast on his barrier of mana, the demon hundreds of times his size glaring at him with malevolent red eyes. More such colossuses were ranged beyond it, dozens of them extending back to some distant point where he felt the taint was at its strongest.
He couldn't move, couldn't move for the fear that gripped him. He was just a child, a child thrown into the face of forces that would have scared him even as an adult. What could he do? He was so small, and all alone.
The demon struck out again, again forcing Ratatosk into retreat only this time the barrier moved back beyond one of the descending roots. The taint beyond the barrier touched it, the Tree's peal of agony jarring the child Spirit into action. His mother... he had to protect his mother!
Ratatosk screamed in rage, slamming his barrier forward even as he sent blasts of mana ahead of it. The colossal demons began to shriek as they were killed by the onslaught one by one, the Spirit leaving only their scorched bones in his wake as he forced his way towards that point of blackness he could sense beyond the luminescent grey mists. More and more power he threw at them, more and more of them falling defeated only for others to emerge from the mist to take their place. It seemed never ending, the constant stream of foes whittling away at his strength until some hours later he staggered and was pushed back.
Ratatosk grimaced, forcing his barrier forward to regain his lost ground, while beyond it the demons began to call out in bloodlust as they sensed him begin to falter... There were too many of them, and he didn't have the strength to fight them forever...
Pushed back again, again he forced his way forwards, his form beginning to blur at its edges, prompting a wail from the Tree.
Stop! Make a door! Close it, bar it, and proceed no further my child! If you continue you will DESTROY yourself!
Ratatosk froze, eyes going wide as the warning made him aware of his wavering body. He looked down at hands that were becoming translucent and grey, before with a blast of will he did as he was bidden. His wall off white mana solidified into a golden wall, reaching out across the width of the pocket dimension and bound into place by the roots of the Tree. Set into that, wall, forming around him, grew a sphere of the same. The demons, unable to touch the wall of mana, could only focus on the source of the barrier now housed within that protective sphere, and inside it Ratatosk set himself upon the platform he made within and called an arch of power into existence as a gilded span of golden cords. They too became solid, a visible doorway set in air beyond which smouldering shadows oozed through the iris opening in the part of the golden sphere that extended beyond the wall.
Ratatosk reached out his hands towards that river of taint, and with one last exhausted thought he focused his entire mind upon it and slammed the iris closed...
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Alaia Skyhawk: Poor Ratatosk, a child forced to fight monsters all alone (sniffles)