(Note: As of this chapter, Jeff's accent when speaking normally has been re-written to appear as normal dialogue to make it easier to read. This has been retroactively redone and the chapters before have been edited to fit this trend)
Chapter 14: Confined in the struggling town, Ur.
"Ow!" Nick shouted, grabbing Jaeger's attention as she spun from her spot on the stool by the window. "What was that for?!"
"You got us thrown in prison!" Kyle shouted as he gestured to their surroundings in a wide arc with his arms. Except for the window, they were in an almost barren room. Outside the window the watery sky was still lit up and that provided a little light for them, but mostly the light in the room was provided by one small crystal that was sitting on a table, which had only been added after they had been put in here, and there was a single bed that had slightly moldy rags.
"They just put us in time-out," Nick argued as he rolled his eyes. "We'll just settle everything with grumpy later."
Jaeger stopped listening to the two because their bickering wasn't going to help them get out of their situation. She wasn't sure who 'grumpy' was supposed to be at this point; it was either Ashley or Gerot, who had turned out to be the mayor of Ur. Their meeting had not gone well:
"The Dark Warriors are nothing to joke about," Gerot said. His face had fallen as soon as the Dark Warriors were brought up.
"Who's joking?" Nick asked, but Kyle hit him and Jeff kicked him in the shin. "Owww."
"I don't know what game you were all playing," Gerot said firmly. "But it's over now."
"I wasn't playing," Nick began, but he stopped when Gerot started to walk towards them in a less than friendly manner.
Gerot hadn't attacked or hurt them in any way, but he had begun to preach angrily to them about the evils of Darkness and how those warriors were from the Gulgan's Prophecy of Doom. The final prophecy that their race was able to deliver thirteen years ago, before they lost their minds and went into comas. It had been a terrible prediction about the end of the world and how the Dark Warriors were going to come and combat the forces of Light.
Gerot had rambled about this for fifteen minutes while they froze before he remembered that the goblins, who apparently continued to live in the eastern mountains somehow, could have seen the light he was carrying and attacked them at any moment.
After that the old man had led them towards Ur, which had a make-shift fence to protect the town from goblin raids. Inside there was not much to see and there was no one going about their daily lives in the streets. There were no children playing, no gossipers, nobody trying to sell wares or make a living. The village felt more like a ghost town than anything, but a few of the homes had lights in them, and that meant that some people were trying to still live in this place.
While Gerot was leading them through town, Jaeger had seen inside the window of one of the homes and she noted that it was filled with plants rather than any sort of furniture. When she had asked about it Gerot had told her to be quiet, and then he had rambled the rest of the way to his house on how they used the crystals to channel heat and light enough to grow a few crops. After he had gotten them to his house he had thrown them in here shortly afterwards and had locked the door.
Jaeger sighed as she shook her head and turned away from the window. Nick and Kyle were still arguing and Jeff was lying on the bed with his eyes closed. Looking around the room for something else to do except stare out of the window, her eyes eventually came to rest on the crystal and its light.
For decades these crystals had been used by the Cetra and every race to provide the power for everything. They lit homes, powered airships and paddleboats, and now provided the light and heat needed for survival in a land as dreary and uninhabitable as this.
But even with the crystals' help, Jaeger could not understand what would make people want to live in a place like this for 12 years. It was a cold, dark, depressing place.
And for the first time, as Jaeger stared into the crystal...she thought she saw something move.
"Nick," Kyle explained slowly. "You can not go around telling the world that you are a Dark Warrior."
"Why not? It's true isn't it?" Nick asked as he scratched his head for a moment.
"The Crystal said you were." Kyle sat down at the foot of the bed and got comfortable before continuing. "But that doesn't mean its actually true, does it? Right, Jeff?"
"I think the clothes they're wearing is proof enough for me," Jeff said without opening his eyes.
"Okay, so maybe they are the Dark Warriors, but does that mean they have to go around telling everyone they meet?" Kyle asked.
"No," Jeff admitted as he scratched his head. "But now that you mention it, its been something I've been thinking about."
"What?" Kyle asked as Jeff sat up and looked between them.
"Now that we're here we need to decide what we're gonna do next," Jeff explained. "Who will stay here with the others, who if anyone will follow the Crystal's plan and go stop that Djinn or whatever is controlling it, or whether or not you two actually intend to go through with this." Jeff pointed a finger at Nick and then Jaeger, who Kyle was surprised to find her staring into the crystal without blinking. "Are you guys really going to do this? Be the Dark Warriors?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Jaeger asked as she sat up form her position on the chair.
"Me and Kyle, neither of us has to go with you on your journey," Jeff pointed out, and Kyle sat up as it dawned on him that Jeff was right. "And honestly I think if we tell Ashley and everyone else what's going on and what the Crystal told us, that they will be able to take care of that Djinn and his master on their own."
Kyle didn't know what Jaeger was thinking, but she looked as if she was considering the idea and even Nick looked like he was thinking about Jeff's proposal.
"But if neither of you goes and then it turns out that only you two could have stopped them," Jeff paused for a moment, took a deep breath and then continued. "Then that flood we just saw will be repeated, only this time it will be the whole sky that cracks, and the whole continent will drown according to the Crystal."
Kyle's moment of jubilation died as his memories of this morning came back to him. The giant wave of water that had destroyed Canaan, that had destroyed his home and might have killed everyone if Hallet didn't...if he hadn't saved all those people. As Kyle thought about it, he wondered how many other cities might have been destroyed by that terrible wave. What parts of the continent were underwater now, Kyle wondered.
"Well, in that case we'd better go with them," Nick said, having already come to what he felt was the obvious conclusion. Jaeger sighed and then went back to staring into the crystal.
"You don't have to make your decision now," Jeff added as he looked between the three. "Just, think about it."
Kyle shook his head and stared down at the floor. A minute ago he had been ready to stay in Ur forever and to just let the grown-ups take care of everything. Now, he didn't know what to do.
The Prophecy of Doom had foretold that the Dark Warriors would come to combat the forces of the Light, and it was true enough. The only thing that was left out was the fact they would be needed because the Light would be rampaging out of control. Jaeger could understand how everyone could have misunderstood that, but it didn't help her or Nick. How were they supposed to go up to people like this Judge and convince him to listen to them? If he was a Cetra he might even be able to sense the Darkness in them from miles away.
If Jaeger could just convince Ashley about what the Crystal had said then perhaps she could get stop the second flood. But what if that didn't work? Could the fate of the entire continent truly rest on their choices?
Jaeger sighed as she stared into the crystal and waited to see if anything would move in it again, if anything had moved the first time. She half hoped that the Crystal of the Wind would try to talk to her again, but no words were spoken and nothing was moving.
She had been about to give up when she saw a small figure walking towards her in the crystal. Jaeger blinked, but the image only became clearer and closer. She got up from her stool and went to the small table and picked up the crystal to get a better look.
The instant she touched the tiny crystal she felt as if she was touching magma in a volcano. Her senses seemed to spread out for eternity and the room vanished as everything around her became Light. The Light was burning, bright, and crushing; Jaeger couldn't inhale or breathe as eons passed through her and past her as people from all times seemed to make up the white of this cosmos that surrounded her.
Jaeger tried to scream as the Light tried to destroy her. It tried to burn away at every fiber of her being, but she wasn't burning and her body didn't turn to ash. She lifted her arms and set her feet as the waves upon waves of eons tried to consume her and failed.
And then one figure appeared before her for a moment, a blond headed boy with a serious face who was wearing an armor she had never seen before, and then he became one with the other figures burning in the Light that passed her by.
"Duty calls to you," the boy seemed to say quickly as he passed her. "Justice need never fail."
Jaeger didn't know who was talking, but she wished that he had been able to say more, something that would help her survive this trap. But as she searched for the boy again she noticed a small piece of blue Light. It was a tiny shard that stuck out from the rest and didn't pass her and stayed motionless. Jaeger squinted and she saw that the small source of Light was the crystal she had picked up, and it stood there motionless, connecting her to this place.
Jaeger stepped forward, reaching out as the eons tried to burn her flesh away, and grabbed the crystal, and then she clenched her fist and shattered it. The light died with a whimper as its connecting source vanished and then Jaeger found herself standing in darkness.
"Jaeger?" Kyle asked after a moment as Jaeger touched the crystal and then stopped moving. "Are you okay?"
Jaeger didn't answer and Kyle was starting to get worried, and he wasn't the only one. Jeff sat up and Nick went over to shake Jaeger's shoulder, but before Nick got there the crystal's light died, leaving the children in almost complete darkness except for the almost faint light that came in through the window.
"What happened?" Kyle asked as he blinked his eyes, the sudden loss of the light leaving him unable to see. "What did you do?"
"I," Jaeger began as she looked around in confusion and dropped the crystal. She was breathing heavily as if she was afraid of something. "I don't know. I was burning and eons were...I...I..."
"Take a deep breath," Jeff advised as he stood up in the dark and joined Nick who had already put his hand on her shoulder, or at least that's what Kyle thought he saw now that his eyes were starting to adjust to the light provided by the window.
Jaeger paused for a moment and took a breath and then she turned to look at the Crystal.
"So what happened?" Kyle asked. "Why isn't the crystal working now?"
"I...broke it," Jaeger said after a moment.
"Why?" Nick asked, sounding as confused as Kyle felt.
"It was trying to kill me," Jaeger said as she looked down at the Crystal and then slowly she bent down and then carefully reached down. She took an audibly deep breath, and then picked it up and almost immediately gave a sigh of relief.
"Okay, start at the beginning," Jeff requested as he led Jaeger to the bed to let her sit down and Kyle moved aside so they could all share the room.
"Has it ever tried to do that before?" Jeff asked after Jaeger finished telling her story, which he was having a hard time understanding.
"No, but then again I've never held a crystal before, of any kind," Jaeger admitted.
"Can it be turned back on?" Nick asked as he shook the crystal to see if it would do anything.
"I don't think so," Jaeger said as she shook her head. "I don't know exactly what I did, but I don't think that crystal will ever be able to light up again."
"Well, it's going to get cold in here again," Jeff said, but as he did the door opened and Gerot came inside with Ashley following him on crutches.