The Phoenix Saga (Chapter Fifteen Up 7/10)

[Dr.McNinja]

A few years ago I started work on a long story, one that had been building in my mind for a few years and that I finally felt strong enough to start. I worked on it long and hard and got quite a bit done before school and other concerns forced me to take a hiatus from it until now. Going back to refresh my memory has been an interesting time and I'd like to share what I've done so far and then continue the story here. As I wrote the story to its current point, it was interesting to go back and see just how much better the later chapters were than the first as my writing got better and better as I went. I've attempted to clean up the earlier chapters as much as possible but I'm not sure if the difference is still noticable or not. Either way, I'm glad to present the Phoenix saga up until it's current point (I'll post a chapter each day or whatnot until I've gotten to there) after which I will attempt to continue the story from there, if only to satisfy myself. Comments, ideas, critiques, reviews, compliments, and death threats are all equally welcome.

The Phoenix Saga

Chapter One: Falling Into the Flame

The pain was not the worst part of dying, contrary to popular belief; rather it was knowing that my death would cause the continued suffering of a world that hurt the most. It had all happened so fast too, faster than I even thought possible. One second I was facing that dark being, and the next I was lying on the summer grass, my life bleeding out from under me. As the world faded out around me, something blocked the sun’s glare from my tired eyes, a bird of some sort. As darkness finally settled in, a beautiful song began playing, a song that brought back so many memories.

Light. Piercing light. Bright enough that it caused the youth to flinch even through his closed eyes. The young man groaned and turned over in his bed, the sheets ruffling around him as he sought some recluse from the light. A wisp of thought fluttered across the boy’s groggy mind, struggling to gain a foothold in his consciousness. For a brief second it caught hold, causing the youth to gasp and sit up straight in his bed. He looked at the sun for a second, realizing that in order for it to be shining into his window than it must be. No! Letting out a shout the boy threw his sheets back and dashed across the small room to the cabinet in the corner. Throwing the doors open he grabbed the clothes within and began to throw them on as fast as possible, all the while yelling at himself, “Caylen, you moron! Why can’t you just get up on time for once? If you get expelled, you’ll never become a Defender and then what?”

Dressed, the youth paused at the mirror to make sure that his uniform was on properly. Starting from his head, the boy’s eyes traveled down his body, past the black, sleeveless tunic, past the loose black pants, down to the black leather boots that finished the outfit. The tunic and pants were trimmed in silver and made of some tough material that felt like silk. The boots had a dull shine around the silver laces that showed both great care and wear. Nodding his satisfaction, the boy shrugged on his black coat, similarly lined in silver, around his shoulders. With a slight rustle, the boy dashed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I gave a silent laugh and was instantly sorry for it as the pain from my destroyed body shook me. Was my life passing before my eyes? How cliché. It was appropriate however that I was reliving this day that hard started out so badly and would only get worse.

The youth arrived shortly at the large courtyard in the middle of the complex in which he lived and trained. Shaped much like a spider with far too many legs, the training courtyard was the body of the Defender complex, the legs representing anything from living quarters to stables. The other Defender Trainees were already warming up, going through simple moves with their various training weapons under the early morning sky. Thinking that his absence had gone unnoticed, the youth turned to go to his position and rammed directly into the chest of an extremely large, muscled man. The youth took one look at the red shield, bordered by the shapes of many different magical animals, that was sewn onto the man’s well-worn and dirtied tunic and prepared himself for the worst. The hulking man looked down at the boy with his deep brown eyes and sighed, “Caylen Everstar! How many times is this now?”

Caylen mumbled something incoherent and closed his piercing green eyes, silently wishing that the Defender wouldn’t use his full name. The Defender frowned and leaned forward until his face was directly in front of Caylen’s, his hot breath warm on the youth's face and his gaze promising punishments better left unspoken, “I asked you a question…when a Defender asks a recruit a question, the recruit would be wise to answer”

Caylen gulped and responded, “I believe that this is the sixth time this month sir”

Defender Renault let out another heavy sigh and motioned to Caylen to take his position with the rest of the trainees. As the boy scuttled off to do Renault’s bidding, the Defender shook his head and muttered to himself, “So much promise.”

Caylen wandered over to a weapons rack, where he selected a wooden practice sword, essentially a bundle of wooden rods, and began going through a few warm-up slashes and jabs. Satisfied, he fell into a practiced stance, his left hand holding the blade at a downwards angle from ear height, the other held underneath the blade as if holding a shielf. For a moment Caylen forgot his embarrassment as he twisted and turned, dancing with his sword as he pierced half a dozen imaginary enemies in a few moments. Caylen had a talent for the blade, even his peers realized that, and as he flowed across the dusty courtyard others occasionally glanced his direction to observe his movements. His heroic battle was cut short however as he noticed something amiss. Slowly lowering his blade, ignoring the slight layer of sweat that had gathered on his leanly muscled frame, he glanced around at the other Defender recruits and noticed that many of them were visibly excited, or nervous, or some mixture of the two. Caylen knew that he must have missed something by being late, something important by the looks of things. He sighed; he would have to ask Weslyn, his best friend, about it later. He turned to grab another weapon from the rack and froze. Slowly he blinked his eyes, thinking that he was seeing things, but when he opened them again HE was still standing there. Dressed in the shining silver armor that all Defender’s wore, complete with the shield-like crest, the man instantly stood out due to the fact that each and every crease or weld on his armor was trimmed with black, a decoration that the man had certainly earned throughout his amazing life and one that only marked the armor of the greatest Defenders in history. Caylen shuddered, as the man’s ice blue eyes, lightened even more by the sparkling rays of the sun that reflected of his armor and surrounded him in an eerie haloe ffect, seemed to focus on him for a second. The scalp under his short, spiky, black hair prickled as sweat suddenly beaded. “Hojira!”, Caylen’s mind raced, “What on Terra is HE doing here?”

Hojira, the one name that every Terran knew, the single greatest Defender to ever exist the said. His exploits were legendary: his defeat and binding of the Dark Guardian, his defense of Rearth against an the greatest incursion of the Trolls this century, his closing of the gate to the Netherealm when the undead invaded, the list went on and on and Caylen knew each and every honorific that Hojira had earned. The youth practically worshipped the still youthful Defender.

It took a moment of stunned awe before Caylen realized that Renault was calling his students to line up in front of Hojira. Caylen scurried to the front of the line, shoving past several of his fellow recruits in the process, so that he could better see the famous Defender. After getting the recruits lined up, Renault began to march in front of them, obviously nervous himself, and began to speak, “Recruits, today you will be observed by Sir Hojira during your drills and sparing. Sir Hojira is looking for recruits who show great promise and who could one day be chosen to become bonded to a Guardian.”

Caylen tuned out the rest of the speech, which was essentially a long pep talk, and pondered the first portion of it. Bonding a Guardian was the reason that most of the recruits joined in the first place. The ability to bond to a mystical beast was the key to the Defender’s magical powers, powers that no one else possessed and that made the Defenders such an important force in Terra. very few were chosen to wield that power. Bonding took a great deal of mental and physical energy and if a Defender was not up to it, the Bonding could be fatal. Caylen’s attention came back to the here and now as Renault began to wrap up his speech and Hojira began to walk down the lines of recruits.

The legendary Defender stopped periodically and stared into the eyes of a couple of the trainees. Those that he looked at seemed to become frozen under his gaze, sweat visibly dripping down their faces and their bodies shivering as if a sudden chill had come over them. After starring at a recruit for a while, Hojira would raise one hand and Renault would rush forward to lead the frightened recruit to join the others whom Hojira had chosen. Caylen stiffened as Hojira neared him and almost cried out as he seemingly walked straight past the youth. Suddenly however, Hojira stiffened and turned back to Caylen. Caylen seized up and began to sweat and Hojira stared at him, this time with a vaguely curious look on his face that quickly evolved into something akin to disbelief.

Hojira’s hands flew up to touch Caylen’s head, one on each temple. Hojira stared straight into the boy’s eyes and whispered to him, “Don’t move. I must see something”.

Suddenly Caylen felt as if thousands of small hands were reaching into his head, pushing around like they were searching for something. The feeling was odd to say the least. As the hands raced across his brain, Caylen felt something inside of him react. Hojira flew backwards, landing roughly on the ground of the practice field and throwing up a cloud of dust as he skidded several yards. The Defender stood, brushing dirt and debris off of his shining armor, and nodded at Caylen. Renault slowly guided Caylen over to the group of chosen ones, sputtering to himself as they passed several awestricken recruits (including a few whom had fainted). As they walked, Caylen heard Hojira’s voice in his head, “I will be watching you with great interest. Your power is...odd”





For a bit of clairity, Caylen is about 18 years old. The largest obstacle I had while going back to revise is adding detail to the work, my writing was very straightforward, up until a certain point when I began to enjoy detail work more, which works well in a lot of cases yet leaves some of the older sections seeming a bit dry. I hope the additions worked for the first chapter which truly needed the most work of all of them.

[Bulbasaur4]

[color=royalblue]
It is a great start! It makes me wonder a lot about Caylen... such as what his power is and such. This makes a good intro, since we don't get a glimpse really about Caylen's personality as much as the world he is in. A good setting starter! I can't wait to see some of the fresh chapters so I can tell the growth of writing. ^_^

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Very interesting. Makes me want to know more about this world, and what it is that Defenders do (though the name seesm somewhat self-explanitory, I'm sure there are a variety of details that are not).

Judging by the title of the story and the first paragraph, I'm guessing his Guardian is a phoenix.

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer Rose: I usually give backround detailsw as it actually comes up in the story or in little thoughts in the characters rather than some big revelation passage or something so keep an eye out for details like you want.

Bulbasaur: It'll be a while before fresh chapters (one's that I've written from scratch as opposed to seriously revising them) come about, I got quite a lot done before now. Thanks for the compliment though.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Two: Hearing the Call

Odd. The word fluttered through my dying brain. If I had only known what that meant when Hojira said it, I most likely would never be in the position I was in now. A new pain blossomed across my chest and I forced my heavy eyes open, thinking that my dark enemy was having what fun he could with me before I finally passed. I squinted suddenly at what I saw, the image slowly coming into focus. A small pendant lay on my chest, perfectly spherical and engraved with the emblem of a flying bird…a Phoenix. I cursed under my breath and closed my eyes again. Of course it would have to come back to me, it was the very source of all my problems. As my eyes closed I once again drifted back into the past, leaving the pain and the present behind.

Caylen stood in the small group of recruits that Hojira had chosen, shivering beneath his coat despite the heat of the day and the workout he had just completed. Hojira’s last mental words to him echoed in his head. “Odd?” he muttered to himself, “Is that good? Bad? What?”

He threw a quick glance at Hojira, but the Defender was once again moving down the line, inspecting the last few recruits. He certainly seemed unworried now, but at that moment when his mental probe ignited Caylen’s power; Caylen saw something in those unnerving eyes. Some faint glimmer of surprise and…recognition? Caylen closed his eyes, and tried to find that point of power again, straining his mind to find that place that Hojira had entered but to no avail. Sighing, he opened his eyes to see Hojira standing in front of them, looking over the small group as the rest of the recruits left with Renault to continue their training. Was it Caylen’s imagination or did Hojira’s gaze rest a bit longer on him than the rest? “You’re being paranoid,” Caylen thought, “Just stay calm”

Hojira stood quietly for a moment before finally speaking, his voice cutting the silence like a finely honed blade, “You have all shown signs of some inner power, a power that may allow you to be one of the few that get to bind a Guardian.”

Excited whispers broke out amongst the group as recruits reacted in surprise. The whispers quickly died out as Hojira simply stared and waited. Once quiet had been achieved once again, he continued, “Do not think that just because you have made it this far that you will bind a Guardian. Binding a Guardian takes much more energy than you all posses now, and many of you will never even come close to what is required. In fact, many of you will not progress past today. Inner power means nothing if you cannot manifest it physically in some way. For now that means your capability in battle. I will pair you with another recruit and you will spar each other so that I may assess your strength. Let us begin”

Hojira once again began to move through the recruits, assessing them one by one. As he passed Caylen, he once again stared into the youth’s eyes before moving on. Caylen sighed, at least this time he hadn’t almost blown the famous Defender through a wall. The other recruits received a similar treatment as Hojira continued to walk past them silently. At the end of the line, Hojira called out, “Rynn and Caylen!”

Caylen stumbled forward to the Defender, glancing sideways at the lanky, sandy-haired Rynn as he did. Rynn too looked scared stiff, though he had a determined glint in his eye. The two bowed before Hojira. The legendary Defender walked over to the weapons rack and chose two practice swords, which he handed to the two recruits. He then backed up, giving the two a large space in which to spar. He gazed at the recruits for a moment before giving his final instructions, “One of you will move on. One will not. Begin.”

The two looked at each other for a second, slowly realizing how much this one fight meant to them. With a nod towards Rynn, Caylen shrugged out of his coat and threw it to the ground. He brought his sword up in the slanted guard he had been practicing before and began to circle Rynn who was holding his sword in a similar manner. Caylen felt his stomach begin to flutter as adrenaline began to pump through his system. Here he was in his element; this was what he was good at and now was his chance to prove himself to his hero. The pressure continued to mount as the two circled, each waiting for the other to snap and make the first move. Evidentially Rynn’s will was the weaker as he suddenly burst into movement. The lanky youth shifted his weight to his forward facing foot and whipped his sword around in a horizontal slash at Caylen’s right arm. Caylen’s sword blurred to meet Rynn’s and the wooden blades clacked and slid against each other until their curved hilts met. Caylen stared into Rynn’s brown eyes and grinned at him, a tactic that he had learned caused confusion in his opponents who expected taunts or ferocity. Rynn shook a lock of hair out of his eyes and grunted at Caylen, “Save it, I’ve seen it before.”

Rynn suddenly disengaged his hilt and spun to the right, spinning around Caylen and stabbing downwards, thinking that the black-haired youth would fall onto his face and he could score the winning hit against his back. Caylen however had expected the maneuver and leapt into a forward roll as the pressure from the swords was suddenly released. He quickly jumped to his feet and spun, holding his sword defensively. Rynn did not let Caylen rest for even a second and engaged the boy in a furious exchange of slashes, parries, ripostes, and jabs. Sweat flew from the two recruits as their swords sent cracking sounds across the training courtyard. For every advantage one gained, the other found a way to turn the tables and take it away. The other chosen recruits watched in awe as the two moved with a speed born of constant practice and confidence in one’s ability. They knew the fight would be good as soon as Hojira announced the two combatants, Rynn was one of the most proficient swordsmen ever to enter the facility and Caylen was known for his grace and inventive strategies. It was the perfect match between the flawless swordsman and the unpredictable fencer.

Caylen leapt back, giving both him and Rynn a second to recover from their heated engagement. Caylen worked his mind furiously. He knew that Rynn would be able to take anything he threw at him technique-wise meaning that Caylen would have to best him in some area where Rynn could not devise a strategy. The youth’s grin widened as he thought of something that just might work. With a wild yell, Caylen rushed Rynn, holding his sword high in the air, signaling a fierce downwards slash and leaving his middle completely open to attack. Rynn frowned, the move was risky, betting Caylen’s speed against Rynn’s to see who would strike first. Rynn was unable to resist the perfect opportunity to put this fight away, he knew he was better and he knew he could take Caylen right here. Rynn swung his sword with all his might directly at Caylen’s unprotected stomach. His yell cutting off, Caylen immediately dropped to his back and turned, his breath being driven out of him in the process, and rapped Rynn’s sword hard, intending to cause it to fly back directly into his opponent’s face. The sword met with an unusually loud crack and the top half of Caylen’s sword fell to the ground, the soft sound heard clearly by the silent spectators.

Both fighters simply stared for a second, stunned by the turn of events. Rynn suddenly snapped out of his trance and brought his sword down, grinning in triumph. Shock shot up his arm as his sword was blocked. Caylen smiled up at him, holding the broken blade of his sword in his left hand against the quivering sword of Rynn. With a quick roll, Caylen sprung to his feet, holding the two halves of his broken sword at the ready. Rynn shakily approached with an uncertain expression. Caylen easily blocked Rynn’s attack with the hilt of his blade and brought his other weapon around, aiming at Rynn’s head. Although Rynn was totally lost with this change in fighting style, he still had the awareness to duck, Caylen’s blade furrowing his hair as he did. Caylen reversed his grip on the blade and brought it back to jab Rynn when a shaky voice sounded, “Stop!”

Caylen froze and turned to where the voice came from, preparing a sharp question. His mouth snapped shut as he saw Hojira slowly approaching the two fighters. Hojira’s face was pure white and his eyes full of fear. Caylen shivered, wondering what could possibly cause the great Defender to react like this. Hojira swiftly approached Caylen and grabbed his two makeshift weapons out of his hands. Caylen looked quizzically at Hojira until the Defender finally spoke up, “Where did you learn to fight like that? Who taught you?”

Caylen stood at attention at answered sharply, “No one sir. After my blade broke I just made due with what I had.”

Hojira looked at Caylen and shook his head, “Were you ever trained in such arts?”

Caylen shook his head in bewilderment; “No, it just felt natural sir.”

Hojira muttered something under his breath but quickly composed himself back to his normally cool self, though a hint of paleness still pervaded his face. Hojira nodded to the two fighters and spoke, “You both have shown amazing ability and, due to the unusual circumstances during the fight, I will allow both of you to continue along this path. Please, go get some rest”

Rynn smiled over at Caylen, now that the battle was over he felt no animosity towards his foe, but frowned as he caught the look on Caylen’s face. Caylen knew that something about him using two weapons had shaken Hojira deeply. His eyes staring at nothing in particular, he wandered over to his discarded coat and, after donning it, quickly hurried off to his room.

Hojira waited through the rest of the fights, though many would say that he waited impatiently, ending each fight as soon as he saw a hint of skill and dismissing the unfortunate loser. When the entire group had been weeded, he left with almost no preamble, leaving Renault the job of briefing the considerably smaller group of what was to come. His boots echoing off the stone floors of the complex, Hojira raced to the library and plucked a prominent book off one of the first shelves. Quickly sitting himself down he flipped open the well used pages, barely glancing at the title, The Future of Terra: The Prophecies of Sammael, and quickly finding the page he desired. The color slowly leeched from his face once again as he read the passage softly out loud, “Death and Fire and Blood I see, running like a river. I see a dark shadow moving in the night, a specter of Doom for Terra. The specter nears, how his eyes burn! They look deep into my being, into the very essence of who I am! His power is unlike any I have ever seen, it rages at the slightest movement or touch and attempts to destroy it utterly. The shadows part slightly and as he moves through the corpses, a light suddenly blossoms from his hands. No. Not just a light. Two glowing blades! He burns the world with those blades, dancing through the smoke and the screams as though they are music to him. He cannot be stopped, the future of this world ends here.”

With a cut off cry, Hojira slammed the book shut and closed his eyes. It could be a coincidence, his power was indeed more far more feral and instinctual than any he had ever felt, and he had utilized the two broken halves of his sword almost unnaturally well but it was only suspicion. There were other factors to be taken into account and he could not mark such a promising youth as the destroyer of the world so easily. Shakily, Hojira replaced the book on the shelf and exited the library.



A little drama to get the plot moving, expect some character development next chapter as well as some important characters.

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Ooo, very nice. I really like the way you described that fight, I could picture it perfectly. Nice twist there, with the dual wielding and the prophecy. I look forward to seeing any developments on that.

[Silencer]

So Caylen is dieing and remembering his past? I kind of wished you didn't start the story in Caylen's room. Would have been so more exciting if we didn't know who was dieing. Then we coupld wonder, would it be Caylen that is the dark creature and Hojira the dieing person? A nice plot twist that would have been.

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer: Thanks, I enjoy writing fights probably more than any other part.

Silencer: It's an important part of the story as a whole but one that won't be clear until later. Sorry!

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Three: Summoned by the Song

A wave of heat washed over me, heat so intense that even my numbed body could feel it. A roaring sound suddenly filled my ears as a raging fire erupted around me. I tried to scream as the fire ate into my flesh, but it died on my ruined throat. Even through the pain my story continued to play in my head, seemingly unaware of the agony I felt.

Caylen lay on his bed, his right arm over his eyes blocking out the sunlight that continued to stubbornly stream through the window. He just couldn’t win today. First he sent Hojira flying, and then he somehow deeply frightened the man just because he could seemingly fight with two weapons. He let his arm drop limply to his side and watched the dust dancing in the light above him. A banging of the door brought him out of his pit of self pity and forced him to grunt out an answer that might have been an invitation to come in (but probably was more akin to a curse). The door swung open, banging against the wall, and two figures moved into the small room.

Weslyn smiled as he kicked open the door andsat on the end of Caylen’s bed, his laughing hazel eyes contrasting with his mid-length brown hair. His half-way buttoned silk shirt stretched as he put his arms behind his head and spoke, “You completely blow away the greatest Defender to ever live and you run away to sulk?”

Caylen couldn’t help but smile at his best friend’s casual air and sat up in the bed, his eyes traveling to the other figure who had entered behind Weslyn. Standing slightly shorter than him, and much shorter than the tall and lanky Weslyn, Lesalia shook her head at him, her deep blue eyes calm as ever. Her long black hair slid around her delicate face and waist as she shook her head, enveloping her dark dress. When she spoke her mellow voice seemed to fill the room with its calmness, an effect that unnerved many people, “You obviously did not see everything that went on…”

Caylen’s smiled dropped as he nodded at Lesalia, “She’s right Weslyn, Hojira wasn’t impressed, he was scared…if an emotion like that can exist in such a man.”

Weslyn shrugged and hopped off the bed, walking over to lean against the window “What was there to be scared about? Besides pushing him around a little, you didn’t really do anything!”

Caylen slid off with Weslyn and paced around the tiny room, “It wasn’t even that that scared him the most. Of all things it was when I picked up my broken sword and started using it too!”

Lesalia suddenly stiffened with a gasp, her normally calm and serene eyes wide with surprise and her face rapidly becoming pale. For a second she just gaped, her mouth opening and closing, until she found her voice, “What?! Well no wonder he was afraid!”

Weslyn wandered over to Lesalia and bent down to look in her eyes, “What are you talking about?”

Lesalia looked down, her eyes flickering as she tried to remember something, “Something in Sammael’s Prophecies had something to do with two blades and an uncontrolled power. Do not you both remember reading it? It was one of the earliest works that we had to study.”

Weslyn looked over at Caylen and nodded, “Like we’d remember something that old…well there’s an easy way to find out what that something was either way”

The three arrived at the Library soon after, and the two young men sat as Lesalia went to find the Prophesies. Weslyn leaned over the table and whispered to Caylen, “I don’t care what some dusty prophet has to say about it, the look on Rynn’s face when you grabbed than blade and blocked him was priceless!”

Caylen managed another grin. Tired of waiting, he stood to browse the shelves and was almost floored when a streak of bright colors collided with him at a speed slightly less than that of sound. Caylen shook his head to clear it and looked down at the person who had crashed into him, a smile, this time genuine, emerging unbidden to his face. Cammie. Bright, flashing green eyes looked up at him through a cascade of mid-length auburn hair that had fallen across the heart-shaped smiling face, “Caylie! You should watch where you’re going!”

Caylen couldn’t help but laugh at the young woman’s fake indignation, “It’d be easier to watch out if you gave some sort of warning before flying blindly around a corner.”

“Bah” Cammie spouted.

The energetic girl turned to continue on her way and slammed face first into Weslyn who had gotten up as well. Cammie squinted up at the tall youth and spoke, “What’s with Caylie and you not being able to watch where you’re going? You don’t want to make me mad Wes!”

Weslyn let out a short laugh, “Never Cammie, I fear your wrath just as much as the next, isn’t that right “Caylie”?”

Caylen nodded, “Right”.

Lesalia suddenly re-appeared, a large bound volume held to her chest. She surveyed the scene and gave a ghost of a smile before setting the book down on the table, “I think this is it.”

Cammie gave a little hop in order to sit on the edge of the table, peering curiously at the aged book, “What’s that?”

Weslyn glanced up at Cammie, taking his eyes away from Lesalia flipping pages, “You remember how Caylen did that thing with the two swords and his power and all that? Well Lesalia seems to think that’s the most horrifying thing she’s ever heard.”

Cammie made a confused face, “Why? It sure looked neat!”

Lesalia suddenly looked up from the book, her face once again pale though she somehow managed to keep her face serene, “This is why”

The young woman pushed the tome to the center of the table and the four bent over it, reading the same prophecy that Hojira had. Silence hung heavy over the group as they finished reading, each looking at Caylen after a few moments. Weslyn looked as if he was afraid that Caylen would suddenly sprout horns and wings and begin the destruction of Terra right there. Lesalia had a more contemplative look, studying Caylen with her hooded eyes. Cammie squinted at Caylen, as if peering through the young man before she said, in all seriousness, “You don’t look like a Specter of Doom.”

Weslyn barked out a laugh and, the tension broken, sat back in his chair, “Don’t worry about it Caylen, the two blades thing must be a coincidence. I mean, how many people in this world do you think can do the same thing?”

Lesalia closed the book and gazed at Weslyn, “Very few, the prophecy is somewhat well known and those in positions of power are very critical of anyone who shows proficiency with two blades, especially those that show power like Caylen does”

His brow furrowing in renewed concern, Caylen looked at Lesalia, “So what does this mean? Am I the one in the Prophecy?”

Lesalia shook her head, “I cannot say Caylen. Prophecy is notorious for being symbolic when it seems literal and vice versa, you know that. The blades could mean anything.”

Caylen glanced around to make sure no one was listening in before speaking again, “Hojira seemed to think they were literal, at least enough to be scared stiff.”

ng an arm on Caylen’s shoulder, Weslyn assured him, “Hojira’s smart Caylen, and he’s studied prophecy for most of his life as a Defender, he won’t leap to conclusions. You can’t change anything either way so you’d best just not worry about it.”

Cammie agreed, “Yeah Caylie, just forget about the whole thing! You should be happy anyway, you’re going to get a Guardian!”

Weslyn removed his arm and punched Caylen lightly on the shoulder, “That’s right! What are you so worried about? I wish I was so lucky!”

Caylen smiled and glanced around the table, “I haven’t earned a Guardian yet. You heard Hojira, most people never make it that far.”

Lesalia stood up, clutching the book to her chest again and nodded to the group, “I must go. Take their advice Caylen, do not worry about it.”

As Lesalia glid out of the room, Caylen turned to Weslyn with an interrogative look on his face. Weslyn caught the look and held up a hand before he could speak, “I don’t know what’s up with her. She was waiting outside your room about to go in when I arrived.”

Caylen settled back in his chair and thought of what he knew of Lesalia. He had barely talked to her since he arrived at the training facility and usually those talks were simply matters that did not involve much conversation. He knew that she was an archer, another fact that made conversation between them difficult as she practiced in a different area than the melee fighters. Another thought struck him suddenly, “Isn’t she really interested in myths and magical lore and all that kind of stuff?”

Weslyn nodded slowly and Cammie suddenly spoke up, “Ooooh, you think she’s hoping that you’re the subject of a Prophecy!”

Nodding, Caylen continued, “I’m sure that would fulfill her life’s dream if she actually could say she found the subject of a Prophecy, she might even make Defender solely on that. But she didn’t know about it until you mentioned my skills Weslyn. What was she doing outside my door before then?”

Weslyn shrugged, “Beats me. Maybe she has a thing for you?”

Caylen grinned and shook his head, “You’re the heartthrob of the group if anyone is Wes.”

Weslyn gave a wide smile, “You bet I am.”

Cammie looked between the two friends for a second before, loudly, muttering something about their mental health. Suddenly she jumped up, her eyes wide, “Oh-no! I just realized that I was supposed to go to the Quartermaster to get fitted for my new combat outfit! Seeyouguyslatergottago!”

Stifling a chuckle as the energetic girl dashed away, Weslyn spoke, “Not another new one. You remember what happened the last time she changed clothes?”

Images of a heavily armored Cammie barely able to stand under her helm and full-plate floated through Caylen’s mind, “Well it can’t get any worst than that…can it?”

The two friends stared at each other for a second before they burst out laughing, Caylen looking after Cammie as she bolted through the library, toppling more than a few people on her way. Behind the nearest bookshelf, a slender figure stood and watched the two laugh, holding the book of prophecy to her chest. With a sigh, Lesalia turned and fled from the library.

---

Hojira knelt before the seated figure, his head facing the floor as he spoke, “He is the first since Sammael’s days to exhibit both traits. This is a bad omen for Terra.”

The figure spoke, his deep voice full of authority, “He has fulfilled a portion of the Prophecy. But we cannot declare him the Dark Figure of Prophecy based on that.”

Hojira raised his head to look at the seated one, “He also has a strange power, strange and strong. I have never felt anything like it before.”

The seated man frowned, “That too is not enough to accuse him. We do not know enough about the inner powers of a human that we can judge whether or not he is truly the subject of the Prophecy.”

The man deliberated for a moment before speaking again, “Despite not being able to accuse him, we still must be cautious. It is our duty as holders of the Prophecies to make sure that Terra is preserved. You will keep an eye on Caylen and make sure that he does not harm anybody or exhibit any clear signs of evil”

Hojira stood and bowed, “And if he does?”

With a sigh the man lifted an arm and let it drop, “Then we will be forced to destroy him.”

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Four: Feeding the Fire

The fire continued to burn, feeding on my flesh, growing stronger as it consumed me. Suddenly a light flared, a light so bright that it was blinding, even through my closed eyelids. The light burned as hot as the flame, but in a different way. Instead of consuming it restored. The Eye of the Phoenix had been activated.

A month passed without much incident, aside from Cammie almost setting Rynn on fire during a rather spirited argument, and soon even Hojira began to believe that Caylen’s power was not that of the Prophecy, or so it seemed to the young recruit. Caylen fell back into his normal routine, though every time he saw Lesalia she always looked at him with that same appraising expression, forcing his mind back to that day in the library and bringing with it unwanted distractions. Caylen continued to advance in the Guardian group, proving again and again his skill and ability and continuing to survive as others were weeded out. The tests however, became harder and harder. Once the students were forced to fight two opponents at once, each seeing how long they could last against two enemies each who would have been tough opponents alone in and of themselves. Another time, they had to fight with weighted weapons, making even holding the sword (much less swinging it) a feat in itself. No challenge however had prepared them for what was to face them today.

Hojira was oddly absent as the small group warmed up. Each was tense, knowing that even more of them would be eliminated today and also knowing that it may very well be them, as each and every one of them was superbly skilled. It no longer was a game of superior ability; rather the victor was usually decided as soon as the first mistake was made. When Hojira finally arrived, each student’s eyes widened as they instantly realized what was about to befall them.

Hojira was in his armor as usual, the black trimming outlining each and every seam, but this time he sported something new. A brilliantly decorated, seemingly metallic, sheath hung over his shoulder, running diagonally down the entirety of his back to become visible again by his lower left thigh. In his left hand he carried a broad, redshield covered in the Defender’s trademark circle of mystical animals. Mutters broke out among the trainees, “He can’t expect us to…”, “Is that Tiferious? I thought he lost it against the undead?” “No way does he expect us to…”

Hojira waited until the mutters died down before speaking, “You are the best that your training group has to offer. Each of you has skills that place you amongst the best recruits that have ever entered this facility. Despite those skills, most of you will never have the chance to bind a Guardian. Your training is over. This is the final test.”

With the echoing sound of ringing steel, Hojira drew Tiferious. The beautifully worked blade came up from over his shoulder and dropped down to an easy rest by Hojira’s side. The long blade was almost a perfect mirror, reflecting the things around it with almost no distortion. The hilt was an astounding representation of a dragon’s mouth, its mouth gaping around the blade, its ruby eyes glittering in the noonday sun. Hojira stood for a second, and Caylen felt a shiver go up his spine. Here was the Legendary Defender in all his glory, a shining image of all Caylen aspired and hoped to be.

Without a word, Hojira turned and led the group to a small cleared area in the middle of the main courtyard where the normal training group had gathered, along with much of the rest of the facility as well. The sun crested the edge of the courtyard’s wall, bathing the area in a warm glow. As he stood at the edge of the improvised arena, he saw Weslyn smiling at him and glimpsed Cammie jumping up and down behind. A faint, “Get out of my way!” drifted across the area and Caylen gave a nervous smile. He continued to scan the crowd but stopped as a figure in the back caught his eye. Her dark hair hanging around her, Lesalia stood gazing at Caylen with the same expression he had seen dozens of times before. Caylen simply stared back for a second before shaking his head, he had more important, and less disturbing, things to think about, and turned his attention back to Hojira.

The Defender had stepped to the middle of the cleared area and began to speak, his voice echoing across the courtyard, “Today, those of you who are left will face me. You are not expected to be able to defeat me, indeed I would be quite impressed if any of you were able to. You may use whatever skills or abilities you believe you have gained during our fight. Prove yourselves. Rynn, you first.”

The skilled Rynn stepped forwards, holding the hilt of his sword, real this time, in a white-fingered grasp. He faced Hojira, and the two began to spar. Caylen cringed as Rynn was all but massacred in front of him. Each time the young recruit tried to form some attack; he was instantly driven back under a hail of blows from Hojira’s mighty sword. Caylen was sickened by the scene, if Rynn couldn’t face Hojira, what chance did he have? After humiliating Rynn for a while longer, Hojira finally called an end to the spar. As Rynn walked away, his head hanging in shame, Hojira called out to him, “Your performed admirably, do not be shamed by your lost.”

Caylen watched as Hojira systematically defeated each and every recruit, waiting for his turn. When the time finally came and Hojira motioned him forwards, he looked up at Weslyn who gave him a nod, though his face had grown grim. Cammie had stopped jumping as well and seemed somewhat stunned. Caylen stepped forwards, his sword giving a sound of steel against leather as he drew it, and dropped into a fighting stance.

The next instant he was on the ground, his legs aching where Hojira had kicked them out from under him. Shaking his head to clear it, the youth looked up at the older warrior, who was still standing in place, as if he had never even moved. The legendary Defender looked down at the prone Caylen and said softly, “Get up.”

Caylen quickly complied, though his mind was working furiously. This was the first time Hojira had spoken since the fights began and it seemed to Caylen that his softly whispered command had some kind of an edge to it. Nevertheless Caylen once again fell into a fighting stance. This time Hojira actually seemed to move. With a flash, Tiferious sliced through the air, aimed directly at Caylen’s head! Sparks flashed as Caylen managed to get his sword up in time to block the vicious slash and was driven back down into the dirt by the force of the impact. Caylen stared up at Hojira incredulously. It was obvious that, if Caylen hadn’t managed to divert the strike, Hojira would have cleaved the young man’s skull clean in half! Hojira’s soft voice spoke again, “Get up. And fight me.”

Again Caylen sensed some emotion in Hojira’s voice and this time thought that he knew what it was: scorn. Something stirred within Caylen as he struggled to his feet, some burning emotion that slowly began to build. Before even reaching his feet, Caylen was slammed to the ground again, the back of his head aching where Hojira had rapped him with his hilt. That scornful voice floated down to Caylen again, “Did you not hear me? Get up!”

Caylen’s breath began to come rapidly as that burning emotion began to bubble up. He could tell that Hojira was pushing him for a reason, was testing something far beyond his martial ability but that realization no longer mattered. His vision narrowed as he fought to regain his feet. This time Hojira allowed him to get all the way up and look the legendary Defender in the eye before driving his shield into Caylen’s chest and sending him flying back to the ground to land once again in the dirt and dust. Once more Hojira spoke, “Are you done playing? Are you ready to admit that you are finished? That all your skill means nothing? That your entire life has been a waste?”

Caylen’s rage exploded. With an incoherent snarl he snapped his head up and glared at Hojira, his eyes wide with fury, “SILENCE!”

Hojira slowly began to back away as Caylen eyes began to glow red, his eyes narrowed and fierce. With another scream of rage, Caylen’s eyes seem to ignite, shooting flames up and over his head. The flames danced madly and several screams were heard at those specatating the fight began to shuffle backwards in fright. Leaping directly to his feet, Caylen leapt at Hojira, flipping in the air over the legendary Defender’s head, and landing with a cloud of dust behind him. Flames whipping around his head, Caylen pivoted and threw all of his strength into a sideways slice. With an awful screech of metal on metal, Hojira went sprawling forwards, his armor curling around the blow. The flames dancing one last time, Caylen’s eyes cooled and he sprawled forward, his eyes closing as he fell. Hojira sat on all fours for a second, gasping for breath, his eyes wide and scared. When he came to his senses, the Defender slowly turned, feeling the aching spot on his back where his armor had buckled and twisted under Caylen’s brutal blow. Caylen lay on the ground, his eyes closed and his chest slowly rising and falling. Weslyn and Cammie kneeled over him, seemingly both worried yet afraid to touch the fallen youth. Lesalia hovered around the fallen recruit; her eyes alight with excitement mingled with worry. Hojira gulped a few times before finding his voice, “T-take him to his room and make sure he does not leave. NOW!”

With a start the three youths lifted Caylen and practically fled for the dormitories. Hojira turned to the rest of the recruits and attempted to compose himself, “Resume your training. Today’s events are over.”
The Defender turned on his heel and strode rapidly away, muttering to himself, “Eyes of flame. I knew if I pushed him he would reveal something of his power. This confirms the Prophecy”

Hojira ran through the complex, until he came to a pair of large, marble doors. Pushing the heavy doors aside, Hojira entered the inner room and kneeled before the man seated inside. The man looked down at Hojira with a slightly surprised expression on his face before motioning the Defender to rise and explain himself. Breathlessly, Hojira told the man what had happened. When he finished, the man lowered his head and sighed before finally nodding and speaking in a low tone, “We must do what is necessary. See to it Hojira.”

Caylen came too halfway to his quarters. Seeing the familiar hallways, he called out, “No! Stop.”

Stopping, and letting Caylen stand on his own carefully, Weslyn peered at his friend, “Why? Hojira said to take you to your room..”

Caylen nodded weakly, “He wants me where he can find me. He is going to come for me.”

Cammie made a face, “What? Why in Terra would he do that?”

Leslia broke in, “Because Caylen has just convinced him he is the one of the Prophecy.”

Weslyn turned on Lesalia, “The Prophecy again? Can’t you just drop it?”

“She’s right,” said Caylen, “He would have eliminated me right there by the look in his eyes, but he must have to obtain permission or something first, he is bound by his responsiblities. But after what just happened, I have no doubt that he will be able to convince anyone that I am a danger to Terra.”

Weslyn sighed, “So what do we do then?”

Caylen looked up at the ceiling; “I must leave, go into hiding and stay there until I can be sure that I am not a danger to Terra.”

Cammie jumped, pumping her fist in the air, “Right! We’re going to need supplies then.”

A puzzled look on his face, Caylen looked at Cammie, “We? No, I’m going alone. I can’t risk your lives as well. You can’t just give up your life for me.”

Weslyn moved to stand beside Cammie, “Stuff it Caylen, this Defender stuff’s looking worse and worse. You think I’ll stand and watch my best friend get killed? Please, let’s blow this joint.”

Caylen looked helplessly at his two friends before raising his hands in defeat and letting Weslyn help him up, “Fine, you win.”

Caylen turned to begin his escape but suddenly stopped. With a sigh he turned and looked at Lesalia, his face almost resigned“And what about you?”

Lesalia fell in line with the trio; “I will come too.”

Caylen opened his mouth to ask a question but shut it immediately. Who was he to refuse her? She could throw her life away if she wanted. Instead he turned and began to head toward the area of the complex where the supplies and weapons were stored, “Stay alert. Hojira is going to realize I’m not where I’m supposed to be soon. He’ll probably know where we’re going too and he’ll probably do anything he can to stop me from getting out of this complex alive.”

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Things certainly look bad for Caylen. Running away doesn't do anything to prove his innocence, but he doesn't seem to have much alternative. Though now I wander what exactly his "power" is, after what it caused in that fight.

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer: Yeah, I doubt he'd have much chance to defend himself, probably wouldn't even be a trial. As for his power...time will tell.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Five: Blinded by the Smoke

Song surrounded me, beautiful song. Had I been in a slightly more lucid state I may have recognized what it was, but as it was it was simply the most awe inspiring sound I had heard in my entire life. Somewhere a part of me still felt the pain and realized where I was but that distant person seemed too insignificant to me now. The song built and I let it overcome me.

Caylen leaned against a wall, breathing heavily as he glanced around to ensure that the coast was clear. Looking at his friends he realized just how tired they were becoming, and they still had yet to reach the supplies they would need. Sighing is resignation, Caylen realized he should have known how hard it would be to escape a complex filled with some of the best fighters and Defenders in Terra, especially when they are all searching for you in particular. So far they had managed to avoid or escape the multiple patrols scouring the facility, but the net was drawing closer around them and Hojira had already cut them off from any exits. He felt a renewed wave of sorrow that he had allowed his friends, and Lesalia, to doom themselves along with them. What were they thinking? He sighed, he was sure they had their own reasons, he didn’t buy friendship being the only factor one bit. With hopelessness starting to settle into his gut, Caylen pushed himself away from the wall and helped Cammie up, trying to keep a note of hope in his voice as he spoke, "We can't stop, they'll find us if we do."

With a voice no more harried than someone talking about yesterday's meal, Lesalia spoke up; "It would seem that they are going to find us no matter what we do."

Weslyn turned a tired eye towards his friend, "Hey Caylen, you don't think you could use some of that power of yours to help us out?"

Frowning at the faces in various stages of excitement turned towards him Caylen shook his head, "I can't really control it Weslyn, I don’t even know how to call it. And anyway, I don't see how it would help here. All the times that I've managed to use it I just blow something away."

Nodding his head in defeat Weslyn followed Caylen down the hall into the next section of the complex, wondering idly if they would get a trial or just be executed immedietly. His musings were cut short however when the four emerged into a room they had only dreamt of before. Coming to an abrupt halt, all four companions struggled to take in what lay before thenm. Axe blades gleamed dully from their perches on the massive stone walls, competing with the glimmering swords for the light streaming in from the glass celing. Weapons of every type and variety lay propped against the walls or mounted on racks that lined the titanic room, each in perfect condition and beautifully deadly. Slowly coming to their senses, the four young cadets realized that they had stumbled into the main Armory of the Defenders. Caylen spoke in a subdued voice, "This could be useful."

Minutes later, the group had thoroughly armed itself with the best weaponry that the Defender's had to offer. Coiling a remarkable chain-whip, a weapon that Weslyn had found himself rather proficient at, Weslyn admired the shining armor he had affixed to his left arm. Distracted as he was he did not notice Cammie, who was running around admiring the collection of weaponry the Defenders had collected, until she smacked him in the head with the steel quarterstaff she had found. Growling in mock anger he grabbed at the staff, "Watch where you're flailing that thing!'

Scowling, Cammie pulled her staff from Weslyn's grasp before running off to examine some of the armor, "Watch where you're putting your head!"

Sighing, Weslyn glanced over to where Lesalia was stringing a jet-black bow she had found in a corner. A quiver of arrows, fletched with feathers the same color as the bow, lay nearby. Strolling over to her, Weslyn grinned, "You couldn't have found a cheerier color?"

Lesalia fixed him with her cool gaze; "Ferranoak only comes in one color generally"

Weslyn compressed his lips, “How did a Ferranoak bow get here? The elves haven’t shown their ugly faces from their forests for years.”

Lesalia turned her face from Weslyn, her hair swirling with the motion, and looked at the corner where she had found the bow buried under some rotting leather armor, “The Defender’s must have obtained it before the elves went into seclusion and once they did I suppose none of them wanted to touch it.”

Nodding, Weslyn agreed. Ferranoak made some of the best bows on Terra, bending easily yet generating an incredible amount of power, giving the bows amazing range. Despite their obvious superiority over normal bows, most refused to use them, believing that nothing created by the elves could possibly be as good as the stories said. The elves had secluded themselves in their forests for years now, refusing to participate in any of the conflicts in Terra that had happened since then, causing much of the general public to despise their seemingly superior attitudes. Eyeing the bow with some suspicion Weslyn turned to find Caylen tying off Cammie’s new armor. Completely black the armor was obviously designed for one of the stealthier Defenders; it even had an opaque veil that could conceal a part of the wearer’s face. Made of some kind of cloth layered with leather, was form fitting enough to allow easy movement while remaining somewhat resistant to attack. Weslyn chuckled, the idea of Cammie being discreet and stealthy was too much. Giving Weslyn a peevish look, Cammie pointedly ignored him and instead focused on Caylen, “Caylie! Aren’t you going to get anything?”

Caylen was standing next to some racks of swords, seemingly torn over something. With a hesitant hand he reached for one of the glimmering blades but drew it back before he even touched the weapon. Glancing over at his companions he gave them a confused look, “I’m sure there’s something over here for me but nothing here looks or feels right.”

Again Caylen reached for a sword. This time he placed hand on one but, with a sudden jerk of his arm, caused it to fall to the ground, with a harsh clangor that resounded across the enormous room. Caylen stared at the sword on the ground for a second before his eye caught something previously hidden. Behind the space vacated by the fallen sword the edge of a design could be seen. Looking around the room Caylen didn’t notice any other designs at all; the walls were all bare rock, used only as another surface on which to place weapons. Carefully removing the rest of the swords from the rack, Caylen then moved the entire rack away from the wall, revealing the design beneath.

A graceful Phoenix of white marble was set on the wall, its graceful wings arching up towards the skylight. Caylen pondered the carving for a moment, noticing the beauty that shown through, even in the simple carving. Weslyn whispered to Lesalia, “Might want to stand back…”

His hand still shaking, Caylen placed his palm on the carving, a strange light appearing in his eyes. Flames suddenly burst into being, somehow setting the inlaid marble aflame, creating an odd illusion of life in the carving as the fire danced and flickered. With a suddenly blinding light, the flaming carving, and much of the wall behind it, vanished, leaving a small alcove. Following Lesalia and Cammie, Weslyn grumbled to himself, “Fine, there was no explosion. Just a raging inferno.”

The four companions entered the alcove only to find a largish wooden box sitting on a small stone pedestal. Caylen, looked at the box for a long moment before moving, too many strange things, this included, were happening and he wasn’t sure if he wished follow this path. Reaching out a tentative hand, he suddenly drew it back as writing appeared on the wall behind it, flaring briefly in flame. After a moment Cammie yet out a yelp, “It’s the Prophecy!”

Indeed it was. Quickly codifying, the Prophecy of Sammael appeared on the wall in flowing script. Excitement shown in Lesalia’s eyes even as fear and uncertainty appeared in Caylen’s. Still, Caylen reached forward and opened the box, what else was he to do? Inside lay two black sheathes, gilded with tendrils of white and covered in strange, unreadable writing of the same color. Placed atop the sheathes was a sealed letter, the insignia in the wax the shield of the Defenders. Taking the letter, Caylen broke the seal and spoke aloud as he read, “After the Prophecy of Sammael was conveyed and confirmed, these blades were discovered by Defenders returning from the Netherworld. Seeing them for what they could possibly be, they were delivered to a blacksmith for destruction…to no avail. Even in the hottest of fires, not even the faintest glow appeared on their blades. Is it possible that the Prophecy cannot be stopped? We have decided to hide the blades in the single safest place we could think of: the very stronghold of the Defenders. Perhaps they will be safe there, protected by some of the best defensive magic there is. To you who are reading this, I pity you for you are either the one of the Prophecy or a complete fool. Think well before you take the Gemeos blades, I beseech you to turn away and spare Terra the horror that you will become.”

Caylen gave a fearful look to his friends before he reached out to take the blades, obviously not under his direct control any longer. Weslyn, acting on a gut instinct, grabbed Cammie and Lesalia and threw them out of the alcove before he too leapt out. Caylen’s hands closed around the two ornate hilts of the blades and slowly drew the blades out, their edges rubbing against the leather of the hilts. For the briefest of moments Caylen saw the blades, each running about the length of his forearm. The one in his left hand was almost as white as the hilt, seeming to give off its own light. The other was the exact opposite, seeming to draw the very light out of the room, sucking it into a blade blacker than the most oppressive moonless night. Caylen’s instant passed and suddenly the world around him went dark.

Colors burst before his eyes, even as voices began to speak in hushed, half-heard words, “…Phoenix…”, “We….awoken”, “Your power…”, “…shall fuel it”.

Caylen struggled against the voices and colors, feeling as the voices were drawing his mind into a bottomless canyon. His arms shook and strained as he tried to lift them off and away from the blades. The swirling colors were now growing darker, their hues becoming more and more depressing, slowly fading into darkness. Caylen heard a voice shouting and suddenly realized it was his own, screaming with exertion as his mind struggled against the massive flow. He didn’t feel when the tide changed, when something inside of him began to fight against the strange force. Suddenly the colors began to glow bright again and the voices began to fade as if they were slowly being drawn away. Finally, the real world snapped into existence around him and his own harsh breathing echoed in his ears. He was still holding the blades in his hands, both looking as innocent as when he had taken them from their boxes. Looking down at himself, Caylen saw small flames whisping around his body, climbing from his feet to his neck to flutter briefly above his head. Quickly shoving the blades back into their sheathes, causing the flames to blink out of existence, Caylen threw the sword belt holding the blades over his shoulders so that the blades rested crossed on his back, concealed by his coat. Turning, he suddenly saw his friends pulling themselves off of the floor. All three looked at him with a strange mixture of surprise, fear, and awe. Dreading what he would see, Caylen turned around and saw what remained of the alcove. The walls had been turned into melted slag, the rock running down the sides like some thick syrup. The stone pedestal lay in a bubbling puddle on the floor. Strangely, the box had survived, its simple exterior unmarred. Turning back to his friends with the same look as them Caylen struggled to say something, to explain why he was still taking the blades despite the warning. He suddenly realized that even he did not know that answer. Luckily, or not, he was spared from having to explain himself when a loud, booming voice echoed through the room, “Why is the Armory open….and unguarded?!”

A much more feeble voice answered, “All guards were pulled off duty to search for the cadets sir.”

“Fools!”, the voice resonated, “What is the single place that could be of most use to them?”

Caylen strode past his companions, picking up a fallen sword as he made his way to the center of the room. Weslyn shrugged at Lesalia and Cammie and followed his best friend, uncoiling his whip as he did. Cammie dashed after the two, awkwardly pulling her and veil up as she did. Lesalia started to follow and paused. Looking back at the destroyed room where Caylen had obtained the Gemeos a glitter of excitement appeared in her deep blue eyes. The subject of a prophecy! Turning quickly she pulled an arrow from her quiver and ran to join the rest of the group.

The four stood in the middle of the room, waiting as the sounds of footsteps grew louder. There was one door leading into the armory, they had no choice but to make some sort of stand here. Weslyn took a moment to wonder why exactly he was, most likely, about to die….oh right, friendship and all that. His musing didn’t last long however as four Defenders entered the room and yelled out at the sight of the four targets. The four didn’t move as the Defender’s rushed them, thinking a few recruits to be easy prey. The four waited until the attackers where bared yards away from them. With a flash of movement Weslyn’s whip lashed out, the crack of it resounding across the room. Even louder was the clank of the fallen Defender as he fell to the ground, his throat torn open by the bladed end of the chain whip. Cammie gave her staff a quick spin before engaging the second Defender. Her staff spun furiously as she deflected a high thrust, bringing the other end of the staff around to deflect the Defender’s onrushing shield. Dodging quickly under a horizontal slash she went on the attack, attacking with each side of her staff and forcing her assailant to back up rapidly under the flurry of blows raining on his wooden shield. With a flash of her brown eyes, Cammie dropped into a crouch, kicking the Defender’s feet out from under him. Springing to her feet she leapt on top of the fallen man’s chest, holding his sword down with her booted foot. With a forceful shout she brought her pole down on the man’s temple, sending another crack through the room, this one far sharper, and dropping the man where he lay. Cammie was somewhat relieved that the man still appeared alive, despite having a seriously cracked skull, killing had an awfully depressing quality to it. Turning to find another target she spotted Caylen and Weslyn engaging the last two Defenders.

A veritable blur, Caylen ducked and leapt over the strikes coming at him from every direction, furiously defending against the double onslaught. Weslyn hovered at the edge of the fight, his whip snaking in whenever he saw an opening, tripping up legs and opening brutal slashes in the men despite their armor, distracting them from their attack long enough for Caylen to find a break. The attack lessened somewhat when Caylen, who had just rolled to the side to avoid an overhead slice, spun in his crouch to lash out at the other attacker’s legs, cutting them out from under him. The crippled Defender fell almost straight down, becoming the perfect target for Caylen to open him up from stomach to neck as he sprung to his feet, his sword held parallel to the ground. Hearing a soft thump, Caylen turned to confront his last target only to realize that he had nothing to worry about. Gurgling slightly the man lay on the floor, a black-fletched arrow lodged in his throat. Stepping lightly over the carnage, Lesalia pulled her arrow from the dead man’s throat, brushing it lightly across the Defender’s tunic before returning it to her quiver. Glancing around at the four dead Defenders on the floor she looked bemusedly at the others, “And you’re only recruits?”

Smiling slightly, Caylen started towards the now clear exit, “We’re gifted.”

Shrugging at Lesalia before following Caylen, Weslyn chuckled, “You heard the man.”

The four quickly left the armory and once again lost themselves in the maze of the Defender’s complex. Having killed three of their pursuers already, they knew that the hunt would only intensify from here on out. All four felt some remorse having had to kill those who had formerly been their idols and teachers, but they had been trained to do what was necessary to survive and buried their emotions for the moment. However, they still were not able to find a way through the patrols that crisscrossed the complex’s major intersections and found themselves slowly herded, finding less and less move to maneuver and hide as the net drew close. The four were quickly finding themselves in a hopeless situation, and all the while muted voices spoke in Caylen’s head, becoming louder and more confident as the end of the pursuit drew near.




A bit of action that only promises more to come next chapter. Looks like there are few options left open to the four friends.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Six: Surrounded by the Inferno

I felt my body dissolving in the fire, though I continued to hear the song long after my senses had disappeared. Even as my body turned to ash I could feel changes taking place, powerful changes. My imperfections were being scoured by the flame.

“They are herding us you know.”

Giving Lesalia the barest of glances, Caylen gave a curt nod, “Of course I know. They’re trying to trap us somewhere eventually so they can surround us.”

Weslyn shot an odd look at Caylen, “If we know what they’re doing why are we letting them do it?”

Caylen turned away with a frustrated look on his face, “Because we’re trapped! They’ve managed to cut off every route I’ve tried to take and they’re moving in large groups so we can’t take them out like we did in the armory.”

Sliding down one of the walls, Cammie looked hopelessly at Caylen, “So they’re going to get us no matter what we do?”

Still averting his head, Caylen nodded, “It’s only a matter of time.”

Lesalia looked coolly at Caylen, “So are simply going to wait here for them to find and kill us?”

Caylen clenched his fist; “You guys can still give yourselves up, say that I killed those Defenders and that I was trying to use you to escape, that way you won’t have to die”

One look at his companions was enough to let Caylen know that none of them were going to take his advice and once again he wished he had just left them back in his room, he didn’t want to be responsible for their death’s too. As the group continued into the trap that had been laid for them, Weslyn commented to an unusually downtrodden Cammie, “I hope he calms down a bit…I’ve had more than enough explosions for one day.”

Cammie gave a frustrated sigh, “We’ve got to find a way out! We’ve got to get out of this place!”

Surprised by the conviction and fervor in the young woman’s voice, Weslyn remained silent. It seemed as if only minutes passed before the four found themselves in a small alcove immediately outside a small clearing somewhere on the west end of the complex, a region they had never seen before. The sounds of the patrols were almost constant now but so far those who had come close had passed by the small group. Lesalia chanced a glance out of the alcove to study the courtyard, her glance moving over the various ponds and small rivers to the well-groomed trees to the obviously ceremonial platform, which bore the mark of the Defenders. Turning back to her companions, Lesalia spoke, “Do you know what this place is?”

Taking a glance himself, Weslyn shook his head. Cammie however began to bounce excitedly, “It’s the Courtyard of the Joining!”

Lesalia nodded serenely, “The place where Defenders come to search for their Guardian.”

Caylen gazed forlornly at the wall; “They chose a nice place for us to die at least.”

Weslyn gave Caylen a thwap on the head, “Cut it out Caylen, we came with you because we believe in you in addition to being your friends. You’ve managed to keep us alive this far and even if we are to die, at least let’s remind them why they went through all this trouble before we do.”

A faint glimmer beginning to spark in his eyes, Caylen’s eyes snapped up to look at Weslyn for a moment. Nodding curtly he grasped his sword in his hand and looked at the others, “Weslyn is right…we are done hiding.”

Marching out into the courtyard, Caylen heard the steps of his friends behind him and gave a small smile. Striding boldly straight to the platform, Caylen stood himself in the middle of the Defender’s symbol and raised his sword to point towards the main entrance, calling out to his invisible foe, “Hojira! You have been hunting me to prevent to fulfillment of the Prophecy of Sammael! Well here I am Hojira, come try to prevent me!”

The sharp sound of footsteps echoed across the Courtyard as Hojira strode into view, every bit the Legendary Defender with his armor glittering in the blazing sun and Tiferious swung easily over his shoulders. Stopping well short of Caylen, Hojira waited while dozens of Defenders streamed into the Courtyard after him, taking up positions surrounding the companions. Unfurling his whip nervously, Weslyn heard the soft rustle of leather as Lesalia drew one of her arrows. Caylen’s gaze remained fixed on Hojira as he continued to speak, “The Prophecy is flawed Hojira. The future is impossible to understand, even for Sammael.”

Hojira gave a short, harsh laugh, “You know nothing you pathetic child. The Prophecy is true and you are the fulfillment of it. You would destroy Terra…but I will stop you before you have the chance.”

Caylen pointed his sword at Hojira, “You will try you mean. Try and fail.”

Giving a self-satisfied smile, Hojira gestures towards Caylen. An incredible force yanked Caylen’s sword from his grasp and sent it flying across the well-trimmed grass of the Courtyard. Caylen stared at his empty hand for a moment before his eyes fixed themselves on Hojira once again, a definite flame beginning to flicker in them. Hojira took an involuntary step back before regaining his composure and gesturing for the Defenders to advance. Barely had they taken a single step before a soft twang announced Lesalia’s attack and an arrow lodged itself in the eye of the closest Defender. Quickly raising their shields to cover their vitals, the Defenders created a tight circle around the pedestal and began to advance. Cammie’s green eyes, visible over her risen, darted rapidly over the advancing attackers, her fear evident even as she readied her staff.

Caylen was fighting another battle even as the Defender’s closed in. More than once his hands began to stray towards the blades hidden under his coat but each time he managed, with obvious effort, to force them back to his sides. Out of the corner of his eyes, Weslyn saw Caylen’s dilemma and called out to him, “Caylen! Now isn’t the time to worry about what will happen. We’re all going to die unless you release your power!”

His eyes filled with a mixture of fear and grim determination, Caylen made up his mind. Closing his eyes as if he could shut out what was to come, Caylen brought his hands up and closed them around the hilts of the Gemeos. Overwhelming fear suddenly grabbed hold of Hojira who instinctively raised Tiferious. Seeing Caylen grabbing hold of something, Hojira screamed to his Defenders, “Get back! Don’t go near him!”

His coat falling to the ground, Caylen froze for a moment, feeling the power inside of him reacting to the blades, boiling to the surface like burning magma. Then the moment passed and Caylen ripped the blades from their sheathes.

CRACK!

Once again the world disappeared and Caylen fell into a vortex of color. The voices began speaking again, but this time others joined in, barraging Caylen with questions, “Who are you?” “What are you doing?” “Why do you seek us?” Too disorientated to even think of answering, Caylen simply floated in the void.

CRACK!

Ducking under a slice from one of the Defenders Caylen spun around, bringing the Light Gemeos level with his body as he straightened. With no discernable resistance Caylen continued to spin, leaving the now headless body to fall to the ground.

CRACK!

The voices seemed to become more agitated by Caylen’s silence, their questions coming louder and more insistent. Suddenly another voice broke through the constant noise, a calm and serene voice that immediately caught Caylen’s attention, diverting his mind from the fluctuating colors. Soft yet commanding, the voice spoke, “What are you?

CRACK!

Caylen caught the vertical slashes from the two Defender’s attacking him on his blades and shoved them aside. Somewhere to his left he heard the crack of Weslyn’s whip followed by an anguished scream that slowly faded off into more of a gurgle. Falling into a forward somersault, Caylen rolled between the two Defenders and came to his feet, stabbing backwards as his did. Ripping his blades out of the backs of the dead attackers, Caylen’s gaze settled on Hojira who was advancing on him, Tiferious at the ready.

CRACK!

“I-I’m not sure what I am”, Caylen stuttered to the voice.
Unsatisfied, the voice spoke back to him, “Not sure? How can one not be sure of what they are?”
“When I release my power…I am not myself anymore…I am something more than human, something much more.”
The voice spoke again, “More than human? What makes you more than human?”
“The Inferno that rages inside of me.”

CRACK!

Hojira pressed the attack and Caylen meet him, their blades barely touching as they danced around each other. Hojira was astounded, he was using all the skill he possessed and yet Caylen was matching him blow for blow. Knocking a blow aside, Hojira kicked Caylen in the midsection, driving the young man back to the very center of the pedestal. Flames whisped from Caylen’s eyes as he glared at Hojira and raised his blades above his head and roared a challenge.

CRACK!

“A fire that rages inside of you? A flame that bursts forth with such power as to make the earth tremble? Truly you are more than human. But what then are you? I must gaze upon you with mine own eyes. Come to me.”

A pillar of flame erupted around the pedestal, the flames leaping towards the sky and effectively trapping the four companions within. Thrown to his back, Hojira looked wide-eyed at the enormous firestorm, his eyes full of disbelief and dismay. The village surrounding the Defender complex began to shake, as if some power deep beneath the earth was struggling to get out. Villagers looked in awe at the fiery beacon that seemed to touch the clouds. Inside the column, Weslyn heard Cammie shriek and was mildly surprised that he was not screaming in fear as well. Lesalia by comparison seemed perfectly comfortable in the blazing fire yet the widening of her eyes betrayed the fear she kept contained inside of herself. Caylen still stood with his blades raised to the sky, his eyes closed and his face a mix of intense concentration and desperate hopelessness.

The pillar began to collapse on the pedestal, the flames falling down from the top like water to crash on the ground below. It took just seconds for the entire fiery column to implode, sending out an ear shattering boom along with a shockwave powerful enough to knock the surviving Defender’s to their backs. All was silent for a moment as the Defenders and Hojira remained on their backs, dazed and disorientated. Finally, Hojira slowly raised his head to see what had happened to the four that were trapped inside the pillar. Melted into a pile of slag, the pedestal formed a bubbling pool in the middle of the courtyard. Ash swirled around Hojira as he sighed in relief; Caylen’s power seemed to have been the end of him and his friends as his loss of control had incinerated the four. Turning to his depleted force of Defenders, Hojira smiled shakily, “Terra is safe, the Prophecy has been averted.”

Tired eyes slowly opened as an equally fatigued body felt a cool breeze brush over it. The world slowly came into focus, majestic trees and loamy earth sharpening every second. The last thing to become cohesive was the bright shape standing in a shaft of light. Feathers of vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges ruffled slightly in the wind as a long beautiful tail filled with color fluttered behind the being. Red eyes burning with some inner fire gazed at the fallen figure with warmth and a great deal curiosity. Opening its beak, the stunning Phoenix let loose a haunting cry that was carried by the wind to echo off the trees of the forest. The world slowly fell out of focus again as heavy eyes closed, the call of the Phoenix still ringing through the fallen one’s head even as the mind fell into unconsciousness.



Battle! Power! And a somewhat confusing ending...what happened to Caylen and the rest? Are they safe or just in deeper trouble than before?

[Mew Trainer Rose]

O_O Woah. Intense. And it leaves many questions. Such as: who was Caylen talking to (in his mind, it seems) while he was fighting Hojira? The phoenix seems the most likely answer, but it still seems a bit of a mystery. Are the others alright? Was paragraph at the begining of each chapter what was happening to Caylen at the moment when the pillar or flame erupted around him?
In any case, "a somewhat confusing ending" is an apt description. But I'm really looking forward to any sort of explanation that the next chapter may offer.
I also liked the scene where he was interacting with the voices, while at the same time fighting. I got the feeling that he was fighting on autopilot while his attention was on on the conversation. Makes me wonder who and what those voices are, as well.
Hmm...supposing the one he was talking the most to is the phoenix; could the other voices be other Guardian Spirits?

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer: Thanks again for the feedback. I'd say your guess as to the origin of the voices is pretty darn good, as for the rest I'd say that the next chapter definetly gives some clues to the questions brought up by this chapter if not clearing them up all together.


On a side note, I wonder why that little [/b] tag keep sticking around....


On another side note, if you have some kind of comment or criticism of my writing style feel free to share it, I post these to not only entertain and tell a story but to try to get better to.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Seven: Respite from the Heat

Colors swirled around Caylen and for a moment he thought that he was back in the realm of the voices. A second later he realized that it was just the sun glaring into his suddenly opened eyes. Moving his mouth, Caylen tried to ask something regarding what had happened and why he wasn’t dead but he only succeeded in making an odd squeaking noise. He was spared having to attempt speech again by the loud voice that seemed to double the efforts of the tiny hammers that were attempting to beat their way out of his skull, “You’re okay!”

Wondering to himself why people always find it necessary to yell in the ears of the person who just had -very- bad day, Caylen attempted to push himself up, his vision having returned to some semblance of clarity. He might as well not have bothered as he was suddenly enveloped in a giant bearhug from a rather overenthusiastic Cammie that pushed him right back on the ground. Smiling, Caylen looked down at Cammie’s auburn hair, “I might not be up for long if you insist on slamming my head into the ground.”

“Oops!” said Cammie as she hopped to her feet and helped Caylen to his. Glancing around the forest clearing where they stood, a sudden worry struck Caylen, “Where’s Weslyn…and Lesalia?”

Cammie’s eyes lost some of their excitement, “I dunno…they weren’t here when I woke up.”

Caylen took another look around, trying to disguise his worry for his friends, when another question struck him, “Where in Terra are we?”

Again Cammie seemed at a loss, “Beats me…but isn’t it beautiful?”

Caylen gave Cammie a look, the forest was indeed pristine and full of life, but both Cammie and he had seen forests before and nothing was too different about this one to explain the awe present in Cammie’s voice. He had much more important things to worry about however, such as where they were, where Weslyn and Lesalia were, how they got there, and (most importantly) why they weren’t dead. Brushing a hand through his hair, Caylen looked up into the sky, “We probably shouldn’t stay here Cammie…Hojira isn’t going to forget about us just because we escaped, however we did it.”

Nodding, Cammie bounced over to where a trail led deeper into the forest, “Maybe Weslyn and Lesalia arrived a little further than we did! They have to see this place!”

Again curiosity pulled at Caylen but he again pushed it to the side for the moment, “Hopefully, we shouldn’t stay separated for long.”

Following Cammie as she dashed down the trial, Caylen glanced back into the clearing for a moment, a strange song echoing in his head. For a brief moment the memory of a stunning bird, surrounded in fire, floated through his mind. Caylen sighed, too many odd things were happening far too quickly for him to be seeing magical birds. Turning away from the clearing, Caylen entered the forest.

---

Weslyn decided that, even though they had been quite amusing at first, the swirling colors had become quite old. It was after he reached this momentous decision that a simple solution occurred to him: open your eyes. Following his own advice, Weslyn opened his eyes and simply lay still for a moment. Coming to the conclusion that the blazing sun was just as boring as the colors, Weslyn began to close his eyes. A hushed, yet oddly calm, voice interrupted, “You are awake, good. Get up and stay quiet.”

Grumbling discontently, Weslyn shoved himself to his feet. He took one glance around the dense forest around them and put a hand over his eyes, “Let me take a guess…Caylen’s giant pillar of flame somehow instantly transported us to an entirely unfamiliar location and caused us to be separated due to its immense and unfocused power. And since you asked me to be quiet, I bet you don't think we're safe yet, probably a bunch of warriors or Defenders surrounding us even now.”

Lesalia’s eyebrows raised slightly, “That seems completely correct…but how did you know?”

Weslyn sighed deeply, “I didn’t. I was hoping that I could make it simply too impossible to be true.”

The little emotion on Lesalia’s face disappeared, “Few things are truly impossible.”

Weslyn fixed Lesalia with a sharp look, “Regretting your decision to come with us now?”

Lesalia fervently shook her head, “Never, at least now I am actually doing something…something important.”

Weslyn couldn’t help but smile, “All I feel is a killer headache, how can you possibly look so serene when your head has to be…”

A soft sound fluttered from the depths of the forest. Lesalia saw a flash of brown coming at her from between the trees. The thought, “Arrow” had barely crossed her mind with another blur flew in from the right, accompanied by a loud CRACK! Two halves of an arrow fell to the soft loam below as Weslyn retracted his whip and pushed Lesalia ahead of him, “Run!”

Trees grabbed at them as they fled through the forest. Weslyn ducked under a low branch, feeling the rough bark brush the top of his head as he did. Arrows flew at them out of the forest but none came close to the pair, mostly due to the limited visibility provided by the forest. Leaping over a log, Lesalia glanced over her shoulder and spotted several vague shapes running along behind them. Turning back, she suddenly felt a tug and found herself pressed against Weslyn in the hollow of an old, dead tree. The two held their breath, hearing their pursuers running past them, the sounds becoming fainter and fainter until they passed totally out of hearing. Still pressed close together, Weslyn gave Lesalia a crooked grin and opened his mouth to speak, “So now that we’re no longer in any immediate peril…”

Squeezing her way out of the small hollow, Lesalia fixed him with a cool look, “Do not finish that sentence, otherwise you will soon be in immediate peril once again.”
Weslyn chuckled to himself and slid out of the tree himself, sitting himself down on the soft soil and catching his breath. Pulling twigs and leaves from her long hair and dress, Lesalia gave Weslyn a vaguely curious look, “How did you stop that arrow? I barely saw it at all.”

Looking into the depths of the forest, Weslyn answered, “On my way to enter into the Defenders, I was attacked by some thug on the road. He didn’t look very dangerous but when I resisted he pulled a knife and gave me a nasty head wound, straight through the skull. I managed to take him down and get to the complex, I wasn’t too far away, but I collapsed as soon as they got someone out to help me. They told me I shouldn’t have survived. They feared that I’d have some sort brain damage and they were right, but I guess I was lucky in that the damage didn’t hinder me at all. What it did do however is increase my reaction time. I can see, recognize, and react to things faster than a normal human. Now granted, I may not always make the correct decision, but having the chance to make a decision at all is usually enough, as you saw a few minutes ago.”

Lesalia shook her head, “I understand how you saw it in time but even with such a reaction time it should have been impossible for you to get your whip up and ready in time to intercept it.”

An odd look passed over Weslyn’s face, “You’re right…I’m fast but not -that- fast. I have no idea how I did it…”

Brushing a hand through his hair, Weslyn’s mind went back to when he had stopped the arrow. He remembered seeing the arrow come flying out of the woods and remembered having unfurled his whip in the desperate hope that he could somehow get it loosed in time to stop the deadly barb. The next few moments were spotty at best however. He remembered seeing a flash of light, and suddenly realizing that the arrow was flying slower than he thought and that he -did- have time to get it before it hit Lesalia. The next thing he knew he heard the crack of his whip and saw the arrow fall to the ground. Weslyn brought his hand down from his hair and set it on his knee as he tried to remember that moment that he seemed to have forgotten. Suddenly, something in his hand caught his eye. Plucking the stringy object from it with his left hand, he brought it up to his face and simply stared. He was holding a grey hair. He turned to Lesalia who had drawn nearer and was looking at his hand. Her brown eyes as serene as ever, she looked at Weslyn and raised one eyebrow.

---

“Ooooo….look at that one!”

Caylen sighed and glanced up to stare at yet another branch of yet another tree. Seeing nothing remarkably different about this branch than any of the others around it, Caylen turned to Cammie and fixed her with a look. Cammie’s eyes looked at Caylen hopefully, “Can’t you see it? The way it swirls around there?”
Caylen shook his head and Cammie sighed, “How can you not see it!? You don’t see the way it pools on the ground? The way it climbs the trees? How it shoots off the branches and flies into the sky? You can’t see any of it?”
Again Caylen shook his head, “All I see is the forest Cammie, a beautiful one granted, but just a forest. Are you sure your vision has recovered from when we were unconscious?”

“Of course I’m sure!” Cammie said indignantly, giving Caylen a slap on the shoulder, “Are you sure you aren’t blind?”

Caylen laughed which only made Cammie madder. The two continued down the forest trail, arguing the entire time, until Caylen realized that the trees of the forest were growing further and further apart, and that he could see light up ahead of them filtering in through the gaps in the trees. Soon the two had exited the forest and stood at the top of a large hill overlooking a lush plain. Cammie pointed down the hill, “Look! There’s a town down there right next to that spiral pattern!”

Although he couldn’t see the pattern Cammie was talking about, Caylen did spot the town and let out a relieved breath. They would soon find out where on Terra they were and then he could do something about finding Weslyn and Lesalia and figuring out what to do next before the Defenders found him. Striding after Cammie who was barreling down the hill at a rather ill-advised speed, Caylen stopped abruptly. Squinting up into the bright sun, Caylen thought he saw the silhouette of a large bird, but the image was soon washed out by the light of the sun. An ominous feeling settled in Caylen’s stomach but he pushed it aside and continued after Cammie.

---

“I just realized that I haven’t eaten since breakfast.” stated Weslyn as he sat next to the small fire he had managed to start.

Lesalia shook her head, “I believe it has been much longer since we escaped the Defenders. I think I was asleep for at least a day and you didn’t awaken until a day after that.”

Holding his stomach, Weslyn gave a wry grin, “That explains why I’m so hungry…I was afraid I was getting soft.”

Lesalia picked up her Ferranoak bow and smoothly got to her feet, “I will see if I can find us something.”

Weslyn smiled gratefully, “Thanks…Lesalia?”

Turning back to Weslyn, Lesalia gave him a questioning look. Weslyn’s face grew serious, “Why did you come with us? Was it just so you felt like you were accomplishing something?”

Lesalia looked down at the loamy ground, “That is why I initially wished to come…but there was something else as well…some feeling that made me wish to help Caylen in his struggle, a feeling that had nothing to do with my own wishes.”

“That would be called compassion.”

Lesalia looked up at Weslyn again and simply stared for a moment, a flicker of emotion dancing across her eyes. The moment passed however, and she turned and disappeared into the darkness of the forest. Staring after her for a moment, Weslyn then leaned back against a nearby tree and waited. The sun moved slowly across the sky as he sat there and thought. Thought about Caylen and Cammie and what had happened to them, thought about Lesalia and her reasons for helping them escape, thought about earlier that day when he had done the impossible, and finally thought about how long it would be until all four of them were back together again. Silently he hoped that that day came soon, they had managed to escape together from a group of the strongest warriors in Terra and he was dammed if a simple forest was going to prevent him finding his friends.



A break from most of the fighting and explosions, at least for now.

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Well, this chapter answers the old questions, but it adds a ton of new ones. In any case, it looks like they got out of the frying pan, but into the fire (pardon the pun.)

And I have no real criticisms with your writing style; you have a good grasp of spelling and grammar, which is always a plus. The pacing seems good, as does the description. I enjoy being able to clearly visualize a scene as I'm reading it. Your use of suspense entices me to keep reading without making me frustrated at the over-use of it. The plot looks good, too. I enjoy a good fantasy, and this looks like it's shaping up to be one.

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer: Thanks for telling me what you enjoy about how I write. One can always strive to get better and it's good to know what you're good at before you try to fix something. The suspence in my stories kind of comes out of the fact that I don't describe anything that isn't important to the situation or character, the narrator is sort of an observer Third Person as opposed to a divine one that knows everything so s/he can't tell you anything that isn't said or well known.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Eight: Scattered Embers

“What are they Caylen?” asked Cammie as the two sat in the middle of a lush plain, watching as shapes from the village approached them.

Caylen shaded his eyes against the early morning sun, gazing at the small group as they grew nearer, “I’m not sure, they all look different…”

Cammie squinted a bit, “But they look so familiar. I’ve seen things like them before.”

Simply nodding his assent, Caylen stood and waited calmly as the group continued to slowly move their way. His calm was almost shattered however when the small party finally grew close enough for him to make out features. He heard Cammie’s sharp intake of breath behind him and knew that she too couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Caylen whispered to himself, “The Guardians!”

The party of magical creatures came to a halt several yards from Cammie and Caylen, seeming to simply take in the humans for a few minutes. Caylen saw several Guardians that he knew were bonded to living Defenders. The Centaur was standing on the far left of the group, right next to the stunning Siren. Its head hovering above the rest, The Basilisk let loose a soft hiss as it swayed back and forth. Older Guardians, ones who’s Defenders had passed away in ages past were part of the group as well: The Kirin, The Minotaur, The Griffin, all Guardians whose powers and exploits were recorded in the ancient histories of Terra. Silence hung over the field as the two parties stood face to face, the humans struck dumb and the Guardians seemingly content to just stand a stare for the moment.

Finally The Kirin moved forwards slightly. Caylen watched as its hooves pawed incesscently at the ground and wondered if that was a sign of nervousness or aggression. Moving up the majestic body, Caylen’s sharp green eyes locked with The Kirin’s deep blue ones and suddenly a soft voice was speaking to his mind, “Why do you come here humans? Do you now seek to –invade- our world as well?”

Hearing Cammie gasp behind him, Caylen responded, his voice seeming loud to his ears, especially after the soft mental tones of The Kirin, “Your world? Where on Terra are we?”

The Kirin shook his mane, the sparkling hair shifting around its peaceful face, “You are no longer in the world you call Terra. This is our world, Gaia.”

The revelation hit Caylen harder than a gauntlet to the skull. He actually staggered backwards for a second and would have fallen had not Cammie placed a steadying hand on his back. Something deep inside had been warning him that wherever they were was far different from Terra, but having it confirmed that he was indeed in another world brought that unconscious knowledge into full focus. Caylen opened his mouth a few times but did not seem capable of forming words at the moment. Seeing his predicament, Cammie spoke up, knowing what Caylen would have asked next, “How? How did we get here?”

The Basilisk spoke up, “You mean you do not know? You are the firssst humansss to enter our world since ancient times. Usually we are the onesss drawn into the other world.”

Caylen found his voice, “You mean during the bonding.”

Several sounds of disgust came from the small crowd of Guardians; The Centaur stomped its hooves as the Basilisk let out a hiss like air escaping a small hole. The Kirin gazed at Caylen curiously, “That is what they call it in your world? What do they tell you about this “bonding”?”

The Siren interrupted; her serene voice cutting off whatever response the humans were about to make, “Does it matter what they know? We cannot let them pass from here either way. It is bad enough that we are forced into their world, imagine what will happen if they begin to come here.”

An odd look passed over Cammie’s face, “What do you mean, ‘cannot let them pass from here?’”

The Siren fixed her eyes on Cammie, her beautiful face betraying no emotion, “It means we must kill you before you lead more of your kind into Gaia.”

Caylen slowly began to back up, grabbing Cammie as he did, “You can’t do that! We don’t even know how WE got here. We couldn’t lead any humans here even if we wanted to.”

Its eyes betraying an inner sadness, The Kirin lowered his head, bringing its long spiraling horn down to point at Cammie. Caylen threw out his arm and stepped in front of Cammie, fear etched across his face, “Don’t do this! We have no ill intentions against you!”

Opening its mouth to reveal arm-length fangs dripping with gods knew what, The Basilisk hissed in amusement, “Intentions or not, you bring danger with you, danger we can ill afford to face.”

Caylen’s hand began to stray towards the hilts of the Gemeos Blades. His inner self was torn, one side telling him that it was his only option, the other screaming at him that if he did he had no idea what he would end up doing. As the Guardians began to close around them, Caylen finally decided that he had no choice and reached up to grasp the blades. His fingers had actually brushed the hilts, had felt the power burning within them, when a commanding voice spoke out, “Stop this!”

A red shape flashed by Caylen, a blast of heat following close behind. With the slight ruffle, the new arrival landed softy near the opposing parties. The Guardians hesitated for a moment before retreating a few yards and returning to a less hostile state. Caylen let his hands fall back from the Gemeos before looking at their rescuer who was turning to face them. His stomach clenched up as he recognized what was standing in front of him. The figure he had seen in his first seconds on Gaia before he had passed out. The one that had looked directly at him and had given off that hauntingly beautiful call. The Phoenix shared a significant look with Caylen before it turned back to the Guardians, “Are you such animals as to attack humans for simply entering our world? When they have done nothing at all? When it is obvious that they did not even intend to come here?”

The Guardians bristled at the words, The Siren calling out; “They have not done anything…yet. They are humans Aeryth, we cannot risk our entire world for their sakes..”

Cammie spoke up hesitantly, “What do you think that we’re going to try to do?.”

Its beak clacking softly as it spoke, The Griffin replied, “You’ll use that disgusting binding spell on us and then we cannot…”

The Basilisk hissed harshly and The Griffin immediately stopped talking, obviously realizing he had said too much. Caylen understood enough however and spoke out, “Wait…you’re talking about the bonding? It’s a mutual relationship, the Guardian gives the Defender its excess power in exchange for…”

A small layer of fire flickered around Aeryth as he turned to regard Caylen, “Lies Caylen. The bonding is everything but that…but now is not the time for us to speak about this. We will have more than enough time later.”

The Siren shook her head, “What are you talking about Aeryth? Certainly you aren’t going to let these humans to freely wander our world.”

Aeryth gave the slightest of chuckles, “Of course not Illenia, they will have to stay in Undrial where we can keep an eye on them of course.”

Seeing The Siren Ilenia’s face darken, Cammie questioned, “What is Undrial?”

Aeryth turned to the small village in the distance, “Our largest settlement. It is essentially the center of all of Gaia.”

Caylen frowned, “That small village is your largest town?”

A soft chuckle emerged from the group of Guardians. Caylen took that both as a sign that they were no longer planning on killing him in the immediate future, and that he was obviously missing something. Not that he was truly understanding anything as of yet.

Aeryth stifled his laughter after seeing Caylen’s confusion, “As you have seen Caylen, we Guardians are rather cautious, we have reason to be…look again.”

Caylen turned to do as Aeryth asked and cried out in surprise. An immense gate towered in front of him, its thick doors opened wide. Cammie giggled at Caylen, “You just saw it?”

The startled youth narrowed his eyes at Cammie, “How long has it been here?”

Cammie shrugged, “Probably since the city was built…but I saw it when the Guardians came out of it….what?”

The Guardians, including Aeryth, had become completely silent, each of them staring suddenly at Cammie. Finally, The Basilisk spoke tentatively, if a giant serpent could be said to be tentative about anything, “That is imposssible…the concealment ssspell can only be dissspelled if we allow it…”

Cammie shrugged, “Someone goofed up then…”

Muttering broke out amongst the Guardians. Aeryth’s flame flicked more rapidly, “What type of things? What do you see?”

Cammie looked uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny of the gathered Guardians and Caylen, “Er…just those pretty colors that go through everything…”

Illenia whispered to herself, “Impossible…”

Aeryth spoke softly to the Siren, “And you were going to kill them?”

Flushing slightly, Illenia replied, “Perhaps I was a bit too hasty, can you blame me.”

Caylen stood silently during the inaudible exchange. Suddenly he felt a hand tugging at his sleeve. Turning to Cammie he raised an eyebrow. Cammie whispered to him, “Do you think they’re going to try to kill us again?”

Caylen managed a smile, “I think they’ve forgotten about that for now…I think you impressed them with that little trick of yours.”

Twisting her mouth up Cammie gave a perturbed look, “It’s not a trick…you could do it too if you’d just open your eyes.”

Grimacing slightly as Cammie smacked him on the arm, Caylen looked through the Gate of Undrial to the city beyond. Beautifully domed buildings made of some sparkling white stone seemed to be the common structural motif though here and there what seemed to be a great spire of glass shot up above even the tallest building. The spires of the city reached hundreds of feet into the sky, their entire heights covered in archaic carvings of some unknown language. Walkways were present at all levels of the city and Caylen could see hundreds of Guardians meandering along them. Seeing all manner of creatures, some mentioned in the mythology of Terra, many who were never mentioned even in the oldest legends, Caylen was overwhelmed to say the least. Aeryth’s soft yet commanding voice spoke from behind him, “Impressive is it not?”

Caylen nodded, it was all he was capable of. Aeryth looked at the city for a long moment before spreading his wings and lifting himself into the sky. Staying low to the ground, he called back to Caylen and Cammie, “Follow if you will. We have much to talk about…and I am sure you have many questions.”

As the humans followed Aeryth under the gates, Caylen heard Cammie mutter under her breath, “He sure knows how to state the obvious…”

[Silencer]

Ooooh, spooky.

Wonder when they'll relealise they left 2 people behind ^^.

(Yes, I blow at replying)

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Ooo, so someone's been lying to the prospective Guardians. Though whether it's intentional or out of ignorance as to what really happens, that's still to be seen.

I'm guessing that the phoenix, Aeryth, brought all the humans to Gaia, but it seems like he's not willing to tell the other Guardians that. Or at least not yet. I wonder what he has planned for them, and what's the significance or Cammie's ability to see those things.

Can't wait to see what's going to happen to the humans.

[Dr.McNinja]

Silencer: Weslyn and Lesalia aren't with Cammie and Caylen right now, they're all still looking for each other.

Mew Trainer Rose: Who's responsible for what is still up in the air right now, storywise, so I can't respond to that really but Cammie's ability to see what she's seeing is very important.

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Nine: Kindling

A dark shape separated itself from the shadows of the forest. Treading inhumanly quiet on the ground, it approached the young man as he forced his way through the thick undergrowth. The silent stalker was within feet of the youth before it spoke softly, “Nothing.”

Weslyn managed not to yell, though he wasn’t able to resist jumping a few yard into the air, and turned indignantly to Lesalia, “How many times are you going to do that?!”

Lesalia shrugged, looking not at all abashed, “If you would open your ears it would not happen.”

Weslyn shook his head; “I bet even those bloody Elves couldn’t be as quiet as you.”

Eyes narrowing slightly, Lesalia gave Weslyn a look, “The Elves are the best rangers in the world…they don’t even have to try to be quiet. How could a human ever even come close to one of them?”

Weslyn barked out a laugh, “Well the Elves haven’t been ranging very much lately in case you haven’t noticed. Maybe they’re starting to lose their edge.”

Lesalia shrugged again, “Most likely…but either way I still was not able to find anything to eat, as quiet as I was.”

Weslyn squinted into the forest, “How can there not be anything out there? A forest should be full of animals.”

Slinging her bow over her shoulder, Lesalia nodded, “It should be and yet it is not. Which makes me rather worried.”

Weslyn laughed, “You? Worried?”

Lesalia looked faintly puzzled, “Is that so hard to understand?”

Wondering if any of the plants they were passing were edible, Weslyn replied, “Well considering that you followed a person, who had shown multiple times that he could burst into flames at any moment, through a complex full of people who were dead set on killing us all and didn’t even look, much less sound, worried….yes it is very hard to understand.”

“Well there are two reasons why the animals would not be in the area,” said Lesalia rather coolly, choosing not to dignify Weslyn with a response to his teasing, “Either there is a natural disaster of some sort or some other creature or creatures have scared them away.”

Weslyn’s face became grim. The group of beings that Weslyn and Lesalia had evaded days ago had not been seen or heard since, giving the two hope that the creatures had either given up the chase or had been successfully evaded. It would seem however that that hope had been in vain. However, there was nothing they could do at that moment except continue their trek. They continued to force their way through the forest, following no clear trail as they had for the past three days. Neither of them had any idea whether or not they were nearing the edge of the forest or were just getting themselves further into it. Snapping a low branch, Weslyn felt Lesalia’s hand on his shoulder and heard her soft voice behind him, “They are close.”

The last shreds of hope quickly shriveled up as Weslyn’s ears began to pick up what Lesalia’s more sensitive ones had heard, a twig snapping, the soft rustle of leaves being disturbed, he even saw a branch or two move as an unseen stalker brushed against it. Weslyn immediately dropped into a crouch, “How many?”

Lesalia listened intently for a moment before shaking her head, “Too many.”

A mirthless chuckle escaped Weslyn, “So pretty much the same as it’s been the whole time, wonderful.”

The slightest hint of a smile flickered over Lesalia’s face for a moment before the calm facade returned. Fitting an arrow to her bow, Lesalia was stopped by Weslyn’s whisper, “Don’t bother. It won’t matter if you get a few of them, and you’ll give away our location.”

Dropping her arm, Lesalia spoke calmly, “So what do you intend to do?”

Weslyn responded simply, “Run.”

And they ran. At first they attempted to remain silent, dodging around patches of brush and leaping over stretches of fallen leaves or branches, but soon it became apparent that their efforts were in vain. Somehow their pursuers remained on their trail, leading the two to decide that speed and not stealth would be their best ally to escape. At one point, a streaking beam of what seemed to be light streaked out from the darkness, barely missing Lesalia and instead striking a nearby tree in which it blew a ragged hole. Any sense of direction they had gained in their days of wandering were lost as they focused only on putting one foot in front of the other, staying low to as avoid any further attacks from those pursuing them.

Weslyn knew he wasn’t going to be able to continue forever. He knew that after some turn or some jump he would find that he just couldn’t keep going. He knew he would be the one who would stop first, Lesalia seemed to be having little trouble as far as fatigue went, her eyes locked ahead of her in an intense gaze of focus. He glanced over at her and marveled at the way she seemed to glide across the ground, an illusion enhanced by her long, robe-like dress despite the fact that the hem was tattered and torn by countless twigs and roots. Forcing his eyes back onto the forest directly in front of him, grimacing at the burning pain in his legs that was increasing by the step, Weslyn felt his stomach lurch. Light! The trees were visibly thinning and Weslyn could see the field light filtering through the trees ahead. A break in the trees seemed to reveal some sort of wide field, a shimmering structure just barely visible within its midst. A soft humming sound passing his ear brought Weslyn back to the present as one of the lights streaked past his head to explode on the tree to his right. The blinding flash of light disorientated Weslyn for a moment and he stumbled to a stop to regain his footing, making him a perfect target for the mundane arrow that impacted his back a moment later.

He felt the impact and wondered if something had fallen on him from the treetops above before his legs simply gave out and he tumbled to the loamy ground. He could still see the break in the trees and the safety beyond .He wondered whether or not some malevolent deity was making a joke of him. A bare foot obscured his vision as Lesalia planted herself and fired into the forest. A muffled curse indicated that she had missed her target but Weslyn was becoming far too dizzy to understand or even care whether or not she found her mark. His focus was on her feet as a thought floated through his head, “She doesn’t wear shoes…odd that I never noticed…well she does have a long dress so that could explain it. Doesn’t really matter now does it?”

His vision soon left him and plunged him into darkness even deeper than when they were wandering in the forest, but he still remained conscious for a while. Conscious enough to feel something lifting him up, conscious enough to feel the wind and low hanging branches slapping against his face as he was carried out of that accursed forest, conscious enough to hear someone talking to him with a voice bordering on desperation, “Do not die in my arms Weslyn. It would give you far too much pleasure in the afterlife.”
He was even conscious enough to realize the moment before it happened that he was about to black out.

Lesalia burst from the forest and sped across the field towards the building she had spotted. Every step she prepared herself for the impact of an arrow or one of the magical lights, fully expecting to not make it to her destination. However, as she moved further and further away from the forest, the shower of missiles began to thin until it stopped completely. Lesalia took a glance over her shoulder and saw nothing but waving grass and an impenetrable line of trees. She wondered for a moment why the hunters would not follow her into the field, but decided that it was simply enough to know that they hadn’t.

Lesalia heard her forceful knocks echoing inside the building before she turned back to Weslyn. She had set him down on the smooth stones that surrounded the massive door of the building. The stones were a seemingly chaotic collection of colors randomly placed across the rather large courtyard in front of the building. The structure itself was simple, decorated only by four small steeples on each corner of the roof and a single, taller one that sprang from the center. Each of the steeples was decorated with some sort of interlocking design that Lesalia was too distracted to examine in detail. The entire structure was made of an incredibly smooth white stone that seemed to shimmer softly in the sun. The magnificent doors were made of the same type of stone though designs in some darker material were present as well. The overwhelming theme was once again the interlocking design where two strands of stone crossed and crisscrossed as they spiraled up the portal. In the center, bisected by the seam of the doors, was a rippling sunburst whose rays curled back in upon it. As the doors opened however, the design was temporarily split in two.

Lesalia quickly turned from Weslyn who had gone completely silent, she wasn’t sure if that was better or worse from his intelligible mumbling earlier, and stared at the three beings that emerged from the doors. Clad in white robes, there was little to truly see. The folds of the hoods left the face in a deep shadow that obscured all their important features, obscured them so well in fact, that Lesalia wondered how the beings could see at all. They had stopped a fair distance away, either in respect or suspicion. Eventually one of the three raised their arm and let the sleeve of their robe fall. Lesalia’s face remained calm as always but the slight raising of her eyebrows showed she was startled by what she saw. The hand was undeniably that of a humanoid, giving Lesalia some reassurance that, even if they were no longer on Terra, there were still -some- things that were familiar. Keeping its hand raised, the being spoke, “There will be time later for questions, but there is none now if we wish for your friend to survive that wound.”

Taking their seeming willingness to aid Weslyn as a good sign, added to the fact that she really had no other options, Lesalia simply nodded and allowed the robed beings to carry Weslyn into the building. They took Weslyn to small room off of a long central hallway and laid him down in the bed. One of the beings immediately kneeled down next to him and began murmuring softly while the other began to inspect the arrow still lodged in Weslyn’s back. The one who had spoken to her earlier turned, “We will do all we can but the arrow…it has done significant damage.”

Seeing Lesalia’s eyes on the still murmuring figure, the being spoke again, “It is asking Yuriandil for her healing hand.”

Lesalia’s eyes narrowed, “Yuriandil? Some form of deity?”

The robed being stood very still as it replied, “Tell me, would it surprise you if I told you that I suspect you are not of this world?”

Lesalia looked around the room and shook her head; “Not significantly…I had suspected as much. Where are we?”

A soft chuckle escaped the dark hood as the creature responded, “Generally? You are on Gaia. Specifically? You are standing in the Temple of Celandiel…which no one finds by accident.”

Lesalia simply stared, “Which means?”

The being moved over to stand by Weslyn before speaking, “You would not have found us unless there was a purpose for you to have done so…what that purpose is remains to be seen though. People of your kind have not been seen in Gaia since the times of legend.”

Lesalia joined the creature to look down on Weslyn, “Perhaps we came simply so you could help him.”

Sounding not at all convinced, the being spoke, “Perhaps.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You killed them both correct?”
“No sir…we only managed to hit one of them”
“Hit? Then they are both still alive?”
“The girl yes…but the boy shouldn’t live long with the wound we gave him.”
“I don’t like the word “shouldn’t” you had better make sure he -does- die…and the girl as well.”
“Begging your pardons sir…but certainly you do not think that they are…
“The Cry?”
“Well I’ve heard the stories and….”
“So now you see why I am so interested in those two humans?”
“But sir…in all the versions I’ve heard there were -four- of them.”
“Yes but one can never be to cautious correct? Any humans at all could be dangerous to my goal. See to it that they do not pose a danger for much longer.”
“As you command sir.”




(OOC: A little vague forshadowing for everyone to enjoy)

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Ten: A Single Spark

Cammie collapsed in a huff onto the floor, “So how long are they going to make us wait? It’s been a day already!”

Caylen shrugged, “Shouldn’t be too long. Aeryth said he just needed to make sure the Guardians knew why we were here…and that we don’t mean any harm…wouldn’t want a Guardian stumbling onto us without knowing who we were would we?”

A thoughtful look flickered on Cammie’s face; “I still don’t get why they hate us so much…that one buggy looking one even threw something at me.”
Caylen frowned as he took a place on the floor of the room that Aeryth had led them too. The room was comfortable enough, if one could get used to the fact that there was almost no furniture at all, and Caylen took comfort in the fact that Aeryth promised them they wouldn’t be there for too long. The city of the Guardians that they had entered disturbed him; the reception they had gotten while they were walking through Undrial had further clarified a realization that had been forming in his head. Even though they had managed to calm the initial group of Guardians, they hadn’t had the chance to do so with the ones in the city. Most of them simply jeered or scowled at them but a few had actually tried to physically attack them. Aeryth and the rest of the Guardian’s escorting them quickly stifled these attacks but Caylen still could see the hatred in the eyes of their attackers.
Caylen was beginning to realize that the relationship between the Humans of Terra and the Guardians of Gaia was not as symbiotic as he was led to believe.

When Aeryth returned, he seemed to sense Caylen and Cammie’s confusion and nodded sagely, “You have questions. Ask.”

The thoughts swirling in Caylen’s mind seemed to take form by themselves and pour out of his mouth, “Why do all of the Guardians hate us so much? What have we done?”

The soft flame flickering around Aeryth seemed to darken, “It is not you specifically that they hate…it is your race. The hate the Humans and what they have done to us and our world.”

Cammie shook her head furiously, as if to clear it, “What have the Humans done? Aren’t the Defender’s friends with the Guardians?”

Aeryth let out a short caw which Caylen took to be his version of a laugh, “Far from it young one. What you believe to be a relationship of equals between a Defender and a “Guardian” is actually more akin to the relationship of a master and slave.”

Caylen’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “Impossible! The Bonding forms an inseparable bond between the souls of the Defender and Guardians. They become essentially one!”

Aeryth’s flame flared up with a roar, “Lies Caylen! The two souls are bonded but not equally! The soul of the “Guardian” is twisted to obey the wishes of Human soul. Don’t shake your head! You have seen the reaction that my kind has had towards you. Do you actually believe their hatred is unfounded?”

Caylen averted his eyes from Aeryth’s fiery gaze, “But…why?”

His flame diminishing slightly Aeryth gave his approximation of a shrug, “Why is any enslavement done? To increase the power of the master. Tell me, what do “Guardian” bonded Defenders have that regular Humans do not?”

Caylen opened his mouth to respond but Cammie’s voice rang out first, “Magic.”

Aeryth nodded at the young woman, “Yes Cammie, Magic. You see, Magic exists in Gaia while it does not in Terra.
Here we see it as akin to water, or light, or any other type of element, but in Terra Magic was almost unheard of until the Defenders, quite accidentally, found a way to bridge the separation between our worlds.”

Caylen lifted his eyes from the ground to observe Aeryth once more, “You mean they opened some sort of gateway?”

Aeryth hesitated for a moment before responding, “In…a way…it is an extremely minute gateway you see…more akin to a tiny hole in a bucket than an actual doorway. You see, once they managed to create this hole, as small as it was; some of the Magic in Gaia began to enter Terra. Once the Defenders realized what they had allowed in, they searched for a way to control it.”

Cammie spoke up again, “The Guardians.”

Something resembling a smile appeared on Aeryth’s face, “Correct again Cammie. Humans, with one exception, cannot use nor see Magic. The Defenders only knew it was there by observing changes around their gateway to Gaia. In order to utilize the Magic the Defender’s knew they had to somehow find something or someone who could do it and then force them to obey their commands. In further experiments the Defender’s discovered us and found that they could manipulate the space around their gateway to summon us to their world where they then forced us into their service.”

Cammie suddenly burst out with a question, “Wait. You said that Humans cannot use or see Magic…how in the world were they able to bind the Guardians to them…how, for that matter, did they open the gateway in the first place?”

Aeryth’s flame darkened once again, this time deeper than before, “How indeed. For a while we too wondered about that until it became blindingly clear to us. They couldn’t have.”

Sudden understanding came to Caylen, “It would have had to be someone who could use Magic…but the only ones who can are…”

Aeryth nodded, “Yes. Us. While your Defender’s were searching for some way that they could further increase their power, a certain “Guardian” in Gaia was doing the exact same thing. As it happened the “Guardian” discovered Terra and foolishly opened a gateway to it. Once it arrived on your world a series of events, including an accident where the “Guardian’s” own abilities failed him due to the lack of Magic in your world led to its binding by the strongest of the Defenders. With a “Guardian” now in their possession the Defenders were quite able to utilize its Magic to call and bind other’s”

Cammie frowned, “So the ability to use Magic isn’t dependent on the Human at all? All that matters is that they have enslaved a Guardian?”

Aeryth gave his smile again, “So it was thought.”

Caylen cocked his head, “Was?”

With a nod, the Phoenix fixed the humans with a meaningful gaze, “Was thought…until you entered Gaia.”

Caylen closed his eyes, “So my powers are derived from Magic?”

Aeryth nodded distractedly, “Of a sort…but I was speaking to Cammie.”

Silence fell on the room for a moment as Aeryth’s words just sank in for a moment. Finally the silence was broken by Cammie’s soft, “Huh?”

His flame now flickering excitedly, Aeryth spoke, “I said before that Humans cannot touch or even see Magic…with one exception. You are that exception Cammie. You remember the odd flows you have been seeing since you entered Gaia?”

Cammie nodded and glanced at a particularly rapid one that was pulsing through the wall with a brilliant purple color. Aeryth followed her gaze; “Those are flows of Magic…they exist everywhere in Gaia just like any other natural resource.”

Cammie’s mouth opened and closed for a while before she was able to speak, “You mean I’m looking at Magic?”

Aeryth answered, “Exactly. And I’d bet that you could manipulate it too if you wanted.”

Cammie suddenly gasped, “Now I understand!”

Caylen took a few steps closer to Cammie and the Phoenix, “Understand what?”

By now Cammie was bouncing slightly on her hands, “Back in our world…right before we came into Gaia I saw all these pretty colors start shooting out of the ground. A second later you made that big pillar of yours and I blacked out. That Courtyard was where the Gateway was wasn’t it?”

Aeryth nodded, “It was.”

Caylen sat down next to Cammie, “But you said the Gateway was very small…how did we all get through it…and how did we survive the trip anyway?”

Aeryth’s smile reappeared, “You remember the voices?” seeing Caylen’s nod, Aeryth continued, “What you were hearing was the automatic replies of a “Guardian” as you touched their minds. You see, in order for a binding to take place the Defender and “Guardian” must have at least some similarity, otherwise they would reject one another. You were in the grips of your power and accidentally began a binding of your own, though this one was somewhat different. When I felt you in my mind I could tell that your purpose was not enslavement…rather your mind was more focused on survival at the time.”

Caylen closed his eyes and laid his head against the wall, “You were the one who I responded to weren’t you?”

“Yes”, replied Aeryth, “And I sensed that you were in grave peril so I…helped you in escaping your enemies. I aided you in focusing your powers, and I must say that those marvelous blades of yours were quite helpful, and you’re need for an escape route simply did the rest.”

Caylen’s eyes opened though he didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular, “You mean I opened a gateway large enough for four people between our worlds simply through my need for it?”

Aeryth gave another humanlike shrug, “Magic is mostly dependant on need anyway…need and desire. All the other rituals and magical words are simply a means to the end…a way to focus on the need and desire.”

Cammie suddenly got an excited look on her face, “So all I need to do to use Magic is want something really bad?”

Aeryth looked at Cammie rather warily, “Essentially…why?”

Cammie didn’t respond, instead she closed her eyes and began mumbling to herself. Caylen wisely scooted away a few inches just as, her body almost shaking from the mental exertion; Cammie opened her eyes with a shout. Immediately a tiny ball of water appeared in front of her eyes and dropped wetly into her cupped hands. Giggling happily, Cammie brought her hands to her face and drank deeply. Seeing the wide-eyed looks of Caylen and Aeryth, Cammie squinted, “What? You haven’t given us much to drink since we’ve been in here you know!”

Aeryth’s eyes remained wide even as Caylen started to laugh, “The first Human to ever use Magic…”

Caylen interrupted “And she drinks it…”

Aeryth managed to regain some of his composure, “I don’t know the true extent of your abilities yet, I will have to talk to someone more practiced in true magic first.”

Caylen tried to get the conversation back to an informative track, ‘So since I was able to get us here…can’t I get us back to Terra? That would solve a lot of the problems with the Guardians wouldn’t it?”

Fully in control of himself again, Aeryth sighed, “It would but unfortunately you cannot do that. You remember the “Guardian” who opened the first gateway?” Caylen nodded and Aeryth continued, “Well he is still bound. The Defender’s have passed his bond over to other Defenders over the years. Perhaps you know who has him now?”

Caylen had a suspicion but decided to make sure first, “Who has the bond been passed to?”

“Generally it is passed to the leader of the Defenders”, explained Aeryth, “The strongest and the smartest of them all.”

Caylen covered his eyes with his hand; “Hojira…I guess he decided that having me here was just as good as having me dead…I can’t destroy Terra from here anyway.”

Aeryth looked curiously at Caylen; “You will have to explain that later…but yes. This Hojira used the Magic of his Guardian to constrict the gateway to where it cannot open to the size we need it to.”

Caylen’s removed his hand; “Well…can’t the Guardian just open it up again? Even just for a second?”

Aeryth’s face darkened, “He could, and we are trying to find him in order to ask him to do so, but I doubt if he will be open to the idea. You see…”

With an ominous rumble, a small quake suddenly caused the structure the three were in to shake dangerously. Cammie gave out a small shriek and Caylen to spring to his feet. Aeryth’s face darkened even more as Illenia entered the room at a run, “Aeryth! We found him and…”

“You told him didn’t you?” interrupted Aeryth, his flame beginning to rise again.

Illenia shook her head, “He figured it out himself…you should have seen the look on his face. It was even beyond what you would expect, even taking into account the subject matter.”

Aeryth turned back to the Humans, “I am sorry if all your questions have not been answered…but now we must go. We will not get you out of Undrial as long as he is still in the city…but we might be able to hide you. Come!”

Caylen and Cammie followed the two Guardians out of the room even as the building shook yet again. Caylen spoke as they exited the building, “Where is he?”

Illenia flashed him a look, she obviously did not fully trust them yet, “He has not arrived yet…he is simply probing the city…the shaking is because of -her-.”

Cammie withered under the Siren’s gaze even as Aeryth explained, “His probe must be resonating off Cammie’s Magic…now that she touched it she too is part of the flow and with the probe being directed at humans it’s being amplified by it.”

Cammie glanced down at herself and was surprised to find a soft, almost invisible, glimmer fluttering through her. Her face quickly became alarmed however, “So does this person know where we are now?”

Aeryth nodded, “Generally…your flows are weak right now however and we should be able to dampen it to where you will become almost invisible again. Caylen’s too as long as he remains calm.”

Caylen shook his head even as they ran. His powers. Yet another series of questions that still needed to be answered. However, practicality won the day. Survival first, questions could come later.

[Mew Trainer Rose]

Ah, and now we get the answers to more questions. Looks like Cammie and Caylen are about to see a lot of action again.

And I wonder; for what purpose did Lesalia and Weslyn end up in that temple?

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter 11'll show that the little mortals we've been following aren't the only ones interested in the fate of the two worlds, that might help to answer your question. As always thanks for responding!

[Silencer]

Hmmm

*starts wondering about the prophesy*

Why do I have the feeling that Caylen will turn evil in the eyes of Terra but good in the eyes of the guardians? He'll probably won't destroy Terra but Giving them a good headsup will prob be more likely.

[Dr.McNinja]

Silencer: Some good ideas but lemme put some perspective on the idea of the prophecy. You have to think of the many different ways to define a word, the different meanings behind them. Also, the concepts of Evil and Good are all in the eyes of the beholder, I'm sure the Empire in Star Wars was pretty confident that he was the Good Guy and the Rebels that were ruining his stable and perfect Empire were the Evil ones. When you think of the many different opinions in this story (in short, the Defenders, the Guardians (in which there are several sub-groups like Aeryth and Illenia), Cammie, Weslyn, Caylen, and Lesalia) already and the eventual end of the story is open to interpretation from any one of those standpoints. That's kind of the mindset I want people in who are reading the story, to look at it from those different angles. I was glad to see you saying "in the eyes of" because that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the response!

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Eleven: From the Ashes

“He is not going to survive is he?”, asked Lesalia as one of the hooded monks emerged from Weslyn’s room.

The monk turned back to look at the rough wooden door a moment before responding, “We do not know the man at all…it is hard to care so much for a stranger enough that Yuriandil will answer.”

Lesalia tilted her head slightly, “Your God I assume? He requires feelings for a victim in order to respond?”

The monk nodded, “Goddess…and yes she does. Yuriandil is a Goddess of Mercy and Compassion…in order for her to respond to our prayers she must feel great love and compassion in the asker. Our simple good wishes are enough to keep him alive for now , but the arrow will still claim his life in the end. If you have any good-byes to say, now would be the time.”

Lesalia looked after the monk as he departed, seeming to try to pry some more answers from his back. Sighing to herself as the monk turned a corner, she turned and opened the strong wooden door, entering the room that Weslyn had been brought to. Weslyn lay in exactly the same position as when she had left a few hours ago, even paler than before. The faint sheen of perspiration on his face caught the flickering light of the lanterns and gave him the eerie look of a corpse. Lesalia eyes however were instantly drawn to the arrow, still protruding horrendously from the youth’s back. Her voice actually rising to a disbelieving yell, Lesalia loomed over the still kneeling monk, “What are you doing?! Why did you leave the arrow in him? He can’t possibly recover until the arrow is removed and the wound is cleaned!”

The monk ceased his soft murmering for a moment to answer, “It is not necessary. If he is to live, Yuriandil will see to it…if he is to die than removing the arrow will do little good.”

Lesalia’s face grew heated, though the monk didn’t seem to catch on at how irritated she had to be in order to actually show an emotion, “Your Goddess has not done a single thing to help Weslyn! I believed he was actually being cared for and what do I find? A few deluded monks whispering wishes and hoping for divine intervention! I could have cared for him better by myself! If you let him die just because your “goddess” did not arrive I swear to it I will do the same to you, than you can pray for your “goddess” to save you as well!”

Lesalia felt a hand rest on her shoulder and turned to find yet another monk standing behind her. The monk began speaking in a quiet yet strong voice, “I would like nothing better than to expel both you and your friend from this Temple for blaspheming Yuriandil, wounds or not, but luckily for you Yuriandil teaches us mercy. I will give you another chance but I suggest you return to the quarters we have so kindly provided for you. We will notify you if your friend’s condition changes at all….now go.”

Lesalia tensed for a second before relaxing with a defeated sigh, she really had no other option than to obey, aside from fighting her way through the monastery herself. Back in the small room she had been given, Lesalia stood in the middle of the floor and slowly gained some of her composure back. She had trouble maintaining her clam however, the sight of the small sunburst, the same design as on the doors of the Temple, caused her thoughts to begin whirling again. Long ago, Lesalia taught herself to rely on nothing that she could not feel or touch with her own senses. She had never seen anything to prove the powers of the many gods and goddesses she had been exposed to and came to believe only in the power that one held within oneself. She postulated that that was probably the reason she had been so intrigued with Caylen, besides the simple fact that he gave her the opportunity to finally accomplish something with her life. Caylen’s power came from within, and he denied the existence of some sort of predetermined fate with all of that burning power. His resolve made the faith of the monks seem a pale flicker in comparison.

Despite these strong internal beliefs, there was some doubt beginning to form in her mind. The first was why, after the hours since she had arrived at Celandiel, Weslyn still survived. The wound was bad enough that he should have died shortly after she had arrived yet -something- was keeping him alive. The second doubt stemmed from the feeling she had had since she had arrived in Gaia. A feeling that there was something just out of the reach of one of her senses, though she knew not which one. A ghost flitting on the edge of her vision. A smell that she just couldn’t capture. A barely heard voice or song that, no matter which direction she went, never grew louder. She attributed her unusual lack of control over her emotions to that feeling.

She didn’t know Weslyn at all. Before she had decided to follow Caylen, the only contact with him had been in accidental meetings in the Defender complex and most of those were no longer than a few seconds. The past few days had been the longest time she had ever been with Weslyn and, even then, much of that time she was either hunting or making sure there was no one following them. Why then did she feel so much concern for him? Concern that went far beyond the normal urge to help someone in need. It was not romantic in nature, that much she knew. Not only was Weslyn’s roguish character as far opposed from Lesalia’s collected coolness as night and day, but they hadn’t been around each other enough for -any- kind of relationship to form. What was making her feel so much for him then?

A memory struck Lesalia then, her about to enter the forest to hunt but being stopped by Weslyn’s question on why she had followed Caylen. Her response with its puzzled question at the end, and Weslyn’s soft answer, "It’s called compassion.”

Compassion. Something she had never been accused of before. Cold, aloof, and uncaring were more common traits people labeled her with, never compassionate. But something had made her help Caylen, something beyond some craving to be doing something important in the world. She could have more than fulfilled that desire as a Defender but she had completely thrown that hope away by aiding in Caylen’s escape. No…there was something else guiding her when she made her decision. Could it have been compassion? Could she really have felt so much for Caylen in his confusion and despair that she forsook her dream to help him escape? How deep of a feeling for someone did that take? Deep enough to please a God…or Goddess? Suddenly she recalled the monk’s words hours ago, “You are standing in the Temple of Celandiel…which no one finds by accident. You would not have found us unless there was a purpose for you to have done so”

It is hard to recognize when your beliefs are being undermined, especially when you have built your entire life around those beliefs. Lesalia had often scorned any higher powers, hating the idea that her fate could be adjusted on a whim. Now however, it seemed that fate didn’t care about beliefs. There was a purpose for her having found this place. She wondered if she could find that purpose before Weslyn died. And even if she did, if it would help her to save him at all.

Lesalia opened the door to her room silently, hoping that the monks hadn’t seen fit to set someone to watch her. Luck was with her for perhaps the first time since she had stepped out of Caylen’s room days before and the corridor was empty. Of course, that small victory really didn’t help seeing as she had no idea what she was even doing. A preposterous idea struck her. An idea that, despite her decision to figure out what force was manipulating her, was still absolutely absurd. Closing her eyes tightly, Lesalia muttered to the air, “If you wish for me to do something, you will have to guide me.”

After waiting for what she felt to be an adequate amount of time, Lesalia opened her eyes and turned to re-enter her room, sure now that all her doubts meant nothing. Although her upper body turned as she wished, her legs refused to comply. Not only did they not turn at her command; they also began to walk on their own accord. No trace of alarm showed on Lesalia’s face as she strode down the hallways and through the many courtyards of the Temple. Only one thought formed in her mind, “I suppose it is strange that I don’t find this odd.”

Her rather unorthodox mode of transportation only lasted for a few minutes however. In the middle of a hallway, much like the one she had left behind, control suddenly returned to her. For a moment Lesalia wondered why she had only been led this far before a sobering thought occurred to her. Just moments ago she had been convincing herself of her self-reliance and now she was wondering why some deity wasn’t leading her by the hand. Letting out a quick breath, the only sign of her inner annoyance, Lesalia began to glide down the hallway looking for a promising sign. Wondering why she hadn’t seen any of the monks on her wanderings, Lesalia opened a door and instantly knew she had reached her destination. A simple sanctuary sat before her, not much more than a few small benches and an altar. The spiraling sunburst hung on the wall over the altar, catching the light from the few torches that burned in the room. Her dress sliding over the wooden flooring, Lesalia stood herself directly in front of the sunburst and spoke, “I have come here to listen to what may be said to me…no more.”

“Someone looking for help usually does not give terms to their rescuer,” said a lilting voice behind Lesalia.
Turning smoothly, Lesalia regarded the monk before speaking, “Did your Goddess send you?”
“Not exactly,” said the monk as two slender hands reached up to throw down the obscuring hood. Long brown hair was tossed aside as the hood fell, revealing a beautiful woman beneath. Deep blue eyes gazed out of a face with well-tanned skin. A soft smile appeared on the woman’s lips as she spoke again, “I believe that -you- sent for -me-.”

Lesalia nodded slightly, “Yuriandil I would hazard to guess. Your monks speak rather highly of you.”

Her hair visibly lightened as Yuriandil replied, “I should hope so.”

Lesalia spoke directly, “You wanted me to come here…you have been watching me since I arrived on this world. Why?”

Yuriandil’s hair lightened further into a blonde as she sat herself on to one of the benches, “Straight to the point I see. Actually I have been watching you for much longer than the past few days. The world barrier prevented me from doing much else.”

Lesalia gave a wry little smile, “I guess even omnipotence has its limits.”

Yuriandil’s eyes changed color now, darkening into a royal blue, “Yes it does actually. Especially concerning you.”

Lesalia took a few steps back so that she could regard the sunburst while still looking in Yuriandil’s general direction, “How so?”

Yuriandil caught Lesalia’s eye before continuing, “It is much easier to see someone who embodies your own ideals more than it is someone who seems to actively take steps to avoid them.”

Lesalia actually chuckled at that comment, “You are quite blunt.”

Sliding to her feet, Yuriandil continued to hold Lesalia’s gaze, “You seem to appreciate simple truths more than insinuations.”

Lesalia nodded, “Then why did you…or rather why were you able to observe me?”

Yuriandil’s skin darkened this time, along with her eyes and hair, to a deep brown, “Much of the time you were a shadow in my vision, barely seen, almost like smoke. But there were times where it was all I could do not to be blinded by you. Times where you shone like a sun and all others were drowned in your brilliance.”

Lesalia watched as Yuriandil became more and more animated as she talked and her features lightened until she began to shine like the sun she was describing. Lesalia understood then the symbolism used in the Goddess’ sunburst symbol for not only did Yuriandil emit light, she seemed to also draw much of it back into her in an endless cycle. Lesalia was impressed despite herself and actually allowed some of it to show before speaking,
“Which means?”

The light quickly faded as Yuriandil’s features returned to the hues they had started the conversation with, “I have seen many possible explanations but only one has any real merit to it. It may take quite some time to explain though…time I am afraid we do not have.”

Lesalia nodded, understanding what the Goddess was referring to, “Weslyn will not live much longer if indeed he is even alive now.”

“He is” remarked Yuriandil, “But as you said, not for long. What would you have me do?”

Lesalia turned her body in order to look at the sunburst affixed above the altar. After a moment she spoke softly, “Save him.”

Speckles of brown appeared in Yuriandil’s eyes though the rest of her features remained as they were, “And if I were to ask for something in return for my help?”

Doubt clouded Lesalia’s eyes, “What would you ask for?”

Yuriandil’s hair became golden once again and radiance began to seep from her even as her eyes transformed into the darkest brown imaginable. A subtle breeze wafted through the small room, sending the Goddess’ hair fluttering upwards into a sort of shining halo around her face. Her eyes burned as she spoke in a resonating tone that sprung from every surface of the small room, “Worship me! Recognize my power and bend yourself to its will. Be my presence on Gaia. Give yourself up completely to me and let me mold you as I see fit.”

Defiance and was etched onto Lesalia’s face as she spun to face the shimmering goddess, “I would not blindly give myself up to anyone no matter what the price! You hide yourself behind your ideals of mercy and compassion and yet you seek only to draw power from those foolish enough to follow you, draw it from them the same as you draw the very light from a room!”

Instantly Yuriandil’s face softened as her eyes brightened to match her other features, “Blind faith is an weakening disease, something you seem to understand even better than my followers despite my attempts to teach them. I do believe that I may be correct in my assumptions about you.”

Lesalia was completely befuddled and knew she showed it, though she did not, or could not, make an effort to
hide it, “You were testing me?”

Yuriandil nodded, “You will find that that was only one of the tests you will face in the near future…indeed another is before you already.”

Lesalia took a step towards the Goddess, “You will help Weslyn then?”

Yuriandil shook her head sadly, “As I said before, even a Goddess’ omnipotence is limited. For my healing powers
to reach your friend they need something to guide them…a bridge of a sort.”

Lesalia was gliding out of the room scant moments after the last words had left Yuriandil’s lips. The Goddess shook her head as the young woman moved quickly down the corridor, “Why is it that a simple question can never have a simple answer?”

The beautiful deity moved to stand in front of her own insignia. Reaching a hand up to touch it, she gave a lilting laugh, “A paradox worthy of the Gods.”

A flash of light blossomed from the sunburst to consume Yuriandil completely, leaving behind a very shaken monk who quickly vacated the small chapel.

Lesalia knew where she was going. She assumed Yuriandil was subtly helping her in that matter and was mildly grateful that the Goddess had decided to give her control of her legs this time. She arrived at the door to Weslyn’s sick room having managed, or having been helped, to avoid Yuriandil’s followers. As she pushed open the door however, she spotted one of the cloaked figures still praying next to Weslyn’s pale form. Rising to its feet, the monk held out a splayed hand as if to stop Lesalia, “You were asked to return to your room in return for you blasphemy, returning here is yet another insult to Yurian...”

With a solid shove, Lesalia pushed past the monk, “Take it up with your Goddess, we have come to an understanding.”

Lesalia was sure that if she could she the monk’s eyes they would have been bulging, a thought that brought a small smile to her face. The smile vanished as she kneeled though, and stared at Weslyn’s face. He had grown even worse in the time it had taken her to find and converse with Yuriandil. Any vestige of color had left his face, painting it as grey as slate. His breath was so shallow that many would have thought him to not be breathing at all. Wondering if she was out of her mind for trying this, Lesalia knelt and continued to stare at Weslyn. Bringing her breathing into a calm, rhythmic pattern, Lesalia whispered to herself, “I passed the first test, whatever that means, and if I am to learn why I am being tested I suppose I should pass the second as well.”

For a minute that stretched into an eternity, Lesalia simply stared at Weslyn’s pale face, taking in each of his features in turn and forming a strong mental picture of the young man. Then she closed her eyes and reached inside of herself. She had never tried to bring her internal emotions to the surface before, indeed she had not really understood that she -had- such emotions before her meditations and the conversation with Yuriandil. In fact, she was unsure if she could even find them intentionally. Slowly however, something stirred inside of her. Her mental picture of Weslyn was suddenly overlapped with another version of the youth from a time when he had been much healthier. The façade lasted for but a moment however and was replaced with another one and yet another one as her various memories of Weslyn arose as if to proclaim to her that the Weslyn lying before her was but a pitiful shell. A wave of emotion rolled over her and it took a second for Lesalia to realize what it was…pity. Pity and sorrow that someone as alive as Weslyn could possibly be reduced to the doppelganger that lay before her. The wave passed however as new images and emotions overlapped the old ones. She saw Weslyn as he was with Caylen, saw how completely loyal he was to the troubled youth and saw too that her loyalty was just as fierce despite the different reasoning behind them. That was the connection.

It was as if a star had exploded in the sickroom. Light was streaming from every possible surface: the walls, the furniture, even from the body of the monk who had seemingly collapsed where he had been standing. Lesalia felt the lights entering her, filling her with a power that transcended any pitiful attempt at comparison. With a smooth movement, Lesalia raised her hands and laid them lightly on Weslyn’s chest. Immediately the light began to flow as if attracted by an irresistible force. The geysers of light seemed to redouble their efforts, racing through Lesalia’s body and out of her hands into Weslyn. A single, pure, note began to ring out somewhere as Lesalia focused her emotions on Weslyn and used them to guide the healing light into the young man’s body. She began to feel an odd sensation, as if she was in two places at once and she realized on some basic level that her connection with Weslyn had grown to where she was becoming aware of what he felt. She winced at slight twinge in her…no -his- shoulder as the arrow suddenly dissolved in a small pillar of searing light. A tingling told her that the deep wound was closing itself. The wound vanished and, with a final burst of emotion and energy, Lesalia felt the sickness and disease purge itself from Weslyn’s body in a flash that felt like wildfire burning through his veins.
The light instantly vanished from the room along with the ringing note as she pulled her hands away from Weslyn and sat back heavily on the stone floor,panting.

Weslyn’s face had already returned to a more normal color though he still hadn’t regained consciousness. Lesalia heard footsteps behind her and turned to look up into the cowl of the monk that had approached her. Deep blue eyes stared at her from the darkness and she heard a soft voice emerge from the folds, “Impressive…you may have even made him a few weeks younger with that much power. That was about as close to the doors of death as one can be and still turn back.”

“I pass?” asked Lesalia, struggling to keep conscious.

Yuriandil nodded, “Indeed. And now I’m sure you are wondering what that means.” Lesalia nodded tiredly and the Goddess continued, “I’m afraid you are not ready for it yet my young friend…despite what you have accomplished. I still cannot ask of you what I wish. I must depart from you now and allow you to come to that discovery on your own, as I am sure you would wish. Now rest my child, a healer who pushes themselves too far will soon find they need healing themselves. You can only take so much on you at once.”

Lesalia tried to stay awake, tried to ask Yuriandil to simply state her request but found herself unable to as she sank to the floor in sleep. Yuriandil smiled at the two sleeping humans and whispered softly, “You will need the rest young one…especially if you are being Called as I suspect. Sleep well.”

Light filled the Goddess' eyes for an instant before suddenly diming. Jerking as if he had lost his footing, the monk quickly straightened himself and stared down at the sleeping Lesalia and, with tangible amazement, at the similarly sleeping, and obviously restored, Weslyn. Murmuring a soft thanks to Yuriandil, the monk quietly left the room and shut the door behind him.

[Silencer]

Oooh freaky powers, and no yellow post. My eyes are grateful :p

Anyway, I wonder what powers Weslyn will have. You can't leave him behind now can you?

We have someone with massive power outburst
A mage that can see the essence of magic
And now we have a healer.

I wonder what powers are left...

[Dr.McNinja]

Silencer: Indeed it wouldn't be fair to leave Weslyn behind....but who says that he doesn't -have- his powers yet?

[Silencer]

Ow right, the view of the futher and the whole arrow thing. Overlooked that...

[Dr.McNinja]

Silencer: Indeedy, not much of a hint but don't worry, he'll get his chance to shine soon enough. Thanks for responding!

[Dr.McNinja]

Chapter Twelve: Singed

Caylen spoke to Aeryth as they walked quickly through the streets of Undrial, “What is this…person going to do once he gets here?”

It was Illenia who answered him, “He isn’t stupid enough to try to force his way to youhe may have become rather powerful but not enough so that he can face all of us. Most likely he’ll try to locate and come to you directly.”

“And will he be able to?” asked Caylen

Illenia shook her head, “He shouldn’t. We’re dampening the magic in Cammie, and whatever magic you have must not be detectable until you use itso keep your hands off those blades of yours until we get somewhere safe.”

Aeryth interrupted to tell the small group to turn at the upcoming intersection of walkways. Caylen wondered aloud how anyone could figure out their way around the city without having lived there their entire life. It was, surprisingly, Cammie who answered, “I think it’s in the flows they have going through the cityI can’t understand it but they seem to have some significance.”

Illenia nodded, “They indicate the direction of certain structures. They are the reason why the city is white to your normal vision Caylen, so they can be seen better.”

The group lapsed into silence for a while as they continued their speedy traversal of Undrial. The Guardians they passed along the way, Caylen noted, were much less hostile than they had been when he had entered the city, though many were still throwing rather nasty looks at Cammie and him. He supposed that whatever Aeryth had told them had cooled their hatred off a bit. He did spot one group that piqued his interest though. They caught his eye, he thought at fist, due to their amazing similarity to one another, a trait he hadn’t yet seen in his limited contact with Guardians. While he had seen some Guardians with similar figures, their characterizing features had all been different, much like they are in humans. Caylen couldn’t see any differences between the members of this group. Each of them was exactly the same, seemingly nothing but a long cloak that shifted between black and lighter shades of gray even as the youth watched, and two glowing eyes that peered out from underneath the cowl.

Caylen quickly decided that is wasn’t only their similarity that had alerted him, rather it was the rather hostile look in those glowing eyes, and the fact that the entire group of six was rapidly approaching them, their glowing eyes fixed on the traveling humans. He turned to alert Aeryth and was almost bowled over as the phoenix pushed him aside to call out to the approaching creatures, “Make your intentions known!”

Cammie’s eyes grew wide as various weapons seemed to sprout from the sleeves of the beings’ cloaks, “I’m guessing they aren’t here to escort us…”

Caylen’s hands shot up to his shoulders but were stopped by Illenia’s surprisingly powerful grasp, “Don’t touch themjust because they’ve seen us doesn’t mean your pursuer knows where we are. Besides thatyou would likely kill us all. Just stand back and let us take care of them”

After leading his friends through the Defender’s complex, standing back and letting others fight for him was not easy for Caylen. As their cloaked enemies grew even closer, Caylen fought against the Siren’s hold, “My power didn’t harm us before, and it saved our lives then..”

Illenia refused to let go, “That was in your world where Magic is spread incredibly thin. Here you would have trouble protecting even yourself from your power.”

Caylen reluctantly dropped his hands and took a few steps back from the advancing attackers, his brow pulled down in frustration “Fine.”

Illenia nodded thankfully and turned to face one of the attackers. The being rushed the Siren, who used an arm to block a slash from a sword-wielding creature with the thick bracelets she wore, sparks arcing from the strike to flutter briefly before dying. Using her blocking hand to throw the sword aside, the Siren slammed her other first into where the creature’s chest would have been were it human. Although the cloak seemed to give for a moment, as if whatever was underneath it wasn’t cohesive enough for the punch to catch, Illenia’s strike finally found something solid and the creature stumbled back several yards, clutching at its chest and letting off a hiss like a startled snake. The creature brought its sword up over the wounded area, seemingly forgetting that it did not have hands and trying to grasp the wound. As Illenia moved in again however, the attacker managed to shake off its wound and block her next punch with its sword, and the next one with the blade that sprouted from its other sleeve.

Caylen ripped his attention away from the furious dual as a shuffling noise from behind alerted him.
Obviously attempting to catch the young man with his back turned, the new creature, wielding a club-like weapon, was just yards away when Caylen turned to meet him. Without a weapon of some sort, Caylen knew he couldn’t meet the enemy head on so he decided on a more defensive counter: he dodged. Expecting the creature to stumble past as he twisted aside to avoid the oncoming blow, Caylen was surprised when the thing simply stopped right next to him, somehow able to dispel all its momentum at once and prepare to turn to continue its attack. Before the being could turn to face Caylen again however, the young man swung his hand around to grasp the creature’s head. The same phenomenon he had witnessed when observing Illenia happened again. For a moment whatever substance the creature was made of gave under his hand like wet sand until he finally found purchase. Pushing hard, before the creature could regain its balance, Caylen drove its head down towards his rapidly rising knee. The blow was oddly silent, though Caylen could feel the body beneath the cloth stiffen briefly before going limp. Caylen quickly released his grip, letting the being fall to the ground with a muffled thump. Rubbing his stinging knee, Caylen managed small smile as he spotted Cammie staring at him, her bright green eyes wide. The young man shrugged, “They said I couldn’t use my blades.”

Cammie blew out an irritated breath before turning to bash an incoming creature with her staff. Her attacker managed to cross its blade-like weapons and block the overhand blow only to double in pain as Cammie rotated the staff to smack the creature in its stomach with the opposite end. A quick spin to the side and a final crack over the head dropped the creature to the ground. Twirling her staff defensively, Cammie turned a full circle, searching for another opponent. She relaxed her stance however when it became apparent that the danger was over.
All six of the attacking creature lay in various states of consciousness around the four companions. With a sharp rap with a braceleted arm, Illenia dropped one of the creatures that was struggling to rise. Without a word, Aeryth motioned for the group to move once again, continuing on their way to Gods knew where. Several minutes after leaving the battlefield, Illenia shook her head and gave an exasperated sigh, “He really has become as arrogant as they say.”

Aeryth nodded. Seeing the human’s state of numbed confusion, he attempted to explain, “Those creatures we just faced, they are known as Dieldroth in our language, which means literally Children Who Are Not. Those of us whom you know as Guardians are called the Dielthe Children. When we are born we are all Dieldroth until we choose our form. However, those Dieldroth who choose to serve a God take no form so that their god can mold them as they see fit. Apparently your pursuer is starting his own divine order.”

Cammie realized that they were leaving the city, emerging into the fields surrounding it, “Why do you keep saying, “him”, or “your pursuer”? Who’s chasing us?”

Aeryth gave the young woman a grave look, “To speak a name such as his when he is already searching for you would give him far too much of an advantage. It’s an aspect of magic that you can’t be expected to understand yet.”

Caylen brushed past the fallen Dieldroth, careful to avoid touching the fallen figure, “And we’re going to get away from this…person…how?”

Illenia adjusted a few of the bracelets that hung around her wrists, inspecting them for damage or stains, “We are going to give you to some guides who will take care that you are not harmed.”
Frowning, Caylen turned to the Siren, “Do we really need to flee? These Dieldroth weren’t that tough, and with all of you Guardians around wouldn’t we be safer here?”

Aeryth gave a soft laugh, rustling his wings from his perch on Illenia’s shoulder, “The Dieldroth are the least of our worries, they are nothing but grunts in your pursuers’ forces. Believe me, it is for the best.”

Cammie said softly, “Can’t you come with us?”

The Phoenix looked over at Cammie for a long moment, and it seemed that there was some deep sadness in his eyes, sadness for some precious object lost far too soon, “My path diverges from yours here, at least for the moment. I will strive to find you again when I am able. It was I who found you both when you arrived, I who felt your presence on Gaiathere is some connection between you humans and the Diel, there is no doubt about that. What that connection portends however remains to be seen.”

As they spoke, the four cleared the last walls of Undrial, soon entering another portion of the forest the humans had exited such a short time ago. Just inside the outer limits of the woods sat two figures, one covered in a rich indigo robe, the other in a long sleeved tunic and pants of varying earthen colors. Caylen felt his heart rise, had Aeryth and Illenia found more humans who had stumbled into Gaia? Indeed as the two figures rose from their seats on a rotting log, the robed one dusting the debris from his robes as he did, it looked as if the two humans would no longer be the lone representatives of their species in Gaia. However, Caylen’s hopes quickly faded as he drew closer to the duo. As the robed one shook back his long white hair, which hung from underneath a wide-brimmed, indigo hat sporting a magnificently curving white feather, the tips of his long ears were clearly visible, their points seemingly frayed like the ends of a child’s streamer. When the being turned to reveal unusually large eyes that glowed faintly purple with an internal light, the being’s heritage was confirmed. A fey thought Caylen, something else straight out of fantasy. The fey’s companion glanced at the arriving group, blinking eyes dominated by long, red irises. A slight grin revealed incisors far too long for any human, their tips glistening ominously. Caylen heard Cammie’s suck in her breath beside him at the sight of those fangs and mumbled softly, “Aeryth chose them, we have little choice but to trust his judgment.”

When Aeryth and Illenia drew within comfortable speaking distance, the Phoenix raised his voice slightly in greeting, “Gaishan! Calidar! We have brought you your new charges, as we agreed.”

The fey responded first, his voice tinged with warmth and a lightness that could only be described as mischievous, “I’m sorry Aeryth, but I cannot see them through the radiant light you have brought with you as well.”

Illenia gave a disgusted sigh, crossing her slender arms under her breasts, “Now isn’t the time for your hopeless romanticism Gaishan. He is already searching for the human’s and every second we waste could mean their death.”

The snakelike being, evidentially Calidar, moved closer to Gaishan, “And even you don’t want that to happen Gaish.”

Picking up a long staff that had been laying by him, it’s polished surface covered in runes that glowed with the same light of the fey’s eyes, Gaishan flicked it back quickly, catching Calidar firmly on his shin. As his companion cursed and hopped away lamely, Gaishan spoke, “Of course I don’t you serpentine waste of air!”

The humans had gotten close enough now that they could speak in normal voices. Cammie shook her head as she heard Gaishan’s remark, her eyes glimmering with contained frustration, “What exactly are you all afraid of? Not that I really want to find out, but what would happen if this thing got a hold of us?”

Still rubbing his shin, Calidar spoke up, “We don’t have time to explain it now, let’s just say that it could be bad for both our worlds.”

Illenia placed a hand on Cammie’s shoulder, fixing the girl with an understanding yet firm gaze, “I know that each passing minute only brings more questions, and that you would give anything to have them answered, but trust me when I say that if you survive the next few days that there will be plenty of time to ask anything you may wish. We must leave you now however, when your pursuer finds you finally missing, he will likely come to us for information. We will distance him from you as long as we can. Trust your new guides, they may be a bit odd, but Gaishan and Calidar will get you to safety. Listen to them and do as they say.”

Aeryth shifted a bit on Illenia’s shoulder and added, “You would do well to listen to what they have to teach you as well, they were not chosen lightly. Be well young ones.”

With that the two Diel turned and parted, already moving fast as they exited the forest. Caylen and Cammie looked after them for a long moment, gazing at Undrial and its glimmering spires. Cammie was the first to turn, only to trip and stumble backwards to the ground as she almost collided with Gaishan! With a laughing smile, Gaishan offered Cammie the end of his staff to help her to her feet. As she attempted to regain some of her dignity, gently removing leaves and twigs from her clothing, Gaishan spoke, “You’re the human who can use Magic right?”

Cammie managed to sputter something that, while incomprehensible, seemed to be enough verification for the Indigo-robed fey, “We will talk later.”

Not waiting to hear if Cammie managed a response, Gaishan turned and started to walk into the forest. Calidar, shaking his head, beckoned for the humans to follow, “You’ll get used to him eventuallyor you’ll try to kill him. C’mon.”

Suddenly wishing that they were back in the, relatively, safe walls of Undrial with beings who, while odd, were at least sane, Caylen and Cammie followed their guides into the forest. For the rest of the daylight hours they walked in semi-silence, the only sounds being murmured directions and warnings from the two diel. The long hours gave the humans time to take in the forest, and to begin to notice more mundane differences between their world and Gaia. Cammie stifled a giggle as a multi-winged insect reminiscent of a butterfly fluttered around her on dozens of crystalline wings. Having time to observe the forest while not in a state bordering panic and helplessness, Caylen was enraptured by sights not seen anywhere in his world, whether it was a trunk so translucent that he could see the veins of sap flowing underneath it or leaves that fell to shimmering pieces at the slightest touch. Everything about the forest seemed fragile, as if the slightest nudge would shatter the entire thing and send it crumbling to the ground. A growing notion of Cammie’s slowly came to fruition over the long hours. Drawing closer to Caylen she whispered to him, “This place isn’t possible.”

Caylen whispered back, “You noticed too? I knew something felt wrong, even back in Undrial. This stuff shouldn’t even be able to support itself....”

Cammie abruptly stopped, causing Caylen to stumble to a halt a few paces later. Gaishan and Calidar stopped too, the snake-being having turned to announce some new instructions the moment Cammie had halted. Taking a few steps back to urge the humans onwards, Calidar felt a delicate hand grasp his shoulder. Turning he looked at Gaishan who had a mixed expression of amusement and excitement. The fey spoke softly, “Let her have a moment Calidar, I believe she is finally going to open her true eyes.”

With a curious look on her face, Cammie began to slowly circle in place, taking in the forest around them. Sensing something happening within the young woman, Caylen took several steps back, beginning to grow wary of sudden silences, from which explosions were usually forthcoming. Cammie closed her eyes, an uncommonly serene look coming over her features, erasing all of the vivid energy and exuberance and replacing it with a look of timeless wisdom. With a soft, contented sigh, Cammie opened her eyes. Caylen let out a surprised rush of breath as the girl turned to face him. Colors swirled across her eyes, obscuring, or perhaps replacing, her normal color. Cammie gasped as well but this was a gasp of wonder. Her hand outstretched, the young woman tentatively touched a nearby tree, her hand tracing the fragile, glasslike bark with a tender gentleness. Caylen turned to Gaishan who had walked up behind him, an unsure and decidedly worried look on his face, “What is she doing?”

Gaishan blinked and suddenly his eyes were identical to Cammie’s, color whirling through them with a sureness that Cammie could not match, “She is seeing the Magic. Reading the flows. The feeling is indescribable the first time.”

Caylen shook his head, “She didn’t look like this before when she used Magic.”

Looking past Caylen, Gaishan watched as Cammie knelt next to a flower and softly cupped it in her hands, “What she had before was just a glimpse of the Magic. The same sight that all Diel have, more of an ability as opposed to the Art that it is capable of being. Now she is beginning to open her true eyes, beginning to see like a Magi. Aeryth was right to bring her to me..”

Caylen looked at the fey standing next to him, searching his wildly shifting eyes, “I thought all diel were able to use Magic.”

Gaishan turned his attention from Cammie to Caylen, “Within the limits of their realms of course. You won’t see Aeryth tapping into the flows that regulate the water of this world nor will you see Illenia utilizing much beyond the flows of spirit. The shape a diel chooses obscured those flows outside of what is needed to support that shape.”

Understanding began to sink into Caylen’s face, “But youyou and Cammie are different.”

Gaishan nodded, “We are Magi, or at least that is what I have come to call what I am. We have forsaken mastery of a certain realm in exchange for the power to feel and manipulate all of them. While the power of a certain realm may not come as easily nor, at first, as strong to us our control over them is superior as is our understanding that the true power in magic lies not in individual realms but in the melding of all of them.”

Caylen shook his head, he barely understood what the fey was talking about, “And are Magi common in Gaia?”

Gaishan chuckled, “You won’t see any others with my shape, the only one that would support my particular talents. I am the only onewas the only one until your friend here entered Gaia.”

His eyes narrowing, Caylen responded, “What are the chances of that?”

Gaishan’s smile widened, “You mean that a human would enter into our world and discover that she is the first human in Gaian history to show any natural talent in Magic? Not only that but her aptitude for magic is shared only by one other being in existence? The one being that could possible show her how to fully realize her potential without hurting herself and those around her?”

Caylen nodded.

Winking one of his wildly spiraling eyes, Gaishan continued, “It’s impossible. Of course, that’s assuming that chance had anything to do with this at all.”

Caylen’s lips drew close, the frustration that Cammie had expressed earlier bubbling to the surface in his narrowed eyes and heavy breath, “Are we having any choice in this whole mess? Or is Fate just playing a game with us?”

Still smiling, Gaishan replied, “That depends on whether or not you believe in Fate I suppose. When Cammie is done here, me and Calidar will be just up ahead.”

Turning, the indigo Magi departed, leaving Caylen shaking his head in bewilderment. With a vexed sigh, the young man moved next to Cammie who had sat, her legs drawn up to her chest, against one of the more sturdy looking trees. Caylen took a seat next to her, letting the silence stretch for a moment before speaking, “What did you see?”

Cammie continued to stare straight ahead, her eyes back to their normal bright green but her look far more contemplative than Caylen was used to, “Do you know what our world is made up of Caylie?”
His mind going back to his very earliest days of learning, the days spent listening to his mother as she sat tending her small garden, Caylen nodded, “Our world is a melding of the four elements: Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water.”
Cammie gave the slightest nod, “A meldingthat’s a good word. Our world is like a big ball of clay Caylie, at least that’s what my mother said before she died. The elements are all pushed together in this ball, like different colors of clay, working to keep the world from falling apart standing but not actually mixing with each other. They stay as separate entities. But herehere it’s different.”

“They don’t have the elements here?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Cammie’s face, “Of course they dobut they have something else as well, the Magic.”

Cammie laughed as Caylen shook his head and the youth couldn’t help but join in. Magic…before they had left their world Magic was something mystical, a power that only a few could hope to wield. Here in Gaia however, Magic seemed to be sticking its nose in everything. Calming her laughter, Cammie continued, “What do you think our world would look like if suddenly all the Water disappeared? It’d probably look pretty fragile too if it still even existed. Magic is the same, it’s just another element of this world that holds it together.”

Caylen shook his head, “That doesn’t make sense. Magic can’t be like any other element, using it creates the other elements!”

“It doesn’t create,” said Cammie, her face twisting as she attempted to put her thoughts into words, “It channels. The other elements are separate but Magic overlaps them all and is able to make them mix through itselfusing Magic is just learning how to control its channels and mold the elements with them, elements which could include Magic itself if needed I suppose. It’s so complicated, and I can’t even know if I’m seeing it right yet, I’m probably just confusing myself more.”

Caylen placed a comforting hand on Cammie’s shoulder, “From what I can understand it seems to make sense. So you can manipulate these channels?”

Cammie shrugged, the uncommonly serious expression on her face quickly fading, “I guess. Pretty neat huh?”

Not able to help himself, Caylen began to laugh once again, “Neat? That’s the best word you can think up to describe a power the Defenders would kill for?”

Ignoring the annoyed look on Cammie’s face he turned and walked to rejoin Gaishan and Calidar. Cammie hesitated for a moment before charging after Caylen, readying her staff to give him a good beating. Dodging aside at the last moment, Caylen continued to laugh as he stumbled backward away from Cammie’s furious assault. Dodging under one half-hearted blow, he turned to avoid another. Through dumb luck however, Cammie’s staff slipped under the straps of Caylen’s scabbards, twisting one of them over enough to dump the blade inside to the ground. Caylen’s laugh died off immediately as he stared at the Gemeos blade, it’s black steel drawing in the light that fell between the trees. Cammie too stopped her mock attack, her eyes also falling on the seemingly innocent weapon. Tentatively, Caylen reached out his hand to retrieve his blade. Softly his hand curled around its hilt.

“KILL”

With a shout, Caylen threw himself back, slamming against the crystalline trunk of a tree with enough force to stun him. Dimly he heard Cammie shouting for Gaishan and Calidar and soon he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Forcing his head up, the youth looked into Calidar’s eyes, their narrow slits widening in alarm. Suddenly Caylen realized that Calidar’s mouth was moving, his fangs flashing in the light overhead. A few seconds later the sound reached him, “What happened?!”

Caylen was saved having to try to conjure up words from his addled brain by Gaishan who answered for him, “I would guess it has something to do with this blade Calidar.”

Staying a safe distance away from the Gemeos blade, Cammie spoke up, “He was trying to pick it up! It fell out of his pack.”

Gaishan knelt next to the Gemeos, his hand hovering above the dark blade. After a moment he spoke up, “Interesting…may I look at the other one? You do no have to draw it.”

Caylen nodded numbly and Gaishan moved over to him. Once again he hovered his hand over the Gemeos blade still residing in Caylen’s sheathe, “Also interesting…where did you find these?”

For some reason Caylen did not feel that he should tell Gaishan about his acceptance of the Gemeos, to do so would lead to the Prophecy and the less who knew of his potential fate, he felt, the better. Fighting his feeling of betrayal, Caylen responded, “They were given to me.” That wasn’t a lieat least not completely.

Gaishan seemed to accept the ambiguous answer, “For now at least I’d suggest you don’t draw one blade without drawing the other as well, if you absolutely must draw them at alltheir magic is extremely strong, and complicated enough that I would need much time to fully understand them, but it is easy enough to see that their natures oppose each other.”

Caylen looked less than enthusiastically at the Gemeos that still was lying on the forest floor, “What would happen if I tried to use just one of them?”

Gaishan strode over to the dark Gemeos blade and blinked, his eyes immediately beginning to swirl with color once again. With a start, the weapon sprung into the air and began to hover steadily towards Caylen. The youth stiffened as the blade settled into its sheathe, but somehow relaxed when nothing occurred. His eyes returning to their “normal” glowing purple, Gaishan finally responded, “It depends on if you are strong enough to resist its magic without its opposition I suppose.or if you willingly submit to it. I wouldn’t try it though unless you had no option. I can study them further later, for now we have to move on, we can’t stay in one place this close to Undrial.”

Cammie slid up next to Caylen as they continued to follow their guides through the forest, her eyes downcast and true sadness in her voice, “I’m sorry CaylieI shouldn’t have been fooling around”
Caylen reached down and took Cammie’s hand in his, a touch of a smile on his lips as he brought it up so they both could see it, “Just a few days ago you wouldn’t have apologized for giving me a concussion...much less knocking my blade out of place.” The youth suddenly sobered, “I don’t think we’re going to have many chances to smile and laugh soonso don’t waste the chances we do have alright?”

Caylen lowered Cammie’s hand back to her side and, after a moment, released it. He remained close to the girl however. After a few steps, Cammie giggled and began to poke Caylen’s arm. Caylen pretended not to notice but his face betrayed a smile. Several yards ahead, Gaishan looked helplessly at Calidar who simply shrugged and said, “Humans?”

Gaishan laughed softly, “Like you would know .”

Blinking, Calidar responded, “And you would?”

Gaishan closed his eyes and sighed, “Shut up.”

[Mew Trainer Rose]

I'm to tired to post a proper reply now, but I'm still reading and enjoying the story. I'll try to remember to post a better reply later.

[Dr.McNinja]

No updates for a few weeks as I'm gone for a few weeks now. When I get back look for several chapters.

[Dr.McNinja]

(Got a chance to update with the chapter I've finished up here. This is the last of my original chapters, starting halfway through the next one is where I'll be picking up my writing. Hope it continued to be interesting)

Chapter Thirteen: Riding the Storm

Weslyn stood in the entrance to Celandiel, looking out at the serene grasslands that surrounded the temple, his eyes less than placated by the seeming peace as he relived those last moments before he fell. He had hovered somewhere between life and death during the hours following his wound, his mind playing tricks on his senses, taking him places he had hoped were buried too far to be discovered. The young man suppressed a shudder. Sensing someone approaching he spoke, “What’s even out there?”

Stopping next to Weslyn, Lesalia slightly rested her bow against the well-worn paving stones of the temple’s main entrance, “The monks say that there is a city called Undrial several days from here. The Guardians live there, at least the greatest concentration of them do. They will likely be able to aide us.”

Weslyn’s eyes grew large and he sputtered a moment before responding, “The Guardians?! So this is their world?.”

As calm as ever, Lesalia nodded, “Indeed, and from what I am told they do not have a very high opinion of humans.it seems that the Defenders have been enslaving them for centuries, drawing their power from them.”
Closing his eyes, Weslyn’s hands curled into fists, “I knew the Defenders weren’t as pure and good as they pretended they were, but that’s gotta take the record for a new low.”

Lesalia placed a pale hand on Weslyn’s shoulder, “Do not be angry at yourself, you could not have known anything they were doing. I did not even suspect. We were but cadets after all.”
Weslyn snorted, “Cadets? I thought you were more observant than that. Think about it, you think a bunch of cadets could have escaped that place with all the Defenders looking for them? We were good, better than most anyone else there, including the Defenders.

Lesalia’s eyebrows twitched, “That is true, but hardly relevant to the situation.”

Nodding his head, Weslyn’s fist unclenched, “You’re rightbut knowing that they were hiding something as big as how they handled their “partners” makes me wonder about some other things now. Now, do we know exactly where this Undrial is?”

Shaking her head, Lesalia began to respond. Abruptly she stopped and turned suddenly, her hair twirling with the movement to spin around her legs. One of the monks huddled in the entryway of Celandiel, standing deep in the shadows until it realized it had been seen. Tentatively it seemed, the monk approached the two before speaking, “I....can take you to Undrial if you wish.”

Lesalia’s eyes narrowed, the voice that had emitted from the dark hole under the monk’s hoods was familiar. After a moment's reflection, she placed it, “Yuriandel sent you?”

The monk seemed to be agitated by the young woman’s statement, “No, She..I..”

Not in the mood for indecision, Lesalia grasped the monk’s hood and pushed it down, revealing the stunning features of the Goddess Yuriandel, her eyes a neutral, and decidedly miserable, brown. Lesalia simply looked at the monk for a moment before speaking again, “You are the one whom Yuriandel took the form of are you not?”
A look of fear overcame the delicate features of the monk, “No! She didn’t take my form, I took hers! But...but now I can’t get rid of it! Dieldroth aren’t supposed to take a form in respect to the deity they worship…but I cannot get rid of it!”

As she spoke, the monk raised an arm, the sleeve of her robe feel back to reveal a slender hand. As Weslyn and Lesalia watched, the hand grayed and began to twirl like smoke trapped within glass. By the time the monk had finished speaking however, the hand had reformed and the arm had dropped in apparent defeat, “I can’t leave this form...something is stopping me!”

Lesalia glanced at Weslyn who stood with a befuddled look on his face. Feeling similar, she turned back to the monk, “Are you sure that you are doing you ... transformation...correctly?”

The monk nodded her head vehemently, seemingly irritated at the question, “Are you sure you’re breathing correctly? It’s the same for this, it should be impossible for me to remain like this, even if I was trying …”
Weslyn raised a hand as if comfort the distraught monk. He dropped it however as the monk shied away, eyeing him suspiciously. Instead, he nodded towards Celandiel, “Why would you want to leave this place then? The rest of the monks should be able to help you, shouldn’t they?”

The monk looked over her shoulder, a look of painful longing on her face as she gazed at the sparkling temple, “They can’t…and even if they could I couldn’t ask them. I would be too ashamed…I can’t face them like this, with my faithlessness revealed so blatantly. They would most likely send me away anyway.”

Lesalia began to speak some words denying the monks claims, words that would have explained that her transformation was not the monk’s fault, that she should not be shamed at all. The words died in her throat however as her mind alerted her to something. Yuriandel had chosen this monk to speak to Lesalia through, certainly the Goddess would not have chosen a faithless heretic to fulfill that role, and certainly a goddess of compassion wouldn’t curse such a follower nor use her own form as a curse. There was more to this than she could understand right now, and sending the distraught monk back to Celandiel was not going to solve anything. Instead of her comforting words then, she played to her instincts, “Then I suppose that we will accept your offer.”

The monk’s eyes closed in relief. Looking at Lesalia for a moment, Weslyn gave a quick nod and grinned at the monk, “If you are to be our guide, perhaps we should know your name?”

Opening her eyes again, the monk shook her head, “I gave up my name when I joined Yuriandel’s followers.”
Lesalia’s cool blue eyes locked with the still teary brown ones of the monk who, a moment later, shuddered. Glancing almost pleadingly at the temple she spoke, “Kelene.”

Turning, the monk reached into the doors of the temple. Turning back, she handed the humans their packs, gifts from the temple, which they had placed in the cool shadow of the temple. Donning a third she began to walk towards the distant forest, her stride bordering on a run. Weslyn, resolved to ignore the world until it started to make sense, hoisted his pack over his shoulder and quickly followed. Lesalia made a slight adjustment to her quiver, letting it hang by her waist, and settled the pack on her back. Instead of following however, she turned to stand in front of the temple, locking her gaze on the sunburst adorning the door. Quietly she whispered to herself, “You are not going to make this easy are you?”

She could feel laughter echo in her head, and felt, rather then heard, the response, “As you requested.”

Lesalia allowed herself a small smile and turned to follow their new guide.


----------

The finely dressed being knelt before the darkness in front of him, “My lord.”

The darkness…moved. Limbs barely seen lifted, black on black. Flowing clothing that glimmered in and out of the realm of perception folded around them. A voice issued from the darkness, deep and smooth, “Stand Vasilis, stand and speak. Do not fear to tell me the truth.”

Rising to his feet, Vasilis began to speak, his voice carefully enunciated, a trait made necessary by the long fangs that curved downward from his upper lip, “The Dieldroth found the humans, but they were protected.”

A sigh escaped from the darkness, “Aeryth?”

Vasilis bowed his head, “Indeed, as well as Illenia oddly enough.”

A hand separated from the void, making a vague gesture, “She is smart enough to overcome her prejudices. The Magi probably had a hand in it as well. Very well, we will just have to separate the humans from their protection then, they should be easy enough to take care of then.”

Vasilis’ tilted his head a bit, “Perhaps not my lord, the humans seem to have their own abilities, though we can only guess at them. Aeryth and his kind were trying to suppress them, but we could still feel them through our magic when we shouldn’t have been able to at all.”

The dark creature made its way to a nearby tree, placing its hand on it and watching the flows of magic warp and curl around the limb, “It makes sense that they would…but without others we should be safe.”

As the being released the magical flows of the tree, a cry from above caused it to turn its barely distinguishable head to watch as a furry shape dropped from the sky above. So covered in limbs, many of them ending in curving wings, that its true body was barely visible, the bat-like creature dropped onto Vasilis’ shoulder. Vasilis closed his sullen red eyes as the creature squeaked into his ear. As the squeaking continued, his eyes suddenly snapped open, “That’s impossible, they can’t have traveled that far already! We would have sensed the stress on the flows!”

The bat-thing continued to chatter for a few more moments and Vasilis slowly nodded. Finished, the creature took to the sky once again. Drawing himself up, Vasilis spoke to his dark lord, “Our people in the Southern Fenral report that they have found the two humans we are looking for.”

Although he couldn’t see anything on his master’s face for certain, Vasilis felt that his lord was puzzled by the news, “They could not have traveled that far so quickly, not without disrupting the flows.”

Vasilis braced himself, “It would seem then that there were two others that we were not aware of.”

A dark hand slammed against the tree trunk, shattering the plant’s magical flows and causing it to disintegrate into barely more than ash that dissipated on the breeze, “We were aware of them Vasilis! The upflow of magic we felt from the Tithalin just days ago? We assumed it was from Yuriandel’s damned monks, but I knew it was too intense and focused for even them to manage! Damn it! What if they meet up with the ones we are chasing? What then? Stop them Vasilis, stop them before they ruin everything and bring the world down around us!”

Bowing low, Vasilis drew his silken cloak around him. There was a flash, and a sudden billowing cloud of acrid smoke. Rising from the smoke, a twisted shape, something like a giant form of the being that had delivered the distressing news, took a deep breath of the late morning air. With a soft rustle of numerous wings, Vasilis rose into the air. Watching his servant disappear with frightening speed into the distance, the dark being looked distractedly at the dust that had once been a tree before striding quickly towards a distant cluster of lights perched like ants on the side of a towering mountain.

----------

Lesalia decided upon leaving Celandiel that Weslyn had recovered fully from his ordeal, and wondered if perhaps that was truly such a good thing. Watching the young man walking next to Kelene, telling the disgraced monk the tale of their escape from the Defenders. As the young man spoke, Kelene continued to lead them across the plain, the great forest that they had exited earlier on their rights, they would not truly enter it, Kelene said, until they were closer to Undrial. Instead they carefully pushed their way through the waist-high grass of the plain, enjoying the pleasant morning even as the two humans kept a careful eye on the forest, fearing that those who had pursued them before would regain their trail. As Weslyn finished his story, Kelene posed a question, “Why were you trying to escape these Defenders? Did you commit some sort of crime?”

Lesalia stepped over a tree that had fallen across the trail, “No, we discovered that Caylen was the subject of a prophecy, one that seemed to point to the destruction of our world.”

Kelene abruptly stopped and turned to directly face the two humans, “What did the prophecy say?”

Weslyn, much to Lesalia’s surprise, was the one to respond, “That someone with two blades would destroy the world. Bad luck that Caylen found those daggers.”

Bringing one hand up to brush away some foliage that had fallen on the shoulder of her robe, Kelene spoke, “And you helped him escape? The one who would destroy your world?”

Lesalia replied, “Prophecies are not always meant to be understood the way they are. Also, Caylen does not seem to me one who would knowingly endanger his world.”

Weslyn added, “And we don’t even know if Caylen’s the one in the prophecy. It says that someone with two blades will destroy the world. We can’t be sure that it’s Caylen even with those daggers and his powers…and especially now that we’re not even in our world anymore…”

Seemingly satisfied, Kelene continued to follow the trail, speaking as she did, “Prophecy is much the same in our world, vague and ambiguous, even with magic it seems. Or at least that is what I understand. I am no prophet or scholar. So what happened to Caylen and Cammie? Are they in this world as well?”

Giving a shrug, Weslyn replied, “Probably, considering it was Caylen’s power that got us here in the first place, why?”

Kelene’s eyes narrowed, seemingly struggling to recall something, “It just seems odd that four humans would show up, especially since it’s the first time that any human has been seen in Gaia at all.”

Lesalia’s eyes narrowed as well, hers in confusion, “Does the number of us here mean anything?”

Gently brushing aside the tall grass as she walked, Kelene responded, “Nothing specific that I know of, it’s just that…here in Gaia things of great power or purpose usually come in fours. For example: there are four Divine beneath the Creator, four Eternals who record the passage of time, and four major areas where it is believed magic originates from. It just seems odd that there are four humans suddenly in Gaia.”

Weslyn moaned, “I don’t want to deal with any more fate or destiny, it’s gotten me in enough trouble as it is.”

Lesalia only nodded, though whether she was agreeing with Weslyn or simply responding to her own thoughts was unknown. The group traveled for several more hours, blazing a path through the grass along the rough boarder of the forest until Celandiel was far out of sight, a realization that alarmed Kelene for a moment when she turned to find the temple was finally gone. As they traveled, Lesalia and Weslyn began to notice many of the same things that Caylen and Cammie were realizing at roughly the same time: the seeming fragility and ephemeral nature of the world they were in. As the sun set on a long yet uneventful day, much to Weslyn’s relief, the three travelers made camp a few dozen yards in the great forest, where the trees provided a feeling of security that the wide open plain could not. Lesalia quickly excused herself, announcing that she would see to finding any game that was about, and glided deeper into the forest. Sitting down on a patch of mossy ground near a small stream, Lesalia closed her eyes and looked within herself, letting the sounds of the forest, of the stream, disappear into the background of her consciousness. Silently she spoke to the night, “You are here.”

A soft laugh made her open her eyes and look down, the direction from which the laugh had originated. She saw only her reflection in the water, a reflection that was looking at her with a great deal of amusement, an expression Lesalia did not usually practice. Lesalia looked at her image and spoke, “You would not mind answering a few questions?”

Yuriandel tilted her head, giving Lesalia the odd experience of looking at a crooked reflection of herself, “Of course not.”

Lesalia shifted slightly, settling her dress underneath her and cursing yet again he decision to wear such an outfit on that fateful day, “Very well, I will begin with this. What am I? These powers, they are not my own.”

A falling leaf sent ripples across Yuriandel’s face as she replied, twisting her expression “Not naturally perhaps, but they are yours now. The most accurate description of what you are would be a cleric, the chosen hand of a god…or goddess in this situation.”

Lesalia’s eyes narrowed, “And why choose me? I do not know your practices, and I did not even know you existed until recently. Why not one of your faithful, one that understands and follows you completely like Kelene?”

An enchanting smile played across Yuriandel’s face, “Because you are not blinded by your faith. You do not know, or believe you know, the limits to what mortals are capable of. My followers please me, their loyalty flatters me, but their own marvel at my divine nature limits them in the power they can wield. Kelene is strong in her own way, yet she is not suited to be my champion.”

A smile appeared on Lesalia’s face as well, “So you needed someone ignorant of you so they would not fall prey to predefined limits?”

Yuriandel seemed to consider Lesalia’s words, “That seems to be correct, there are other reasons however that I have chosen you, and you will discover those on your own quite easily.”

Lesalia took Yuriandel’s words with a nod and moved on, “I have one more question for you: why did you do what you did to Kelene?

Yuriandel’s face became downcast, the Goddess’ expression becoming regretful, “Kelene is one of my greatest followers, though she does not yet believe in herself enough to meet her true potential. For her to do that she needed to get away from Celandiel, away from the inevitable stifling of her abilities by the dogma of the rest of my followers. Your plight and my ‘curse’ were the only things that could have made her leave. She will come to understand eventually, and I hope she can forgive me then.”

Lesalia nodded somberly. Although she did not truly understand Yuriandel’s motives as of yet, the Goddess’ willingness to help Weslyn and her made Lesalia feel as though she could trust Yuriandel and at least make some effort to understand what the Goddess wanted her to become. Gazing down once again, Lesalia noticed Yuriandel’s eyes suddenly widen, her mouth opening as if to call out a warning. Before the Goddess could do anything however, a clawed foot slammed down onto the reflection, shattering it into a spray of droplets that shone briefly in the moonlight before splattering on the ground. A desperate grab for her weapon was rendered useless as two of the writhing mass of limbs in front of her shot out to completely encircle the young woman with sinuously long fingers ending in terrible claws. Lesalia twisted and fought against the grasp but the strength of the creature was like nothing she had ever felt before, her struggles did not gain her the barest of movements from its grasp. Eyes widening with fear gazed up at the face of her attacker. Hot breath smelling of corpses washed over Lesalia as she stared into the face of a nightmare. The monster opened an impossibly wide maw, revealing row upon row of vicious, glimmering fangs. Lesalia felt herself being pulled toward the open jaws and fought uselessly with all the strength left to her. Her vision completely dominated by fangs, her ears filled with the horrible heaving of the thing’s breath, Lesalia’s mind was barely even able to comprehend her impending demise. Then it struck like lightning.

----------

Weslyn leaned against a sturdier looking tree on the edge of the clearing they had found, wishing that he had decided to wear something a little tougher the day that they had been force to flee from the Defenders. The same outfit he had been wearing the day Lesalia had revealed the Prophecy to Caylen and him in fact. One of life’s little coincidences he decided, though this one might be a little more inconvenient than most as the silken materiel of his shirt wasn’t going to last very long if they had to push through many more forests. He began to wonder how much of this world was still covered in forest. Turning to Kelene, who had begun to remove food from one of the packs they had carried this far, he spoke, “Kelene? What do you call your world?”

The former monk didn’t look up from the pack as she responded, “Gaia.”

Weslyn remained silent for a moment before another question occurred to him, “And why are you helping us again?”

This time Kelene did look up, her eyes searching Weslyn’s, looking for some hint of hostility or distrust. Finding neither she responded, “I already said, I couldn’t stay at the temple, not as I am.”

Weslyn shook his head, “That doesn’t explain it, you could have just left without us then.”

Kelene took her time in responding, looking past Weslyn into the forest, “I suppose that the teachings of Yuriandel, the ways of Compassion, still influence me…despite the curse.”

Weslyn pushed off his resting place with his back and moved closer to the diel, “You’re still convinced you have a curse? It seems that you’re still a pretty faithful follower despite your condition.”

Lowering her head back to her pack, Kelene muttered, “Obviously I am not faithful enough. For the Goddess to use my body as her vessel and then leave me as I am shows that she must have found me wanting during her possession of me.”

Weslyn looked up at the sky, not willing to argue at this point. He quickly saw that the stars of Gaia were far different than those of his own world. He’d have to ask Kelene about them sometime, stars always meant something. Seeing sudden movement he pointed and asked a startled question, “What’s that?”

Kelene looked up just in time to see an irregular dark shape dive out of view into the canopy a short distance away. Her forehead furrowed in concern as she stood and spoke, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve heard rumors of…thing appearing recently but not near here. They say that Metrion has been…”

Lesalia’s shout pierced the air, barely audible. Weslyn’s head jerked in the direction of the sound, a wildly alarmed look twisting his handsome features. Kelene looked in the same direction, only to cringe and yell out in surprise as a burning flash of light suddenly blinded her. Blinking rapidly, Kelene battled against the spots of spiraling colors that obscured her vision. Squinting through her tears, Kelene saw to her amazement that Weslyn had already moved out of view, through the trees and into the deeper reaches of the forest. Her amazement changed to confusion as she noticed the path of burnt and blasted ground that followed the young man’s path. Quickly the monk followed.


The world wasn’t moving right…no…it just wasn’t able to keep up with the blazing thunderbolt that was ripping through it. Weslyn’s mind was racing, taking in everything in an instant, feeding it back into his body, and initiating a reaction so fast that Weslyn was barely aware of the need to react at all. Streaks of light flashed in front of his eyes and Weslyn quickly realized that forked tongues of energy were arcing around his body, arcing from his body. Leaping over a log, Weslyn found that he had overreacted, flying through the canopy above before falling directly towards the trunk of a tree. An instant of worry was replaced with calm certainty as Weslyn grabbed a passing branch, spun around it once, and fell lightly to the ground once again. He was far enough away by the time the shards of the branch, which had shattered into glittering dust the instant after Weslyn had let go, fell to the ground.

Lesalia’s shout had barely ended when Weslyn arrived at the stream. He saw the creature, saw it raise the young woman into the air, and saw it reach for her with it’s hideous mouth. The thing was a monstrosity of limbs: wings, claws, feet, and barbs present in numbers too high to count due to the constant flailing of most of them. The things face was similar to a bat’s, black eyes full of malice set just in front of large, lobed ears with stretched membranes of skin that made them almost wing-like themselves. Weslyn took this all in the time it took the beast to move Lesalia another inch towards he death. Then his whip was in his hand and flying through the air, flying so fast that its normal crack was amplified into a thunderous boom, the lightning surrounding Weslyn’s body arcing along it as well. The creature howled in pain as the whip lashed across the right side of its face, flaying the eye there to ribbons and digging a horrific furrow across its face. The wound smoked and sizzled. With a vicious heave, the creature tossed Lesalia to the ground and turned to the one that had managed to injure it. Even in Weslyn’s heightened state of awareness, he was almost caught off guard by the speed of the creature as it half leapt, half flew towards him, half a dozen claws and barbed appendages reaching for him. At the last moment however, Weslyn threw himself to the side, rolled, and sprung back to his feet. Fingering the tear on his shirt’s right side, Weslyn once again berated himself for not dressing a little tougher that day, like in full plate armor.

The creature was moving again, this time bringing up several of its hands to face horizontally at Weslyn. With a hiss and a spray of pressurized blood, several of the creature’s razor sharp claws shot off like arrows, streamers of red tracing their path through the air Jumping straight up, tucking his legs under him as the claws streaked by below, Weslyn lashed out with his whip again as he rose. Impossibly, the creature managed to shoot out a hand, letting the whip wrap around it and, ignoring the sizzle and smoke rising from underneath the whip, gave a mighty pull that drew Weslyn towards its writhing mass of claws. Pivoting in midair and extending his left leg, Weslyn felt one of his foot hit something soft and yielding. Striking with his other foot he felt a satisfying crack and scream and felt the pressure on his whip decrease. With a flick of Weslyn’s wrist, the whip coiled back into his hand. Tucking his head, Weslyn rolled head over heels and spun to his feet, looking around frantically for the monster. Only a veritable avalanche of foliage and a gaping hole in the forest canopy told him what had happened to his enemy. Leaping into a nearby tree, Weslyn was able to see the thing framed against the sparkling silver moon for an instant, one last cry of anger accompanying its rapid disappearance into the darkness of the distant night sky.

Jumping to the ground, Weslyn saw Lesalia’s huddled form still lying on the ground, moving subtly. There was an audible rush in the young man’s ears, as if all the blood was suddenly leaving his head. With the rush, the world returned to normal. Staggering, Weslyn almost collapsed, a feeling of complete and utter exhaustion coming over him. Feeling hands on his back supporting him, he feebly turned his head and looked into the concerned eyes of Kelene. He smiled weakly, “Problem solved.”

Lesalia was pushing herself to her feet by now, shaken terribly but otherwise unhurt. Taking a few unsteady steps, she stopped all of a sudden with a look of confusion mixed with horror on her face. Seeing her expression suddenly matched on Kelene, Weslyn had a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, “What? Did he get me somewhere?”

Kelene shuddered, “Look at yourself Weslyn!”

A feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, Weslyn held his hands up before him. Leathery skin crisscrossed with blue veins greeted his inspection. As he looked in stunned disbelief at hands better suited for one four times his age, Lesalia spoke, “It is like that everywhere Weslyn, even your hair is white.”

Reaching one of his hands up, Weslyn ran unbelieving fingers through his hair before bringing it back down in front of him. Looking at the silvery strands in his hand, Weslyn was overcome and collapsed, letting Kelene slow his fall and bring him to rest on the ground. Looking up at the two woman he searched for any glimmer of hope in their eyes, “What happened?”

Lesalia moved over next to Weslyn, sitting exhausted to the ground next to him, “Is has to be connected to what you just did…you were moving so fast I could barely see you.”

Kelene, still standing, was looking at the sky through the large hole left by the creature, keeping a watch in case it were to return. Still, she spared a glance towards Weslyn. Squinting at him, she spoke, “It…is getting better….I think.”

Lesalia looked hard at the young man as well for a moment before speaking, “I can not say for sure, maybe we are just hoping for it to be better. Maybe…you just require time?”

Now that he thought about it, Weslyn did feel a bit better, though maybe Lesalia was right, maybe they were all just imagining it. At this rate it would be hours, at least, before he felt anything like his old self…days maybe. Looking over at Lesalia he tried to paint an unconcerned expression on his face, worrying would do him no good, “You think you could do anything like back at the temple?”

Lesalia shrugged slightly, “I suppose I could try.”

Closing her eyes, Lesalia placed her hands on Weslyn’s chest. After a long moment of concentration, a soft white glow began to flicker around her, waving uncertainly before growing in strength and bathing the immediate area in its warm glow. Slowly the light migrated to her palms, growing stronger as it was concentrated there. A moment more and the light flowed into Weslyn’s body. Immediately, Weslyn’s hair darkened and the deep wrinkles that covered his face lessened a bit. Breathing a bit easier, having felt some of the bone deep exhaustion leave his body, Weslyn smiled his appreciation, “Thanks. Different than an arrow wound I suppose?”

Lesalia shook her head, falling back to lean against a tree, “Maybe…Yuriandel said that something to the effect that releasing my power for the first time was what created that effect, and to not expect such wonders too often. Give me a while to rest and I can do what I was able to again, I am suddenly tired as well, I guess I can overtax myself too.”

Kelene spoke up softly, “Don’t underestimate yourself…I’ve never heard of healing powerful enough to reverse aging before…”

Weslyn gave a tired laugh, “We’d better hope our friend needs as much rest as we do, otherwise I’ll be dust before long and they’ll find you cuddled up under your blankets.”

Laughter bubbled up from Lesalia as well, laughter the absurdity of their predicament. She hadn’t laughed for a long time, at least not the genuine laughter she felt now, and it was strangely satisfying. After a moment however, Lesalia’s face smoothed, though a smile remained on her face, “What have we fallen into here Weslyn? All I had wished to do was follow Caylen and see what his fate was to be…and I am certain you had different plans as well.”

Weslyn managed a tired smile, “Staying alive was near the top of my list.”

Kelene simply looked on, befuddled at her companions’ amusement at their situation. Raising an eyebrow she remarked, “Are all of your kind this confusing?”

Weslyn gestured vaguely, “More or less, though most don’t have to deal with being thrown into a new world and given powers that they don’t understand well enough to prevent themselves from turning into grandparents.”

With a glimmer in her eye, Kelene replied, “With great power comes great responsibility, or so I’ve heard.”

Weslyn closed his eyes, his last words coming from the realm between wakefulness and sleep, “I should have read the small print.”

Seeing Weslyn nod off, Lesalia nodded at Kelene, “If you would not mind taking first watch? We cannot stay here long…but Weslyn needs rest before he can move, and I could do with some rest as well”

Kelene began to nod but smiled instead as she realized that Lesalia had fallen asleep as well. The monk watched over the two humans as the night deepened, wondering at what the Goddess was planning for them, for truly they were remarkable creatures. For her part, Yuriandel gazed down as well, a look of profound grief on her face.

[Mew Trainer Rose]

So we finally get to see what Weslyn's power is. I can't say I entirely understand what it is, but I've got a good idea at least. Now Caylen's power is the biggest mystery of the four.

And we have an idea of who...or what...is after the humans. I wonder why it's after them, though.

[Dr.McNinja]

Mew Trainer: The origin of Weslyn's ability is going to remain a secret for a while, even to him. And yes, the typical "dark figure" has finally emerged but it'll be revealed that there's much more to him than just an ominous figure and evil destructive powers. The actual plot is just starting to heat up, things are about to get a lot darker and the real reason behind a lot of stuff is going to start being revealed.