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We crashed into the frost covered railing of the great spiral stairs, and, for some reason, I cushioned everyone’s impact…
“Aqua,” I muttered, as everyone got up and raced to the door. “Aqua!” I tried to rush through the door and was forced back to the railing by something. “Wha-what the…?”
Terra reached into her pack and pulled out an iron pole. “So, that’s what I got,” she said quietly and slammed the doorway with it. “It’s a barrier.”
“How the heck do we get through that,” Chris spat.
Moments went by as we all tried desperately to break through the barrier, but nothing was working. Slashing, hacking, and pummeling it with everything we had. Nothing worked.
“Damn,” Chris cursed as his blade was forced back. “What the heck!?”
Time’s running out, and I can’t hear what’s going on in there. I don’t think I have much of a choice now.
I sheathed my blade, took a stance with both legs bent, took the sheathed sword with my left hand, and readied to strike.
‘Wait. You’ll never break it that way.’
Pholadin?
‘You need something stronger. A Luster Break should work.’
Luster… Break?
‘Put your wakizashi away and focus on your fist. Imagine it being able to break through anything. Then throw your whole body behind it. But, be careful, this can be a little taxing.’
Okay.
I put my sword pack into the pack and began to imagine my fist being able to smash this thing in front of me. I imagined the barrier was a wall of glass, fragile and weak. My fist flashed instantly and softly, as everyone stared at me in silence. Then I threw my punch.
The barrier began cracking like glass and shattered before completely fading away and let loose a howling cold wind into the great staircase.
“A Luster Break,” came a voice from behind us. “Interesting.” Kane came down the stairs in the same clothes he had when he left.
“Kane,” we all yelled.
“Aren’t you cold,” Eric asked.
“Of course not,” he answered. “Now what is going on here?”
Terra and Ruby quickly filled Kane in on what happened, as Chris walked up to me.
“Not bad, for wimp,” Chris said as he smacked my back, and I instantly crashed into the floor.
“Ow,” I gasped. “That really hurt.” I picked myself up.
Chris stared at me oddly, “You fell over from that?”
Was this what Pholadin meant by “taxing?”
Kane’s eyes widened from Terra and Ruby’s story. “WHAT,” Kane yelled as the ground itself shook from his out burst. “IN! GET IN THERE NOW! We have to stop that woman NOW!”
We rushed into the shrine room and found Aqua on her knees heaving heavy breaths before the woman before her.
“Pathetic,” spat the woman, “and you’re supposed to be smart. Then again you can never admit to anything you really want either, can you?” She pointed her frozen lance at Aqua and raised it to strike her down. “But, I, on the other hand, can simply take it.”
“AQUA,” I yelled. “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”
Aqua lifted her head and raised her hands as if to accept the blow.
“AQUA!”
“W-what,” the woman shouted, as her lance stopped above Aqua’s hands. “What’s happening!?”
“I may not be strong enough to admit it,” Aqua began fiercely, “but I won’t have to, to get what I want.”
A tiny shimmering blue light formed above Aqua’s hands, and the room grew even colder. The frost around her began building into sharp pikes, the wind was whistling sharply with shards of ice, and the light shined brighter and brighter.
“The Crystal of the Absolute,” Kane said in awe. “Everyone! Move back!”
Then the ice around Aqua shattered into thousands of tiny shards and circled around the light and her.
“This can’t be,” the woman muttered in disbelief as she jumped back and raised a wall of solid ice in front of her.
Aqua stood up, and the shards sliced the air and began shredding the ice wall. Then the light in her hands flew to the wall and exploded on impact freezing the ice and everything in the room into a single thick sheet of pure ice. She snapped her fingers, and the ice shattered again defrosting everything in the room and leaving powder snow on the floor.
“She’s gone,” Ruby yelled. “That woman’s gone.”
“Not yet,” the woman appeared in the doorway behind us. “We will meet again.”
She ran up the stairs and out of our sights before we could even get out the door.
“Aqua,” I ran to her in the snow covered room. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she answered, “really.”
“You’re bleeding. Hold on.” I took her bleeding hands and pictured them without blood, without scars, without wounds, and a tiny soft light burst from my gem.
Then it vanished leaving Aqua’s hands completely healed. “There.”
“Thank you, Ale-“
“Whoa,” Eric popped in. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”
We stared at him for a moment, and I got pelted with a snowball.
“Hey,” Chris yelled. “Are you going to hold her hand all day, or can we go!?”
I instantly let go of Aqua’s hands. “It’s nothing like that,” I cried back.
Terra and Ruby were staring at me with one eyebrow raised.
“Not again.” I turned to Aqua. Her face was getting red. “The cold must be getting to you now. Come on. Let’s get you out of here and to someplace warm.”
“Let’s,” she answered as we left the freezing library.
 Levias · Sat Jan 06, 2007 @ 08:50am · 0 Comments |
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