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The airship hovered
over the tiny island surrounded by rolling magma, and Rydia was
anything but calm.
She hadn't known what she was going to expect when they reached the
old Land– after all, the magics holding it together had dispersed,
and there was bound to be something there that still felt of
the old tingles and energy it had once held. She had not expected
there to be nothing– literally, a void, an empty feeling within her
chest, not even the slightest reaction to the magic tendrils she
sent out in search of it. The Land was completely gone, and all that
was left was a wide, gaping hole.
There was something, however, though it was not connected with her
old home. She could feel the shivers of dark magic running through
the air currents. It felt the same as the pinnacle of Mt. Ordeals
had, and the same, in a way, that the Lunarian Palace had,
especially once they'd gotten closer to Zemus and the core. Dark
magic felt decidedly different than other magic, and she wished she
had a way to explain it. There was a whimper on the breeze– the
Underworld was weeping for its lost and frightened of the new.
She turned to the others, unable to control her own trembling, even
with her arms wrapped firmly around her chest.
"I think– I think he's there," she said. Her voice sounded faint and
foreign, like it was far away.
"We should go in," Tseng said with a resolute nod, and she knew he
was right. As much as she didn't want to re-enter the nothingness
that used to be her home, there was a burning curiosity to feel out
the void further, and she knew, more than anything, that allowing
the criminal they were chasing free reign of the area would prove
terribly dangerous. The atmosphere seethed with his anger– and there
were no remnants of the Land's magic left for him to manipulate.
The airship lowered itself, blades whirling, and finally settled
down with a muted thud to the warm rocks littering the island. The
Turks exited immediately, but there was a knot in Rydia's stomach,
and she moved more slowly, gingerly setting one sole down on the
pebble-strewn ground. It felt no different than the Upperworld did,
no different than the Dwarven Palace did, and she was torn somewhere
between feeling foolish and nervous. The others were moving ahead of
her, but Reno stopped to turn back and watch her. He seemed to be
waiting for her.
Rydia took a hesitant step, and then another, and soon she was off
of the familiar boards of the airship entirely.
–three heads spinning, shimmers of a cure spell, light kisses
against the side of her face and warm hands well adept at healing–
"You gonna stand there forever?" Reno called.
–these lands are all magic, it binds the Summons here, you don't
belong here–
There was a shrill noise against Rydia's ears, and then, just as
suddenly as it had arrived, it dissipated once more. There was only
silence save for her own labored breathing. She searched again for
the hum of static, but could find it nowhere; either her memories
were falling into over-load after being on the island again, or–
She opened her hand to find a small bead resting against her palm.
It was glassy and sleek and blue, and she knew it, she knew the
string of them well, the beads that Asura had riddled through her
hair. Staring down at the trinket, nothing made sense anymore, but
it felt good to hold the piece in her hand. She let her fingers
close down around it, feeling the smooth surface pressing into her
skin.
"Hello?" Reno tried again, and Rydia looked up, suddenly aware of
his presence again.
"Yes," she answered, and slipped the bead into her leather satchel.
"Let's go."
---------
The honey-comb corridors were the same as she remembered, and she
led the group through the twists and turns without really focusing
on which direction to take. She knew the road by heart, and even
with the Land gone, the maze remained in tact. It was a small
symbol, but she took comfort in it, for not everything had changed–
and truly, she was beginning to doubt the truths about her old home
that she had once believed in. It was too much to wrap her mind
around, so she thought of everything but, and found that avoiding
the topic within her head was easier than she had expected.
As they grew closer to the hole in the energy, she could feel a
shift in the air. It began to buzz around her, not like it used to,
not with the repressed shimmer of magic abilities, but with
something far darker– they were growing closer to the center of the
corruption, and it was festering inside. She could feel it inside
her spells, tingling in her fingertips, and it was a disconcerting
and rather alarming sensation that she could not dispel. Not since
Zemus had she been able to feel such a disturbance in the natural
aura of things.
She stopped, pebbles crunching beneath her feet.
"What is it?" Tseng asked. He looked ready to draw his weapon. There
was a buzz in Rydia's head again, one not associated with the dark
swirls around her. It was distinctly separate from the shivers of
magic– whispers, her name against her ear, tiny snippets of voices
she remembered.
"It's nothing," she said, finally, after a moment of silence. "I was
just recalling things from the Land."
Tseng took this with a nod, and moved ahead of her to take point,
the action proving that the others knew as well as she did that they
were rapidly approaching the one they had been following. Rydia fell
behind him, wrapped up in the confusing thoughts screaming through
her head.
"That's quite a somethin' face for nothin'," Reno quipped lightly
from her left. Rydia didn't answer right away, because the buzzing
would not disperse, and it was difficult to gather words with the
whispers still flying by her ears. She shook her head in an attempt
to rid them, but it did little good.
"It's– I don't know," she stammered, raising a hand to weave her
fingers through her hair. "I can hear them, somewhere, in my head–
but they're gone."
"There's something I've learned from work," he said, tapping his rod
against his shoulder. "Nothing is ever really gone."
–go, Rydia, go, you don't belong here, you must leave before–
When she glanced at him, he avoided her gaze, and she shook her head
again. The buzzing was intensifying, the words becoming clearer, and
she could not focus on what they were saying and concentrate on the
demonic pull of her magic at the same time. It was exhausting, to
walk through the halls again, and she felt more drained than she had
in a long time. There was a tugging sensation in her chest, and she
felt she could do little other than heed its call.
"There's something here," she said. "Something– it's like the
Summons, only not."
"Right," he replied with a roll of his eyes. "Very clear."
"I'm trying," she huffed. "I don't know how to explain it. It's
just– odd."
"Sure, I get it, it's–" he started, and then, quite suddenly
stopped.
Everything stopped.
There was a blast of dark energy– that much Rydia could feel. It was
so intense that it stung against her skin, as if it were a sharp
wave of heat from the lava itself. For a split second she fought
against it, and then, the sounds near her ears exploded from
whispers to shrieks. There was only the roar of the wind and the
screams of the voices, and a screech so high in pitch that it almost
brought tears to her eyes. The shivers from the dark magic mingled
with the cries of the Summons, and the energy roiled around her like
waves during a storm.
She was vaguely aware of shouting, though what, she didn't know, and
she half-fell to her knees with her hands on her ears as if to block
out the noise. There was a warmth around her waist– an arm, holding
her upright– and she tried to breathe only to find that the air felt
thick, like molasses. She gasped, sucking in the oxygen as best she
could, lungs burning.
Someone was shouting, in a far-away voice, and she knew that it had
to be quite near if she could actually discern the sound amidst all
the shouting, but there seemed to be ages between her and the
others, save for the hand on her side, and she simply couldn't
concentrate on it. Asura, and Leviathan, and Shiva and–
–go, Rydia, go, you don't belong here, not anymore, we'll watch
over you–
–it felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped over her head, like
she was gulping down freezing lungfuls of air, and she fell crashing
back down into reality with a strangled gasp and a burning light in
her eyes. Her muscles felt like pudding, like Lunar Flan, like the
monsters that came in colors of pink and purple and yellow and there
were blue eyes staring at her. Reno.
"Go," she heaved, the word a hitching breath. "Go."
She could feel the dark magic moving around her, both physically and
magically, and she knew, though she couldn't see yet, that the man
was nearby. There was too much inference, too much burning for him
to be anywhere else, and she could dimly hear the popping of Tseng's
gun.
They had little time.
"Go!" she said again, and the arm around her receded. She fell onto
a nearby rock, hands on the walls, unable to support herself with
her knees shaking so badly, and she could see Reno's retreating form
as he dashed into the fray. The light was so bright that it was
distorting everything– there were colors everywhere, bright hues,
and she could vaguely make out an outline of a quickly moving
figure, a flash of black, and she knew it to be the man. The one
they were hunting.
She reached into her satchel and pulled out Asura's bead. It meant
nothing there in the palm of her hand, but it was something, it was
connected to the voices in her head and the screaming in her
thoughts, and she focused on it and reached out as far as she could.
She Called.
When Asura appeared, it felt like something ripped. If the corridor
was a piece of silk, it tore straight down the middle. There was a
rush of energy and then a faint click, and the queen was there,
roaring, screaming at the man with the dark energy. She wove in and
out of the aura– the Lifestream, they had called it– and Rydia could
hear the man's scream. It was warbled in pain and shock and anger,
but it was fading, it was falling away, and she knew that it was not
because he had succumbed.
Something had opened. The tear had given way to something bigger,
something larger, something that felt hot and cold at the same time.
There were tendrils of light and Asura was gone, gone within the
portal, gone within the dying magic of the halls. It was final;
complete.
"Rydia!" came a voice– Tseng? She couldn't identify it in the rush
of the void. Her legs were still trembling violently, but she pushed
herself up from the rock and made her way towards the searing light,
hands gripping the wall like a life support. The opening was pure
energy, pure magic, and reaching out, she could no longer sense the
dark aura of the other man. He had disappeared within the portal,
and the Turks were standing in front of it.
Rude went in first, silent and stoic and hard. As soon as the light
washed over him, he was gone, pulled in by the tendrils and energy
and lifestream. His earrings flashed once before his form
disappeared.
"What is this?" Rydia shouted, over the scream of the wind.
"The way home," Tseng answered. His words were hard to understand,
and she had to strain to make them out. "He went back, we have to
follow!"
The edges of the portal were blurring, melding with the darkness of
the cave. Tseng turned and faded into the light.
"This is it!" Reno yelled. His hair looked like blood in the
brightness. The portal started to shudder– the magics weaving around
it were leaving, dissipating, and it would soon follow suit.
–magic is part of you, Rydia, magic binds you, magic makes you
who you are–
"Wait!" Rydia begged, moving closer to it. She could almost touch
the light now, and she let go of the wall to stumble towards it. He
was fading, he was leaving–
Half of his form was washed out from the whiteness, and he turned to
face her, continuing to fall into the rapidly closing portal. The
ground beneath Rydia's feet bucked and waved, the energy distorting
the very solidness of the earth.
Against the pale, his eyes were very blue.
He reached a hand out to her.
–Asura, the library, her mother's dragon, Leviathan, Cecil, the
hallways of Baron, Rosa, lava, Edge–
She didn't think.
She reached out, took his hand, and fell into the portal with him.
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