The Forgotten Zodiac

Manny fell limp in Eve's arms, crying dryly into her shoulder. Verolen caught the shard, pushing a portal into existence. It spread from underneath his feet, catching his legs and Aries' right away.

"Let's get out of here," Rush stepped over The Phantom's unconscious body, and promptly tripped. The Phantom was no longer dead; his hand was wrapped around Rush's ankle, and Rush looked back in time to see the Phantom's hand glow slightly.

"You should know by now, what you are," The Phantom rasped, grinning. "Don't you want to know what happened to your dragonstone?"

Rush attempted to pull away, but stopped and curled up in pain. His hand glowed and an odd hissing sound was emitted; runic symbols burned themselves into Rush's hand, circling the center of his palm, where a glowing was visible through his skin. Rush let out a cry of pain as his arm started glowing faintly, then bleeding. Black scales were breaking through his skin here and there, sticking out at odd angles. Rush screamed and thrashed as it started to spread up his arm.

"R-Rush!" Verolen gasped, though he knew full well that he couldn't do much. The portal had already gone over his hands.

Bermuda ran forward, clubbing the Phantom in the head several times and shoving Rush away from him. L'arc ran fowards as well,swinging his sword down devestatingly on the Phantom's side. "Run, run, go go go!" he said, pushing the now half-transformed Rush into the portal. Bermuda and Eve followed, getting out of there as quickly as possible.

Sylas followed the others into the portal, and Manny was still with Eve.

The portal dropped them smack-dab in the middle of the Manakete village that surrounded the mountain palace. Rush collapsed at once, clutching his arm to his chest and letting out a scream of pain. The spreading and glowing had stopped, but the scales were still there. VCF was desperately trying to calm him down, trying to tell him that the Library had shut down the transformation process before too much damage had been done to the vessel.

"Shh, you're going to wake the whole town!" Eve tried to hush Rush, while simultaneously grabbing at his arm. "Give that here, I can fix it," she said, finally managing to pry his arm into her grasp. She started to murmur a few words, and very, very slowly, the scales started to dissolve.

Not to say that didn't hurt, but it would be better soon.

Rush managed to stifle his screams, biting his lip so hard that it started to bleed. He was shaking horribly by the time Eve finished, and he jerked his arm back towards himself, starting to cry. His arm was very, very tender now, not to mention still bleeding.

"Okay, who wants to explain?" Verolen blinked, looking at the others.

"On the way back to the castle," L'arc said, sheathing his blade and picking Aries up. Gabe ran around the dryad's feet in circles, staring at his mother. "She better? Better now?" he asked.

Bermuda lowered his staff to Rush's arm, making the bleeding stop quickly. He looked up at Verolen. "Where did we leave you out?" he asked.

"Aries said it was around the time the Curse of Ettah thing started. Whatever that was." Verolen said, nodding expectantly.

"That's really far back..." Sylas bit his lip. "You've really been gone for that long?"

"Well, I definitely don't remember being cursed," Verolen shook his head.

"Well, let me see," Bermuda thought hard about it. "Oh, did you know that..."his face paled suddenly. "Nevermind." It had been enough trouble telling the first Verolen that he was an Oceanid, he didn't want to relive that so soon...

"Ah, Israel found out that he's a Siren," L'arc supplied.

"Did he?" Verolen bit his lip. "Uh...yeah...about that...."

"It's okay. The other Verolen apologized and stuff, so I think it's okay, right?" Sylas looked over at Israel. "Speaking of sirens, that Vala lady took my eye out. You asked about that, right?" He blinked.

"Yeah...Hold on a sec!" Verolen stopped suddenly, closing his right eye, then his left. "I can see out of both eyes! What the...when did that happen?" He asked, looking at Bermuda for an answer.

"Oh, I fixed that," Bermuda said. "You didn't trust me for a period there, so I fixed your eye to get you to like me again."

"Oh, that's right, you don't know... Bermuda's the Oceanid Prince," L'arc said. Bermuda flinched harshly and turned around quickly, as if he expected Verolen to attack him.

Verolen froze, a look of panic crossing his face at the mention of Oceanid. "You...ahh..." He shivered a bit, but forced himself to calm down. Bermuda had never been hostile to him before, he had fixed his eye, even. Not to mention that whole fiasco had happened very far in the past, but...Verolen shook away his fear, though it clung to the back of his mind like a shadow. Verolen took a breath and spoke again, "O-okay. Good to know." He nodded. "I...I trust you, Bermuda. Really, it's fine. You've done too much for me in the past for me to start attacking you now. And you fixed my eye! I didn't even think it was possible, so I didn't say anything, but you were really able to fix it!" He said happily.

"I-I used Sacrifice," Bermuda explained quickly. "And then Ashkii fixed me. He's my brother," he added. Bermuda looked a little wary as well, and appeared not to want to have his back facing Verolen. "Oh, and Quay's in the castle up ahead. But he's a Selkie, and Selkies are nice, it was the Naiads that hurt you. I'm only half Naiad, myself," he said. "Now, uh, who else has something to share with Verolen?" he asked.

L'arc thought about it for a while longer. "Were you around when Aton switched sides? He apparenly fell for Apathy or something," he said.

"Also good to know. Thanks for the warning." Verolen nodded, then looked at L'arc in bewilderment. "Aton? Is that the human that follows Dysonius around? Gabe's old master?"

"Something like that, I think." Sylas nodded. "I know, I'm still confused about it, myself."

"Okay, definitely odd...oh, Rush, who was I talking to? When I was in that stupid amulet?" Verolen asked.

"VCF. Vessel Communications Function." Rush answered, wincing a bit. "The Library has been activated by the Witches of Halberd Hall. Unfortunately, it was corrupted by Lydia, but that's fixed now." He wondered if he should say anything about being Apathy's twin, but decided against it. Now that he thought about it, there certainly was quite a bit of royalty in their group. It would be best to keep his connection to Apathy and Minori quiet, or they'd have an even bigger target on their heads.

"Oh..." Verolen sighed, frowning a bit. He cleared that up when he remembered something. "Where's Verdi? He didn't die, did he?!" Verolen demanded, looking a bit panicky at the thought.

L'arc paused. "No, he didn't die... But I haven't seen him for a while. A good long while. And I haven't seen Byrne around, either," he said softly, thinking about it. "Have you seen him, Sylas?"

Gabe continued to trot around Verolen's feet, "When will Mommy wake up?" he asked.

"No, I haven't," Sylas shook his head, frowning a bit and adjusting his eyepatch absentmindedly.

"That's not good," Rush frowned. "Did he come back from Oceanica with us?"

"I dunno, Gabe," Verolen shrugged. "She'll definitely wake up, though, and then she'll be herself again." He smiled a bit, then looked back up at the others. "We have to find poor Verdi! But...who's Byrne?"

"I don't remember... no, maybe not. Maybe Quay traveled in his place," Bermuda thought. "And maybe Verdi's with him. Verdi has a sending stone, I'll see if I can talk to him," Bermuda pulled the greenish stone out of his pocket and began to call Verdi's name into it.

"He's Dysonius's son," L'arc answered Verolen. "Nothing like his father."

((-poke- You've gots the creative control naow. :3 Make upz deh bad guiz?))

Nothing. There was silence coming from the stone for a long moment. "Uh...that's not good, is it?" Sylas asked, frowning a bit. "I don't think Verdi would just not answer...maybe he dropped the stone somewhere?"

"Dysonius...is that the guy who had Sylas as a slave? Yech, I don't like that guy..." Verolen frowned. "Nothing like his father? That's good. I certainly know what that's like." He shrugged and looked at Bermuda.

((YAYZ.))

Bermuda shook his head. "I don't think so. But I have an idea. Come on, let's get back to the castle," he said, picking up his pace.

L'arc followed his closely. "Idea...?" he queried.

"The water basin reflection," Bermuda answered shortly, as if he expected the others to know what that was. When they only gave him confused glances, he sighed. "You can place a sending stone in water, make a connection with another sending stone, and the water will reflect what around the stone. It's a neat little trick. It should work, we can at least see where Verdi's stone is," he said.

Eve nodded. "I see. That sounds useful," she said. Bermuda nodded. "It's a good thing Quay is here, he may be the only one that can do it... I'm not sure if my Selkie blood is strong enough. Only selkies can use this trick, don't know why. Naiads can't do it."

"I see," Verolen smiled, happy that they had found a solution.

"Well, at least we'll know if he dropped it somewhere." Rush shrugged. "Hopefully, the two of them are just lost somewhere. We've got to keep a better eye on them, really..."

"Let's hurry, then," Sylas nodded, running ahead.

Bermuda hurried up to the castle. "Quay! Quay, were are you?" he called.

The selkie came out from around the corner, nearly running into Verolen. "Oops, sorry, there,' he said softly. He turned to Bermuda. "You called, Prince?"