Through New Eyes [Chapter 1]
Feb. 10th, 2007 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esp_dragonFandom: Golden Sun
Summary: Maybe the ending of The Lost Age didn't happen as we saw it. Alex's memories have been stripped from him, his appearance modified and he's on a completely different world that doesn't use Psynergy. He wants to find out who he is and where he came from but if he does, will he like what he sees?
Rating: K
Notes: Alex-centric. Post-The Lost Age. Spoilers for the end of The Lost Age.
Not a crossover.
All the words before the scene change are from the game. The last sentence that the Wise One says, it's apparently, from the game script I used, meant to be Alex but that didn't make any sense to me so I changed it.
*snorts* So, with game text and you know, the ending, there is much overuse of ! Just warnin' ya.
Genre: General
Word count: 2,467
Status: Work in Progress
"The Golden Sun..." Alex breathed as he reached the summit of Mt. Aleph. "The very quintessence of Alchemy's power! It's beginning!" Climbing the mountain wasn't difficult -after travelling all over the world, it didn't really compare as being physically demanding- but still, it was still taking longer than he expected.
"Wait for me! Please, wait!" he begged the Golden Sun. Why did he have to wait until the very last moment to make sure all was going as planned? It wouldn't be rushing like he was if he hadn't. And even though he had, it didn't explain why it had taken so long for the red Mars light to be seen arcing through the sky. It turned out to be a good thing, as he still needed more time. "Wait until I reach the summit of Mt. Aleph!" Sneaking in to Vale had been absurd in how easy it was.
With a final heave, Alex made it to the summit of Mt. Aleph - just in time to see the golden light of the Golden Sun rising. He closed his eyes and felt heat and power wash over him. There was a staggering moment as the Psynergy hit him like it was a physical force; there was so much of it!
Alex shivered in delight and the feeling of power that was racing through his veins. "At last! I have it! Eternal life... and limitless power!" He was no weak Adept but the power he could feel was like comparing a spark to a flame. The power seemed like it was rushing to his head; the possibilities of what he could do with his newly-found power!
"At last, the power of nature is mine to control as I will!" he crowed happily. "Rise, storms! Rise up and unleash your might upon Vale and the foothills of Mt. Aleph!" Alex commanded, waving an arm to make the Psynergy stronger.
Nothing.
Alex looked around and then up at the clouds in confusion. "That's odd..." he mused. "I should have unlimited power... So why can't I call up a simple storm?" Was it because he was unused to wielding so much power and so, his mind stubbornly used how much energy it thought it had. How ironic. Well, he would have to rest of eternity to make his body used to it.
There was suddenly a feeling that there was someone behind him. But who would climb this high on Mt. Aleph? Alex turned around and saw a giant floating rock with a lone eye embedded in the centre.
"Wh - who are you?" He had wanted to say what but he somehow knew that it was sentient.
The eye blinked, rock grating on rock as it did so. "I am called the Wise One..."
Alex realised why it had seemed familiar; the last time he had seen it was in the bowels of Mt. Aleph as Mt. Aleph strained under the loss of its Elementary Stars. The Wise One had been hovering over Isaac and Garet before Alex walked through the portal to safety.
"The Wise One? Vale's protector?" he asked, to make sure absolutely sure.
The Wise One nodded. "You wish to have limitless power?" it asked him.
Alex smirked at the hunk of rock. Wise One? He could it be wise when it couldn't tell the being in front of it was equal to or stronger than it in power? "Wish to? I just got it!" he said arrogantly.
"No," the Wise One denied, shaking its 'head'. "Your power is nearly limitless, but it has boundaries."
"Nearly limitless?" Alex repeated. "You speak in riddles," he scoffed. "Can't you see it? The power is mine!"
The eye blinked again. "Yes," it agreed. "You also have nearly endless life. And your Psynergy is... somewhat stronger."
Alex scowled at the Wise One. How dare it say his power was still measurable by mortal terms! "If you are trying to anger me, have a little taste of exactly how much power I have attained!" He lifted an arm and pointed the palm towards the Wise One. He may not have been able to summon a storm but pushing with the force of his mind would be ridiculously easy.
Alex felt the power within him collect to his hand and the Wise One was moved backwards. He smiled. "Look at me! My body is brimming with power!"
The Wise One stopped moving and started to flow in Psynergenic light. Alex was lifted several feet above the ground like a rag doll before being slammed back on to the ground. It took a few seconds for the world to come back into focus after exploding in white light. Alex tried to get back up but found that he couldn't; the Wise One was pinning him to the summit as if he was a day-old kitten.
"How?! What's going on? I should be all-powerful! How can you defeat me?!" All that work that he had put into this! For naught? He wasted all the years planning and manipulating was for nothing?!
"You are not all-powerful, Alex," the Wise One confirmed. "Your power has its limits, as does your life," it continued.
"This cannot be!" Alex denied vehemently. He struggled against the power that was holding his body but not a single muscle twitched. "Who is responsible for this treachery? Who has robbed me of my dream?"
"I, the Wise One, imbued the Mars Star with some of the power of the forming Golden Sun. It rests even now in the hands of young Isaac."
If he wasn't pinned to the summit of Mt. Aleph and in the knowledge that he was not immortal or all-powerful, Alex would have laughed. After all that he had done and all the careful planning, how ironic was it that it was his opposing element that had caused his dream to nor come in to full fruition. "Why?"
Instead of answering, the Wise One was looking around the landscape. "The heavens and earth are changing," it observed. It turned to face Alex again. "Alex! You must flee now!" it commanded him.
"Wha - what?!"
"Mt. Aleph will soon be drawn into the heart of the earth! You must flee or join it forever!"
Alex felt the bonds around his body disappear but when he tried to stand up... "Flee?! I can't flee! I can't even move!" He felt his stomach sink. Something must have happened when he was thrown to the ground; there hadn't been a crack or snap of breaking bone so what had happened?
"Ah, yes. You now see the limits of your power. If you are swallowed by the earth, you may not survive. If you survive, perhaps we will meet again someday..."
Alex looked on helplessly as the Wise One got steadily further and further as the ground around him shook and trembled.
The last thing he saw was the clear blue sky before his world was swallowed by black.
:-:-:
Darkness.
He was surrounded by darkness.
Where was he?
Crushing darkness.
What had happened?
How had he gotten here?
Silent darkness.
All he could hear was the fluttering in his heart and his breathing, harshly loud in the void.
He turned -was vaguely surprised that he could move and that he was standing- at an alien sound. It was the Wise One, shining through the darkness.
It gazed at him for a short while before it spoke. "You survived," it stated.
Survived...? Suddenly, all the memories returned to him: what he had done, what he had been trying to do, what had happened afterwards.
"Why are you here?" Wherever 'here' was.
"You survived," the Wise One repeated. "Time has passed; you haven't noticed, have you?" It paused. "You can stay here, in the ruins of Mt. Aleph until your immortality runs out, until you are found or you can be punished for your crimes." It blinked a few times, giving Alex time to process the question. "What is it that you choose?"
Alex tilted his head to the side, thinking over the question. "If I choose to be punished, I will be able to walk around as a mortal again?" He knew where he was: this was a place in his mind.
After Mt. Aleph had imploded, Alex had been trapped between layers of rock. He didn't know how long he was there. Seconds melted to minutes; minutes melted to hours; hours to days. After a while, his mind couldn't keep track of time. All he knew was that he should never feel this hungry, nor his throat so parched and still be alive.
If he wasn't nearly immortal, he would have died a long time ago and wouldn't have to go through what he was going through; if he was mortal, he wouldn't be there in the first place.
There was nothing to stimulate his mind. He was slowly going insane.
The shift from being crushed by rocks horizontally to being free and vertical after so long alone was enough to disorientate him.
The Wise One blinked slowly. "If that is what you want to do," it said cryptically.
To stay where he was and maybe be found or to be punished (wasn't what had happened so far not been enough? a voice at the back on his head asked) and know for sure that he would be free.
And any punishment he received couldn't be worse than what he had been going through under Mt. Aleph, could it?
Also, with punishment, there was an end in sight wasn't there? Staying under Mt. Aleph might only end in his death.
Alex nodded. "I will take the punishment."
The Wise One gave Alex a level look in the way that it could with one eye. "Are you certain you wish to do this?"
"Yes," Alex confirmed. What would be the punishment for trying to attain ultimate power? He froze, feeling a faint fluttering in his stomach. What punishment was there that measured up to trying to be a God?
The Wise One had said that he could still walk as a mortal afterwards so his punishment would not be death. So what would it be?
The Wise One nodded with finality. "Your punishment for attempting to gain limitless power and eternal life is not going to take any of your powers." The Wise One carried on before Alex could feel properly surprised at this. "Your punishment is that your memories will be sealed from yourself and you will be banished from this world."
Banished? But with his powers? Alex knew that even though he still had his powers, they would be completely useless to him; Psynergy was both mental will and physical ability. Both were needed for Psynergy to be used at its best.
If you had little mental will but a lot of physical ability, you would or could only use a small portion of your energy to cast Psynergy; if you had a lot of mental will but little physical ability, you could use up your entire supply of energy and still only cast a puddle to freeze.
If you had both but no knowledge of Psynergy, you could cast nothing.
Alex would have near limitless power at his fingertips and yet, not know that he had it nor know how to use it. It was... fitting.
He would become what he had tried so hard to have nothing to do with: a mortal with no knowledge of Psynergy. He had seen them as weak as they did not have power flowing through their veins like he did and he was going to be like them.
Alex felt his scalp itch as well as the back of his eyeballs. He absentmindedly rubbed one of them, waiting for an explanation. If wasn't sore - just strange feeling.
"The world that you are being banished to does not have humans who have your hair colour - nor your specific eye-colour. To make sure that you are not seen as an outsider, your appearance is being changed."
After the itching stopped, a small jolt of what felt like Jupiter Psynergy (Thank you, Sheba for that 'teaching') ran up and down his body. Looking down, Alex saw his clothes changing shape as well and to more earthy colours.
There was a small pause. Even though Alex had gotten used to it, it still dragged for him. He was waiting for the 'mental killing' of himself that he had not been waiting for before.
Then it hit. It forced Alex to his knees; the pain was so strong. He could see his entire life flashing before his eyes but when he tried to remember what he had seen before the image he was currently seeing, it slipped through his fingers like droplets of water. It wrenched his heart to see the memories of Mia in their childhood. Everything hurt the second time he saw it; it was like he was just experiencing them at that moment and not seeing only memories.
It stopped. Harsh breathing filled the air and sweat trickled down his face.
"Goodbye," a voice said sadly. He froze as he realised that he had not physically heard the voice speak. Something had spoken to his mind? Wildly, he looked around -blackblackblack where am I?!- and as he turned his head up he saw a mass of indistinguishable grey. Before his eyes could adjust and focus on it properly, the world turned too bright and even though he was on all fours, he felt that they could no longer hold him.
He tumbled to the ground, unconscious.
:-:-:
Ksrah carefully approached her laid-down trap. There had to have been something caught in it - she had used this area before and had nearly always caught something.
Coming to the right area, Ksrah saw a rabbit dangling by its hind leg in a rope. She smiled in relief. The ears looked a little worried but other than that, there was no damage to it.
She removed it from the trap and then reset it, her tail swinging happily. Ksrah paused at the sound of something moving in the underbush. There was no other sound following it but now she was curious. Grip tightening on her staff just in case (no large animals came this way anymore, but it was always good to be cautious), she neared where she had last heard the sound.
Her eyes widened when she realised that what had made the noise was an unconscious human.
'I've never seen him before,' Ksrah thought to herself as she took in the man's appearance. That didn't matter though, did it? He was still hurt and need help.
Making sure that the man was still breathing (and that the rabbit was secure in her bag), she started to get to work.
Summary: Maybe the ending of The Lost Age didn't happen as we saw it. Alex's memories have been stripped from him, his appearance modified and he's on a completely different world that doesn't use Psynergy. He wants to find out who he is and where he came from but if he does, will he like what he sees?
Rating: K
Notes: Alex-centric. Post-The Lost Age. Spoilers for the end of The Lost Age.
Not a crossover.
All the words before the scene change are from the game. The last sentence that the Wise One says, it's apparently, from the game script I used, meant to be Alex but that didn't make any sense to me so I changed it.
*snorts* So, with game text and you know, the ending, there is much overuse of ! Just warnin' ya.
Genre: General
Word count: 2,467
Status: Work in Progress
"The Golden Sun..." Alex breathed as he reached the summit of Mt. Aleph. "The very quintessence of Alchemy's power! It's beginning!" Climbing the mountain wasn't difficult -after travelling all over the world, it didn't really compare as being physically demanding- but still, it was still taking longer than he expected.
"Wait for me! Please, wait!" he begged the Golden Sun. Why did he have to wait until the very last moment to make sure all was going as planned? It wouldn't be rushing like he was if he hadn't. And even though he had, it didn't explain why it had taken so long for the red Mars light to be seen arcing through the sky. It turned out to be a good thing, as he still needed more time. "Wait until I reach the summit of Mt. Aleph!" Sneaking in to Vale had been absurd in how easy it was.
With a final heave, Alex made it to the summit of Mt. Aleph - just in time to see the golden light of the Golden Sun rising. He closed his eyes and felt heat and power wash over him. There was a staggering moment as the Psynergy hit him like it was a physical force; there was so much of it!
Alex shivered in delight and the feeling of power that was racing through his veins. "At last! I have it! Eternal life... and limitless power!" He was no weak Adept but the power he could feel was like comparing a spark to a flame. The power seemed like it was rushing to his head; the possibilities of what he could do with his newly-found power!
"At last, the power of nature is mine to control as I will!" he crowed happily. "Rise, storms! Rise up and unleash your might upon Vale and the foothills of Mt. Aleph!" Alex commanded, waving an arm to make the Psynergy stronger.
Nothing.
Alex looked around and then up at the clouds in confusion. "That's odd..." he mused. "I should have unlimited power... So why can't I call up a simple storm?" Was it because he was unused to wielding so much power and so, his mind stubbornly used how much energy it thought it had. How ironic. Well, he would have to rest of eternity to make his body used to it.
There was suddenly a feeling that there was someone behind him. But who would climb this high on Mt. Aleph? Alex turned around and saw a giant floating rock with a lone eye embedded in the centre.
"Wh - who are you?" He had wanted to say what but he somehow knew that it was sentient.
The eye blinked, rock grating on rock as it did so. "I am called the Wise One..."
Alex realised why it had seemed familiar; the last time he had seen it was in the bowels of Mt. Aleph as Mt. Aleph strained under the loss of its Elementary Stars. The Wise One had been hovering over Isaac and Garet before Alex walked through the portal to safety.
"The Wise One? Vale's protector?" he asked, to make sure absolutely sure.
The Wise One nodded. "You wish to have limitless power?" it asked him.
Alex smirked at the hunk of rock. Wise One? He could it be wise when it couldn't tell the being in front of it was equal to or stronger than it in power? "Wish to? I just got it!" he said arrogantly.
"No," the Wise One denied, shaking its 'head'. "Your power is nearly limitless, but it has boundaries."
"Nearly limitless?" Alex repeated. "You speak in riddles," he scoffed. "Can't you see it? The power is mine!"
The eye blinked again. "Yes," it agreed. "You also have nearly endless life. And your Psynergy is... somewhat stronger."
Alex scowled at the Wise One. How dare it say his power was still measurable by mortal terms! "If you are trying to anger me, have a little taste of exactly how much power I have attained!" He lifted an arm and pointed the palm towards the Wise One. He may not have been able to summon a storm but pushing with the force of his mind would be ridiculously easy.
Alex felt the power within him collect to his hand and the Wise One was moved backwards. He smiled. "Look at me! My body is brimming with power!"
The Wise One stopped moving and started to flow in Psynergenic light. Alex was lifted several feet above the ground like a rag doll before being slammed back on to the ground. It took a few seconds for the world to come back into focus after exploding in white light. Alex tried to get back up but found that he couldn't; the Wise One was pinning him to the summit as if he was a day-old kitten.
"How?! What's going on? I should be all-powerful! How can you defeat me?!" All that work that he had put into this! For naught? He wasted all the years planning and manipulating was for nothing?!
"You are not all-powerful, Alex," the Wise One confirmed. "Your power has its limits, as does your life," it continued.
"This cannot be!" Alex denied vehemently. He struggled against the power that was holding his body but not a single muscle twitched. "Who is responsible for this treachery? Who has robbed me of my dream?"
"I, the Wise One, imbued the Mars Star with some of the power of the forming Golden Sun. It rests even now in the hands of young Isaac."
If he wasn't pinned to the summit of Mt. Aleph and in the knowledge that he was not immortal or all-powerful, Alex would have laughed. After all that he had done and all the careful planning, how ironic was it that it was his opposing element that had caused his dream to nor come in to full fruition. "Why?"
Instead of answering, the Wise One was looking around the landscape. "The heavens and earth are changing," it observed. It turned to face Alex again. "Alex! You must flee now!" it commanded him.
"Wha - what?!"
"Mt. Aleph will soon be drawn into the heart of the earth! You must flee or join it forever!"
Alex felt the bonds around his body disappear but when he tried to stand up... "Flee?! I can't flee! I can't even move!" He felt his stomach sink. Something must have happened when he was thrown to the ground; there hadn't been a crack or snap of breaking bone so what had happened?
"Ah, yes. You now see the limits of your power. If you are swallowed by the earth, you may not survive. If you survive, perhaps we will meet again someday..."
Alex looked on helplessly as the Wise One got steadily further and further as the ground around him shook and trembled.
The last thing he saw was the clear blue sky before his world was swallowed by black.
Darkness.
He was surrounded by darkness.
Where was he?
Crushing darkness.
What had happened?
How had he gotten here?
Silent darkness.
All he could hear was the fluttering in his heart and his breathing, harshly loud in the void.
He turned -was vaguely surprised that he could move and that he was standing- at an alien sound. It was the Wise One, shining through the darkness.
It gazed at him for a short while before it spoke. "You survived," it stated.
Survived...? Suddenly, all the memories returned to him: what he had done, what he had been trying to do, what had happened afterwards.
"Why are you here?" Wherever 'here' was.
"You survived," the Wise One repeated. "Time has passed; you haven't noticed, have you?" It paused. "You can stay here, in the ruins of Mt. Aleph until your immortality runs out, until you are found or you can be punished for your crimes." It blinked a few times, giving Alex time to process the question. "What is it that you choose?"
Alex tilted his head to the side, thinking over the question. "If I choose to be punished, I will be able to walk around as a mortal again?" He knew where he was: this was a place in his mind.
After Mt. Aleph had imploded, Alex had been trapped between layers of rock. He didn't know how long he was there. Seconds melted to minutes; minutes melted to hours; hours to days. After a while, his mind couldn't keep track of time. All he knew was that he should never feel this hungry, nor his throat so parched and still be alive.
If he wasn't nearly immortal, he would have died a long time ago and wouldn't have to go through what he was going through; if he was mortal, he wouldn't be there in the first place.
There was nothing to stimulate his mind. He was slowly going insane.
The shift from being crushed by rocks horizontally to being free and vertical after so long alone was enough to disorientate him.
The Wise One blinked slowly. "If that is what you want to do," it said cryptically.
To stay where he was and maybe be found or to be punished (wasn't what had happened so far not been enough? a voice at the back on his head asked) and know for sure that he would be free.
And any punishment he received couldn't be worse than what he had been going through under Mt. Aleph, could it?
Also, with punishment, there was an end in sight wasn't there? Staying under Mt. Aleph might only end in his death.
Alex nodded. "I will take the punishment."
The Wise One gave Alex a level look in the way that it could with one eye. "Are you certain you wish to do this?"
"Yes," Alex confirmed. What would be the punishment for trying to attain ultimate power? He froze, feeling a faint fluttering in his stomach. What punishment was there that measured up to trying to be a God?
The Wise One had said that he could still walk as a mortal afterwards so his punishment would not be death. So what would it be?
The Wise One nodded with finality. "Your punishment for attempting to gain limitless power and eternal life is not going to take any of your powers." The Wise One carried on before Alex could feel properly surprised at this. "Your punishment is that your memories will be sealed from yourself and you will be banished from this world."
Banished? But with his powers? Alex knew that even though he still had his powers, they would be completely useless to him; Psynergy was both mental will and physical ability. Both were needed for Psynergy to be used at its best.
If you had little mental will but a lot of physical ability, you would or could only use a small portion of your energy to cast Psynergy; if you had a lot of mental will but little physical ability, you could use up your entire supply of energy and still only cast a puddle to freeze.
If you had both but no knowledge of Psynergy, you could cast nothing.
Alex would have near limitless power at his fingertips and yet, not know that he had it nor know how to use it. It was... fitting.
He would become what he had tried so hard to have nothing to do with: a mortal with no knowledge of Psynergy. He had seen them as weak as they did not have power flowing through their veins like he did and he was going to be like them.
Alex felt his scalp itch as well as the back of his eyeballs. He absentmindedly rubbed one of them, waiting for an explanation. If wasn't sore - just strange feeling.
"The world that you are being banished to does not have humans who have your hair colour - nor your specific eye-colour. To make sure that you are not seen as an outsider, your appearance is being changed."
After the itching stopped, a small jolt of what felt like Jupiter Psynergy (Thank you, Sheba for that 'teaching') ran up and down his body. Looking down, Alex saw his clothes changing shape as well and to more earthy colours.
There was a small pause. Even though Alex had gotten used to it, it still dragged for him. He was waiting for the 'mental killing' of himself that he had not been waiting for before.
Then it hit. It forced Alex to his knees; the pain was so strong. He could see his entire life flashing before his eyes but when he tried to remember what he had seen before the image he was currently seeing, it slipped through his fingers like droplets of water. It wrenched his heart to see the memories of Mia in their childhood. Everything hurt the second time he saw it; it was like he was just experiencing them at that moment and not seeing only memories.
It stopped. Harsh breathing filled the air and sweat trickled down his face.
"Goodbye," a voice said sadly. He froze as he realised that he had not physically heard the voice speak. Something had spoken to his mind? Wildly, he looked around -blackblackblack where am I?!- and as he turned his head up he saw a mass of indistinguishable grey. Before his eyes could adjust and focus on it properly, the world turned too bright and even though he was on all fours, he felt that they could no longer hold him.
He tumbled to the ground, unconscious.
Ksrah carefully approached her laid-down trap. There had to have been something caught in it - she had used this area before and had nearly always caught something.
Coming to the right area, Ksrah saw a rabbit dangling by its hind leg in a rope. She smiled in relief. The ears looked a little worried but other than that, there was no damage to it.
She removed it from the trap and then reset it, her tail swinging happily. Ksrah paused at the sound of something moving in the underbush. There was no other sound following it but now she was curious. Grip tightening on her staff just in case (no large animals came this way anymore, but it was always good to be cautious), she neared where she had last heard the sound.
Her eyes widened when she realised that what had made the noise was an unconscious human.
'I've never seen him before,' Ksrah thought to herself as she took in the man's appearance. That didn't matter though, did it? He was still hurt and need help.
Making sure that the man was still breathing (and that the rabbit was secure in her bag), she started to get to work.