Chapter 38: AuraofIce (1)

"Level Complete. New stages unlocked."

The team had returned to the almost empty room, but now there was more than a solitary computer. The machine had now split into five separate devices, each linked into a pentagon of a sort, and each was distinguished with different patterns and colors to prove they belonged to each member. Bryce stepped forward along with the rest of the team as they all examined each of their machines. After they all unlocked the recognition code with their handprints, all of the computers connected. From what Bryce could see, there was a huge set of missions. There were five different tabs currently open: Individual, with one, with two, with three, and team. Quickly, Bryce chose team. There were ten levels, most of which appeared to be locked, judging by the fact that they were grayed out. The mission they had just completed was green, and the new one unlocked was red. Going back and checking individual, only the level one mission was available for him. After a quick look over the rest, it seemed that only level one was accessible on all of the missions except for the level two team mission.

"If everyone's up for another mission, there's a shuffle button on my screen. I'm guessing that'll pair us into random groups."

Everyone seemed to be in agreement, so Rio hit the shuffle as the area's light consumed them all…

Bryce opened his eyes and immediately began shivering.

"Great, I hate the cold." A response came from his right.

Looking around Bryce noticed that other than himself and Grovyle, the place appeared to be deserted. It also appeared that they were trapped in what looked like a metallic igloo of sorts. There was a window with snow blowing into the area, and the door appeared to be frozen shut. Bryce began checking the walls and floors.

"What exactly are you doing?" Grovyle asked.

"There's not a puzzle that's unsolvable…at least not this early." He replied.

Moving to the window, he wiped the snow that had collected on the wall, revealing a brick that wasn't colored like the rest. Pressing the block in, Bryce heard a small click, causing one of the walls to glow red with a gigantic mess of text.

"I've seen this kind of text before. This is what tomes use."

Grovyle looked skeptical. "…and you can read it?"

"Yeah, I've never studied the actual language, but I can read it as if it were in English." He replied, starting to translate the wall.

"Finding your center can be a true test, once completed head to the west. Along the way past horrors you'll find, but the level can be won with the power of the mind." (2) He paused. "There's also the same symbol from the last challenge: that strange triangle like shape."

As Bryce was translating the text, Grovyle went to the center of the room and tapped the tile underneath him with his foot.

"Sounds different from the rest." He said before kicking the tile, breaking it and revealing a lever. Pulling it, they turned to see one of the walls give way, revealing a set of coats, a fire spell book, and a pole staff.

"Hallelujah!" Grovyle said, taking one of the coats and instantly putting it on. Bryce took the other one and wore it as well. His robes were fairly warm, but the coat made the blizzard much more bearable.

"I didn't realize you used staves as well." Bryce commented, taking the fire tome.

He nodded, taking the weapon. "Gotta get some upper body strength in, but punches never feel as powerful as kicks. Besides, you can pull off some decent wall combos with these."

Bryce carefully used the fire spell to unfreeze the door by putting his hand up against it and using a small moderation of the magic. "Okay, let's go."

He opened the door, expecting to be hit with a massive wave of ice and snow, but instead there was a staircase leading down into the darkness. While it would be better than traveling through a blizzard, Bryce had seen enough horror, mystery and suspense movies and games. There was definitely something lurking around in there. Grovyle started in as Bryce lit up his hands to make a light source. The place leveled out after the staircase. It seemed to be a straight line for a little while. Continuing on, they came to a small intersection with three ways to go.

"West." Grovyle said. He looked up at the sunroof of sorts. The sun looked as if it were about to set in half an hour. He set the staff right in the center of the light. The shadow crept in one direction. "Left is west." He replied. Bryce nodded and the two continued on.

After a couple of minutes of silence, Grovyle finally spoke. "How long have you known Rio?"

The question caught Bryce off guard, but he answered honestly. "I've only met him twice before. He's a really good guy. He left his entire group of family just to do the right thing, even if he didn't know what that would turn into at the time."

He nodded. "What about his girlfriend?"

"Who?"

"You know, that other Lucario. The one with purple eyes."

Before Bryce had the chance to respond with either a lie or the honest truth, he heard a scuttling of feet behind him. "What was that?" He quickly said, though he had a bad feeling he already knew what it was.

They turned around. "Nothing's there. You're hearing things." He said as they continued on. Grovyle either didn't hear the noise or was in denial, but Bryce knew someone or something was following them. Another sound escaped the darkness.

"Dude, SOMETHING is following us." Bryce said.

"Okay, look, I don't know what's got you going crazy, but…" he was caught off by a drop of water falling onto the sleeve of the coat. They both looked up and were face to face with a gigantic spider.

As the spider fell onto the floor and gathered its bearings, all Grovyle heard was a long string of swear words followed by twenty-seven fireballs launched at the spider.

"STOP! IT'S DEAD!" He finally managed to shout over Bryce.

Bryce's adrenaline finally wore off as he saw what remained of the corpse of the arachnid. "Sorry about that." He said.

*Yep, Twilight Princess is definitely going down several places in my ranking now.* He thought. (3)

They continued on until they started seeing true horrors. Blood began to appear on the walls, splattered all over the place, including that triangle symbol again. Then corpses started littering the floor. Bryce recognized several of them: his parents, the rest of the team…even Violet, but there were others as well. Bryce assumed they were friends and family of Grovyle. Since there was no way that the fake corpses were actually them, Bryce continued on. It was spooky, but Bryce and Grovyle just pushed it out of their minds and continued onward. They eventually reached a trap door. Opening it, they were greeted by a huge wave of snow and cold. As they fully walked outside, the duo realized they were in an unprotected fortress made out of mostly wood. It looked like a giant log cabin without a roof. No sooner had they realized where they were…then what looked like a giant gorilla turned around him.

They weren't focused on the white fur or the crystal in its head, but instead what it carried in its arms. The creature tossed the body aside, sending it tumbling through the snow into one of the wooden walls. Before Bryce could do anything, Grovyle took off straight for the body. Sighing, he distracted the beast with a fireball straight into his chest, sending him into the guard tower opposite Grovyle and the body he was now standing over. Whoever it was, Grovyle seemed to be frozen in place. He couldn't do anything. Running over to him through the increasing blizzard, Bryce grabbed him and shook him.

"It's not real. Whoever that is to you is only an illusion."

He couldn't respond. He just stood there with the same look of horror. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed.

"All right, how do we beat this thing?" Grovyle finally asked as soft as he could over the storm.

"Judging by the crystal in his head, that's his weak point. A couple of weak attacks or one clean hit should be able to defeat him." A huge gust of wind caused the temperature to drop further. "I'd suggest the latter so we can end this quickly."

He nodded. "I've got an idea, provided you can use the fire spell on me without it hurting me."

The yeti-like creature had finally managed to free itself from the tower's rubble. It charged for Grovyle, but he used the staff and knocked it off its feet before jumping skyward.

"Now!" he yelled to Bryce, who ignited the staff with fire before it landed square into the creature's forehead, shattering the crystal. The monster let out a howl before it vaporized, along with the fortress, ice, and the team of two.

A friend of mine has this youtube username. Couldn't think of a good title. Sorry :P

The single crappiest rhyme on the face of the world. I completely made it up in about 20 seconds :P

Okay, I've got to explain this mini-story. I was playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess at about 2am. I went into the first temple (forest temple) and was looking for the monkeys (part of the dungeon mechanic). I knew there was one in an area where you had to burn some webs and fall down the right hole. I killed one of the Skulltulas and chose and incorrect path. There was another Skulltula down there that didn't do much. I defeated it and started to use the camera to look around. Looking straight up, one of those blasted things FELL ON TOP of me. Scared the crap out of me and now I have a fear of spiders when they're gigantic. Fortunately that doesn't ever occur outside of videogames.

Author's Notes: Another update finally! I seriously need to update more. Good news though: I am working on another story, which may or may not be posted all at once. Won't be as long as this one, but still a fair amount. I was going to make this chapter a little longer, but this'll work for now. Besides, I have the title and outline for the next chapter ready. So… who was Grovyle paralyzed over? Will any more giant spiders get more than incinerated by Bryce? And what is that weird symbol? Find out two of those questions next time. This has been DeltaViolet21, and I will see you in the next one. Later

Oh, REALLY IMPORTANT! HOW MANY MORE LEVELS DO YOU GUYS WANT? NONE OF THE OTHER CHALLENGES ARE IMPORTANT FOR PLOT PROGRESSION, BUT IF YOU LIKE 'EM I'LL KEEP DOING THEM, BUT IF YOU DON'T CARE, I CAN MOVE ON WITH THE PLOT. SO LEAVE A REVIEW OF WHICH YOU'D RATHER HAVE.

-DV21