[June 27] [Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?/Legend of Zelda] Centennial Lady, chapter 8

[rose-of-pollux.livejournal.com]

Title: Centennial Lady; Chapter 8
Day/Theme: June 27; Misery and mountains, arrows and bows.
Series: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?/The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
Character: The Dying Informant (and company), Veran
Rating: PG13

Will be cross-posted to my journal


The three brothers headed west, as the Maku Tree had told them to. Unfortunately, Veran must’ve realized what they had been planning, for the Stalfos were waiting for them at the base of the Tallus Peaks.

The Messenger clenched his fists. He knew what he had to do.

“Techie…” he said. “I’ll head them off. You need to get Infy up that mountain.”

“No!” cried the Informant. “I can’t do this without you…! We need to do this together—all three of us…!”

No… the Messenger sighed to himself. You don’t really need me… Not as much as you think…

“Techie… Make sure he gets up there,” he said aloud, staring at the Techie, who had opened his mouth to protest, too.

“I will,” the Techie vowed at last, seeing the fire in the Messenger’s eyes. He and the Informant ducked as arrows were sent their way.

“Hey, Boneheads!” the Messenger said, getting ready to take the Stalfos on. “I thought your boss lady wanted Infy alive! I don’t think she’ll appreciate you bringing him in as a pincushion. And, come to think of it, neither do I!”

With a war cry, he lunged at the Stalfos, applying everything he had learned in his martial arts training. After he was certain that the others were a safe distance ahead, he ran after them, the angry party of Stalfos on his heels.

The Informant was struggling up the barren, dead rock. Everything was getting so hot, and it wasn’t just because of their approach to the volcano’s peak. The amethyst was resisting the climb, making it that much difficult.

The boy stumbled, slipping on the reddish-brown rocks.

“No…!” the Techie cried, helping him up. The Messenger quickened his pace, trying to get to his brother, too.

“She doesn’t want me to go any further…” the Informant said, shuddering and sweating from the heat and chills that simultaneously seemed to plague him.

He looked up. A column of smoke was rising from the peak, and the more he looked at it, the more the smoke seemed to look like Veran’s leering face, her eyes boring a hole into his soul.

There were no stars in the sky… no light to guide them, except for the fiery, red glow that emitted from above them at the peak. The boy shuddered again. It was as though Veran was causing the whole world to bleed.

“I wish I could do this for you…” the Techie said, trying to keep from breaking down in front of his friend. “I know the Messenger does, too…”

“No kidding!” the Messenger called, able to sense what they were saying.

“But you’re the only one who can do this…” the brunet went on. “I’d give anything to take your place. But I can’t. But that won’t stop me from helping you in whatever way I can.” He pulled the Informant up. “We’re going to keep on going. I know it’s all uphill, in more ways than one, but you’re going to do this. You know why? Because you’re stronger than that witch, that’s why!”

The Informant looked into his brother’s eyes, which were burning brighter than the peak, if that was even possible. The boy nodded, and kept pressing onward.

The Messenger was following them, grateful that the Techie was able to get some sense into the Informant at this critical point. But his relief was short-lived as he glanced behind him to see what the Stalfos were planning.

“Leave the boy to me,” said Master Stalfos, overtaking the Messenger with his long, bony strides; the lead Stalfos, he was twice the height of the other Stalfos, all of whom were just shorter than the Inspector. The Messenger yelped as his attempt at guarding his brothers was apparently breached.

“Oh, no you don’t!” he snarled, launching himself at the skeleton’s neck.

“Bro!” the Informant yelled, looking back. His eyes were wide in horror. “We have to help him!”

The Techie nodded; this wasn’t just some random encasing by Veran; those Stalfos were armed.

Master Stalfos roared, grabbing the Messenger from his neck and throwing him down. Before the agent could recover, the skeletal warrior brought the sword down.

“NO!” the others cried.

The Messenger tried to move, but he wasn’t quick enough. He managed to save himself by getting his torso out of the way, but the tip of the blade entered his shoulder. He yelled out in pain, clutching the wound.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” the Informant roared, kicking Master Stalfos with a judo kick.

“Infy, no!” the Messenger yelled, getting to his feet. He pulled the boy away with the Techie, though his shoulder felt heavy with pain. He refused to give into it, of course; he just gritted his teeth and kept on running, placing his hand back over the wound.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” asked the Informant.

“Yeah,” he said, putting on a brave smile. “It’s just a little scratch. Let’s keep going!”

The boy wasn’t sure. But as more arrows headed their way, he had to agree. The Techie kept the Informant in front, the both of them continuously glancing back at the Messenger, who was, at first, right behind them, smiling an encouraging smile.

But inside, something was terribly wrong. The wound was hurting more and more as he ran, and his energy seemed to be diminishing, as though it was pouring out of the wound. And the more they headed up the mountain, the worse it got, and the further he began to fall behind the others. But he didn’t say a word; he could not afford to slow them down now—not when their goal was at last in sight!

The Informant gasped as the mountain started to rumble. Looking up, the red glow gleaming from the peak, glowing against the black sky seemed to intensify, further bathing them in the unearthly light.

“I think it’s sensing that your bringing the stone to it,” said the Techie. “We’re halfway there; you can make it!” He then addressed the Messenger. “How’re you holding up?”

There was no answer.

The brothers glanced back to see their third brother hobbling yards behind them. And approaching him were the group of relentless Stalfos.

They both back to him.

“I thought you said you were alright!” said the Informant, kneeling beside him.

“Yeah, I said that…” the Messenger said. “But, I think I need to come clean… I’ve lost the feeling in my shoulder…”

He removed his hand from the wound, and the three of them stared in horror. A stone encasing was spreading from the wound, working its way across the Messenger’s arm and torso, slowly but steadily.

“Why didn’t you tell us!?” asked the Techie, practically screaming.

He ducked as an arrow, courtesy of a Stalfos, zipped by his ear.

“That’s why!” the Messenger retorted. “I’d slow you down; you two have got to go on!”

“No…” said the Informant, shaking his head. “I can’t lose you, too! I can’t!” He tried desperately to help his brother up, but the encasing was spreading quicker now. Even as the Messenger got to his feet, most of his chest had been covered.

“Infy…” the Messenger said, placing his hands on the blond’s shoulders. One of his arms was encased, and he stared at it in horror. “You can’t let the sacrifices that the Inspector and I made be in vain. Please… little brother… you have to go on.”

The Informant’s eyes brimmed with tears. He knew as well as the Messenger did that there was no hope for him now.

“Of course I’ll go on…” he promised. “For you and the others…”

The Messenger forced a brave smile.

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he said, as the encasing wrapped around his other arm and his lower body. “I’ll make a promise to you, Infy. I’ll promise that I’ll be right here waiting for you when you get rid of that amethyst. But you need to promise me something, too, in return.”

“What…?” asked the Informant, as the encasing worked its way around the Messenger’s hair and chin.

“Promise me you won’t trust her!” the older agent cried. “Infy, I need your word--”

He was cut off as his mouth was covered. His eyes were all that were left for the briefest moment, pleading silently to his younger brother before they were covered, too, leaving only a statue.

“NO!” the boy howled, his morale drastically dropping. The Techie held him close for moment, lost in his own sorrow.

I’m the only one left on his side… he realized, horrified. If I’m not able to help him save everyone, they really will kill him…! He trembled, hugging the boy closer to him. In the back of his mind, he knew that Veran would be targeting him next, but he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was that the Informant would succeed and be safe…

The Informant, in the meantime, was staring at the statue that had once been his brother. He and the Messenger had had so much trouble getting along at first. Because of a bad experience in his past, the Informant had been very reluctant to trust the Messenger. But because of that, their bond had become stronger than most once it had formed. But now… that bond was broken… walled apart by this wretched encasing of stone!

The Informant let out a cry, breaking free from the Techie embrace and now hugging the statue. The rock was cold beneath his fingers, and offered no comfort to him.

“I… I still stand by what I said…” the Techie choked out. “You’re stronger than her… I know you can do this…” He trailed off, his voice cracking. If this was so painful for him, how must the Informant be feeling!?

But the agents had to run as the Stalfos approached. They ignored the Messenger completely; they knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

“You can save him, Little Prince,” said Veran. “I’ll be waiting for you at the top of the volcano. If you give me the stone, I swear to you that I’ll free them all. I am the only one who can, you see.”

“Hey!” cried the Techie, recognizing the expression on his face as the one he had when Veran usually talked to him. “You didn’t make that promise to the Messenger—the one he was just begging you to make! You can’t mean to say that after all of this, you’re still going to believe her!?”

The Informant turned to the Techie, giving him an unreadable expression.

“Techie… Just drop it, okay?”

It was the first time he had ever said anything of the sort to him; from the beginning, the Informant had always gotten along perfectly with the Techie. Neither of them had ever said anything so cold before. And the Techie was hurt.

But the Techie did not have time to worry about it; more arrows were heading their way.

“No, I won’t drop it!” the Techie yelled after him, as they ran up towards the peak. “You didn’t promise him! Well, you’re going to promise me!”

The boy only headed faster, climbing the ledges without replying to him.

“Promise me!” the brunet screamed. “I’m not letting this go!” He yelped as an arrow knocked his fedora off; he managed to grab it and keep on climbing, determined not to let him get away without making the promise.

The Informant was running through the dungeon gates, taking a sharp right, coming to the edge of the large lava pit. He yelled as he saw Stalfos wading and swimming through the molten rock, screeching and snarling at him. Fire Keese swooped around the cavern, baring their fangs at him.

None of the otherworldly creatures seemed to notice that the lava was frothing, slowly, the level rising. Yes… the gap between the floor and the pit was reducing—the lava was rising…

The Techie into the chamber, throwing himself to the floor as a Fire Keese dove at him. The Techie stared at the fiery bat. “I’d hate to see that thing as a vampire…” he muttered, getting back to his feet. His jaw dropped at the Stalfos in the lava. Looking behind him, he knew that Master Stalfos was leading the others to them, too. “The amethyst!” he yelled. “Throw it in!”

The Informant pulled the light purple stone from his trenchcoat pocket. This… This was what they had come here for… This would, hopefully, free the others…

“Hurry! There’s no time! The Stalfos…!” the Techie trailed off, gasping as Veran materialized in the chamber. She waved the Stalfos away; she was going to handle the Informant now, all on her own.

“Well done, Little Prince,” she said, gazing at him as the blond jumped upon hearing her voice. “This was all a test. You are the powerful one destined to rule with me. Come, Little Prince. Give me the stone and rule with me; I will use it to free your friends, and then we shall rule this world from the turret of my tower—together!”

The Informant stared into her eyes, and then glanced at the stone. The Techie just stared at the scene, horrified.

“The Informant, you have to remember what the Messenger told you!” he cried. “You can’t trust her! He wanted you to promise him that you wouldn’t!”

“You want to save them, do you not?” asked Veran, holding her hand out to him. “Only I can undo my magic. But this is our time, you see—the Age of Shadows. You will be the most powerful man in the world, and your friends will be serving you, as they have done all this time. Come, Little Prince.”

What if she was right? What if she was the only one who could undo this magic? What if he destroyed the stone, and all of his friends would remain encased? He could not risk that! He had to save his friends, no matter what the cost!

The Informant took one step away from the lava pit—a step which took him towards Veran.

And the Techie saw his entire world crumble with that step, breaking and falling like the pieces of a shattered mirror. Again, the vision flashed before his eyes: the Informant in the robe, fighting alongside Veran, hurting people as he attempted to help her rule a shadow-infested world as he stood by, unable to stop his brother from doing these terrible things…

“NO!” the brunet screamed, clutching the Informant’s shoulder with one hand, and turning the boy’s face to look at him with the other hand. “You can’t do this! You can’t join her! YOU CAN’T!” Tears spurted from his eyes, but he did not bother to wipe them. “The vision!” he wept. “You saw what she wants you to become! You can’t become that person. He’s not my brother! I can’t follow him into the future like I promised him I would! Please, little brother…” His voice grew pleading and despondent. “Don’t go where I can’t follow…”

The boy stared into his brother’s eyes.

“Techie…?” he mouthed. What was he doing!? He couldn’t leave him and put him through the agony of watching him sink into darkness. He had to destroy the amethyst—Mr. van Ghoul had said that should be enough to reverse the damage that had been done… and the Maku Tree had seemed to agree…

Veran’s eyes flashed with fury as she saw that the Techie had managed to bring the Informant back to his old self. How dare he… How dare he take her pawn away, when she had come so close having him submit!?

“You stay away from him, wretch!” she shrieked, hurling a sphere of dark energy at the Techie. “Fall into darkness, where you belong! You will not hurt him again!”

“Techie, look out!” the Informant cried.

But the Techie had no time to escape. All he could do was shield the Informant as best he could, crying out in pain as the energy struck him. In an instant, he was encased in the stone, his eyes still holding the look of pleading heartbreak, as he had realized that the Informant’s last link to his soon-to-be-former life was now gone. And the Informant realized it, too.

“Techie…” he whispered. “TECHIE!”

The Techie had been determined to follow the Informant to the end of his quest. But the end of the quest had come all too soon for him.

The Informant turned back to Veran, but his eyes were now full of an angered fire—the same fire that the Techie had all this time.

“You killed him!” he howled, agony and anger in his voice. “He’d never hurt anyone, and you did this to him!?”

“He would have led you down the path to ruin and then left you for dead,” said Veran. “He was not trustworthy. But I freed you from his evil, Little Prince. Now give me the stone; we will rule this world together!”

“NO!” the Informant howled, running back towards the pit. “This is for Techie!”

“Stop! No!” screeched Veran, her eyes flashing. She swooped towards him.

The Informant held the stone over the pit, glaring at her. And then he released the stone.

“Nooooo!” Veran screeched, trying to dive after the amethyst. But it was out of her reach now. Furious, she seized the boy’s ankle as the stone hit the lava. “I will take you with me, Ingrate!”

He Informant yelped, holding onto the stone Techie’s ankle. Veran screeched again, letting go of him as her spirit vanished. The Stalfos and Keese screeched and roared, vanishing into the flames and shadows. He pulled himself up using the Techie’s ankle, and then gasped as the stone encasing around the brunet cracked and splintered away.

“Techie!” the Informant exclaimed, catching his brother as he fell backwards, limply into the boy’s arms. “Techie… I did it… I did it because of you…”

But the Techie was still unresponsive. Even in the red light of the lava, the Informant cold tell that something was terribly wrong—the Techie’s face as too pale.

“No…” he whispered, hugging the limp form. “Techie, no… I destroyed the stone… You were supposed to come back… You were all supposed to come back… Please… don’t go where I can’t follow, either…!” His voice broke as he realized that he had utterly failed. Destroying the stone had done nothing. They were all lost… He would never see the Techie or the others again… Never would he be able to tell them how sorry he was…

“This wasn’t supposed to happen to you…” the Informant sobbed, cradling his lost friend. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry that you had to suffer so much because of me… But now you’ll never suffer again… Neither will the others… But my suffering is just about to begin. But I deserve it… Every minute, every hour, every day for the rest of my life!”

The ground shook. The Informant looked back at the lava pit, seeing it rise at an even quicker rate; the volcano was going to erupt, and unless he moved quickly, he would get caught in the thick of it. Part of his mind wasn’t sure of what to do. But his rational mind told him that the Techie would want him to save himself.

“I’ll go home,” he promised the lifeless form. “But I’m not leaving you here…”

“Infy…!?” A voice seemed to be calling for him from outside, but the boy hardly took notice of it.

“I’m so sorry…” the boy continued to say to the Techie. “It should’ve been me, not you… I should have let those mages and ghosts have their way with me. Then it’d be me getting what I deserved while you and the others would be alright…”

“Infy!?”

“Oh, sure… I know you’d miss me…” he whispered on. “But you were a good, kind person that everyone loved. You didn’t deserve this--”

“INFY!?”

The boy froze. That voice… it couldn’t be… It just couldn’t be…

He looked up, his jaw dropping in sheer amazement as the Messenger ran into the chamber, looking relieved to find him.

“Bro…?” he asked, weakly. “You… You’re here…? You’re alive…?”

“Infy, thank goodness…” he said. “I just received a message from the Inspector on my communicator; he wasn’t sure what had happened… Only that we were freed from the…” He trailed off, staring at the Techie. “Oh, Infy… Is he…?”

The Informant glanced at the Messenger with haunted eyes, barely registering that the Inspector was alright, too.

“He’s gone,” he said, hollowly. “Veran hit him with dark magic before she encased him. That… that must be why you woke up alright, but he didn’t…”

The ground rumbled again.

“Whoa…!” said the Messenger, struggling to remain standing. “We need to get Techie out of here… Maybe some fresh air might wake him up…”

He Informant just shut his eyes, suppressing a sob. As much as he wanted it to happen, he couldn’t help but tell himself that if the Techie was going to wake up, it would’ve happened by now…

The ground rumbled again, and now the lava was spilling out of the pit.

“Bro, you have to get out of here!” the Informant cried.

“What about you!?” the older agent asked.

“I can’t leave Techie behind!” the blond cried.

“Well, I can’t leave you behind, either!” the Messenger retorted. He gathered the Informant, Techie and all, into his arms and began to run down the mountainside, gravity mercifully working with him. Unfortunately, the lava flow was all too quick.

“We’re not going to make it!” the Informant cried.

But the Messenger was looking at something up ahead. His eyes widened.

“Oh, yes we are!” he vowed, staring pointedly at the ACME plane, which was zooming towards them. The Inspector had the hatch open, and he and he Rookie were there with rope ladders. “Hold on, Infy!”

He held on to the others with one arm and held onto the rope ladder with the other, gritting his teeth against the strain. The Inspector and the Rookie were already pulling them up, slowly but surely.

They were just inside the plane and had closed the hatch when the volcano erupted, sending plumes of lava and ash into the air. The pilot couldn’t wait for the agents to get seated; he had to veer away, sending them crashing into the wall, the Informant still holding onto the Techie tightly, crying.

“Is everyone alright?” asked the Inspector, from somewhere under the pile.

“No…!” the Informant sobbed.

The Rookie turned to face him, gasping.

“Techie…?”

One by one, they got up, pulling back to see the Informant still hugging the limp Techie.

“Veran got him with some dark magic…” he wept. “Just because he was trying to help me fight her…” He trembled. “And now he’s gone. I… I really am Veran’s Prince, since I let this happen…”

The slack arm around the Informant suddenly moved, albeit slightly.

“You will never be Veran’s Prince…” a weak voice replied.

The Informant’s eyes widened, and he nearly dropped the brunet. He pulled back from the hug, staring at the tired eyes looking back at him. The Techie put on his bravest smile, though it was incredibly weak.

The boy tried to open his mouth, but no words came out. This couldn’t be real… It couldn’t be…! His head was spinning’ the incredible dizziness was too much…

The Techie’s expression changed to one of worry.

“Little brother…?”

A weak groan emitted from the Informant’s lips, and the poor boy fainted dead away.