Trial and Tribulation Copyright 1997 Renee a.k.a. Alethea All " NiGHTS" characters and related indica copyright and TM of one or more of the following: Sega Enterprises and/or Sega of America. Used without permission Etienne copyright Jeanette Merrell Used without permission Dunamis, Alethea, Frost, Talitha, Aldwyn, Rhian, Nettle, Tarragon, Salpinx, and related characters and indica copyright Renee. This document may be freely distributed as long as it is not modified in any way. Trial and Tribulation (Part 6) Nettle shook her head. " Have you found the keys yet?" Tarragon shook his head no, and kept looking. " We don't have all day! Hurry, they'll finish with the meeting soon!" " What I want to know, Nettle, is how you managed to get out of going?" " Later, just find those keys!" *** Aldwyn landed in Mystic Forest and looked around. The guards were lost somewhere behind him. Now he had to decide what to do with this 'maren. He looked down at her. She was wounded and needed to be taken back to their base. This whole situation left him with an uncanny sense of deja vu. A shriek startled him, and Aldwyn whirled as something raced back toward Nightmare. He lay the 'maren on the ground carefully and flew after the what ever it was. *An hour later* Salpinx leaned against a column and gritted his teeth. The halls were almost completely abandoned, which gave him a very good chance of getting out before someone killed or caught him. His ribs protested all the crawling, flying, and moving in general that he had been doing. Salpinx walked over to a nearby room and ducked inside of it. He slumped carefully against the wall and leaned back. It was much warmer in this part of the castle, and Salpinx was surprised that he was wide-awake. He had expected to have to fight to stay awake. *** Alethea watched as several troops, busy with janitorial work, were scrubbing the floor. Dunamis walked past her on down the hall, and disappeared around one of the two hallways that met the main one. Alethea stopped and looked at the hallway. It was the same as it had been the last time she had seen it. Tall black marble walls, the high monotonous ceiling, columns attached to the wall that gradually became arches and joined the ceiling, stretching upward every few feet. The floor in this part of the castle was made of diamond shaped tiles. Rooms joined the hallway in a few places. Large windows let in the small amount of light that managed to seep through the cloud cover. The clouds today were a mixture of pale blue and purple, with very small traces of bright green. She shuttered at the unnaturalness of it. Almost everything in Nightmare was dark mixed with neon bright colors that were outlandish and could give you a headache. She looked back at the hallway in front of her and froze. Reala was standing at the intersection of one of the hallways. She noticed that his leg had been injured again. Alethea tried very hard to look like she was part of the group of troops scrubbing the floor. She backed up against the wall. Reala knew her; if he looked directly at her, she knew he would recognize her. She turned a slightly pale color and tried not to look at him. If she moved very much, he would see her out of corner of his eye. Dunamis, who was heading back down the hall, spotted Reala. He dived headlong behind one of the columns, and looked frantically at Alethea. In one of the rooms joining the hall, Salpinx gaped. He had been about to leave when he noticed Reala and Alethea. Alethea was only a few feet away from Reala who seemed to be thinking about something, and not really paying attention to what was going on around him. Reala shrugged the thought off and turned to walk down the hall. All at once a particular 'maren caught his attention. He whirled and looked at Alethea. Salpinx knew she had to be here looking for him. There were probably other troops here for the same reason. If Reala saw her, she wouldn't have a chance to get away. Salpinx saw Reala began to turn toward her. Salpinx could only think of one thing to do. The fact that Alethea was standing a few feet away from him, barely had time to register, when a fast moving blur caught Reala's attention. A 'maren leapt through the air and tackled him. Reala fell backwards and punched the 'maren in the side before he knocked him into the wall. The 'maren doubled over holding his ribs. " What are you doing!" he shouted at the 'maren. The other troops scrubbing the floor stopped and stared. The 'maren stood up, and Reala saw the sun shaped metal. " GUARDS!" Several guards' foot steps could be heard running down the hall toward the two fighting 'maren. Before long there were too many guards for the 'maren to fight. They grabbed the 'maren, who stopped fighting and glared at Reala. Reala glanced around looking for the 'maren that he was certain was Alethea. She was no where to be seen. " There was another rebel here. Find her! There may be others as well." Several of the guards left and Reala turned to the 'maren. " Take him to wizeman, wizeman always wants to deal with rebels as soon as they're caught."