The murmurs of the crowd lining the marketplace of Lemuria was deafening to the small group of teenagers making their way through the maze of people, the heat from the sun adding to their hastiness.
"I'm exhausted, where are they," Serenade complained, her blonde hair sticking to her face. She and another boy, Sea, kept working their way through the crowd, rushing to find their friends.
"They should be around here somewhere," Sea replied calmly, "the Venus clan meeting just got out recently." Sea squinted his eyes; two figures were standing in the distance. They looked familiar, and when he got closer, he saw that they were his friends.
"Serenade, come on," he said, rushing through the crowd to meet his earth-bending friends. Serenade stumbled behind him; the crowd seemed to be blocking her. Finally, the two managed to reunite with their friends. Though it should have been a happy reunion, something clicked in Sea's brain, and his usually calm demeanor disappeared.
"How. Dare. You," Sea began, the evil in his voice overwhelming, "Not. Tell. Us. Where. You. Were!" The last of his words were nearly cackled, and a dark blue aura began to surround him. The two earth adepts, Arashi and Spark, jumped at the sudden mood changed, and knew it could turn violent quickly.
"Hey guys," Serenade panted, finally catching up to the trio of boys; however, she quickly realized the situation was not a good one, and decided to back out, since she assumed that not even the power of Sol would save this soon to be beating.
"Wait for me you guys," a voice called. The voice was younger than the other teenagers were, but not by much. The final member of their squad, known as the ‘earth waters' (mostly because Arashi and Spark wanted their element in the name) made himself known.
"Hey Neptune," Serenade greeted him, smiling, "you're right on time." This, of course, was a straight up lie, and Neptune realized it, since Sea's aura of darkness had not yet faded; this scared him immensely.
"Let's just talk about this, Sea," Neptune laughed, backing away slowly, "please?" Sea took no quarter, and was about to leap on the poor boy, until a group of women shopping made their way towards the group, ripping their circle in half. In the midst of it, Sea could hear them gossiping.
"We have to send our children away."
"There's no safe place on Weyard though!"
"There's no other choice. If we're all annihilated…"
"Stop saying such things."
"I won't send my child alone! That would be murder!"
"Come, let's talk to the mayor."
The group left as clumsily as it had come, and Sea stood there, in shock at what he just heard. They would be sent away? Why? When? How? Thoughts were swimming and buzzing in his head; there was just too much to take in. His aura began to return to normal as everyone got back together.
". . .Was I the only one who heard that?" Arashi's face was paler than usual. Silence followed his statement, a way for everyone else to say yes as they sorted all of their thoughts.
"Maybe we should just go home," Spark suggested, seeming to be the only one calm. His face was plain, eyes were normal, and his stance was lazy rather than rigid. Everyone nodded, and parted their separate ways, returning to their homes to try to forget what they heard.

~~

Sea awoke to the warning bell ringing. His eyes shot open; something was going on. Mere seconds later, his mother and Neptune piled into his room. Neptune seemed afraid, while his mother's face was red and blotchy.
"Listen you two," she said, her voice quiet and broken, "I need you two to run to the port for me. Run, and don't look back." Her mouth opened to say more, but nothing came out. She toppled over on top of the two boys, limp and lifeless. Neptune looked up to see a girl, small in stature, but carrying a large axe standing near them; he began to pray that she wouldn't see them.
"Cyrene, come on," a gruff male voiced call. The girl turned and walked away, dragging the axe with her. Soon, their home became silence, and the two boys realized they needed to leave. Sea stood up first, his blue hair tangled and clinging to his face; Neptune followed suit.
"Here, Nep, let's go through the window," Sea motioned to the window next to his bed. Together, they managed to crawl the window and take in the sight of their home.
Flame engulfed the benevolent city of water. Screams were everywhere, darkness ate everything, people killing people. Sea and Neptune wandered around, looking for the port, until they found Spark.
"Guys, come on, let's go," he pushed his way through rubble to let them get to the port, "Serenade and Arashi are already there."

~~
"You're too late." Sea froze; the girly voice seemed innocent, but underneath lay a hidden sadist touch. He turned to find the very girl who killed his mother, Cyrene, standing in their way to the ship. Behind her were two men, one tall and muscular, the other seemed girly, but still manly.
"Hee hee, there's no way you can escape," Cyrene mocked, moving her axe to the forefront, showing off the fact that it was nearly her height. The muscular man guffawed and brought his fists up, while the slender man did nothing.
"Isn't this just a little," the man said, his voice lazy, "boring?" The two fighters turned to him, their jaws slightly open; both chorused, "Kail, you're making this difficult!"
"Now," Spark whispered to Sea and Neptune, signaling them to run. The two mercury adepts ran first, followed by the venus adept, through the trifle of the trio and onto the ship. The anchor was brought up, and the ship began to sail.
"Oh no," Cyrene complained, "they're getting away! Muskuw, go after them!" The well-built man nodded and began to run towards the sailing ship. Serenade and Arashi looked at the man, prepared to use any psynergy to make him stop.
"I got you now," he yelled, his voice deep and hoarse, "you can't escape from me!" Using his legs, he leapt and reached for the ship. . .but missed by about two feet and plummeted into the water below.
"Haha," Serenade chuckled. "That's what you get," Arashi yelled to the remaining two on the docks, "now just leave us alone!"

~

"Kail," Cyrene began, her voice no longer cute and innocent, "why did you say that!? We could have easily gotten them!" Her rant seemed incredibly awkward, considering Kail was two feet or so taller than her; he simply ignored her and looked out into the distance.
"It will be more interesting this way," he replied, "it seems as though they are heading to a new world now." Cyrene looked at him with an eyebrow raised, but then looked toward the ship; it was caught in a windstorm the color of roses.
A smirk crossed the young girl's lips.

~

"This isn't good," Serenade noted, ducking down as low as possible, "windstorms don't normally look like this!"
They were the only ones currently alive on the boat; the three they met earlier had slaughtered them all. To avoid stepping on any, everyone gathered at the back of the ship; however, it was also very dangerous.
"Woah," Neptune yelled as he was pulled into the air by the wind. Sea reached for him, but he vanished into thin air. "Neptune!" He hoped he could hear his voice, but it seemed it was impossible.
"Sea, get down," Arashi advised, "or else we'll be next!" Sea crouched down as low as possible, then saw Arashi's legs disappear; he was pulled into the wind as well. Before he could check for Serenade and Spark, he blanked out.

----
Golden Sun - The Lost Waters is was written by Serenade.

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