Dawn of Souls
Part Four

Back in Altea, Beck, Maria and Raine sat by the deathly King, along with Princess Georgia and Minyu.
“Princess Georgia, you have shown great courage through your assault on the empire’s battleship. I appoint you the rebel’s new general. May you lead this rebel to rise against the empire, and defeat this evil that has oppressed us all.” The King said. Georgia nodded respectfully.

“Minyu, you must travel to unlock the ultimate spell, Ultima. You know what to do,” said the King.
“Yes, sir, I do. I will spend all my effort on this task,” said Minyu. The King turned to the other three.
“You, my friends, have done a lot for this rebellion already, but you cannot stop the empire by yourselves. I want you to travel to Dist Castle, home of the Dragoons. They were attacked by the empire, and you need to find if there are any left who could help us.”
“Yes, milord,” said Beck, and the three left. They decided to head to Palm, to see if they could get a ride to Dist.

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Palm was rather empty, and still in ruins after the empire’s last attack with the Battleship. However, they did find a girl.

“Why, hello there strangers. What are you doing here in Palm?” she asked them.

“We’re warriors looking for a way to Dist,” replied Raine.
“That’s convient, I was just heading that way myself! You can come with me, if you’d like,” said the girl, and she jumped on to a ship. The three looked at each other.
“I don’t really trust her…” said Maria. Raine and Beck considered this, but they looked back at Palm, which was completely ruined, and the three realized they had no choice but to trust her. The three walked up to the ship, and boarded as well. Part way through the voyage, Beck, Maria and Raine were looking across the water while the girl was at the captain’s wheel. Suddenly, they were surrounded by several an entire crew of pirates.
“What’s going on here?!” exclaimed Beck. The girl laughed at them.
“Take their belongings and lock them up down below,” she said and returned to the wheel. The pirates all smirked and brought their scimitars to the warriors’ necks. Beck kicked the two in front of him, and pulled out his own sword, slicing a couple more. Raine lept up into the air, landed on the other side of the pirates, and started fighting his way through them, while Maria took out both her sword and a small knife she had hidden, and began cutting her way through as well.

“These ain’t no ordinary warriors…I wonder…” said the girl out loud to herself as she saw the three cut down her entire pirate crew. In a matter of minutes, the three warriors surrounded the last pirate, and he jumped off into the water in a futile attempt to save his life. The three went up to where the girl was.

“You’re a pirate captain?! You lied to us!” said Raine as he sliced where the girl was. She had jumped out of the way at the very last moment, and was now above them, hanging on a rope.
“I wasn’t lying, I told you that you could get a ride from me…I didn’t say I wasn’t going to take advantage of you!” said the girl as she jumped off the rope; just missing the dagger Maria had thrown at her.
“And I couldn’t’ve taken advantage of you if I had wanted to, so there’s no harm done,” she added. Beck grabbed the girl and held his sword against her throat.
“Enough tricks, pirate wench. We won’t be taken advantage of.” He said.
“Neither will I,” she replied, and she forced her way out of Beck’s grip. However, she suffered a large slash down her left arm in the process. She stood a few steps away from the three warriors, and she held her arm in pain. The three turned to her, weapons drawn.

“Now hold on a minute, before you kill me. I have something that might change your mind…” she said, and slowly removed her right glove.
“Notice we all have something covering our wrists? You’ve probably never even noticed this…” she said, and pointed to a glowing purple symbol on her wrist. Maria was the first one to take off a glove, and saw the same symbol, only green. Beck and Raine took off gauntlets around their wrists, and found the same glowing symbol, but in red and blue, respectively. The three looked at each other in bewilderment.

“Amiri…?” Raine slowly asked.
“Layla in this world, but yes. I didn’t know whether you guys had been transported to this world as well, and if so, where to find you, so I started this up. Looks like it’ll all be for the best, and this cut is nothing…nice to see you guys kept up your techniques…” she replied, wincing slightly.
“AMIRI!” yelled Maria as she hugged her friend.
“Woah, calm down, kiddo. Layla, remember, Layla…” she said, and the four soon arrived at Dist Castle.

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Once at Dist Castle, they found a woman, but that’s all they could find. They found out from her that all the Dragoons were dead, and there was only one Dragon left, Hiryuu, but nobody could understand him, because you need the pendant from the Cave of Dist to understand him. The four went to the Dist Cave, and found the pendant in the front of the cave. They returned to the Castle, and talked to Hiryuu. He told them that he was dying, and they cave him an egg that they were to put in the Spring of Life, deeper in the cave. He also told them that one Dragoon, named Richard, had gone to look for Ultima when the empire attacked, so he may still be alive. They took the egg, planted it in the Spring of Life, and returned in Layla’s ship to Altea.

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Back in Altea, they found out the King had died just after they left. So, they went to go see Hilda. Hilda asked for Maria, Layla and Raine to leave the room, and they did so. Hilda came closer to Beck, who was uneasy.

“I missed you while you were away…after this is all done, you should become my King…we could make a great couple…” she said seductively, as she leaned in to kiss Beck. Beck faltered, not sure of what to do, and in that second Hilda turned into a many headed and limbed monster, who then pinned Beck against a wall, holding his arms and legs still, and she drew a knife. Beck tried to yell for help, but the creature also gagged his mouth.

Meanwhile, in the hallway, Layla was looking at her wrist. It started to flash violently.
“He’s in trouble,” she said as she went towards the door. Raine grabbed her arm and held her back.
“How can you be sure? He’s in there with Princess Hilda, after all, maybe he just got excited?” he said.
“I don’t care about your stinkin’ Princess! He’s in trouble, and I’m helping him!” Layla replied, and kicked down the door. Seeing the situation, she threw sword at the monster, severing one of its heads, and with it went some limbs.  Layla then ran at the monster, punching and kicking at the thing. Maria and Raine ran in, and seeing the situation, grabbed their weapons.

The monster, by this time, had realized what was going on, and moved some limbs to grab the newcomers, hoisting them up into the air. It also decided it was better to move Beck into the air rather then have him pined against the wall, where he could be accessed. Layla jumped off the monster, trying to figure out a way to help her friends. Suddenly, a large tentacle hit her hard, and she flew against the opposite wall, and fell to the ground. She slowly got up, and then ran at the monster. At the last moment she sidestepped, grabbed a tentacle that was holding Raine’s arms, and swung around. The tentacle couldn’t handle the pressure, and Raine’s arms were free. He immediately cut a couple tentacles around him, while Layla jumped over to where Maria was. She took Maria’s knife, and slid down to a head, and stabbed it. Maria and Raine hit the ground, while the one remaining head kept Beck in the air while trying to get at Layla. Layla, on the other hand, was jumping from tentacle to tentacle evading the monster, and eventually the monster got confused enough that it tangled itself, and Beck, who had taken out his sword in the meanwhile, slashed the remaining head on his way down to the floor.  The monster withered, and then died.

“Well, I guess that wasn’t Princess Hilda after all?” said Raine.
‘But if we rescued a monster off of that battleship, where is Hilda?” asked Maria. Suddenly, a guard burst in.

“Warriors, warriors, watch out! Hilda is really a monster!” he said urgently.

“Thanks, we realized that,” replied Beck, pointing to the monster remains.
“Sorry, we just found out! The real Hilda is being held prisoner by the Emperor, and is being given away as a prize at the Arena!” he said.

“Well, let’s go rescue her again!” said Raine.
“I’d rather not…” replied Layla, who shrugged at their looks of disbelief. Suddenly Princess Georgia came in.
“If you guys are rescuing Hilda, I’m coming with you!” she said.
“Alright, Layla you can stay here and watch the castle. We’re going to rescue the Princess.” Said Beck. Layla nodded, and Maria, Raine, Beck and Georgia went to the Arena.

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At the Arena, they had to fight a monster called Behemoth. It was actually easier then the Hilda-imposter. After the monster had died, it seemed like the perfect time to get the emperor. However, the emperor had seen through their plan, and a trapdoor below them was opened, and they fell below. As they worked their way up, they soon found the real Hilda. They rescued her, and Georgia and Hilda ran off grabbed the Airship while the other three headed back to Altea, which was empty…