Eagle Labyrinth

(... I'm going to join this.... Tomorrow :V)

(I'd like to join. As we've already discussed, so unless you don't want me to join or change your mind, I'll post tomorrow like Will)

A strange scratching sound would come out of the darkness, first quiet. It grew in intensity, and as it grew louder, strange moans began to join the sound of metal rasping against sand. Then, silence. Finally, with one momentous grunt, and the sound of shearing metal, the sounds stopped. They were replaced by quiet clacking, the sound of a hard object hitting against the floor. The sound was coming from behind Sin and Guy, crawling eerily out of the dark abyss that encompassed the room almost entirely. A deep breath, then muffled coughing. "Blast this damn sand... I had enough of that, escaping from the Gerudo..." a strange, hollow voice said. Both Sin, and Guy, would see that there was a pair of orange eyes a good distance behind them, staring straight at where they stood.

Green power flared to life around the Deku's fists, lighting up the rest of his body, casting a dark shadow across his face. his gauntlets thrummed with power, the ethereal glow providing him with ample enough light. Looking at Guy and Sin, whom he could now see, though not in detail, Dante cocked his head to the side. He could tell that the male Deku was Guy; he'd known him long enough to know his characteristic pants, his red, almost maroon, scarf. Dante had also heard Guy's voice through the metal door that he had opened. Dante had come from another room from behind them. It was tiny, most likely some sort of storage area, because it was filled with crates that had long been emptied. Looking at the other Deku, all that Dante could tell that she, or at least he thought it was a she, was some kind of warrior, judging by her armor and the staff, whose head he could not make out. Not knowing this other person, Dante decided to keep his distance, and call out to Guy and Sin.

"Uh, Guy, you wouldn't happen to have any idea where the hell we are, would you? I can't remember anything. It's like this blasted darkness is even in my head." Dante griped. Though he did not look it, Dante did not drop his guard. His arms were at his sides, yes, but his left hand was fidgeting with the grip of his Whirlwind. His right was ready to grab the hilt of his blade, should the need arise. He took no further steps, choosing to stay where he was at, until he could identify the third party. "And if you don't mind, madame, may I have your name?" Dante did not offer his own, and would not until he felt safe enough to do so.

It was dark, completely pitch black. Rika felt conscious, but all he could see was darkness, so he couldn't really tell. He opened and closed his fists a couple times, as if trying to make sure he could move. It took Rika a second to realize he was being kind of stupid, and he stood up. He still couldn't see a thing. As he stood up, like right beside his head was an un-lit torch. How convenient. Of course, it wouldn't be if you didn't have a way of lighting it. Luckily for Rika, however, he possessed such an ability.

Backing up a little, he held his palm out. Fire swirled at the center of his palm, quickly firing out in the form of a ball. It struck the top of the torch, the fire impacting with the wall above the torch. Some of the fire spread across the wall, but nonetheless, the torch was lit. It provided some light, and with it Rika could at least tell what was in the room. The room was somewhat small, actually. It was rather empty, with a couple small boxes sitting on the walls. Other then that, it was empty. It was more like a large hallway rather then a room. At the northern end was a door. However, strong steel chains wrapped across it, with a large silver lock in the middle.

On the other, southern end of the room, there was another door. However, unlike the other one, this door didn't have any sort of locks on it. Rika didn't see any other place to go, so he walked towards the southern door. Hopefully he wouldn't be attacked by anything. He pulled open the door, to see what was beyond.

As Guy accosted him, for even the possibility of mentioning why he had never spoken of Sienna to him, Dante couldn't help but be reminded of how he had never told Guy of his adopted son. Though he was gone now, it still felt awkward to talk about it at all around Guy. That's right. It had always been this way. The two had known that their personal lives were somehow set aside from the ones that they led together. There was no place for that, in the world of death and war. Past lives were only a liability. In that respect, Dante could understand where Guy was coming from. Of course, as usual, Dante was tempted to poke fun at Guy. He probably would have, except that it seemed that Sienna was staring daggers at the back of Guy's head, and straight at Dante as well. Her eyes made no empty threats.

Deciding to drop the matter, Dante looked over at Sienna, as Guy turned towards the northern door. He was just about to ask her a question, somewhere along the lines of "Guy hasn't told me much about you. What do you do for a living?", in order to get some small talk going to ease the tension, but quickly realized that she would just as likely take his head from his shoulders, as give him an answer. This was only confirmed by her feral roar, which vibrated in Dante's head as it tore the the room, quickly following by tremors from her glaive smashing against the door. He cringed with each bang. "Guy, are you sure she's your sister? She doesn't have your sense of.... style." Dante whispered to Guy, edging closer to him. For some reason, he felt safe next to Guy; and that said something about their situation, for sure.

Seeing the door collapse, in a puff of dust, Dante saw that there was a figure behind the veil of dirt and sand. Dante had already let his hands fall to his waist, although the Wind Enchantment was still laid upon his fists. He did not bother to bring his hands up in a guarding position. Sienna had walked away, without cutting this figure down. As such, Dante assumed that this was a friendly person standing in the doorway. Dante was not prepared to see yet another friendly face. As the cloud finally settled, a young Kokiri face was revealed to the Deku. His eyes widened slightly in surprise. It had been a very long time since he had seen that face, which had not aged even a year. Still keeping the same cherubim features he'd had even when they had first met, the Kokiri stood in front of him as if not a day had passed.

"Rika...?"

Most of what Rika spotted was darkness. He saw a glowing Deku further in. Well, at least someone hopefully friendly. Before he could take a step forward, however, he heard something shout out a battle cry. Rika quickly grabbed his scythe, ready to block. He was lucky, he probably would've been sliced in half if he was a second later. He struggled to hold back the glaive, but she was so much stronger then him. Which was funny when he noticed she was a Deku. She quickly seemed to stop and walk off, as if not considering Rika an enemy- or a threat- anymore.

Rika was confused for a moment or two, but managed to say something. "'The hell was that?!" He kind of exclaimed out of surprise. Well, he was almost killed by a Deku, one who had more physical strength then him. The door he had opened was sliced in half, as if butter, too. "I'm. . . glad that's not me?" He said to himself, if still a little confused. Then, another Deku walked up to him. Luckily, however, he wasn't trying to assault Rika. "No, I think I'm fine." He said, before noticing that he had said yet. Nonetheless, however, Rika just shrugged it off. "But anyway, you guys wouldn't happen to know the way out of here, right? I woke up in the room I came from, and I'm kind of surprised to find other people. Oh, and I'm-" He paused as the glowing Deku said his name.

". . . Yeah, I'm Rika. How'd you know my name? I think you look a little familiar, but I can't really tell. Even with the glowing it's pretty dark in here." He said, looking over the Deku a little more. He looked a little familiar, but Rika had met a lot of Deku before. Meanwhile, Rika's appearance was virtually the same, so assuming they remembered, anyone that had met him would probably recognize him on the spot. The glowing was kind of throwing Rika off, too. Of course, he had met this particular Deku before, but it had been quite some time since then. He was starting to remember. His appearance had changed somewhat, but you could still tell. "Oh, Dante!" Rika said to the Deku. I don't know how I didn't remember, but it's been a while still. . . I haven't met the either of you, have I?" He said, speaking the past part towards Guy and Sienna.

"Hm. No, I don't think I've met the either of you. . ." Rika said. That wasn't really the point now, however. Turning his head to his side, he looked at the room he had just came from. "Actually, Guy, there is a locked door in that room." He said, before looking back into the room they were currently in. "There should probably be a key somewhere in here, then. I'd like to say it's hidden in one of the statues, but that wouldn't really make much sense. . . But then again, that's usually how these things work." Rika looked around the room again. It could be in the room south of them, the room that Dante had entered in. Well, there was only one way to find out, really. It was rather dark in the room, however. Although Dante's glow allowed some light, it didn't exactly light the whole room up.

"Perhaps the statues? Perhaps it is hidden within them, or perhaps the statues are somehow used to open the door... That seems fairly reasonable. And if all else fails, maybe Sienna would be able to cut the lock off. She seemed to have done fairly well with the door." Dante looked down at the door that Sienna had been striking, ran his fingers across it. He shivered as he imagined her glaive cleaving his tiny body in half. "Nothing more than firewood..." He mused, shaking his head. But why was she so different? He looked at Guy, then passed a furtive glance towards Sienna. Guy was always in control of himself; nothing ever slipped, his facade of cool composure never breaking in the time Dante had known him. But, his sister... She was compulsive, violent, let her emotions control her.

Dante couldn't help but mock himself. He thought about himself, his own quest for revenge. Am I any different? he wondered to himself. At the very least, he was aware that his anger and hatred would consume him in the end. But he was powerless against his own heart, which burned with wrath as he remembered. Perhaps something made her this way? he asked himself, thinking that perhaps Sienna, too, had a reason for her violent tendencies. Dante shrugged. He could just be wrong, too.

"Hm, yeah. . ." Rika also began to inspect the statues, although to a lesser extent then Guy. He looked into the hole of one, but didn't see anything. Rika somewhat considered trying to smash one, but he couldn't, anyway. At least, not very easily. A scythe or daggers weren't great for smashing, and none of his spells really had any destructive force in it. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise in a different part of the room, by Guy. Rika looked over towards it curiously, as it slowly rose in pitch.

Suddenly, a ball of fire spit out from it, almost setting Guy ablaze. Almost immediately afterwards, the statue to the right of Rika- all of the statues around him, really- started making the same strange noise. Guy started running into the northern room, and Rika wasted no time wondering what was going on. He quickly darted in the same direction, to get into the room. While a fireball wouldn't completely destroy him like it would the rest of the group he was with, it would most certainly hurt him.

Dante was also inspecting the statues, though with much more caution than Guy. Dante was not a fan of sticking his hands into places that he could not see, especially in a dungeon, where his unconscious body had been dragged. Sidling up next to a statue, then looking into its mouth from the side, Dante slowly walked to the statue's front. He looked farther into the mouth, saw nothing in interest. He placed his hand into the statue, searching for the key. However, he felt nothing, felt only cool, moist stone. Admiring the workmanship of the statue, Dante nearly didn't realize that something his changed before it was too late. At about the same time the fireball was rising up in the statue that Guy had his hand in, Dante too, experienced much the same thing. Shit! was all that Dante could think, before yanking his arm out of the statue so forcefully that he fell backwards to the ground.

A fireball sailed over head, flew off into the void. "Crap!" Dante yelled out, scrambling to his feet. He heard Guy's warning, knew that the same thing was happening to Guy and Rika. Dante booked it towards the north door, his legs pumping as quickly as they could. Grabbing his Whirlwind, Dante shot a blast of air forward, diverting one of the fireballs that had been about to intersect with his path forward. Literally jumping through the doorway, Dante looked around, sighed, and relaxed. No more statues.

Following behind Guy, Rika had ran in the room, narrowly avoiding being smacked with a fireball. It wouldn't damage him too bad, but it was a situation worth avoiding. Nonetheless, the group was in the room Rika initially appeared in. The flickering torch on the wall he had lit provided light, although not a lot. Sienna had attempted to smash the door and the lock, but to no avail, it seems. As Sienna asked if they had gotten the key, Guy turned to him.

". . . Damn it. None of us got the key, did we?" Rika asked in a bit of a disgruntled tone. Going back into the room would be dangerous when 3/4ths of their group die when they see fire strolling down the road. God forbid if the fire said hello.

"Well don't look at me. I didn't get it." Dante shook his head at Sienna, Guy, and Rika. Looking at the door, and hearing Sienna's response, Dante figured that she hadn't had much success either. "But that doesn't necessarily mean we can't still get past this door." Walking up to Sienna, he looked at the Door, then at her glaive. It hadn't cut the lock, but it had bent considerably. Reaching around his back, he found the small pouch that contained his blade sharpening knife, that he used for his kukri. "Here. We'll give it another try." Dante handed the small knife to Sienna, knowing that she would know what to do with it. She seemed a fairly knowledgeable scrub, if only slightly crazy.

"If I may." Dante asked, motioning towards the glaive with this still glowing fists. Without waiting for a reply, for he didn't really care if Sienna said no or not anyways, he walked over to the blade of the glaive, laid his hands upon the cool metal. The green glow shifted from his fists to the blade, and grew brighter as the two lights merged together into a stronger enchantment. "Try now. We might be able to blow the lock off yet."

Rika stood around, waiting as Sienna broke down the lock of the door. Rather well done. As the door was open, Rika was close to walking in it and checking thinkings out, when Guy took the initiative and went in first. He was stopped by the pitch darkness, however, and turned back around. Asking Rika for the torch he had, Rika couldn't remember when he was actually holding the torch and simply lit it on the wall. Nonetheless, Rika was about to turn around and pull it off the wall, when he spotted some black hand-like creature with talons swiftly approaching Guy.

"Look out!" Rika shouted, quickly pointing his palm forward. A ball of ice formed and unleashed from his hand, flying over Guy and striking the creature. It let out a somewhat strange but mostly horrifying screech, as it was thrown back into the room. Due to it's size, it was more then likely frozen, too. As it flew back into the room, Rika slowly lowered his arm. He was being a little cautious, just in case something else would decide to jump out at them. ". . . I guess that means there'll be enemies from here on out." He somewhat quietly said. After that, Rika remembered the torch. He grabbed the torch off the wall, pulling it off with relative ease.

He was about to hand it to Guy, then he remembered; The entire group was made of Deku. ". . . I guess I should carry it?" He said, gripping the handle of the torch. It, along with Dante if he chose to glow, were their only sources of light. Of course, if they encountered anymore torches they could simply light those. For now, this would have to do.