Chapter Text
Wind entered the open door, fully expecting it to be a simple room like that last one had been, however what greeted him instead was a narrow cavern of ice, crystalline patterns carved into light blue walls. His fingers traced the shapes and swirls, trying in vain to understand them, a chill ran through him. Reluctantly he realized he’d have to wear the fire jewelry in order to progress… he put the macabre bracelet around his wrist, a bit of ash falling from between the chain links, he shivered once more, this time it wasn’t from the cold.
A voice, angry in tone, caught his attention as he cautiously made his way deeper into the narrow passageway. The fire magic kept him warm as the air around him seemed to grow icier, his breath becoming visible as puffs of mist. The voice grew louder, and though mumbled and disjointed, sounded familiar… The recognition caused the knots in his stomach and throat to thicken, nausea and choking breath fighting for his attention as he withdrew his blade. Please… please don’t make me fight him... Please…
As he crept ever nearer to the end of the passageway, it opened into what seemed to be a room. The voice now clearer and more disturbing, “They call you a hero… but which one of us can claim that stupid title anyways, hmm?” “Pathetic… we couldn’t even save ourselves. Now look at us, all the pretty little shattered pieces, pretending to be whole…” it hissed. Wind swallowed his grief down and peeked into the room proper. There, in front of a wall of ice that had been polished to a mirror finish, stood a blue clad ‘Four’ angrily spitting pure vitriol toward himself. His voice raising and lowering from near scream to poisoned whisper.
Wind knew he wouldn’t be able to sneak in behind the man as the entire wall seemed to reflect the other side. So with a steady breath in, he stood and walked into the room. As expected, the blue clad version of his partner noticed him right away. ‘Four’ whipped around with a snarl on his face, immediately dark blue eyes zeroed in on Wind’s ruby clad wrist. Anger wasn’t even the right word for the emotion that flashed dangerously hot in the copy of Four’s eyes. Yes, it had to be a copy, because Wind couldn’t bear to think of him as anything else as ‘Four’ bellowed “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM!?” Pulling out a hammer and coming WAY too close to smashing Wind into smitereens. Wind leapt and rolled out of the way just as the weapon came crashing down leaving a small crater where he’d just been standing. He hardly had time to think “Who? Wait…” before he was desperately sprinting out of the way… he didn’t want to fight back at first. Copy or not… he still looked like Four and he was still shaken from the… other ‘Four’ incident. So he switched tactics, going from sword to boomerang, hoping to use it to knock the hammer out of his adversary’s hands. And, he had to give the copy credit, it fought with all the tenacity and power of the real Four. He was more than grateful that he knew his partner’s fighting style really really well… he knew Four’s moveset and saw it hadn’t even changed as the blue one charged over and over, seeming intent on boxing him into a corner. Wind faked another dodge to the right just in time to roll to the left under and out of the way of yet another swing. The hammer then crashed, full force, into the mirror-like surface of the wall… a huge spider web of cracks quickly spread throughout the ice. ‘Four’ screeched, “NO!” as the wall started to crumble and fall, rushing inexplicably toward the massive chunks of ice. And despite only moments ago trying to smash him to bits, Wind grabbed the man by his dark blue tunic and yanked him away from the falling debris. “No, no, NO! Red! Green! Vio! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” The man flailed in Wind’s arms, crying and punching at him in fevered desperation… oddly weak in the face of the devastation caused by his hammer blows. Wind felt the ‘copy’ growing unusually cold in his arms, he looked down to notice crystals of ice forming on the hairs of his arm. Letting go with a yelp, he watched helpless once more as the blue version of his partner slowly became engulfed in ice. Having fallen with his feet already frozen to the floor, the horrible sound of cracking ankle bones echoed off the frozen walls as the man screamed out, only to have his voice stolen from his very throat as the crystals quickly silenced him. Now left frozen solid, forever reaching out towards the broken wall, locked in a look of fear and agony.
A familiar, sickening pit of grief overwhelmed Wind, deepening as he watched the ice—and the eerily perfect copy of Four—begin to dissolve. His hands flung to his mouth in shock as, bit by bit, the man in the ice simply disappeared into a snow-like powder, sprinkling down onto the ground into a little white pile…and before long, that was all that was left. A pile of snow with a necklace of gold and sapphire resting in it. Eerily, all too similar to the pile of ash that had once been the “red copy”.
Wind just stared listlessly at the pile of snow, the sapphire amulet was the very same blue as the one in the pommel of the Four Sword… did that mean… he had to destroy two other versions of Four? He finally scooped the amulet up and dusted away the remainder of ice and snow clinging to the chain… trying not to think about what that ice had once been “it’s just a copy… it’s just a really really good copy…”
He exited the ice cavern with rushed steps, he didn’t want to stay in there any longer than he had to… for the sake of his sanity. Slipping the chain around his neck, under the assumption he might need it, he heard the snap of the door shutting behind him and the now expected creak of another door just down the hall a bit. There were only three doors left now… the other two colors and a boss room, he guessed. He didn't want to think about what or… who the final boss could be.