Chapter 3: The Venture to the Gate.

A bright light shutters through the sky within the desert as Belerick enters through while Leomord is dragged across the heated sands.

"Are you awake friend, hello?" Belerick's kind voice tries to reach Leomord, but nothing but a gust of wind replies.

"You should be careful moving him around. We don't want to have to clean him if he gets dirty from all this sand, he's soul is still stuck under that undead skin after all..." Lunox spouts as she exits the dissipating rift.

"Then I will carry our friend to the Oasis, it should be safe there for him to stay for a while..."

Lunox lingers her gaze across the scorching desert with only but an image of a gate in mind. She steps onto a mound of sand, clearing her view over the vast land she has to go through.

"I'll be with you soon, I need to see something else first..."

Belerick felt a sting through his head, knowing where his friend will be heading. Droplets of water from the plants on his branches start to move, slowly gathering into a leaf. He slips his hands into it as he folds it into a small canteen.

"It will take you a while to get there, here. You'll need to take some under the sun."

Her gentle smile ran across her face, in everlasting gratitude for her friend's kindness.

"Thank you, Belerick. You always have been so kind to others, even if they never did anything for you in return."

"Anything for a friend..."

Wings slowly turns into a bright gold, drawing from the sun into it. They grow as Lunox begins her journey towards her calling, the vivid image of a gate.

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"She will come, our child of twilight. She will be allowed to pass, let her to pass, guardian..."

The flames across his frozen arms grew brighter as his lifeless body returns from it's sleep, his eyes fill the empty crypt with a bloody red. The return of the awaited guardian of the orb, Aldous.

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"How long will it take to get there, how long has it been since I saw the last life here? This lands has changed in the passing time..."

Lunox passes across the skies, her wings gliding through passing clouds and occasional gusts of wind, gazing over the baren wasteland that used to be filled of life thanks to Belerick's oasis. Only awakened moments ago before venturing to the abyss, her curse stood has it always been...

Through a passing cloud, her eyes opens as she sights her quest, a tremendous gate that sit agaisn't a mountain of sandstone. Peeks of large stone minotaurs near the beginnings of the gate. Her beats quicken as she descent towards it, knowing what awaits her in it's crypts.

The familiar scene runs around her head, slowly stuggling bit by bit as she tries to figure out where she seen this gate before...

Her small silhouette falls short as she walks towards the towering gate, the stagnant strands of webs scatter across it's cracks and corners, crossing sands pass through the statues in the wind. Lunox finds it weird, rather odd for these gate to be rotting and flowling through time.

"How long has it been since-" A sense of menace spikes cuts through Lunox as her wings grown darker is shade, a threatning aura consumes her focus as dark energy flows through her arm and gathers onto her hand.

"It's been a while, Maiden of Order and Chaos..." A scorched voice seeps through the rubbled cracks.

The sound of rumbling stones fall to the sand, cracks of machinery echoes through the empty chasm behind the massive doors as they start to open. Lunox finds herself eager to cast her bolt as a hooded figure begins to appear from the shadows, a pair of beaming red lights appears with lines of fire runs through it's arm, most nearing to it's hand.

"The contract will stand, but the orb is expecting you. You have passage to enter the crypts." The figure speaks as it turns over it's hood, a golden mask behind it that streched across it's face.

Her mind suddenly felt heavy, in waves of confusion on where she had met this being before. Her darkened wings slowly unravels back to shades of timid black and lighten white.

"How long has it been expecting me?"

"I say 5 hours, but that time bird hasn't visited in years, so it's just an estimate. All I know for sure that it's been waiting for a while." Aldous replies, glaring at Lunox as he explains. He sights that she's fidgetting with her hands, wrapping her own fingers around her palm, the fact of her listening to his explaination was found useless to him.

"So you're still cursed of your time, how long did it take you to reach here?"

"I don't know... It's been a quick moment when I left from the Oasis." Lunox stares up Aldous, quitting herself of her fidgetting.

"*Sigh* Let's not waste both our times, or rather, mine... Come."

Steps fill the empty passage with Aldous' flames dimly bright the path ahead of them. The dark tunnel issued her, not being able to see what lies ahead. Lunox held out her hand, she begins to release bright golden orbs which start to float towards the dark area ahead. Aldous falls to a trance, knowing the tunnel used to be brightly lit like it is now. From the first day he entered the contract, to the last day when it happened years ago...

"Are you okay, did something entered your head?"

Lunox's voice ends his trance, left confused for the feeling of nostalgia that passed him. It has been a while since he felt an emotion like that. It's been years since then.

"Yeah, just thought about something. Let's continue."

Echoes of steps continues to fill the tunnel while they're nearing to the maze. Aldous not dared to speak on his own will while Lunox still struggles to figure out why all these places are familiar to her. A large opening appears in front of their stop, a new passage on both sides. They finally made their way to the unending room, the Maze of Minos. A sight to disturb, piles of ashes and bones, scraps of flesh among the walls. The labyrinth that was rumored to be a death house stood true to it's name.

"Many had tried to enter this labyrinth to obtain the orb, yet all met their fate here and never left."

"What ended their lives and how did they reached this point that left them in ashes." Lunox questions Aldous as she looks at the remains of past beings.

"Me..." Aldous replies with him filling a gap within the wall, placing his hand into it as it glows bright flames, soon running across the whole maze. Sounds of shifting walls and rackets as the wall in front of them starts to move and other walls soon followed. Lunox gazes to the end of the shifting rocks, her sight set forth for the very thing had needed to settle with, the Twilight Orb...