Everyone looked at the resurrected form of Alex, too stunned to say anything.
‘What?’ said Horatio after a moment. ‘You knew that we would use the Phoenix Feather on you?’
‘Well,’ said Alex from where he still sat in the circle of ash, stark naked, ‘I didn’t know for sure, but I trusted that you would. I hoped that you would. That was my plan all along—that the Feather would act as a fail-safe in case I was killed, and that you lot would be around to use it on me should that happen.’
Horatio took this in.
‘What?!’ he said again, unable to contain his outrage. Nobody else said anything.
‘Don’t look too surprised,’ Alex said to him. ‘I recovered the Phoenix Feather from my hiding place for it in a tetrachamber in Balamb quite some time ago, but a design flaw—or maybe it’s a feature?—of it is that is that it requires someone else to use it on you. Ever since you lot caught up to me in the Frozen Waste when I was retrieving the Sword I’ve thought you would make good companions for me on this Quest, to do things like use the Feather on me if I was killed. But if you had known just how horrible and dangerous it was here in the depths of Braxia, and just how likely the chances of your own deaths, I wasn’t sure that you would have come. So once the ex-Braxian teleported us here I charged off into deepest Braxia in the hope that you would come after me, and work out to use the Feather on me if I was killed. I couldn’t tell you about it directly, you see, as that could have potentially revealed its existence to the Braxians, who might have overheard—or in case one or more of you is a traitor.’
Alex finished his explanation and smiled, leaving only loquacious silence filled with the unheard sounds of thirteen minds processing this information.
‘You…’ stammered Horatio. ‘You lied to us! You trickster!’
Alex winked at him and waggled a finger. ‘Now now, let’s not be calling each other names! I never actually lied to you, if you think about it. I only ever told you not to follow me—which made you pursue me all the harder!’
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‘Isn’t that basically the same thing?’ said Horatio as spokesperson for the group.
‘I don’t think it is, no.’
‘That was extremely risky of you!’ said Tyler. At least someone else was as outraged about this as Horatio was. ‘What if we hadn’t followed you? What if the thief girl hadn’t found the Feather, and we hadn’t used it on you?’
‘Good point,’ said Alex, then pursed his lips together and nodded. ‘I guess I just had a feeling about you guys. I knew you wouldn’t let me down, in the end.’
‘But we would have followed you anyway,’ said Ceres, frowning. She seemed more hurt than outraged. ‘We would have followed you if you had asked us to come with you. And none if us is a traitor.’
‘That may be true for you, young lady,’ Alex replied. His green eyes ranged quickly over the group, sparkling. ‘But it may not necessarily be true for all of you.’
‘No matter about that anymore,’ jumped in Tyler, ‘what’s important is that there’s still hope! With you alive again, we can still get back the Sword and defeat Brax! We can prevent my future from coming true!’
‘Indeed,’ said Alex. ‘Although, I have no more Phoenix Feathers. That was my last one. So if I, or any of us, die, from here on—that’s it. No coming back. At least until the afterlife…’
There’s a chance we might still have been able to do it even without Alex… Horatio thought. Had nobody remembered that just before they had found the Feather they had been about to attempt to take on the tower by themselves?
‘Well,’ said Ross, ‘what are we standing around here for, then?’ He pointed. ‘We need to get into that tower and get back the Sword, and stop Brax from being summoned!’
Everyone nodded at that.
‘I quite agree,’ said Alex. ‘Come on, everyone, let’s finally get to that tower.’
The only problem was that the land between them and the tower was still thick with monsters, a group of which suddenly attacked them.
Battle 1