five; labyrinth (part two)

They entered the red door's room and was greeted by the monotonous voice once again.

"Welcome to the second stage. Hopefully, you won't disappoint me this time either."

"...You were wrong, Aerol..." Aerron sighed. "Argh. And here I thought I could finally let loose!"

Shion looked at him oddly. "What?! You're really sad over that fact? At least we're not gonna be minced meat today. Jeez, you're really weird, you know that?"

Aerron looked at him back, clearly offended. "Ah! Do you not believe in Aerol and I's ability to fight that much?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. But only for you. Aerol looks completely capable." Shion shrugged.

Aerron had a mix of reactions in him; infuriation, shock, sadness, and... well, all of the above, I guess. "...I guess it's time to do that. Aerol, don't bother helping me this time..."

Aerron rushed to an empty, dust covered corner and sulked. Yes, the uptight general's son sulked.

Shion looked shocked. "Hey, Aerol. Does he always do that?"

Aerol laughed bitterly. "Yes, but only at.... certain times." He didn't elaborate further.

Though soon, Aerron went back to normal and resumed his regular, run of the mill antics.

They looked for a board again, but found no such thing. Instead, they found some words scribbled on the wall.

"What belongs to you, but is used by other people more?" Aerron thought.

"Ack, this is hard too!" Shion complained, ruffling his hair.

At the side, Aerol was thinking hard.

"...Argh, I give up...!" Shion whispered incoherently. He didn't know at all, he wasn't a fan of such things either. Thus, he did what people like him would do.

"...Zzz."

Sleep.

Aerron looked at him oddly. "He really slept, huh?" He kicked him once. Shion didn't budge an inch, nor wake up. "Woah!"

"Please don't play with him, Aerra..." Aerol sighed at his brother's antics. Er, sister. "Er, Aerron."

"Oh? Is older brother Aerol losing his demeanor?~ You know how well-kept that secret is supposed to be, right~" Aerron, being a stupid little sibling, then teased Aerol.

"Yes, yes. I should always-" He stopped.

(Wait.... Secret?) Aerol thought quickly.

"I got it!" He ran to the board and shouted, "secret!"

"Ack... Yes, correct. Please... enter the next room..."

The voice cracked for a moment.

"C'mon, Shion, wake up!" Aerron woke up Shion.

"Oh.. uh, did we get it?" Shion looked around frantically with his left hand on his forehead.

"Yup, so come on!" Aerron nudged the sleepy Shion.

"...Sike! You idiots! There's no way I'd let you go just like that!" The monotonous voiced cackled.

Shion and Aerron toppled over a bit, and Aerol ran to them.

"Shoot we were tricked...!" Aerol bit his nail.

The candles dimmed and the walls drew closer to each other, like a claustrophobic person's worst place to be.

"Damn, what exactly did you guys do while I was sleeping?!" Shion shook Aerron.

"Calm down, Shion! We'll get out of this!" Aerol tried to stop Shion. Tried.

"W-woah... Three Shions? Is the world going insane...?" Meanwhile, Aerron was feeling nauseated... "Did I eat too much during breakfast...? They wanna come oUT!" He gagged.

Pew!

Suddenly, a bunch of water balls flew in their direction! Everyone looked back, and saw water banshees entering past the wall. They screeched in unison and began to run.

"...Aerron." Aerol looked at his brother, as if confirming some grand scheme to rule the world! ...Or something like that.

"Yeah, I got you." Aerron responded his brother's shady sounding call.

Shion, confused, stopped shaking Aerron and hid behind the two. "So, uh, can I just sit here behind you guys?"

"Sure. I think that would be better for all of us, actually." Aerol responded, pulling nunchucks out of... Seemingly nowhere, actually. "Ready?"

Aerron nodded in reply.

...And they ran. Towards the annoyingly screeching banshees made out of pure water, and to, what Shion refers to as "near death".

Aerron rushed ahead first. He kicked some of them, and used some of his magi as explosive devices to push them away. He got wet, of course, but managed to deal with them somehow. All [golems], or monsters in this case, have some sort of [core] in their body. Usually, the same type of golems have the same location of their core. That was what the twins were looking for!

[Flashback:

"Big brother, what's a [core]?" A young, ten year old Aerra asked Aerol, who was also reading under the shade of a beautiful tree.

"Hm?" Aerol went to Aerron and looked at what she was pointing at and smiled. "Oh, that's simple! If we humans have hearts, then golems have cores! If we destroy the core, then we destroy the golem. Simple, right?"

"Yup, thanks Aerol." Aerra continued burrying herself in the book.]

The twins continued crushing cores, and in turn the golems, and quickly defeated three dozen or so of them. They learned a lot because of their, uh, complicated man of a father. Thus, they already knew of the cores' location.

Shion's eyes gleamed. "Woah, look at them go! In my hometown, they would be the strongest of the strong! If only big brother could see this..." He snickered at the last bit. (Man these two are tough!) He thought silently.

(Though, if Shion was strong, why didn't he join in the fight as well?) In the end, Aerol couldn't help but be just a little bit more wary of him.

"Shion! Watch out!" Suddenly, Aerron shouted.

Aerol looked back at Shion and watched as the incoming banshee froze in it's tracks and... broke apart. Aerol stared at Shion in shock and looked him in the eye. Except, Shion's eyes were covered by his hair.

"...Phew, I thought you were a goner!" Aerron felt relieved.

(What?! Aerra, don't you see-) Aerol thought at first, but he realized what he meant eventually.

Shion smiled at Aerron. "Hehe, lucky break eh?"

(Just who exactly is this Shion... And what is he doing here?) Were the last thoughts of Aerol before everything turned black.