A Phoenix's Heart

🏖Chapter 13: Sea Temple Trip

🪸 November 24th: Traveling 

In the early Wednesday morning, Estella, Noelle, Nebra, and Solid awkwardly stood on the tropical beach accompanied by hyperactive Leopold, Mereoleona, and Fuegoleon. The two groups collided the day before. The three Vermillion siblings are on their two-week-long sibling vacation at a lovely Beach Resort to get away from all the attention of being royalty and having a break from their jobs. Estella and the three Silva siblings are at the tropical beach to train and visit the Seabed Temple without the help of the full moon. When it isn't a full moon, the strong currents surrounding the temple are at their full force and Noelle and Estella want to test out their spell's ability to withstand the pressure. Hearing of the danger and the excitement of their training exercises, the Vermillion three siblings insisted on joining them despite knowing that their powers would be completely useless in the depths of the ocean.

Estelle and Noelle step forward closer to the water with the group shuffling close behind them. "Are you ready?" asks Estella, patting the nervous Noelle on her back.

"As ready as I'll ever be. Hopefully, we don't die," she mutters.

"Okay. Remember we're doing a combination spell. Both of us together." Estella reaches out her hand to Noelle. She takes it cautiously, calming herself down before giving a determined look. "Combination magic: A Whale's Cradle," the two shout, casting a large barrier around them and the group behind them before they start to dive into the ocean. This trip isn't nearly as smooth-riding as the one Noelle had done with the black Bulls and is taking much more time. All of Noelle's and Estelle's attention is on maintaining their spell and moving forward as they get tossed around and beaten like a pinata by the rough currents.

Solid and Nebra, with the help and guidance from Scorpio and Cancer, cast and learn spells that help prevent physical damage or seasickness to the people inside as they are thrown around roughly. They hope to prevent anyone from falling out of the cradle. Nebra is ecstatic to learn healing spells, but Solid is less enthusiastic.

The spell shakes and wavers before eventually baking, landing everyone in the soft sand and coral of the Seabed temple. Estella and Noelle managed to maintain the spell for hours and they made it to the temple before collapsing from exhaustion. Fuegoleon carefully and lovingly carries Estella in his arms and Leopold carries Noelle on his back. Without anyone acting as their guide, the group wanders around lost, looking at all the strange creatures and wilderness. Fuegoleon had to threaten Mereoleona to prevent her from running off on her own.

"Noelle" screeched a voice out of nowhere. Everyone reacts immediately, getting into battle stances. Soon enough the source of the voice appeared. "Hi! My name is Kahono. It's great to finally have guests come visit us again. Come follow me! Everyone will be excited about your arrival" she chatters on walking in the opposite direction they had been walking in. At a loss for words, everyone followed the strange girl to the beautiful well-crafted underwater Seabed Temple.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 🦑 November 25th: Gameplay

"Let the games begin!!!" shouts Gifso from his control room alongside Noelle and Estelle. Noelle sits eagerly on the couch watching Temple Battle Royale 2.0 begin. In between Noelle and Gifso is Estella holding Fuegoleon's and Mereoleona's grimoires. Like Yami, they are too powerful to participate in the game but Mereoleona fought against this for hours. Eventually, she convinced Gifso and Fuegoleon to give up their grimoires to participate. Solid, Leopold, and Nebra also participated.