Recapturing the Tower

Mia panted as she ascended the tower, goop dripping down from the cracks within. Surely the phantoms would let up soon!
Behind her Salsa trotted behind her, smiling under all her golden jangewy (what Rose dubbed Salsa's jewelry as soon as they met), an entire hoard of phantoms clogging the rugged staircase behind them.
For Salsa, this was a game.
For Mia, this was life.
Her fluffy scarf did not soothe her at all, and the poinseitta earrings she picked out for the Jamaalidays didn't please her anymore. Right now, all she wanted to do was snuggle with Frost, Snowy and Zion and smell flowers.
But that couldn't happen. Snowy and Frost were away in Hyrestia, and Zion was away at a chess tournament with Parlan. Plus, Frost and Zion's relationship got rocky after they fought over her departure for Hyrestia.
Outside, the soft pitter-patter of muck drops hit the grass, poisoning the river and gunking up the statues of the Alphas outside. Below, the monkeys imprisoned had been freed, the phantom watchers disabled, and the lot of them let loose on the hoard of rare items that Mia and Salsa let them at after they melted the bars around the hoard. Salsa's eyes had twinkled at their goodwill, and Mia had thought to herself that once, every member of the Jamaasian Heroes went through what she went through, their rookie mission.
But right now, instead of turning scammers into newts or playing games with kits, they were doing an important mission for the Alphas. One that started with Cosmo.
Mia yelped as a slimy tentacle groped at her tail. Her recently combed fur and manicured claws were beginning to look like Elvis lived on her just the way the rugged Savior was used to, and her courage ebbing away.
"Salsa! RUN FASTER!" she yowled. Salsa, despite being an elephant that was 70% jewelry, sped up in desperation. Yet, she could scent the exhaustion on their breath. Sooner or later, they would be overwhelmed by the horde of newly spawned phantoms, recaptured and probably executed.
They trampled over the stairs, desperately running from the brigade of danger consuming the space behind them, yet yellow spots started to do the foxtrot in Mia's eyes.
The light was just ahead, yet so far away... The light of the porch...
Then, with one last breath, Mia collapsed, and darkness surged over her.

It all began with Cosmo's crazy request back when Mia was hiding in the Kimbara Outback, just because Marco told her to, saying that she was on a secret mission to find Sabre, his long-lost friend. She complained that Pink forsaw before she left for Hyrestia that Tango would run up to Lisa and tell her she was missing, but Marco insisted that Sabre was a Jamaasian Hero, and would play a role in events to come.
She watched Pandora make her rounds with boredom, reflecting how Mia felt (and cramped, and thirsty, and hungry, and homesick, and tired, and agitated), when an aura that felt like the woods and even smelled like it washed over Mia's nose. She sniffed once, twice, thrice, then finding no danger in the aura, glanced at the one who made the aura.
It was Cosmo, smiling at her, yet looking as if he'd recently seen a ghost and wasn't too pleased about it.
"Waaaugh!" cried Mia.
Cosmo simply smiled, and reached out his paw for her.
"Hello, there, dear. You seem... distressed."
"Cosmo! Marco's mission was a SECRET! A god-forsaken SECRET!"
Cosmo frowned, as if all that was right in the world just drooped like a wilted violet.
"Marco's secret mission? That troublemaker has more secrecy to him than we ever thought. I'll have to talk to him about that." he sighed.
"Still, if you don't mind calling off your mission, as any mission that requires sitting for hours on end in a bush for no good reason doesn't need to continue."
Mia opened her mouth to protest, then closed it without a single word. She realized that Cosmo was right, as she didn't even know who this "Sabre" guy was.
"Fine, Cosmo. But if its a mission, please let me bring Salsa along. She needs... some experience with missions. Her rookie mission, if you'd say."
Cosmo looked at her adoringly, as if she were his granddaughter, and her report card just had straight As in arithmetic, language arts, history, art, music, P.E., science, computer club, and best of all, Jamaasian Studies.
"Well, what do you know. One of the friends of Frost has some common sense of duty. Plus, this is a rather simple mission, and a good one, too. Salsa certainly can tag along. Plus, its on the outskirts of Jamaa, near the magical border, so she'll get a good idea of what its like to adventure as a Jamaasian Hero. You adventure to bring justice and freedom to the unruly depths of Jamaa, destroy Apophis for good, vanquish all of the Phantom's troops, and bring virtue to Jamaa. Nothing like inner politics and M.I.A. can seperate Mira's chosen!"
Cosmo spread his arms hopefully, obviously trying to shove some tender optimism in Mia's face. She didn't want to break to Cosmo that there were a few romantic problems within the heroes and that Ledra was still missing, but she decided against something as cold as the truth.
Cosmo sighed, and puffed up his chest and got all diplomatic. Mia felt a pang of desire for warm and coddly Cosmo, but didn't say that aloud.
"Anyways, my request is for you to go to a particular watch tower near the Forgotten Valley, at about the apex point of a few miles away from Mira's shrine. Near there, its raining time material in the sky, and we don't know why. Recently, though, when Graham was crafting a drone to go see what was transpiring in the sky, he was ambushed and flung across Jamaa by invading phantoms. They have since transformed the tower into a dungeon, where they have imprisoned some of Graham's monkeys, probably to taunt him. I need you and Salsa to reclaim that tower, and figure out what the heck is transpiring. Right now Graham is finishing the drone in his bedroom, FYI."
Cosmo smiled at Mia, imploring her to accept, although she had a feeling that Alphas didn't politely ask you to do something; they ordered you, kind of like being prodded by a cushioned rod.
Mia put on a pained smile, and sighed.
"Alright, Cosmo, I accept the mission. Give me and Salsa an hour to prepare, then arrive."
Mia trudged off to open a portal, Cosmo vanishing the second her eyes were taken off of him.

Mia awoke floating a few feet above the stone porch. She scrabbled to get back down, fearing that she was in midair, but she floated comfortably there. A purple aura surrounded her.
Salsa, amazingly, awoke before her, and was prancing around the porch in glee. Mia glared at Salsa pointedly, and she froze, then returned to her initial spot (which Mia didn't intend, but was an added bonus, although she previously didn't know where the initial spot was) and went into attention stance... although, her eyes were intently fixed on a target a few yards away from Mia.
Mia raised an eyebrow, then turned her head.
Greely sat on the porch, a purple ball of fire clutched in his paw. Mia tensed; for she recognized that.
"Greely," she said cooly. "What are you doing with that condensed ball of phantom energy? Doesn't Lisa have restrictions on how much you can have in your possession at one time?"
Greely's eyes crept down from his purple ball, towards Mia, and sneered. His eyes were red, not their usual pigment.
"Um, Greely...?"
He clenched his paw into a fist, and when he released his grip, the orb was gone. He got onto all fours and trotted towards Mia. She gasped.
"You didn't dare...!"
"Yes, I did dare, honey." Greely said in a cool, rapist's tone. It made the fur on Mia's haunches stand on end, which was a venerable feat, being that she rarely had anything large to fear. "Yes, I did."
"What did you do, Greely?" asked Salsa.
Greely's eyes crept onto Salsa.
"My dear, I simply absorbed that energy."
Mia's gasp probably was heard all the way in Deep Blue's deepest crevasse.
"Th-that's against the protocol Lisa set up! Give me oozing explanations, NOW!"
Greely cocked his head in a way that would scare ventriloquists, all while not blinking, sneer still stamped on his smug face. Something was Greely about his face... and yet, un-Greely.
"Even little Tango would be more impressive than you, Mia. After brave Ledra, Frost and Tempest, you would be a whelp compared to them."
He secured his paw around her neck, paused, then let go. Whatever enchantment kept Mia suspended in midair snapped, and she collapsed in a brown heap on the bricks. Suddenly, all her energy was absent from class - or rather, her body.
Struggling to get up, she growled at Greely's smug, down-looking face.
"You haven't won, Greely! I KNOW about the heartstone you absorbed and then omitted! I KNOW about your gallavanting with Shade! I KNOW about Seth's suicide! I KNOW about your place in the Second Phantom War! I KNOW you, Greely, and yet, everything about what you have just done surprises me!"
Baring her teeth, Mia tried for a courageous look, but failed. Greely's sneer spread farther, and Mia heard Salsa start to charge up a flame attack.
The clever devil. muttered Mia. She knows what to do when somebody has betrayed you, yet she never escaped that cruel master. That is something I find to not correspond with the attributes of Salsa, I say. Then again, I never knew Frost could be such a good friend to Tempest. Both of them are cynical and powerful, and sarcastic oftentimes.
"You try for a courageous upheave, yet you fail, Mia honey. And because you'll probably not live long enough to know much more, I'll tell you a few things."
By now, the flame attack was halfway charged up. The vuhmmmmmmmmmm sound it oozed grew louder and more frenzied, making Mia more and more dubious as to if Greely didn't know what was going on.
Greely held up a paw, and unsheathed his claws, then curled up his paw into a fist.
"One," said Greely, taking out one claw and looking at it. "I spoke to the phantoms after they surrounded you and Salsa, convincing them to spare you so that I could have a word with the losers. Then, I had you hover in a floating aura as the phantoms receded down the staircase, awaiting your consciousness. In that way, I saved you, but only for a short talk."
"Two," continued Greely, taking out another claw and looking at it. Now he had made himself a snug finger gun, and it was kind of a metaphor for what Mia would do to him after she regained her energy to see if the real Greely was underneath that red-eyed shell. "The source of the rain is from a volcano nearby. No, not the same one that Marco diluted, although that would've been a worthy return for the old base of the phantoms. It's an artificial, evil one that Agate and DarkBreath made, spewing phantom energies out to poison the area around it, and eventually, Jamaa. It hasn't poisoned the vegetation yet due to the magical veins of energy flowing underneath the soil due to the copious amounts of time Cosmo has spent here, although its coming close to wilting. The volcano is a symbol of the fire element, or rather, its a powerful symbol of natural energy. If you gained full control of one, almost nobody could stop you without a clever plan like Marco's or full pyrokinetic powers like your friend Salsa's here."
Just then, Salsa released her fire attack at Greely, but he nimbly blocked with a shin. Powerful flames flickered out as they touched his fur, and when his shin returned to its normal position, not a single charred hair was to be found. Salsa gasped, then gritted her tusks. Apparently, the enchantment was holding her back, as she kept on walking in place and getting nowhere.
Mia looked behind Greely's fluttering cloak, and sure enough, a large volcano just on the outskirts of Jamaa was looming, phantom energies spewing out of its purple depths constantly, first having eyes, then condensing into pure black energy without any soul - but the intent to destroy left in the sourcecode.
Suddenly, Greely stopped counting off, and lowered his paws. An electrical buzz filled the air, and Greely flickered between Alpha form and Shaman form.
BzzZzzzt.
BBBZZZZzzzZZZt.
VbBZZzzzzZZzZZZZzzttt.
Shoom!
The visage of Shaman Greely prevailed, and its black eyes glared at Mia, the red jewel eye glowing with faint fire.
"Go." Greely rasped in a raspier voice. "Leave this tower, and warn the Alphas of me - and watch Jamaa fall to the Phantoms!"
Mia wanted to sob. She could scent the old, somewhat-nice Greely underneath that asshole shell there, but unfortunately, reason and memories probably wouldn't prevail as they did in fairytales. With a powerful swish of Greely's tail, his charged-up version made a parachute form on the backs of Salsa and Mia, and their energy replenished - just enough to parachute down, make a portal to the Alpha Hut, and tell the Alphas about what happened. Mia had a strange feeling that was Greely's intent.
The enchantment on Salsa snapped, and a sudden gust came from nowhere. Greely seemed to be rooted to the spot, as if the gust didn't bother him, and both Mia and Salsa went tumbling head-over-heels over the porch railing.

As they started to plummet, the parachutes opened up, and with a taut FWWWMP, they started to descend a little more slowly.
Then, large gems and phantoms appeared below them, the ground covered with... one taut treasure chest overflowing with gems.
"Oh, so Greely set up a course for us just like the various Wind Rider courses I take for fun sometimes? Either he wants us to have a nice plummet from ragnarok (it means apocalypse) or he's just wanting us to hit phantoms and have no fun at all." sighed Mia.
Salsa, however, didn't seem to hear, as she was skillfully gathering gems by drifting on wind currents and avoiding phantoms. Seriously, how did that elephant girl (not in any mean ways; its literal) maneuver like a graceful acrobat and not get flummoxed by the sheer precision Wind Rider needed? Meanwhile, Mia bumped into a kagijillion phantoms (that also seemed flummoxed), lost about ten thousand gems, and when she finally got to the ground and raided the chest with Salsa, was covered with burn marks and bruises.
Salsa whistled.
"A lot happened today, Mia. Since my 'rookie mission' is over, can we please inform the Alphas and then go out at some random Jammer's restaurant and order sundaes? Today was very, very chaotic."
Even then, Mia thought Salsa was understating what happened that day. They'd done mirror puzzles, nimbly dodged phantom watchers, unlocked trapped monkeys, hopped on one of Mira's sigils, melted bars of an enclosure to unlock rare items, been captured on purpose just to be put in a cell and escape, then be pursued by phantoms after pelting their kind with boomseeds, and the Greely incident... eek.
Still, as Mia and Salsa opened a portal to the Alpha hut, she realized that despite Salsa's lack of experience and power, she still was a decent friend. Maybe she could get over the departure of Frost and have some other friends for once.