4d.) Interrogation

Luxor stood in the desert and wagged the seal back and forth.

"Come on... wake up. The sand-man isn't ready to let you dream just yet."

He sat on the sand. "I'm not letting you out of there... nor yet at least, but I do have a few questions. You can still talk, to me at least, as long as you're in the seal."

He paused and shook the sea again as if to ensure it's contents were paying attention.

Firstly, if I split you in half, would you be able to act with both parts independantly? And don't whine about it being painful, give me a straight answer."

"Idiot. Can't you tell when you've been duped?" a rather arrogant noise came from the seal that Luxor had taken with him, when he pulled a spirit out of Arthur's sword. "Ah, damn, though... its been ages since I've been able to move... listen, buddy, I dunno who you are, but I'm not the same phantom..."

Extending his power, a vague, white 'tendril', in the shape of a scorpion tail, emitted from the seal, before being pulled back in.

"Extensions of Tridara are rare... the rabbit wasn't going to give that up, he may have increased that blade's power by a half, or so..."

"I might have expected as much, but don't worry. I'm still rummaging through his sword with... I'll get what I want eventually. I'm far too clever to trust others with things I could do myself, and I always have backup plans."

Luxor waggled the seal; it would cause the same sort of irritating effect as children tapping on a fish tank.

"But for now I guess I'll make do. I don't suppose you know where Tridara is? Perhaps more about the workings of that rabbit's sword?" He yawned. "Or if not, do you have a reason I shouldn't just eat you right now? I'm sure you'd be an interesting flavor."

* * *

Meanwhile a small glowing grain of sand was deep within the sword; slipping stealthily and undetectably inside when the seal was pulling certain scorpions out. It was searching for something... but found itself more vastly interested by the second. It guessed somewhere it would find an area much like the interior of a mind inside; surely a sword with such strange power would have interesting inner workings...

"Where Tridara is? That's no secret, the desert of destruction. About that sword? Its a weapon of that rabbit's B-rank that it can maintain afterward, and properly use in C. The rabbit's innate ability is to use and control soul energy... a ghost wielder, if you will. The sword gains power by holding spirits... as a con, though, it takes a dreadful amount of focus to use properly..."

"Oh, and by the way," the scorpion added, "My power is to explode into a poisonous cloud. It may be more than enough to bust this weak seal."

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The sand grain would find many lights of various quality within the sword, but would be repelled by soul energy when it pressed into one... each held an element of power of the sword, but was not easily pressed into.

Luxor didn't react to the comment. "So... you're suggesting I eat you rigth now before that's possible? Or that I save you for when I need an explosive?"

Luxor peered closely at the seal with a dark grin. "Because certainly you wouldn't be threatening a sand user, who doesn't even need to stay organic, with something as petty as poison? Especially when you're in the middle of a desert, making said sand user equivalent to a small GOD?"

Luxor then leaned back with a normal grin once more. "No, that would just be silly. Now onward we go my tiny confederate. You can obviously tug in a general direction, so I hope you're smart enough to navigate in sand. Or I could just start eating; I'm sure the exact directions are in there somewhere."

He waited, intending to turn to sand and speed to the location as soon as the scorpion began directing.

"Yeah, like, you want coordinates to Tridara? Nope, can't do that exactly, as I don't know where that DaCre is. I can take you to the desert, but that only covers a fourth of the world, here... or I could just explode, and evaporate... decisions, decisions..."

The sand spirit would feel a tug strongly in one direction. "Yeah, the desert is there. Can't do much else than that."

Luxor nodded. "That will suffice."

He turned into sand, taking the scorpion with him and staying deep enough underground that even if the scorpion somehow managed to escape the nearly impenetrable seal, he'd be stuck and unable to move until Luxor resealed him.

"On the road again... now I'm finally on the road again..."

It was unknown how sand could sing lightly to itself, but somehow Luxor was managing it. Judging by his incredible speed however, he would make it to his goal before finishing the song.

"Haljia burst."

With two simple words, the seal that Luxor had exploded in a white vapor, as a gaseous spirit quickly went up the crevases of the sand, condensing and exploding when necessary. Luxor would have already lost the position of the scorpion, given the momentum he was going at, until it would be too late, the arthropod already escaping into the air.

But the sand within a large general area suddenly turned to glass, sealing the gas wthin tiny areas as it exploded and then resealing with new sand and glass. L**or was apparently quite insistent on keeping the scorpion...

"Now now, I can't lose my travelling companion like that now can I? Ankh Seal."

Luxor would wait patiently, drawing the scorpion back in and placing him once more within a new seal. He had honestly become used to a travel companion of some sort; perhaps out of a feeling of loss from his tamer's own loss. Nevertheless, he wasn't letting the scorpion go anywhere at the moment.

The scorpion, however, by exploding, could send out much of its mass through the glass, regardless of how quickly Luxor resealed it: it would still escape at maximum speed, as the glass would keep shatterring and making openings to move upward.

That said, he was quickly losing his chance to reseal the infintely spreading spirit.

Luxor let his physical body form and looked at the words in the sand with a curious expression.

"No freaking autohitting pl0x. Hmm..."

Luxor sat down and begin carving his own letters into the sand; however instead of something legible by the common eye he instead created an intricate series of symbols that whizzed by into a giant row so quickly that they looked like quickly forming binary digits. After a long and complicated series of hands movements and shifting sand he cleared his work and nodded to himself.

"I see. Pl0x..." He created a small equals sign and then formed a new word above it. "Means 'please'."

Luxor paused for a long period of time as if mulling over the cryptic message, and then cleared the whole thing away and moved back into the sand to proceed alone.

"Damm texters... One cellphone can ruin a journey."