“Chosen One!” Qube screamed in rage as she was sucked up into the hurricane. She heard his laughter above the roar of the wind, and then he caught her, his wings working to pull them upright, and moved towards the platform she could see hovering in the middle of the vortex.

“Gotcha,” he laughed, right before he wobbled and they were sent spinning head over heels through the storm. He pulled her close and she could see how sick he looked as they spun, his wings furiously flapping to try and correct their trajectory.

Even through his admittedly rather sickly-looking complexion, Qube could see that the Chosen One was grinning wildly as they righted themselves.

“What a rush!” he yelled in her ear as they punched through the wall of air and slammed into the floating platform holding a black, cloudy chest. They rolled, the Chosen One throwing out a hand and grabbing the ledge of the platform before they could get sucked back into the storm. He yanked them both up and stumbled slightly, banging his shins into the chest.

“Ah,” he sucked in his breath. “Oh that hurts. Why? Why would they make it hurt so much in this place? Also, where are all the enemies? It’s —” his facial expression changed, and he smirked. “It’s quiet. Too quiet.” He looked at Qube, like he expected her to laugh, or possibly be impressed.

“Did that sound cool? Did I sound cool? I can’t believe I actually got to say that.”

Qube could barely hear him over the roaring of the hurricane.

“Very cool, Chosen One!” she loudly told him. “Very cool.”

Qube had long ago stopped trying to understand why the Chosen One thought being cool was a good thing, but she had learned to accept it.

“Ah, you’re just saying that,” he dismissed her with a wave of his hands. “But seriously though. Where are all the enemies? We’re like, more than halfway through this joint and we haven’t even seen a bat. They wouldn’t have birds — that would be too weird with those bird chicks hanging around — but you would expect something. I would have thought this place would be swarming with annoying electricity bats or something. Is this place not finished or something?”

“Perhaps this Temple is younger than the others, and so is still birthing employees?” Qube asked. The Chosen One stared at her, then slowly blinked.

“Is that how they work?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure,” Qube confessed. “I have several theories about what is occurring with the Temples, but nothing solid yet. I’m sure I’ll understand more the more Temples we encounter. And if we have the chance to go back to Temples we have already defeated the Boss’s in, I would love the chance to see what effect removing the Boss has had on the environment.”

“Huh,” the Chosen One said, sounding surprised. “You’ve really thought about this, hey?”

“Of course!” Qube said brightly. “I would be a pretty strange guiding light if I didn’t try and understand the world around us, wouldn’t I? How would I be able to help you if I didn’t know what was going on?”

The Chosen One looked at her blankly.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he said eventually. “I guess if you’re supposed to try and learn as much as possible to guide me… huh.” He gave her a thoughtful look. “This is gonna be interesting. Oh, hey, key!”

There, in the hurricane swirling around them, Qube caught a flash of silver. The Chosen One launched himself back into the storm, tumbling out of sight.

“Chosen One!” she cried, running back and forth on the small platform. But there was no sight of him.

Oh no, what if he was lost in the storm forever? Or got injured? Or ended up in another room filled with horrible beasts that would rip him limb from limb and then he would die thinking that she hadn’t cared enough to escape from the platform and he would bleed out on the cloud and —

“Heads up!” the Chosen One shouted, before bodily slamming into the large black treasure chest on the platform. He crumpled around it, his body warping strangely. “Ow,” he said from the ground, before dragging himself upright. “That was too much rush.”

“Chosen One, stop doing things like that!” Qube cried, hurrying to his side. “Are you injured? Do you need help?”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” the Chosen One said, ruffling her hair from his position on the ground. “But the key was so small and moving so quickly, I had to think fast. I’m not the one we need to worry about, though. I’ll be fine.”

“You can’t know that!” Qube protested.

“Sure I can,” he said flippantly. “I’m the Hero.”

“That won’t save you from being torn to pieces by a hurricane,” Qube pointed out. The Chosen One sighed.

“You’re right,” he said in an unconvinced tone. “Anyway, time to pop this baby open!” He inserted the silver key into the black cloud chest, which opened up to reveal a strange tube with a green bulb on one end, and a cylinder on the side.

The Chosen One looked from it to Qube. “Well, go on, work your magic,” he said.

“It’s not magic, Chosen One. I’m not sure what it is, possibly some kind of birthing ritual —”

“A birthing ritual?” the Chosen One repeated incredulously. “Wait, wait, wait. Who taught you about birthing rituals?” His face was a picture of horror. “Is this something they — are you, why would they expect you to know about birthing rituals? Why would they require you to know about birthing rituals?”

“I mean, I don’t know much about them, I just know that most species have different ways of having children so I assumed…” Qube trailed off, unsure of how to explain her reasoning. She had one item, then there was a second. Just like with children. Or, well, what she assumed childbirth was like. There was probably some kind of spell involved, one that was, allegedly, complex.

To her surprise, the Chosen One relaxed.

“Oh, okay. So they didn’t, I mean, no one expected you to know about… birthing rituals, or anything,” he said. “Or, like, what leads to ‘birthing rituals’ or anything.”

“Naturally, as a Healer, once I progress further, I will be able to help people perform birthing rituals,” Qube said, slightly offended. “I know that it can often be a dangerous process. I assume it is my Healing ability that allows me to help these items birth twins. No doubt I will need to be more skilled for more complicated life forms.”

“Checks out,” the Chosen One said. He looked at Qube, noticing her huffiness. “Hey, you’re the Healer,” he said placatingly. “I don’t know about this stuff.” Qube subsided, acknowledging the truth of his statement. He didn’t know stuff. After thinking for a moment, the Chosen One added; “But if anyone ever tries to teach you about birthing rituals and stuff like that, let me know, yeah? Don’t go seeking it out, but just if someone tries, come and let me know and I’ll listen in.”

“Of course!” Qube chirruped.

“Right,” he said, “now it’s time for you to make some babies.”

Qube immediately reached for the mystical artefact and grabbed it, pulling until it produced a twin. The Chosen One took it off of her and examined it, turning it over in his hands. He looked from it, to the hurricane swirling around them, then at Qube.

“Can you pull another one?” he asked her. Qube, nothing loath, pulled out another twin and handed it to him. He flung the tube into the hurricane, and watched as it was sucked up into the vortex. Qube stared at him.

A maniacal smile lit up his face.

“Another,” he said. Still side eyeing him, Qube pulled another twin from the ancient mystical artefact only to watch as the Chosen One immediately hurled it into the storm. He watched its orbit as it flashed in and out of sight, caught in the swirling wind. Without looking he reached out a hand towards her.

“Another,” he repeated. Qube pulled another tube and watched as it joined its siblings in the storm. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, the Chosen One was hoping to accomplish from this, but he seemed to be enjoying himself at least.

“Another!” he cried, and then started throwing the tubes as fast as she could hand them to him. He was laughing as the tubes started colliding with each other in the storm, bouncing off of each other and getting knocked higher or lower, each spinning while being spun, a strange and pointless dance that made the Chosen One cackle with glee.

There was something strangely hypnotic about watching the now dozens of artefacts spin around them. As each new child was added, the whole web of items became more complex, as their ricocheting caused them to move in wider and wider patterns. As the Chosen One threw in yet another tube, however, it hit the back of another tube, which violently sprang out of the hurricane and smacked into the platform next to them.

“AH!” Qube and the Chosen One simultaneously screamed, jumping back. But it was like an avalanche had started, and suddenly tubes were shooting out of the hurricane, hunks of metal peppering around them, bombarding them like a hail of arrows.

“Run!” the Chosen One shouted, picking up Qube and jumping off the ledge. He grabbed the edge of the ledge and swung them so that they fell directly under the platform into the calm eye of the storm, metal sparking as it clashed around them. Somehow his maneuver meant that they avoided being sucked into the now-deadly hurricane, and for a moment Qube thought that they were home free before they slammed into an invisible platform, knocking the wind out of her.

“That was fun!” the Chosen One said, staring at the chaos unfolding. Qube, however, was sitting up and looking around. They were resting on thin air. Something about it reminded her of the place where she had gotten stuck in the sky, all those weeks (months? days?) ago back in the village.

“Chosen One, we’re floating!” she gasped.

“Aw man,” he said, looking at the nothingness beneath them. “We borked it.”

“Borked it?” Qube asked, momentarily distracted from the fact that they were magically suspended by a new word.

“Broke it,” the Chosen One said, hauling himself up onto his feet. “Come on, let’s see how far this goes,” he said, grabbing her hand and sprinting across the nothingness. As soon as they reached the wall of wind, they were snatched up by the hurricane, smacking into rogue tubes before being spat out the other side. The Chosen One flicked open his wings, laughing as they were sling-shotted up, before snapping them closed and diving towards the floor. Qube screamed, clutching his hand as they plunged down.

Same as he had last time, he flared his wings at the last minute, staggering forward from the excess momentum as he hit the ground, before turning it into a run as stray tubes continued to rain around them.

“Time to go!” he called to the party, who had retreated a safe distance. Still holding Qube’s hand he ran through a hole in the wall-cloud, and slid into another room.

“This is so much fun,” he said to her, his grin wide, “I love flying! Even the motion sickness isn’t too bad once you get used to it!”

Because he was looking right at her, Qube was in the perfect position to watch his expression change as he was hit in the face with a bat-shaped lightning elemental.

“Ah!” he screamed, releasing Qube. They swung around, the whole room coming into focus. There were hundreds of tiny little lightning bats emerging from about half a dozen fat black clouds, their crackling screeches hitting the party full force, making Qube feel dizzy.

“[Prophecy Cursed] bats!” the Chosen One snarled.

Qube swallowed hard, and called out:

“Just as you requested, Chosen One!”