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Prologue

Ms. Loveless

"What-what did you say?" I stumbled over the words, fearing for my teenage daughter. James squeezed my shoulder for comfort. Before us all, Krystal floated in suspended animation. She was inside of a green liquid shaped 3D sphere. She wore a simple strapless dark fusa dress but it fanned out at the bottom ending above her knees. Her eyes were closed but she looked troubled in sleep.

Maya stood beside her, one hand placed on the sphere and other waved in a sweeping motion. A large purple outlined circle appears in front of us and Krystal's image is shown. "Watch and see what has happened over her life." She says but it's not the response I was hoping for. So I stayed silent as I watch the video.

Stupid, Whore, Useless..

Krystal, angry at herself, punches a mirror. Some of us gasp in shock, when the hell did this happen?! She picks up a piece of glass and goes to the closest wall of the bathroom and slides down into a sitting position. "No one would care, no one…" She silently cries as she cuts one of her wrists deeply and then moves onto the other one. A smile of relief appears and then she blacks out.

Then, there is a black shadow standing in front of her. It touches her shoulder, its golden eyes seem to smile at Krystal before it disappears. The scene switches to other bad times she has gone through. I think one of the most serious ones being when she kept seeing blood everywhere. It broke my heart to see this, the suicide thing had done enough. It was as if we were watching a horror movie. Why the hell are we watching this?

There was one part where she hastily got rid of Zero and Zoey because she complained of a headache. It was back when she had that stupid black bracelet that kept her from using her magic. As soon as she closed the door, from her point of view, the whole room was covered in blood and Krystal pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in her arms as she cried. The same shadow figure was there as if it was feeding off of her fear. I couldn't tell if it was male or female. All you could see where the golden eyes and a twisted smile.

Soon the scene changed and showed Krystal, heavily injured and bleeding, stopping The Raptor. And when Zero brought her back from the dead, I could see that her crystallized heart was cracked just a little. Next was her fight with Old Knight who killed Zemont. The fight was very intense and I winced as Krystal was slammed to the ground and he pulled her arm back and broke it. Lastly, working together her and King Reys' finished him off, much to everyone's shock. But there was even more tiny cracks in her heart.

That seemed odd…

Scene change. Krystal began to show signs of tiredness and lied through her teeth after recovering from the previous fight it was incidents that happened recently after her graduation from high school. Perhaps before then? She kept blacking out and always looking over her shoulder. Zero and the rest of us would ask what was wrong but she would lie even to Zero and me. And we were dumb enough to believe her. Even Katelyn couldn't tell what was really bothering her. We were all deeply concerned. It seemed all of our relationships with us were affected.

Was is the black figure that seemed to be everywhere but nowhere at the same time?

The last part showed Krystal walking into a forest somewhere in the middle of the night. She was staggering and breathing hard. "If I leave, I can drive the darkness away. They won't be hurt, I'll bear the burden." She said to herself. The dark figure stood beside her.

Krystal flinched, "W-why must you follow me around?!" I thought she was yelling at the thing beside her, but I was wrong.

I noticed Alexander, her weapon, beside her. "Krystal, you can't just run away."He said concerned. "What you saw—"

Krystal's anger flared up as she glared at him, not even noticing the figure who still walked beside her. "I know what I saw!" Tears slid down her cheeks as the black figure continued to speak what was obviously lies in her ear. I glared at that son of-

"That argument with your family and friends wasn't real. It was an illusion created by darkness!" Alexander explained but Krystal didn't seem to hear him as the dark figure slung an arm around her shoulder. Didn't she feel the weight of its arm?

Then there was a glimmer of hope in her chocolate eyes, "It..It was?"

As if she heard my thoughts, Krystal blinked and she looked over at the monstrosity hanging off of her. Quickly, she removed herself from its dark embrace and glared. Alexander appeared in her hands. "W-who are you?!"

The shadow simply turned his head and snapped it back. It's a wonder its neck didn't break. The last scene showed Krystal being surrounded by a dozen of shadows and even the Old Knight himself.

"I've got you right where I want you." The evil man grinned in a sinister fashion and the screen went blank.

The portal closed and Mya turned very serious. All of us were so stunned, that's why she has been acting so strange lately, we noticed but didn't act as much as we should have. Why can't we see the shadow and destroy it?! I balled my fists up with anger. James gave my hand a gentle squeeze but I could tell he was as angry as I was.

"As you just seen, that shadow has been conflicting Krystal's state of mind and caused her to be misguided and depressed. It's goal all along was to get her alone and into the hands of Luxas, the old man. That thing is called a Shadow Haunter, one of his specialties."

"I've heard about those." Ichiru stated. "They typically follow people around who have darkness in there hearts."

"But everyone has a little darkness. Hello, ying and yang." Zoey chimed in spreading her hands apart.

Mya nodded, "Yes, but because Laxus can control them now, he can order the soulless beings to do what he wants. I haven't seen one in over one hundred years and I'm not sure why we each didn't have one following us around us well. We've all of course had our problems and thought less of our selves…so I do not understand completely."

"He has used that monster from the start to consume her entirely and cause her grief." She said with such fierceness, I swear the ground beneath us shook. "As for why she was lying, she was trying to deal with problem on her own, she came to me later on for help, but I could see that monster already had a firm grip on her." Mya paused and sighed. "I immediately came to you all for a meeting and thus we began the argument. It's possible she could've heard us but obviously the shadow had filled her mind with other ideas…"

Zero cleared his throat, "How do we destroy the damn thing?" It seems was losing his patience.

"We have to help mommy in any way we can!" Katelyn piped in toward Krystal, who was still asleep in the orb thing.

"And I'm going to need it." Krystal responded as she literally walked from out of nowhere. Her brown hair was even longer than before, ending at her knees. She was taller and still petite and very beautiful. I think Zero was too shocked to say anything. Adult Krystal wore a pair of black skinny jeans, leather knee high boots and a purple sleeveless sparkling top. A dark purple cape flowed loosely around still had the white crescent moon upon her forehead. She hugged Katelyn and turned to bow to us. "Greetings."

"K-krystal?!" Some of the team voiced in shock.

"My visit here is brief." Krystal began but she was interrupted.

"I missed you mommy!" Katelyn and Krystal hugged each other for a brief moment. Katelyn then ran back over to us.

"What the hell-" Amber squeaked from somewhere on my left.

Krystal smiled sweetly. "Now I wanted to say…" Her eyes darted to the left quickly and she reached out her hand to grab something that was too fast for the naked eye. "Not again!" There was a hint of irritation in her voice. Suddenly she was doing flips and hand to hand combat with a black force we couldn't make out. Even Mya was shocked. Lastly, she jumped on its shoulders and flipped it over and as it flew backwards, she jumped on it and it disappeared from sight.

She straightened her hair and stood straight. "Uh, don't worry about that." She faced the younger version of herself. Suddenly she grew mechanical wings but it was in the shape of diamond spears that floated behind her back. So they were not attached to her body and each one had a red circle on the side. "I'm here to help."