Phoenixfire: And another chapter of the redux!

...don't kill me, okay?

YamiPhoenixfire: (sigh) We don't own Baten Kaitos, Mountain Dew, or anything else in this chapter that's copywrighted. How can you tell? We're flat broke.

Chapter 1: …life gives you a jackhammer.

It was six fifty-one am…

And all was not quiet in the Sanders household.

"Mom, I have a volleyball game, so I'm going to need you to pick me up…"

"Late, late, late, laaaaaaaate! Bowl and cereal and glass and… where is my orange juice! Who drank the rest of my orange juice!"

"Are you done with the lunches yet? We're going to miss the bus!"

"Azil, if you drank my orange juice again, I'm going to strangle you!"

"What? Why do you think I drank your orange juice! For all you know, Rana drank it! Drink coffee or something instead!"

"Astra, Azil, stop fighting!" their mother, Deborah Sanders, snapped. "Astra, you can drink milk today, it's better for you anyway. It has all that nice calcium and… why do you smell like nail polish remover?"

"I spilled some this morning," she lied.

"Re… Astra, why are you wearing the chains on those pants?"

"Because I had a feeling that today was going to be an angry day," she replied, strangling her temper. She was wearing a loose-fitting black shirt that read, in red lettering, 'When I have trouble falling asleep at night, I count the buckles on my straightjacket', black sneakers, and a pair of baggy black pants, complete with zippers that ran up to the knee, and chains that connected the front pockets to the back pockets. The only jewelry she was wearing was a silver bird reminiscent of a phoenix on a black plastic string.

"I thought I told you when I bought you those pants…"

"Don't we have better things to argue about?" she asked, exasperated. As if on cue, her sisters filled the opening she had given them.

"Mom, I need you to remember to pick me up this time! I got stranded at school for…"

"Mom, could you hurry up with the lunches? We're going to miss the bus if you don't…"

"Arrg!" she screamed. "All of you leave me alone so I can finish up! Eat! Practice your instruments! Go away!" All three of them drifted off, knowing that it was only a temporary respite, and that they would all be lectured about it as soon as she had recovered from the onslaught.

And it's times like this I thank whatever force chose to resurrect me for also giving me sisters, Astarael thought as she shoveled her cheerios into her mouth.

For a few moments, there were only the sounds of food being consumed and things being shoved into bags, before…

"Astarael… are you drinking Mountain Dew with your cereal?"

"Yes," she said simply, trying to decide if dumping the can over her cherioes would be worth getting grounded for the week over. Deciding that no, it was not, she then proceeded to chug the entire can as her mother watched instead. "Wow. I actually feel awake now…" …and being awake, her sugar-haze counteracting her temper and temporarily nulling both, she remembered that what she had done was still not a Good Idea. Yup, she was going to add to her already not-so-stellar day a Deborah Sanders Lecture of DOOM.

"Astra, breakfast is an important meal! You need to start off every day with a balanced breakfast, which soda is most certainly NOT part of…"

Astarael lapsed into a technique that she had perfected from years of her mother and various other adults talking at her, rather than to her. She managed to tune out the conversation enough to add in the 'uh-huh's, 'yeah's and 'I understand, (insert proper title for adult currently addressing her)'s in the right places and by and large ignored what was being said. It was a habit she'd gotten out of when she'd gone on her two-year extended 'vacation' as a Guardian Spirit, but… no one's life hinged on whether or not she listened to her mother's long-winded lecture. Except possibly her own, and she knew she could both outwit and outrun her mother. (Especially the 'outrun' part. Her mother had started smoking again when they had moved into the house they were currently living in, although that was one of the things that she Was Not Supposed to Know.)

"We're going to miss the bus!" Azil pointed out, what little patience she possessed very nearly shot. Astarael looked down at the rest of the cereal in her bowl and decided that she could do without eating it. Although having her mother angry with her wasn't fun, it was more or less a constant. Having Azil angry at her was uncomfortable, and usually involved explosive flare-ups, followed by several weeks of not talking to each other. Luckily, having Azil angry at her was much, much rarer than having her mother angry at her, mainly because they interacted with each other infrequently. Utterly opposite interests, a two-year age gap, and the awkwardness over the accident was part of the reason for that. She'd also been more snappish lately, but Astarael blamed that on the all Honors/AP schedule that their mother had practically rammed down the poor kid's throat…

And now… to dash upstairs and brush her teeth. The Evil Glares were kind of…disturbing.

"I can't believe that you both missed the bus! Again!" Deborah Sanders screamed, slamming a fist against the steering wheel.

"I can't believe that you're too lazy to get our lunches done on time," Azil snapped in retort.

Astarael blinked, and Deborah Sander's mouth opened and closed in a manner that made her look rather like a beached fish.

"Give me your cell phone, Azil. You're grounded for the next two weeks. School, cross country, home, that's it," the middle aged woman snapped. Azil handed over her Razor phone with a rather sullen expression, but without a verbal complaint. Even she knew that she'd crossed the line this time. However, Astarael noticed, their mother hadn't barred her from going to her sport. Probably because she knew that Azil would ignore her if she did. Now, if she, Astarael, had said the same thing during fencing season, not only would her punishment probably have been harsher, she definitely wouldn't have been allowed to continue to fence.

This just proved what she had suspected for years: Azil was their mother's favorite daughter, despite the fact that she mouthed off almost constantly.

"I'll see you after school, honey," her mother said to her, one of those almost bipolar flippings of her mood that changed her into Adoring Mother mode.

"See you too, Mom!" she replied with a smile and a wave. Azil said nothing and merely rushed off to wherever she went in the mornings. Probably her locker first, but after that and before class started… who knew?

There were only three minutes before the warning bell went off, according to the clock in the front hallway of the school. If she didn't visit her own locker, that would leave her with enough time to get to the vending machines and get herself another Mountain Dew before they locked, as long as she didn't get held up by anything before she got there…

"Heeey, Astra!" A boy with bleached blonde hair, eyes that were almost that cheesy fake shade of blue that you can only get with contacts, glasses and clothing that looked like it came right out of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was running over to her.

Oh, fun. Just what she needed to make her morning complete. A daily dose of Robert Dixion. "I'm still not talking to you."

He pouted. "Are you still mad about the yearbook thing?"

"Little life lesson for you: Writing 'Good luck getting laid!' in a girl's yearbook is a great way to make sure that she never wants to interact with you ever again. And that was before my parents saw it."

Ah, Robert Dixion. She had dated him, briefly, in the spring of her junior year. His own annoying habits and clinginess, coupled with the massive amount of remedial work that she had been required to plough through just so she could graduate on time with the rest of her class had killed their relationship rather nicely. However, he just didn't seem to get the fact that when she had said 'it's over', she had meant it, not 'if you stalk me long enough, I might go out with you again just to make you lay off.'

"I said I was sorry!"

"Like I believe it." There were now two minutes before the warning bell rang, and she would need all five of those minutes to get from the vending machines to her first class if she didn't want to make a mad dash. And this waste of the air he was breathing was interfering with her daily 'Girl Gets Mountain Dew' ritual.

Dear God, I promise I'll never, ever date a guy on the rebound again! Just pleeeeeeeeease make him leave me alone before I punch his face in! Which would be bad, because if anyone ever checks my purse I'll be expelled!

Rebound…

You, Astarael Victoria Sanders, are a pathetic human being. There can't be a rebound if there was never a relationship to begin with. And there wasn't one. And now he's probably happily married to Xelha, and they'll have hordes of blue-haired children, and maybe they'll name one of the girls after you. They deserve to be happy.

And you don't?

She shoved that annoying, discordant little thought into the dark vortex at the bottom of her brain where all the other inappropriate little thoughts that occasionally flittered through her head went. However, it wasn't a very effective containment system, and occasionally a thought that she had disposed of would float back into the stream of consciousness to plague her. The kill/maim/strangle/castrate Rob thought seemed to be especially good at this.

"Astra…"

She glared straight at him, and he shrank back a step. Yellow eyes, she had discovered, were especially good for intimidation. They smoldered with rage in a way that normal-colored eyes didn't convey half so well. She had grown rather fond of the new color for situations like this.

"The only reason you apologized to me in the first place was because I told you that my parents saw it. Do I need to remind you that I asked you, specifically, to not write anything vulgar in my yearbook? It was a very simple request, Rob. A five year old could have understood it. But for some bizarre reason, it seems that it was beyond your level of comprehension. Which makes me wonder, is there anything that goes through your brain that isn't a vulgar thought? Anything at all?" She mentally clamped down on the rest of her rant. It was a Monday morning, too early in the day and the week to make a scene. If she did, it would follow her around for the rest of the week, and she had better things to do with her time than hear about how she had given Rob a verbal smackdown and be glared at and badmouthed by his friends. If she had to, better to do it on a Friday, so that people would have a chance to talk the subject to death before she had to deal with it.

"You don't have to be so harsh, Astra," he said, and she could only stare at him in disbelief. Harsh? That was harsh? Andblatantly implying thatsomeone wasa slut in their yearbook wasn't 'harsh'? Talking about how his current girlfriend was an idiot and probably had STD's wasn't 'harsh'? Mentioning offhand that he was only interested in a relationship with this new girl as someone to fool around with wasn't 'harsh'? Interesting, how as soon as negative statements came back to him, other people were 'harsh', while when he said things that were just as hurtful, if not more so, he was merely, 'being honest'. Just then, as she wasopening her mouth to redefine his defination of 'harsh',the merciful bell chose to ring, giving her a valid reason to flee besides 'your presence inspires me to acts of violence'.

The sad thing was, she had been friends with Rob her freshman year, before the accident. At the very start of the fencing season (the only part she had been part of) they had hung around together waiting for practice to start, talking about video games and joking around. He had been rather nice to her then. She didn't remember his sense of humor being as coarse or objectionable as it was now, or maybe the vulgar jokes and joking or possibly not joking racial slurs had faded out of prominence during her two year break from her life as a Guardian Spirit, leaving behind only the more pleasant things. He had been fun to hang around back then, and not too bad looking, either. It was part of the reason she had agreed to go out with him. He was such a contrast from…

No, she wasn't thinking about him anymore. She'd done enough mental damage to herself already.

She was thinking about whether or not it was worth being late to her first class just for another bottle of Mountain Dew.

Of course, it wasn't really much of a contest. Her first class was study hall, and she didn't need to be on time for that. However, she did need her daily dose of caffeine to get through the rest of the day, so to the vending machines it was.

Somewhere very far away from that rural high school attended almost exclusively by people whose parents commuted into New York City to work, a blue haired man started out of a sound sleep. The woman sitting on the other side of the bed jerked back her hand, clearly surprised.

"Kalas! I was just about to wake you up! You startled me," she said, leaning back from him. Her blonde hair caught the early morning light, making it look like a halo of soft gold.

"Sorry, Xelha. Just a weird dream, that's all," he said, sitting up and blinking blearily. The details were already starting to meld and fade away. The only thing he could really remember was a familiar voice cutting through the chaos…

"Somebody help me!"

The voice of the girl who had been his Guardian Spirit, Astarael.

"Do you remember anything about it?"

"No, not really," he said, choosing not to trouble her with something that was probably nothing important anyway. Astarael was back in her own world which was, according to her, rather peaceful. At least, that the part that she lived in was rather peaceful. And they had their own problems… "How much longer do you think it'll take Mizuti to get to Komo Mai?"

"Probably another day or so. She said she'd be here two days ago in the letter, but with her sense of direction…"

Kalas nodded, knowing that their little friend had probably taken 'just a little wrong turn' somewhere along the way. They could probably wait another few days, the problem wasn't pressing, just… oddly disturbing.

"So… got anything you want to do today?"

"Um… I'd really like to look through some of the books that the academy of magic has," Xelha said with a weak smile, knowing that Kalas would find this to be rather boring. "And we could probably take a little trip to the Holoholo jungle later today," she added, knowing that he'd appreciate the physical activity and the chance to pound down a couple of monsters.

"Sounds like a plan," Kalas agreed.