Disclaimer: Tales of the Abyss and all characters therein do not belong to me. That honor goes to Namco Bandai. This story is for fun only, and I do not profit from it.

Nederim

Chapter 10 / Nocturnus

"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." – Terry Pratchett

The interior of Choral Castle was even creepier than the outside. The tiled floor of the entryway was covered in cracks, just like the cobblestone outside, and lost the sheen it must have has back when the house was taken care of. There were two staircases to the left and right of the entrance that met at a second level, but fallen debris made using both of them impossible. Small rays of light managed to enter the room through cracks in the ceiling, lighting up dust motes. Cobwebs hung in every corner, and three inch layers of dust covered most surfaces. Cassia thought she must have looked similar to a rabbit with how often she wrinkled her nose to suppress an onslaught of sneezes.

The surfaces that weren't covered in dust were the ones that became animated and charged at Luke when he wasn't paying attention. Luke managed to stumble out of the way before it was able to hurt him and began to curse. Tear sang one of her hymns while Jade reprimanded the noble for not paying attention before going right into casting fonic artes. A puddle of purple water appeared under the attacker, and pulled it into the ground as Jade brought forth stalagmites to impale the enemy. The human looking part fell off of its stand, but both pieces continued attacking.

Guy and Luke stayed on the larger part, not giving it many opportunities to attack back, and it crumbled into pieces quickly. Cass acted as a shield between the stand and the three casters, spending most of her time stepping out of the way of its drawer and doing enough damage to keep it focused on her while Tear, Jade, and Anise launched arte after arte. A cast of Limited from Anise and an Energy Blast from Jade made the stand follow the same path as the larger part.

"What in the world was that?" Anise asked, shrinking her doll back to normal size and placing it on her shoulders. Cass thought it was a sort of weird question coming from Anise, who still hadn't told anyone how her doll worked.

"It was a fontech doll designed to eliminate intruders," Jade said. He stepped closer to the broken remains in order to get a better look. "It's a relatively recent model, though it looks like it has seen better days.

"We had no time to prepare for battle because you were careless, Luke," Tear scolded. "I hope you've learned your lesson and will stay close to the group now instead of running off by yourself."

He waved her off and started walking off again… just like she told him not to. Concerned, Cass trailed right behind him to make sure he'd be safe. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's go find the engineer and get out of here."

Cass would have thought Luke would want to spend more time here, but his old vacation home certainly felt… foreboding. She didn't want to spend more time here either, and no one else looked particularly happy to be here. Luke wandered off down the main hall and into the room between the stairs. A desk was on the inside littered with old, faded papers. Nothing of interest really—some old letters and sheets of numbers. Books were thrown on the ground and a purple glow came from the corner. It was on a dark, metal door with a pattern and there wasn't a handle to open it. Cass pushed at it; it didn't budge. Something must be behind it—it was the only door that was still standing. The two spots on the door looked like they were the same size as the one that held the purple light, but they were empty. Perhaps they needed to be filled before it would open.

Finding nothing of use in the room, they headed out and back into the main hall, and there was something Cass was dreading to see.

She didn't understand how Natalia liked the horror genre so much. It would twist your perception of the real world, make you see monsters where there were none, and fill dark corners with beings so sinister your body wouldn't let your guard fall, even if you knew there was nothing there. And there, floating down the stairwell, was a being present too often in those stories Cass never wanted to hear. It was a long, thin, robed figure with an antennae attached to its hood, which shadowed any face that may or may not have been there. Aside from the white robe, only its threatening, red eyes that glowed brightly could be seen in the dim lighting of Choral Castle.

Ghosts. She did not want to deal with this.

This one was lacking some typical traits that scary stories gave to ghosts: a chilling aura, sharp teeth and claws, nearby messages written in blood, and a malicious attitude towards anything that disturbed its undeath. The air surrounding the ghost wasn't cold, but that didn't stop Cass from shivering at its unnatural presence and, unless the teeth and claws were hidden underneath what appeared to be a robe, it looked relatively unarmed and harmless (but Anise did, too. And Cass knew better to think that the Guardian was anything but). It didn't seem to mind that they were intruding on its home, and minded its own business. That is, until Guy got too close to it and it started to run away. Once it made some distance it slowed back down, but it was never close enough to be in range of a spell or Mieu's fire. It had to be running away for a reason.

"I think we need to trap it or else it'll keep running away. Let's see if we can move stuff and block a path," Luke said. With two people, the fontech dolls that didn't seem functional moved across the floor with relative ease, and it didn't take long for everyone to close off a section of the floor. Across the room the ghost was still floating on the upper level, stayed where it thought it was safe. This one didn't seem anything like the ghosts in stories, so maybe it wouldn't be able to phase through walls and fontech dolls.

They cornered it, and that was when it began acting like a ghost from those novels.

Being the closest, it phased forward and toward Cass, shrieking like a banshee at her. The second she spent stunned by its screech was enough time for its clawed hand to tear through her arm. A blast of light surrounded the two, and Cass was thrown back into a crumbling wall.

She pursed her lips and groaned and grabbed at the gash it made on her arm. That was horrible and she didn't want to go through that again. Cass removed her hand from the cut, but it didn't come back red. There was still a stinging pain, but she wasn't bleeding. Tear must have acted quickly; it usually took a lot longer for something like this to be healed up.

Guy glanced around before kneeling over and picking up a glowing red orb from the ground. Was that… the ghost's eye? Cass grimaced. Her dislike for this place kept on growing and she wanted to leave as soon as possible. "It looks like half of the key to opening the fontech door in the study. Remember how there were two slots to put something this size in?" He held the orb out for everyone to get a better look at it, but Cass stayed back. She didn't want to get close to it.

Tear nodded and handed it to Luke, who gave it back to Guy without looking at it. "Yes, it does look like it could work, but what about the other half?" Cass didn't know, and it didn't seem like anyone else did either. The only thing they could do was wander around, trying to find something else that might fit the other spot in the door. They searched each room, looking for anything with the same shape as the red sphere.

They found it eventually, pacing up and down a staircase that had fontech dolls on each landing. The dolls were taken care of first, and then they started making plans to catch the poltergeist with blue eyes. This one was slower than the red one and didn't seem nearly as scared as the red one. Cassia backed up once she felt like she was much too close, because she really didn't want to be clawed at again by one of these things. In the back of her mind she felt bad about it—she was supposed to keep Luke safe and here she was, standing behind him to avoid being attacked—but her ears were still ringing the slightest bit from the first ghost and she didn't really want to risk going deaf.

Almost as if they were reading each other's minds, the three fonists worked together to cast three artes in quick succession. A more shrill shriek emitted from the mouthless monster, but it wasn't able to phase forward like the first one was due to the onslaught of fonic artes aimed at it. Guy and Luke ran forward, and Cassia followed a second behind to keep it from acting like the first poltergeist did. An Energy Blast from Jade destroyed it, leaving behind a blue twin to the red sphere. Once the ringing in her ears died down, Cass grabbed the blue sphere and stood straight, ready to head back to the closed door.

The door vanished once the spheres were put into the slots, opening up a pathway that didn't fit with the rest of Choral Castle. It began to look and feel more like a cave rather than the vacation home of a duke—cold from the rocky walls with stone stairs leading downwards. Cass had known Luke's parents for a while, and even though she didn't know Duke Fabre as well as Lady Fabre, an addition like this didn't seem like something he would have built. She spent a lot of time at the manor, and had never seen anything that looked even remotely like this. The place was old, so it was possible that it was built long before they were born.

As they continued downward, the hallway became lighter, filled with natural light pouring in from gaping holes in the walls. The sounds from the ocean became louder and louder, right until the hallway opened up into a cavernous room, the sound of waves echoing around them. Some kind of large machine was standing proud in the center. It had a transparent, circular floor with an opaque center piece, as well as a green doomed top that looked the same as the outer part of the circle. It looked sort of new, Cass could see her reflection in the glass, and she knew that it was not here when the Duke abandoned the place. It was much too clean, barely covered in salt, to have been placed here the same time the crumbling exterior of the home was built.

Glancing around, Cass figured that everyone else was pretty absorbed in the machine so she decided to see if there was something around she knew something about. This one didn't seem like something she'd be able to understand in her lifetime, and no one else seemed to know what it was actually used for. Spotting another set of stairs, Cass decided to take them down and see if she could figure out anything there.

Another machine was there with a bunch of pulleys and levers and buttons, but it lacked any labels so she didn't know what any of them did. The voices of her companions echoed around her, but their volume wasn't enough for her to make out what they were saying. Her hands ghosted over the buttons, cold and enticing her to press them and see what would happen. As great the temptation to push a button was, she refrained; Cass did not want to risk the machine doing… whatever it was created for and begin destroying things.

A scream that sounded like Anise made Cass's head shoot upwards, hand flying away from the machine. Were they under attack? It didn't sound like anyone was fighting—there were no weapons being drawn or—

Another scream made Cassia fly towards the stairs, going up them two at a time. "Guy?"

She reached the top of the flight in time to see Jade helping Guy stand. Anise looked scared and worried, and both Tear and Luke were facing away from her. "That was more than a startled reaction. What's wrong?" Jade asked.

What happened? Why did Guy yell? She looked around, trying to get any clues from her surroundings. Did Anise do something? Did something scare her and Guy?

"I don't know," Guy replied, rubbing the back of his head. "My body just reacted…" he turned to Anise and apologized.

"Did something happen?" Ion asked. "That didn't look like a mere aversion to females."

Cass heaved a sigh of relief. It was just his phobia reacting, then? That was good; she was worried that it was something else. "I'm sorry," Guy apologized again. "I really don't know. I wasn't like this as a kid. But there's a part of my memory that's completely missing. The cause may lie there…"

She didn't know that something was wrong with his memory, too. Luke voiced the same thought and the blond servant answered, "I don't think it's like you or Cass," he explained. "I'm only missing the memory from when my family died." Guy turned to face Jade. "Enough about me, though. I want to hear what you think of this machine, Colonel."

The brunette in question gave Guy a small smile. "Just as you'd rather not talk about your past, there are some things I wish not to talk about as well."

Cass frowned. That wasn't right. She didn't know what this thing was and if Guy didn't either, she didn't know who would. Apparently something happened while she was looking downstairs that gave Guy a reason to believe Jade knew something about the piece of fontech, but now he wouldn't even share his thoughts on the matter? What if it was important to finding Luke's memories? It wasn't right to keep that from him. "Have you… might you have seen something similar to this before, Colonel?" she asked carefully, watching him from her peripheral while facing the fon machine.

"I don't know for certain," he replied. "It doesn't seem to be functional, and I wouldn't be able to determine its use unless it was working." He turned on his heel, adjusted his glasses and smiled warmly. It seemed much too warm and she didn't like it. "We have other business here other than worrying about an old fon machine. Let's be on our way, shall we?" Without any more questions about the machine, Cass nodded in agreement, not liking his answer but unable to think of anything that would pressure him into speaking about the fon machine more.

The other side of the mysterious machine had two stone paths: one going down—the one Cass had taken—and one going up, by the ocean. This led back into the vacation home, and Luke and Anise rushed after what looked like a liger that was climbing stairwell after stairwell.

The pair disappeared onto the roof, rather far ahead of everyone else. By the time they showed up, Luke and Anise were in the claws of large birds, circling overhead. Both were dropping simultaneously. Anise fell in the middle of the roof on her face, but she recovered quickly and ran back to Ion's side. Luke was dropped off the side of the building…

Cass's heart was lodged in her throat and she ran towards the ledge, ready to jump after him. She was pretty sure that Luke couldn't swim and that drop was… she didn't even know how far down it was. He would die. She couldn't go back to Natalia and tell him that she let Luke die. Natalia wouldn't forgive her if she just let that happen. She didn't know if she could swim, but she'd find out to save him. She couldn't just let Natalia's trust be misplaced like that.

She reached the ledge and peered over; ignoring the faint dizziness the height gave her. There was no splash, and the water was undisturbed, but she could make out something going back into the cavern. What was that and, more importantly, did it have Luke?

Cass wasted no more time on the roof, sprinting across it and heading back into the interior of Choral Castle. She ignored everything else, Anise's pouting, the fact that Arietta was even there, everything. She barely even registered the sound of someone following at her heels. Why would they want Luke? Arietta was with the God-Generals, and from what she remembered about the situation, they were here because of Ion. There was no reason she could think of for anyone wanting Luke—she didn't even think ten people knew he was in Malkuth in the first place.

The blonde didn't bother backtracking and checking any of the side rooms on her descent into the cavern. There was likely no reason to. Guy managed to overtake her, probably running even harder than she was. By the time they made it into the cove, Guy broke out into a sprint; Cass needed to put absolutely everything into her legs to keep up with him. The green haired one—maybe Largo?—was there and Luke was lying in the opaque center of the machine.

Guy unsheathed his blade and lunged at the God-General, but he was quick on his feet and jumped out of the way before getting hit. Cass turned away from the fight, focused on Luke. The machine didn't look like it was doing anything, but what did she know? Hoping it wasn't working or removing Luke from it right now wouldn't hurt him in any way, she set to work on untying him and getting him off of it. He was passed out and didn't look like he was going to wake up any time soon.

The scuffling sounds from across the room stopped and the sound of more footfalls kept getting louder, but Cass turned towards Guy. Would he be able to hold his own against a God-General?

Guy was there, unharmed by the looks of it, holding up some circular thing in triumph. The God-General leapt back at Guy and tried to land a blow, but Guy parried skillfully and delivered another slash that knock the beak mask right off of his face. It clattered to the ground and Cass narrowed her eyes, trying to overcome the distance to catch the fleeting glance she received of his face.

His hand flew up almost immediately, but there was something vaguely familiar about him. Guy looked stunned and stood there with his sword to the side, leaving a wide opening for his opponent. Using the reaction to his advantage, he took the opportunity to kick Guy in the face before scooping up his mask and running off.

Guy got to his feet quickly, and by the time he was standing the others joined the two blonds in the cavern. Cass stayed with Luke, tried to shake him awake, to no avail while the others came over to her. Jade went down to turn the fon machine off (apparently it was operational) and Tear took Luke from Cass to heal him. The colonel came back up as Tear healed Guy. Luke woke up after one more healing spell.

The redhead sat up quickly and heaved a loud sigh of relief. "What the hell was that?" he mumbled, putting a hand to his head and rubbing his temple with his palm. Cassia didn't know how to answer, so she settled for helping him to his feet and asking if he felt okay. He pushed her away, told her to stop coddling him and that he was fine. If he could yell at her, she knew he was telling the truth.

Jade was back to looking at the fon machine pensively, and Ion was at his side looking the same. It clicked then, why the God-General looked familiar. It was his eyes: they were green just like his hair—just like Ion. His face looked different though, it didn't seem as youthful and cheerful as Ion was. It was harder and colder, made the solider look much older than Ion. Perhaps… they were twins? Maybe just brothers?

She didn't know, but she didn't get that good of a look at his face. Guy was much closer, he probably saw more distinguishing characteristics between the two than she was able to make out. "I got a hold of a strange fon disc, Jade. Sync was trying to take it with him," said the blond in question. He didn't seem to notice anything about Ion and the God-General—Sync, apparently. She was wrong—looking similar, so maybe it was just her? Maybe she was looking into this too much… "Do you think you'd be able to figure it out?"

Jade took the disc and flipped it around in his hand. "I should be able to," he replied, handed it back to Guy who put it safely away in a bag. "But for now let's take care of Arietta. She should still be on the roof."

Luke moaned about all the backtracking, but promptly stopped after Tear reminded him that if he didn't walk into the trap in the first place, he wouldn't have to do half of the backtracking he did now. Cass frowned; she just hoped that this would end without anyone getting gravely injured—Arietta included.

A ray of light shot down almost immediately after the first person stepped onto the roof, but what must have been years of training let Tear sidestep quickly, and in the blink of an eye she threw a dagger forward, towards the young girl that stood close to the center of the roof. The same liger Arietta brought with her at the river leapt forward, becoming a shield for the God-General—the dagger embedded itself into the monster's fur before she quickly shook it out like it was nothing.

Cassia couldn't even hear the dagger clatter to the ground before Arietta's other monster—some sort of large bird with damaged alulas—screeched loudly and began to gain altitude, ready to dive like a predator. There were suddenly so many artes cast at Arietta that Cass stood in place for a moment, not moving like she should have been, wondering exactly what she should be doing.

Going after the liger was out of the question—Tear's dagger was ineffective against her thick hide and thus so would Cass's weapons. The bird was already injured somehow, and she would rather attack that instead of Arietta. But it was up in the air, circling as if choosing the perfect target, and she wouldn't be able to reach it.

An arte landed on the bird, and it screeched in pain once again. Cass winced at the sound, but this was an opportunity she couldn't miss. It began to plummet towards the roof entrance, where the fonists had gathered to put space between them and the chaos in the center of the battle arena. Before it could get to any of them, another of Tear's daggers was thrown, grazed its wing and brought it down into Cass's range.

The wings were already damaged—it would be best to go for those first. If it couldn't fly, it shouldn't be able to retaliate. They were still unfolded, and with a kick to the beak, the entire inside of the wing was displayed for her. With a sharp exhale, Cass thrust her dagger towards the largest feathers at the bottom of the wing before swiping outwards—effectively removing nearly half of the primaries. It started to turn, sounding more enraged than in pain, and without thinking the blonde jumped backwards to avoid its beak or talons.

And into the path of a bolt of lightning.

She froze up for what seemed like an eternity, the shock taking its time running through her body. In an instant, she was thrown to the ground from the bolt but forced her body into getting up, no matter how badly she just wanted to lay there for a second.

"Cass! Three o' clock!"

Almost getting frazzled at how chaotic things were becoming, it took her longer than it should have to turn in the right direction. The liger was already pouncing at her, fangs bared, and it wouldn't end well if she tried to dodge in any direction.

Cass ducked instead of trying to avoid the liger altogether, relying solely on instincts to try and get out of the liger's path. She lurched forward, and into the dark puddle of water that Tear created. It bubbled heatedly, but it didn't hurt her like it did to the liger. Managing to roll away from the monster, Cass jumped to her feet and back a few paces, just to see Guy and Jade start focusing on the cat and drawing its attention away.

Staying on the move, she scanned the area, looking for the bird again. It shouldn't be able to fly well anymore with the damaged primaries, if at all. It was a prime target. She spotted its bright blue feathers easily, trying its hardest to fly despite clearly not being able to. With a deep breath she steeled herself, sprinting towards it and aiming for its other wing. Unlike the first one, Cass clipped this wing with ease, removing the feathers with hardly any problems. Both wings were battered—it shouldn't cause any trouble at this point.

She spun around, away from the bird, and began to run towards the liger. She was not looking good, but she was doing so much more to everyone else. Anise was in the frontlines against the liger, and Cass joined the Oracle Knight, trying to keep the liger's claws and teeth directed away from the others. The lightning wasn't much of an issue for the older woman now that she was able to see the monster attacking her—the liger would always leap backwards and begin crackling with electricity before it fired off a bolt—but Anise's Tokunaga wasn't always quick enough to get out of the way. The plush had some nasty burn marks by the end of the day.

It was a shrill cry of, "Stop! Stop hurting my sister now!" that brought Cassia to a standstill. Everything seemed to go silent and still with the order and so she glanced around, remaining tense just in case. The bird looked redder than blue at this point, lying on the ground in a heap, and Cass finally brought her attention to the God-General that started this whole thing. Her face was already darkening with whatever damage was brought upon her, and red stains were all over the roof around her. Luke and Guy were the closest to her, but they didn't make a move before she collapsed onto the ground.

The liger roared out, weaker than she sounded before, before she followed in suit, swaying on injured paws and collapsing where she stood. It didn't look like she was breathing any more.

With the fall of the monster, Cass let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and relaxed her shoulders, unarming herself quickly. The length of the fight was much longer than Cass was used to seeing. Her practices lasted a while, maybe longer than this, but the intensity of fighting with Arietta put a lot of extra stress on her. She felt as exhausted as she probably looked and Luke in particular looked about the same. Jade took the opportunity once again to go after an unarmed girl, but Cass couldn't bring herself to physically oppose the colonel. She opened her mouth, ready to try and say something, anything that would keep him from outright killing her, but Ion was quick to defend Arietta's life, saying he would take her back to the Order of Lorelei in Daath, where she'd be tried for her crimes and punished. Cassia was glad that the Fon Master acted so quickly to keep the girl alive because she knew there was another way to deal with her that didn't end in her death. It wasn't necessary like Jade wanted to believe.

Van showed up once Jade put his spear away and he took Arietta with him, saying he'd be the one to bring the God-General to Daath. A coach was outside Choral Castle for everyone to take back to Kaitzur Naval Port, and Luke jumped at the opportunity to not walk, despite Ion's obvious desire to explore Choral Castle a little more. Cass had to agree with Luke on this; she didn't want to stay in this place any longer than she needed to. It didn't help Luke and there was no reason she would want to stay. She just wanted to get him home to Natalia was quickly and safely as she could.