Moving Day
"You know... the more I see of this world..." Kimmy said to herself as she looked out to the horizon. "The more I think that it's worth taking over." It was a week since she did her little stunt in Knothole and restored Cosmo's body. That night when she got home she realized there was a problem. While she might of had enough cages for all her slaves it the truth of the matter was that with all those people it was very cramp in Vanilla's small home. It was time for the group to find a new place to stay. "The sunsets on this planet are much nicer than my own. Maybe I will stay here even after I find a way back home." She then looked down at herself. "But I'll have to figure out a way to return to being human."
Kimmy stood up on the rock she was sitting on and hopped down. "It's just a pain that this is taking so long. I have been out here for almost a week and not even one suitable place." She walked the forest she was resting by. "I need a place that is close to The Great Forest and far away from Robotropolis. That way she could keep away from danger while still being able to get supplies easily. Also it would make it more likely that she or the others wouldn't be followed by Robotnik's invisible robots went going to or coming from Knothole. "There are enough flat plains here that we could make a nice mansion, but that might draw too much attention. Not to mention the time and resources that would have to be put into something like that." Said Kimmy with a sigh. "If only there was a structure already standing that we could use. Knothole would be a nice base but there is still too much potential resistance to attempt a... ACK!"
The next moment Kimmy found herself on her butt, rubbing her face. "What the hell! Did I run into a tree or something!" She looked up, intent on burning whatever she hit to the ground, but she stopped herself when she realized what it was. "A brick wall? What is something like that doing in the middle of woods? " She got up and walked along the wall. She started to notice that the wall was curved, as if it was a tower. "It couldn't be, could it?" She smiled widely as she found out her suspicions where correct. "No way! It's a castle!" She yelled looking at the stone structure. Kimmy covered her mouth as an after thought to stifle herself from yelling again, after all there were those out there she didn't want knowing where she was. "Not as big as father's, but it will be perfect till I get enough slaves to build on a new wing. Better take a quick look around to make sure no one is already in it." She thought as she went to the front door and opened it, stepping inside.
"Knock, knock, knock." Tails sighed and went to the door. Opening it he found a raccoon girl standing at it. "Um... is Miss Kimmy here?" She asked meekly. Tails shook his head. "Kimmy left a few days ago, but she said that once she returned she would inform the villagers of Knothole." The raccoon pouted. "Ok..." She said walking away. Tails returned to the living room and picked up a book as he sat next to Cosmo. "Another person looking for the mistress?" "Yeah, they have been at it all week. I'm almost at the point of believing that mistress left to avoid the hassle." Cream, who was coloring a book on the floor, laughed. "That would be so like her. She just seems to know when things like this are about to happen." Amy then stepped up to the group. "Well it's no surprise really. After what mistress did it is just common sense that people would want to see if she can help them with their problems as well."
Tails flipped through the book he had in his hands. It was the "Herbal Magic and Alchemy" book that Kimmy had given him before. "This book is so complex. Everything is written in symbols I couldn't begin to understand and there are strange glyphs completely covering some of the pages." Cream got up from her coloring book and came over. "Hmm... that there is the symbol for "Ether" and that one looks like "Focus", but it has a small dash above it so it probably means something completely different." She then looked at the surprised fox boy. "Mistress has been teaching me. She said that she wants me to learn magic and how to use alchemy" Tails gave her an odd look. "I wonder why? Isn't stuff like that dangerous?" He thought about it a bit. "But she seems to know what she is doing, after all she captured all of us without any problems." Since the night of Cosmo's "Resurrection" Tails had learned a lot about Kimmy. About her control collars, about how she was planning to take over the planet and about how she wanted to use Tails to overthrow Robotnik and thus rid her of her number one competition. In his mind he felt a bit betrayed, but the fact that he was with Cosmo again topped off with the powerful magic of the collar around his neck allowed him to get over it easily.
"I just hope the mistress is ok." Interjected Vanilla, who was busy fixing a meal for the group. "I know she told us that our collars would tell us if she was in danger, but I still worry about her." Sky flicked her earrings and smiled at the sound they made. "I'm just glad to be rid of her for a while. It's nice to just be able to relax. If where lucky she'll get caught by someone and get looked away someplace where we never have to see her again." Everyone in the room stare at Sky for that remark. "Jeez, I was just kidding." She said putting the others minds at ease before adding "We could never be that lucky." which cause the group to laugh out loud.
The front door opened suddenly and Kimmy stepped into the house, almost as if the group had summoned her by talking about her. "What is so funny everyone?" Cream opened her mouth to answer the question, but then Kimmy raised her hand. "On second thought there are more pressing matters. Pack your stuff cause we are leaving." Everyone looked to the cat. "Leaving mistress?" Asked Vanilla. "Yes, I have found a suitable place for us to stay. An old castle that seems to be abandoned." Cream pouted. "Why can't we stay here?" "Because Cream, this building has become too small for us. If we added any more slaves to the mix than there would simply not be enough room. This new place will have enough room for at least twenty times what we have here." Kimmy stepped to the center of the room and placed her bag open on the ground. "Put all the items you can pick up into the bag. They will be safe in there until we figure out where to put everything." They all got up and started to put things into the bag, if only because Kimmy told them to do so.
It took the rest of the day to get most of the small items packed, so the group spent one more night at the house. In the morning Kimmy used her ring of giant's strength and got Sky to help her put away the larger furniture. It didn't take long for them to finish and before noon the house was empty. "Okay everyone, we are leaving. Just follow me and I'll lead you all right there." As they all walked away from the house Cream took one look back. "Goodbye..." She said softly enough so no one else could hear her, waving goodbye to the only true home she had ever known.
Just then a thought entered the young rabbit's mind. "Mistress!" She yelled as she run up next to Kimmy. "What about Cheese? He still hasn't come back and if he goes to the house and no one is there then he won't know where to go." Kimmy patted her head. "Don't worry Cream, Cheese will always know where to find me. He has been away from me for too long. At this point the collar's effect should be working on him at a much more effective level. It also is telling him over and over to return to me, shining the way to be like a beacon. Actually I am surprised that he has resisted for this long. I am sure he will be back before the week is over though. No one has ever lasted beyond that and at that point he will be ready to serve me without question." The idea that Cheese be back soon put Cream's mind at ease. "Thank you mistress." she said to the cat girl.
After a long walk the group made it to the castle. Everyone except Kimmy was shocked at the size of it. "Yeah, it's not a bad find. I took a small peek inside and saw that cobwebs were covering everything and their were no lights. Odds are that it
is abandoned, but I want to make sure. We are going to go inside and separate into groups and search around. Me and Cream in one group, Sky and Amy in another and Vanilla, Tails and Cosmo in the last group. Remember to look out for any kind of traps as old castles like this can be full of things like that. If you do get trapped somewhere or get in trouble than tap your collar and I'll come running." The others nodded in understanding. "Ok, lets go." She said as they headed to the front door. Before Kimmy got there she felt a tap at her arm. Turning around she found that it was Tails. "What is it Tails?" She asked the fox. "Mistress, I have been all over this area before and this is the first time I have ever seen this castle." he replied. "Well it is covered by trees, maybe you couldn't see it through them." Kimmy said turning and entering the castle. Tails was still concerned hesitated, but he soon followed her in.
The inside of the castle was dark and dusty like Kimmy said. It wasn't hard to see why she thought is was abandoned. "Once we make sure this place is safe the first thing we have to do is clean this place." She then looked back to the group "And by 'we' I of course mean you all." Kimmy looked around and decided on a course of action. "Like I said before I took a small peek around when I was here last. When I did I found stairs that lead upstairs as well as ones that go into the basement. I'm going downstairs as it will probably be the most dangerous and I'll be able to overcome anything easier cause of my magic. Sky, you go upstairs as I assume the worst thing up there would be structural problems and your physically fit enough for that to not be bothered by things like that. Vanilla's groups will search the ground floor since it would be the safest in comparison. We will check back here in a hour, if any group doesn't show after ten minutes after the hour is up go looking for them but try to be careful." She pointed to a room on her left. "The stairs to the upper floors are just in that room." She said as she turned right to head to the basement. "Come along Cream." "Yes mistress." She said as she as she ran to catch up with the cat girl. The other groups separated as well and begun there exploration.
"Mistress..." Cream said to Kimmy. "Are the others going to be ok?" Kimmy stopped and formed a small ball of light in her hand. "They should be fine. I made sure a battle type was with each group." "A battle type?" The young rabbit said confused. "Yeah, my father had been to so many different worlds that he started to see the patterns of the worlds. People are divide into many different type. Battle types like me, Sky and Tails enjoy conflict and can deal well in the face of danger." "Tails is a battle type?" Kimmy illuminated the dark halls as she walked, holding Cream's hand as to not have her get lost. "Well to be honest he has the qualities of a tactical type like princess Sally, but that night when he saved me and Sky from the stealth robots... " She thought back to that night, remembering how he reveled in the idea of fighting the robots. She could even see his grin clear as day. "Lets just say he can easily go into battle mode when he is needed."
As the two went from room to room the two found that the basement was, for the large part, a dungeon. Many torture devices littered the rooms. Some were simple ones like whips and stockades, others were bigger contraptions though. Large machines that would fill an either room and could only be used as a method of pain. Kimmy even had to cover Cream's eyes for a moment as they entered a room, thinking she had found a corpse still hanging from a device when it was merely a skeleton. "Someone sure had twisted taste. I beat that these dungeons were full of the agonizing screams of the people held here." The though sent a shudder down Cream's spine. "Mistress, can we leave? This place is scary." Kimmy nodded. "I agree, I have had a feeling since we came down here. A fear aura is upon this place. Strange though, I look at this device and it seems that it is only made to cause can, not kill. This person couldn't have died in this unless left to starve to death or was kill while being tortured. This kind of thing is used ritually to summon demons or trap spirits. There must have once been a powerfully evil person here who knew much of the dark arts. Hopefully there aren't any lasting effects." For a second she was consumed by her thoughts, but then she realized something was wrong. "Cream?" She turned around and found herself alone. "Crap..."
Meanwhile in the upper floors Sky and Amy where searching around what was the sleeping courters. They had found that the castles upper floor was in pretty good shape despite the dust. "If the whole castle is like this than it might be a nice place to stay. Just need proper lighting and a good cleaning." said Sky as she looks around. "I am sure that we will be stuck with the cleaning part though." Amy laughed. "It's not that bad. I bet it takes a lot out the mistress to cast all the spells she uses to keep her home comfortable." Sky thought about it a bit and replied. "Well I don't know much about magic on the whole except that it hurts when it hits you most of the time, but from my understanding of it is that there is energy all around us. A mage will channel this energy into his or her body to cast a spell and when the caster has too little energy to channel, or has channeled too much at one time, it takes a toll on the caster's body. As long she does it in moderation it should not harm her. Besides, she is still taking energy from you on a regular basis."
Sky stopped for a moment. "Has she been hurting you a lot Amy?" Amy started down a hallway and said. "Not really, she has been trying to take it easy on me lately. We have been trying different ways to spark my emotions. The only thing I get now are a few unwanted touches." Sky didn't like how Kimmy was treating Amy as a battery, but at least she was being nicer to the hedgehog. "That is good to know. Just as long as she isn't torturing you."
"Hey Sky, come look at this." Amy said as she entered one of the rooms. "What do you think this is?" Sky came into the room and took a look at a large symbol scrawled in red across the wall. "Looks like an alchemy symbol. Could be a seal of some sort or even just a recipe for something." Sky walked closer to it and found the symbol to be twice the size of her. "It seems to be scribed in blood." "Blood!" Amy yelled. "Not so loud, we don't want to scare the others." Amy cupped her hand over her mouth and Sky continued. "But yes this is blood. Many alchemist use blood because it contains iron, oxygen and more importantly life. This allows them to make thing of great power, though they can't always control such power. If this is a recipe it could easily be removed, if it is a seal we probably shouldn't touch it. It could be any number of other things though."
As if responding to Sky the symbol started to glow blue and merge together to make one large circle. "What's going on?" Amy screamed as a burst of air blasted out and almost knocked both the girls off their feet. "I was afraid of this!" Sky yelled over the noise. "The symbol was some sort of trap! It probably activated when I got too close!" White wisps of energy begun to shoot from the blue circle. "We need to leave this room now!" Sky grabbed Amy by the hand and ran to the exit, but it was too late. Two white wisps shot out straight at the two girls and struck them both it the back, the impact sending them both to the floor. The circle then reverted back to it's symbol state as Sky was starting to get back to her feet. "What was that? Well whatever it was it excited my talisman." She said as she looks at her back to see the symbol glow brightly before disappearing. "Amy, are you ok?" Amy stood up slowly and turned to Sky, her eyes closed. "Yes, I'm fine..." Her eyes then suddenly opened, revealing dark, swirling circles that surrounded her irises. The hedgehog then opened her mouth in a grin to show that her teeth had grown sharp and pointy. "But you won't be in a moment." Amy raised her hand, which now had blade-like claws at the end of her fingers, and slashed at the tiger girl. Sky quickly dodged and then grabbed Amy by trapping her wrists in one of her hands. "This doesn't look good. Some sort of possession. I'll have to call mistress." With her free hand she tapped her collar twice. "Hope she has a way to fix this." She said to herself as Amy lunged forward to try and bite Sky only to be grabbed by her collar and pulled back. "No! Bad possessed hedgehog! No biting!" Sky said half-jokingly.
Kimmy sighed. "Now Sky needs me. Well she will just have to wait." It had been ten minutes and still no sign of Cream. She had even used her detect life spell and nothing. It was like she vanished into thin air. "Vanilla won't be happy about this." She kicked the wall. "Hell I'm not happy about this! Rabbits don't just disappear into thin air." She then noticed something odd. The wall she had kicked had moved a little. "No way, it can't be that simple." She pushed that spot on the wall and found it easy to move. "A secrete door. How cliche, but might as well take a peak." She generated a small ball of light and walked into the room. What she saw amazed her. The room it's self was the size of stadium. It's walls were lined with bookshelves, each one filled to capacity with books or herbs and precious gems. Many tables where set up in the middle of the room, each with several beakers and small cauldrons placed upon them. "It is a study. Someone was practicing magic here and with this many books I am sure I could pick up a trick or two." As she reached for a large book on a shelf near to her she remembered that Sky was in danger and Cream was still missing. "I really should go look for them..." Kimmy grinned and took the book off the shelf, opening it. "But five minutes won't really make difference."
Sky walked down the halls heading towards the basement with Amy in tow. She had found some rope and tied the hedgehog's arms behind her back while using a small piece to make a leash for her. "The maggots will feast on your rotting corpse." Amy said to the tigress. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. Honestly, is corpses and demon lords the only thing you evil spirits ever talk about? Seriously." Amy smile widely and laughed at her remark, but Sky ignored it. "At least I know why my talisman light up. You were trying to possess me and since it has power over spirits it repealed you. Nice to know I'm un-possessable."
Sky found the steps and reached the ground floor. "You only delay the inevitable. I will get free and then I shall rip your throat open and drink your blood." Sky manifested her scythe and placed the blade at the possessed hedgehog's neck. "Look, if I wanted to I could remove you from that body. I only don't because it would remove your hosts soul as well and it is not her time to die yet. If you keep talking though I might have second thoughts about it though." Amy shut her mouth and look at the blade in fear. "Good, as long as we are at an understanding. Now where is mistress? It's just like her to be late to an emergency like this." Just then a door flew open. Sky readied her scythe, but lowered it when she saw Cosmo running out from it. "Sky! Something is wrong!" She said as she went straight to the tigress. "Calm down, tell me what happened. Cosmo took a moment to catch her breath and said. "We were looking around the ground floor and everything was going fine but then these white wisps came out of nowhere and wrapped around the three of us. After that Vanilla and Tails tried to attack me." "Yeah, I had the same problem." Sky said gesturing to Amy who was now laughing hystericly. "Your all gonna die! Your all gonna die! Your all gonna d-upf!" The hedgehog was cut of by a fist to the face, landing her flat on her back unconscious. Cosmo gasped as Sky shook her hand to get rid of the pain. "I'll apologized to Amy later. Now I need you to go outside Cosmo. You are weak and will only get in my way if i get in a fight." Cosmo pouted, but understood. "Your not going to hurt Tails are you?" "Not if I don't have to, but it looks like I might."
Suddenly the two heard raspy breathing from the next room and as they turned to look they spotted Vanilla and Tails. Then two looked about as twisted in form as Amy. "Go now, I'll handle this." Cosmo reluctantly turned to the front doors. "Be gentle." Sky smiled. "As a kitten." With that she rushed the two possessed mobians and picked them up off the ground, running straight into the next room. Once she cleared the door she dropped Vanilla to the floor, figuring she probably had a frailer body than Tails, and then spun around once before tosses the fox boy to the nearest wall. To her surprised Tails moved in mid air so he could land with his feet on the wall and avoid a serious impact. "Seems like we have a lively one." He said in a demonic voice as he walked down the wall like gravity didn't apply to him. Placing his feet on the floor he continued by adding. "It's a shame you won't be that way for long." Sky rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, I will feel a million agonizes that are beyond explanation, I shall burn if the fires of hell and become a slave to Lucifer himself and I will become a lost soul forever cursed to walk the earth. Does that pretty much cover anything you two would have to say?" "Seems like this one doesn't understand how serious this situation is." Vanilla said as she got to her feet. "Let us enlighten her." Sky grinned. "Bring it on you undead bitch."
The two possessed mobians got on opposite sides of Sky. "Huh, two on one does seem quite fair." Said Sky. "You should have brought at least two more." Sky cracked her knuckles and rushed Vanilla, catching her opponents off guard. The tigress sent a punch into the rabbit's stomach before slipping a leg behind Vanilla and slamming her against the stone floor. "God..." she said with a sigh. "I think I see what is going on here. You ghosts are all the same. All bark, no bite." She picked up Vanilla's now unconscious body and threw it at Tails. "The claws, the fangs, the demonic voices. I'm sure they scare most people out of their skulls, making them easy prey for the kill. Aside from that you don't really have any skill that make you a threat." She walked slowly, running her finger through her earrings, towards the now terrified possessed fox boy. "Bet you never thought that you would be facing a death spirit." Tails turned and tried to run, but Sky was over to him in a second and had her hand firmly grasped around his tails. "Light out!" Yelled Sky as she hit him in the back of the head. Tails went limp and fell to the ground. "Good thing they were such low level spirits. They could only alter the form of their hosts. More powerful spirits can project ghostly powers through the bodies they possess. The tigress inspected the bodies of the two knocked out mobians to make sure they were ok. "Tails is fine, just a bruise on his head." She looked over to the rabbit. "Vanilla on the other hand has a few cracked ribs. Shouldn't be too much of a problem once mistress gets here, but till then it is going to hurt like hell." She tapped her collar again for good measure and sat down. Looking around the room her saw that it seemed to be the throne room. She laughed. "Figures we would find to most elaborate place in the castle to fight, not that it was much of a battle."
As she sat there waiting the doors finally opened. Since Cosmo was outside she expected Kimmy to walk through them, but to her surprise it was only Cream. "Hello Cream, is mistress following you? It seems that we had a slight problem. Don't worry, Tails and your mother are fine. They just need a little healing." Cream, was silent as she walked closer and closer. It did not take long for Cream to understand what was going on. "Oh come on, was I the only one who wasn't possessed." She said getting up off the floor. "Fine, lets do this. Just try not to run into my fist too hard. I would like to keep Cream's body undamaged." She ran straight at the young rabbit, intending to end this quickly, but just before she was able to hit the her Sky found herself being knocked across the room by an unseen force. "Hehehe" Cream laughed in a voice that sounded as if hundreds were speaking through her. "You thought that we were the same as the others." Cream's eyes started to glow as she walked closer and closer to Sky. "You didn't suspect that we were more powerful. That there was more than one of us." Sky looked at the girl and begun to see what she meant. There was an aura around the rabbit, a malevolent force making a protective bubble around her. "Multiple possession. This ghost are more powerful than I thought. This technic allows the ghosts to amplify their combined power. It gets stronger and stronger with each added possession and by the way it is looking..." She manifested her scythe into her hand. "This could be difficult."
The energy around Cream was now seeable even to the untrained eye, appearing as sinister specters circling around her body. "You will become a sacrifice to the master's great power, your soul will join us and increase our strength even more." Sky ignored her, it was just the normal ghost talk to her. She ran up to the rabbit once more, but with scythe in hand she slashed at the barrier around Cream. The blade cut through the souls like butter and a loud moan could be heard coming from them. Sky smiled thinking that the spirits realized that her scythe could send them to the afterlife, to the hell they deserved, and that they would run to stay away from her but she quickly found out how wrong she was. The specters covered her, flowing freely from Cream's body and wrapping around Sky to restrict her movements and crush her under the weight of their power. Cream's laughs filled Sky's ears as she found it impossible to move. "It can't end this way.I won't let it!" Sky said, but in truth there was no way she could stop it. She was hopelessly trapped.
As things were looking like it was the end for Sky the tigress heard a sigh from behind Cream. "I know this is going to be a bit anticlimactic, but..." Cream turned her head and looked on in fear. There was Kimmy with Cosmo standing next to her. It wasn't them that frightened the the possessed rabbit, but the large crystal orb in the cat girl's hand. "In the name of Lazaar I confine you to this orb!" The orb glowed a deep black and sucked the spirits into it one by one, even the ones from Tails, Vanilla and Amy. The force of the orb seemed to shake the room violently, but soon the last ghost had entered the orb and all was quite again. Sky was at a loss as she watched Kimmy put the orb into her bag of holding as Cosmo went to catch Cream before she hit the floor. "Speechless? Don't worry, I'll explain. Right after I heal the others."
An hour passed and everyone one was back to perfect health and had awakened from their unconscious states. They had gathered around a large table in the secret study Kimmy had found earlier. The cat girl tossed a large book into the center of it and said. "It was kinda lucky I found this place. That book there was some sort of diary of the wizard that owned this place. His name was Lazaar and he was a wizard of great power. He had mastered all sorts of magic for enslaving and corrupting the minds and souls of others, along with many other spells. This place was one of his greatest achievements." Kimmy walked around the table and grabbed another book. "As Tails stated earlier this castle was never seen by him or anyone else when they came near her. That is because the castle was simply invisible if there was no one around with suitable magic power. Even when I found it the invisibility didn't wear off till I ran face first into the castle." That comment bought about a laugh from the group. "But after that it seemed that the castle recognized me as it's master, maybe cause Lazaar had been gone for so long. The ghosts would not directly confront me and left me alone while on the other hand attacking all of you because they taught you were sacrifices or maybe even intruders."
Cream shook a little in her chair. "Are the ghosts going to try and kill us again?" Kimmy shook her head. "The orb trapped them all." "Wait a sec." Sky interjected "You said 'In the name of Lazaar' when you trapped them in that thing. Don't such spells have to done at the behest of the one who your claiming it for." Kimmy nodded. "Yes, but I am Lazaar." "WHAT!" the entire group yelled aloud. "Calm down, I wasn't being literal. As I said before the castle has recognized me as it's master. It's last and only other master was Lazaar. To the castle and all it's inhabitants 'Master' and 'Lazaar' means the same thing." "Oh, I get it" said Vanilla "So to every thing in this castle that it applies to you are effectively Lazaar." "Yep, but that is not all. It's seems that book on the table also has schematics for this castle. It lists every trap and how it was made so with it we can find and deactivate them all. It will take a while, but not that long. Maybe a week or so. The good thing is that there are no more fear aura's down here since the ghosts are gone, so I think just for tonight we should sleep in this room. Tomorrow we will work on the rest of the castle to make it livable." The others nodded in agreement.
As night came they all went to sleep, curling up on the floor under blanket with pillows placed under their heads. All that is except Kimmy and Sky. Kimmy was busy reading while Sky tended to her every need. "So mistress, what are you looking for?" Kimmy smiled. "Something of great importance. A wizard of Lazaar's power must have made a 'castle heart' for this place." "A castle heart?" "Yes, think of it as the castle's brain. It allows for easy manipulation of all the castles doors, traps, and anything else you can think of. Once I find it I'll be able to make myself the true master of the castle." She slammed the book in her hand shut. "And once that happens no one will be able to leave this place without my permission. It will be a trap to all I invite over. Like a certain blue hedgehog I know and more importantly..." Kimmy licked her lips. "Princess Sally."