I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
Cedric shifted through the halls of Heatherfield Middle School, being on guard as he made his way towards his target after sneaking in through a portal that Phobos had managed to get to open below the school cafeteria. He should have just pointed out that he could have entered through the front entrance, but it was best not to question the prince's judgment.
He couldn't help cursing his luck being the one made to do this as he approached Elyon's locker. He was literal in the middle of enemy territory during the middle of the day simply because his prince couldn't be patient enough to wait for nightfall like a normal villain. Sure the prince was more than capable of deceit, he proved that much when he lured his parents to their deaths, but Phobos was far too used to sitting on top his throne doing whatever he wished whenever he wished it to understand something like 'a time and a place'. And during the middle of the school day while all the girls were in their classes was neither the time, nor the place to try to steal the items needed for the Ceremony of the Amalgamation, which would make it easier to convince Elyon to join Phobos's side by tampering with her spirit.
And then there was the Ghost King. If that creature realized what Cedric was then he would more than likely be turned into a snake skin pimp coat faster than you could say 'Heart of Meridian'. Even the normal human children spotting him could put him in a dangerous situation that could ruin his cover.
But somehow against all odds he had managed to get to Elyon's locker without anyone being alerted. His normal looking human arm turned into the massive reptilian claw and he ripped the lock off of the girl's locker.
Shuffling through Elyon's things he quickly found what he needed. For the Ceremony of the Amalgamation to work Phobos would need to gather three symbols that represented Elyon; one of body, one of mind, and one of spirit. Cedric pulled a comb with more than a few of Elyon's straw colored hairs on it and a note book full of her notes for math class.
'These would be more than enough for her body and mind.' Cedric thought as he quickly left the school, glad that things were going his way.
"I don't get it, why would anyone break into my locker?" Elyon said as she looked shifted through the contents. "And the just take my hair brush and the notes I took for math class?"
"Someone that has no idea who they are messing with..." Danny mumbled to himself, holding back the angry green from his eyes as he took a closer look. The lock hadn't been cut or pulled off with a crowbar, it seemed to have been twisted until the metal on the door gave way and then just ripped off. Not something a normal human could do. 'Was it those fairy girls?' Danny thought, glancing in the direction of Cornelia, Irma, Will and Hay Lin, and seeing them whispering among themselves.
But Danny throw out that idea. She had seen Cornelia using Elyon's locker just the day before. It wouldn't have been necessary for her to break the lock. Maybe he was just miss reading everything. Not all of the events in the world had to be linked to the mystic elements.
"It was probably Uriah trying to get back at me for standing up to him. I'll see if I can't find anyone who knows were he was during that time. For now let's put your stuff in my locker. There's plenty of space." Danny said to Elyon trying to stop her from freaking out from the unexplained theft. Elyon still looked a little shaken. "Hey don't worry about it. This is middle school. These kinds of things happen." Danny said with his usually grin. Elyon nodded gratefully and smiled back as they got to work.
Little did Danny know, but the Guardians had been having a similar conversation. "Do you think Danny did it?" Cornelia said watching as Danny helped Elyon move her stuff.
"Corny, he can move through solid objects, not much point him pulling the lock off the door." Irma said rolling her eyes. "And taking her brush and notebook seems a little creepy."
"Well he is a ghost." Cornelia pointed out. "Creepy is probably in the job description."
"Cornelia, I don't think being a ghost is a job." Hay Lin chuckled.
"We don't know if any of this has to do with anything." Will said dragging the discussion to a more logical path. "How about we talk to Hay Lin's grandma and see if she can make heads or tails of it."
"Sounds good to me..." Irma said happily walking toward the exit but a hand grabbed her collar and pulled her back.
"Oh no you don't. We're going to the newspaper club, remember?" Taranee said as she started to drag the girl towards the club room.
"Help me..." Irma whined as she reach out to the other, but the girls offered her nothing but pitying looks.
"Cornelia?" Cornelia turned to see Elyon walking up to her. "Can we walk home together? I don't really feel conferrable going home alone right now and Danny has to stay after school for his detention." Elyon said rubbing her arms uncomfortable.
"Oh I would... um..." Cornelia said glancing towards Hay Lin and Will who both nodded. "Sure, I'd love to." She said putting an arm around her friend and walking towards the exit.
"Looks like its just you and me for now." Hay Lin said grinning.
"Might just be better that way." Will mumbled as they started for Yan Lin's restraint to get some answers.
There was a rather awkward silence between Elyon and Cornelia as they walked towards Elyon's house. No mater how much Cornelia hated admitting it to herself, the two of them had shifted appear in the last few weeks.
No mater how much she tried to act like she was still the same person she had ever been, Meridian had changed Cornelia. Seeing all of those people suffering, fighting for her life, being forced to join the other girls in order to stay safe. All of those things had changed her.
But there was her best friend looking around as if she expected a monster to jump out at her from the shadows. It was taring Cornelia up inside to watch it. "Hey Elyon, its alright. I'm sure it was just some prank or something." Cornelia said in what should could only hope was a convincing voice.
Elyon's shoulders sank and she looked down. "Danny said the same thing." She admitted, not noticing the frustrated look that crossed Cornelia's face at being compared to Danny. "But I don't think he believed it. He had that same look in his eyes that he had when that giant..." Elyon paused as if thinking about her words. "I mean... when that animatronic thing at the carnival went crazy." She finished.
Cornelia felt a little sad that Elyon had felt the need to lie to her about the monster, but she figured that it couldn't be helped. "I guess I'm really just still a little wierded out by what happened there. I didn't manage to get a good nights sleep last night." Elyon admitted weakly.
"That's... understandable." Cornelia said thinking back to when she had first watch the gargoyle dragging Cabel back through the portal when the Guardian's had first gotten their powers. "But hey, everythings going to be alright. And if anything does happen, me and the girls have got your back." Cornelia said pulling Elyon into for a one armed hug.
"Thanks Cornelia." Elyon whispered with a small small. But what could Cornelia do against monsters? She couldn't even handle normal sized bugs or animals. Her cat was eternally outside of her control.
It was Danny who really made Elyon feel safe. His calm experience mixed with his joking charm made everything feel like a fairy tale. And that in the end, they would all live happily ever after.
To bad in fairy tales, it always gets worse before it gets better.
"The Ceremony of the Amalgamation." Yan Lin said, frowning as she sat down with the girls and Caleb around a table in the personal living space in the back of the restraint, as Blunk crashed on a nearby coach watching tv and eating from a box of popcorn he found in the garbage behind a movie theater.
"Mean, Irma's right, everything gets an evil sounding name these days." Will said wincing.
"The Ceremony of the Amalgamation is a ritual that uses symbols of the victim in order to weaken their spiritual resistance against the user." Yan Lin explained. "Hair for body, notes for mind, the final symbol is hardest to get, Phobos must capture her breath."
"If one of his creatures even thinks that he is getting that close to her, just let them try!" Caleb said angrily.
"I'm sure that you will do a great job, Caleb." Hay Lin said, trying not to roll her eyes and the young rebel leader. "But once he has preformed the Ceremony of the Amalgamation, it will be as if part of Elyon was already in Meridian. And her resistance to his emissaries appeals with be weakened."
There was a knock on the back door and Cornelia stepped in. "Hey guys." She said as she plopped down in the set next to Caleb.
"Hows the princess?" Will asked, seeing the tired look on Cornelia's face that said she wanted to talk about something but didn't want to bring it up.
"Everything that happened with that giant bug has left her terrified." Cornelia reported. "Maybe we should tell her whats going on."
"Oh right, she's scared that monsters exist, so lets tell her that there is an entire world full of them that are targeting." Will said with a sigh. "I can't imagine that going across well."
Cornelia looked angrily for a second but then the look just fell away. "You're probably right on that one." She admitted. Before she would have been angrily about leaving Elyon in the dark, but seeing how scared she was, Cornelia couldn't bring herself to tell her that she was going to be in constant danger.
"Then we are going to need someone to watch her." Hay Lin cut in. "Someone who doesn't go to school, or work, or have anything important to do." They all looked over to Blunk who to his credit immediately realized they were talking about him.
"Blunk do stake out, tale suspect, report HQ, and all for low low fee." Blunk said walking up to them with a happy grin. Hay Lin pulled out some old donuts and tossed them to Blunk. "Ow! Blunk on case!" The Passling said before running off.
"Oh god, just because I said we shouldn't tell her doesn't me I think we should let the wonder toad follow her." Cornelia said wincing.
"Well, it's the best we can do." Will said with a shrug. "Blunk is slippery and won't be spotted, so we only need to worry about is that she might smell him." Will joked. "But Blunk has his job, and we have ours. We need to close whatever portal Phobos's creature used so that he can't return, or if he is still here, then he can't get the symbols to his master." Will said as she pulled out a blank parchment.
She held the Heart of Kandrakar over the paper and it slowly reveled itself to be a map of the city with all the portals marked on it with glowing 'x's. The only one on the map at the moment, was one directly on the school.
"Oh no, another one in the school." Hay Lin said pointing out the 'x'.
"Phobos is shaping the Veil so that all the holes in it are near his sister." Yan Lin said seriously.
"Taranee and Irma are at the school right now." Will said in a moment of realization. With out Will there to use the Heart of Kandrakar on them, the two might as well be defenseless.
"Looks like we're going back to school." Hay Lin said as they picked back up the map which was quickly fading back to being a normal piece of paper.
"Did you have to say it like that? Being in school after hours is so uncool." Cornelia said as they left the room, Caleb joining them as they went.
Yan Lin sighed as she went back to work. It always felt wrong to leave the job in the hands of the young girls. But there was no one else that could do it. The fate of the world rested on those girls... and maybe on one other.
I decide to keep the length of these things pretty much the same, since that is just what people are used to by now.
Actually seeing Elyon freaking out changed Cornelia's mind about telling her for now. In the Cartoon Elyon freaked out whenever she saw a monster for the first time even after having found out about her powers, so her freaking out might be a given. Though in the comic she was pretty friendly with the giant snake monster the day that she had found out about the Metaworld, so there is a huge difference there.
Episode 13 will take one or two more chapters at this rate, then there will with three or so chapters of original material, then two chapters of finally for this stage of the story.
To GirlFish: Danny becoming one of the people on the Counsel of Kandrakar?... HAA HAAAA HAAAA! Oh that is rich. Those racist jerks would be much more likely to try to burn him at the stake. It would be like Danny joining the Observant. Not going to happen.
In the comic, most of the people in Kandrakar seemed to have a bit of a racist opinion against humans, despite the fact that humans were their guardians. So it would make sense that the only reason the guardian are human is because they don't actually have a choice in the mater.
Prometheus was the god/titan of foresight, but he was also one of the only gods that actually liked humanity as more than just a sex toy, since he and his brother were the ones that created the humans in the first place. Prometheus often went behind the other gods backs and broke their laws in order to help the human underdogs out. The how fire being the final straw was actually because the gods had decided that humans were fated to die and Prometheus went against that fate.
So the bonus chapter really was in the spirit of Prometheus. Which I guess makes the new Oracle Epimetheus, since everything he does only makes sense in hindsight.
In the original story of Achilles, Achilles had his mortality burned off of him body rather than being dipped in the River Styx, but also there was no Achilles heel. Achilles was killed by Apollo in punishment for defiling sacred land.
Though Achilles heel of legend might not refer to a literal heel. So in the case of Halfas, the Achilles heel would be their human forms, when the are less capable of defending themselves.
There is one instance in Homers Odyssey, when Achilles ghost says, "I'd rather serve as another man's labourer, as a poor peasant without land, and be alive on Earth, than be lord of all the lifeless dead." Which pretty much sums up Danny's view on being the King of Ghosts.