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.

Phobos was enjoying a long refreshing bath within the dark pool beneath the depths of his castle. A bath that was literally sucking the life-force away from the world of Meridian in order to refuel Phobos's own powers. Something that always weighed heavily on Phobos's mind.

Not that the dark monarch ever cared about the people of Meridian. He was their ruler, so he could do whatever he wished with them. That's what they were for. It was the only reason they were allowed to continue to exist.

But as each day went by the springs refueled him less and less and the mystic power of Meridian waned without its Heart to sustain it. The need to bring his sister to Meridian had never been greater. Her powers would be able to fuel Phobos for all of time.

Luckily, it wouldn't be long before his plans would be set into motion. "My Prince," Cedric said as he entered the darkened room in his Human like form. "I have successfully obtained your sister's breath," Cedric reported holding up a balloon from the store's decorations.

Phobos grinned as he stepped out of the water. "Good, now we can continue with our plans," Phobos said walking past Cedric to grab a towel to drape around himself. "Sow the seeds of mistrust and depression within my sister so that you may tell her who she is during the height of the enchantment and bring her to me."

"And... the Ghost King?" Cedric asked, trying to keep the worry from his voice.

"Do not worry, I have a plan for how to deal with him," Phobos said with an evil grin. "You only have to worry about keeping the Guardians away from my sister until the time comes."

"Then, may I make a suggestion?" Cedric said in his cool voice. "I am sure that if we spread word of a mass execution of political prisoners, than the Guardians will coming running. Perhaps we will even be able to finish them for good this time."

Phobos grinned. "Yes... I like it," he said, and then he started to laugh. Soon all his wishes would be a reality.

Will hadn't been able to sleep. Every time she tried to close her eyes she was haunted by images of herself firing lightning through Danny's back.

The idea of that level of betrayal, to someone who had helped you so much, simply out of some fear of that person's race was... it was un-American.

Kandrakar. Why would they have ordered something so heartless? The truth was, Will knew nothing about Kandrakar; not about its people, its culture, its history, nothing. And the more she thought about things, the more they didn't add up. Why did Kandrakar put up a Veil around Meridian? At the time Phobos must have been only twelve years old, surely they could have just overthrown the Prince and saved the people from those years of suffering, but instead they just used their power to cut Meridian off from the rest of the universe, as if it was some kind of plague camp where there was no cure.

She couldn't exactly wonder if she was fighting on the right side. After all, she had seen the living conditions in Meridian and all the horrible things that Phobos's men did to the people. But it did make her wonder why Yan Lin had never told them anything, and why the Heart of Kandrakar was on Earth in the first place. Maybe they were just pawns in a game far bigger than themselves.

She wanted to talk to someone about it, but running through the list of people she could talk to just gave her a headache. Yan Lin might have been the ideal choice before, but the ex-Guardian rarely answered any of her questions and she didn't even know if she could trust her, not anymore.

Hay Lin would go to her grandmother if Will told her, and Irma was a blabber mouth. Cornelia already seemed to hate Danny, so she was probably not the best person to go to. And Taranee was too afraid of Ghosts to listen. She could talk to Danny himself, but the idea of saying that someone like her once murdered someone like him in cold blood, using the powers he just helped her gain control of, didn't feel like a very good topic of conversation. She didn't want to risk the friendship she had with her mentor.

As Will saw it, she had only one other option, Caleb. The boy rebel was used to keeping secrets. And even if he was a friend and ally, he wasn't directly connected to Kandrakar. And even better yet, he was open minded about Danny being a Ghost and could provide insight into Meridian's involvement with Kandrakar.

So she decided that she would try to talk to Caleb about it the next chance she got. Since it was either talking to him about it or Blunk.

Will nearly jumped out of her skin when Hay Lin placed a hand on her shoulder. "Oh wow, you're sure jumpy this morning," Hay Lin giggled cheerfully.

"Will, you alright? You look a bit pale?" Irma said as she sat down next to Will underneath the tree in front of the school. They had about thirty minutes before first period started, so they were hanging out in front of the school, just like some other students. "You know if you're sick, you might want to just go home. Then again, you might want to even if you aren't sick. Dissection labs are today."

"Uh, don't remind me," Cornelia shuddered. "I hate worms."

"Aren't you supposed to be the Guardian of Earth? Why do you have some much trouble with 'earth' worms?" Irma said with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm fine guys, I just didn't get a very good night's sleep," Will said leaning back against the tree and closing her eyes again. She really didn't want to hear Cornelia and Irma arguing at the moment. "I... I read a really depressing book and lost sleep thinking about it, that's all. Trust me when I say, you really don't want to know," Will said, rubbing her temples as an image of Danny being shot in the back moved through her mind again.

"Alright just don't push yourself," Hay Lin said gently.

But Will didn't have a choice whether or not to push herself, because the Guardians had a job to do. She knew that the moment Caleb rounded the corner of the school gates and made eye contact with them.

"So what's the four one one?" Will asked the rebel leader once they had moved to a more secluded spot.

"Trouble in Meridian, Phobos is planning on killing off political prisoners. Over a hundred people in all. Every last one of them a member of the resistance or the former Queen's imperial guard who spoke up against Phobos," Caleb reported. "They are to be killed in a mass execution today at noon, by feeding them to Gramorn Tunnel Roaches," the girls squirmed at the name. But Caleb hardly noticed as he looked to the ground. "Our spies say... that my father is among them."

The girls' eyes widened in shock. They had never heard anything about Caleb's father. "I had thought he was dead, but he is counted on the list of prisoners to be executed," Caleb said miserably. "I don't know whether to be glad my father is alive, or terrified that he could die."

Cornelia placed a hand on Caleb's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll get him back," she said, trying to comfort the young rebel leader.

"Yep, then you guys can have your tear filled reunion," Hay Lin said cheerfully. Caleb gave them a grateful smile and nod.

"So what are we waiting for, let's go kick some bad guy but," Irma said, punching an open hand.

"Hold on a second Irma, we need to make astral drops to take our place at school, or else we will be in serious trouble when we get back," Taranee reminded them.

Will winced a little. She hated using the astral drops. Leaving someone else in her place to live her life while she was gone. Even if there memories merged together after the astral drop was gone, it still felt strange and wrong.

They all gathered around the Heart of Kandrakar and touched a part of the cored necklace. As they all concentrated the Heart glowed bright pink and five pockets of energy fell from it moving a short distance away before forming the girls astral drops, each physically identical to one of the five Guardians.

Though to say that they were completely identical would be a small stretch. The astral drops lacked the girls' powers and even if they had all the same memories, their personalities were slightly different due to the fact that they were not affected by being Guardians. But they were close enough to the originals to fool even close family members.

That is, except for one person. Will looked at the group of astral drops and noticed that all of them had rather weak Aethers. Most likely because they were never meant to be permanent, just lasting long enough for the girls to do their jobs before returning to the Heart of Kandrakar to rest.

Will could only think one thing as she followed Caleb to where the portal was. 'There is no way Danny will fall for it.'

Another small part to introduce the setting of this 'episode' which will probably be the next 3-5 chapters.

Probably going to be around 6-10 more chapters in this part before it is time to move on to the next one.

I've already said that I am using the Astral Drops from the comics because they actually act like human beings and can go unnoticed, were the ones in the cartoon acted all weird and wouldn't be that useful.

At original time of writing, the poll was 7 for Will and 2+me for Danny. (The me was because I wanted to see if the thing was working or not.)

I'm actually surprised by how much positive comments I got from the last chapter. I was expecting either shocked silence or anger from invoking the words of Anime Jesus and then having him die.

Though to be fair, it should have been pretty obvious that he was going to die. It was the war at Troy and he was Achilles. And invoking the likeness of Kamina is like using the likeness of Jesus in your story. In almost all stories that have a 'Jesus' like character, he dies.

Counting up to 1 million words posted 971,818