Future Talk

Chapter 52:

"Time After Time"


I am going to take a moment to detail my understanding of core events, pre-Lauren.

First, I had been assured (on multiple occasions) that I, Danielle Elaine Thompson, had died by the hand of a rapist. It happened on my twentieth birthday. It happened quickly. It happened before my time.

Second, I had been summarily transported—based on merits such as my supposed 'bravery' and my knowledge of the Yu Yu Hakusho universe—into another world. Not only that, I had been sent back in that world's time in order to prevent a disaster which would spell its (and the rest of existence's) ruination.

Third, I was given a new body. My new shell had had limited interaction with the outside world near the end of its life, and because of this I had been told that no time paradoxes could occur. The body could take and hold my original appearance thanks to its shape-shifting abilities, abilities I learned to harness, albeit in limited form.

Fourth, by changing the future I would isolate the past from the new-present, essentially sealing off the threats in an alternative timeline that would never have the power to touch the other realities again.

Now I am going to talk about my understanding of events, post-Lauren.

First, I was still pretty sure I had died in the mugging incident. After all, my memories of the stabbing and its aftermath are clear, so there's no way to dispute the fact that I am, for all pertinent points and purposes, a zombie.

Second, Lauren's appearance called into question whether or not I had actually been sent into another world. Didn't her appearance suggest that the world I used to know was very much a part of this new one, and not some distant alternate reality? Her presence also called into question whether or not I had been sent into the past—the fact that the Grand Mother recognized me and knew my name, coupled with her not-so-subtle suggestions that I was, in fact, a Bright One, led me to suspect that both Lauren and I had somehow been sent into the future.

Note, however, that my soul may have been pulled from the past, into the future, then sent back in time to the point I was currently living. So I had gone both forward and backward in time, one after the other?

My head hurts. Time for point number three.

Third, I was no longer certain my body was a random shapeshifter's. The suggestion that I was the daughter of a shapeshifter who had been in league with the Sisters makes me think there's more to that than meets the eye (coincidence, I've learned, seems to favor me heavily), though what my conjecturing really means at this point is anyone's guess.

And fourth, I was pretty sure I had changed the future drastically, even if I hadn't yet managed to avert the looming apocalypse. After all, if Koenma had seen a twist like this coming, he would have warned me ahead of time.

Right?


The gas mask fell from my fingers and struck the ground with a small, distant clink of glass on metal. I stared at Lauren's sleeping face for a moment, thoughts of my nature and Koenma's ever-growing list of deceptions streaming through my head as I stared, swallowed, and stared some more. I couldn't feel the floor beneath my feet; the world seemed to tilt on its axis until I threatened to slide off into space; my pulse sped to a sprint them slowed to a lumbering crawl. Eventually I managed to turn around, though tearing my eyes from Lauren proved nigh impossible, and I pushed my rushing thoughts aside long enough to say: "How do you know me?"

The Grand Mother inclined her head, imperious even as she smiled in triumph. "You know that answer as well as I, Danielle," she said, still smiling that same, wry smile. "Though I must admit, your choice of name left little to the imagination. Danielle Elaine Thompson, Elaina…" She shook her head, but she still didn't quit smiling, dammit! "Your sense of deceit is meager, at best."

I breathed a little quicker. "I wasn't trying to deceive you," I said. "I wasn't… I don't know how you know me!"

The final sentence came out in a panicked wail, and I put my hands over my face. No tears came, however, because I was far too shocked to cry.

The Grand Mother paused before saying: "Truly?"

I did not reply. I pressed the heels of my hands into my palms until I saw stars.

"You truly don't remember, do you?" she said, tone dropping halfway into awe and halfway into dark realization. "This is…" Her tone solidified back into its normal commanding register. "I cannot claim surprise, however. We did not even realize you had left us until you were gone."

I froze, slowly lowering my hands until I could see her standing below me. The boys, behind her, seemed confused, wary, and tense, but I paid them little mind.

"Gone?" I whispered.

"Yes," she said, and she turned around with a swirl of cloak. She took a few steps toward one of the pods facing Lauren's pod, one of the ones in the circle that set Lauren apart from the rest of the carefully ordered rows in the strange room, and she stood before it with her hands behind her back.

"Come here, Danielle," she said.

Though I loathed the thought of leaving Lauren's sleeping side, I slowly descended the stairs, walked past the boys, and approached the Grand Mother.

Yusuke, as I passed, hissed: "Dani, what's going on?"

I ignored him and stood next to the old Sister, who looked at me out of the corner of her all-black eye and said: "We were taught the Sacred Tongue by the first Bright Ones, but they never taught us to read their language." Her eyes went back to the pod, lingering on the base of it right next to the floor. "Only the Grand Mothers, myself and those who came before alike, know how to read the ancient symbols."

She knelt, then, and passed her hand over the pod's base. Dust caked her skin when she pulled away, and bright metal gleamed where she had wiped.

"There is a name here," she said. "I could read it if my eyes were not so dim in my old age." She smiled a little as she stood and backed up. "Read it for me, if you will."

And so I did. I bent, blonde hair tumbling about my face, and stared at the small metal plate engraved with the English letters I hadn't seen in many, many weeks. I froze when I looked at them, unable to think clearly as their hidden sounds ricocheted around inside my skull like loose bullets, like cannon fire, like marbles in a metal drum, like—

"Dani, what's wrong?" Yusuke said from somewhere behind me, and I stood up. I kept my eyes fixed on the pod, on its wide-open door and dusty interior and…

"Dani," Hiei hissed, but I did not say anything.

There was no way—no way in hell—that I could answer him just yet.

The Grand Mother walked past me and to the pod on my left, the one next to the one whose name I had just read. Again she knelt, again she wiped the dust away, and again she bade me read the words imprinted there. I did so without feeling myself walk and bend, and when I saw the new name I couldn't help what happened next: my knees gave out and I pitched backward, landing hard on my butt so my teeth clacked painfully together. The metal gleamed, watching me as I raised a trembling hand and pointed it at the pod.

"What is this?" I stammered, voice barely hitting above a whisper. "What is this?"

"What was the first name?" the Grand Mother said.

"It can't be," I said. My hand dropped; I curled in on myself, hands twining into my hair as my staff fell to the ground with a peal of sound, like music. "It just can't!"

The Grand Mother said: "It can, Danielle. You know it to be true."

And so I said it, because what else could I do? The words were hard to articulate aloud, partially because I could hardly wrap my head around what I was seeing, the impossibility presented before me in no unclear terms, but nevertheless I swallowed and opened my mouth to say in a harsh, wavering whisper, the name of my mother.

"Pamela Lynn Thompson," I said, and my hands began to shake in my hair.

The Grand Mother did not recognize my pain, or allow me time to rest and take it all in. "And the second name?" she asked brusquely. "Say it. It should be an easy matter for you."

But that name was, of course, harder to say than the first, though I suppose that was to be expected.

After all, it was my name.

"Danielle Elaine Thompson," I said in a rush of breath, and my throat snapped closed as the tears crammed out the corners of my eyes. "Danielle, Elaine… my name."

"So you are Danielle," the Grand Mother said, and she smiled, head tilting back so she could regard the ceiling in wonder. "Our hour has come at last. Praise be."

I stared at her, eyes wide and streaming silent tears, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. A wash of heat let me know it was Hiei before he knelt at my side and asked: "Dani. What's wrong?"

I opened my mouth to speak, hands coming out of my hair so I could grab at his warm, strong arm, but all that came out of my mouth was a small, broken cry. Hiei's eyes narrowed, and he put his hand to the side of my face and stared at me so hard I thought I'd combust. Then, however, I felt him touch my mind with his, and I let him in so he could coax the memories of what had just happened to the surface. He saw Lauren through my eyes, saw my mother's name, saw my name and the horrible contradictions it alluded to—

"I don't understand, Hiei," I said, pouring all of my confusion and longing and oh-my-god-I-am-about-to-have-a-break-down into my short, enunciated words. "I died. This can't be me."

His hand tightened on my shoulder as his jaw clenched tight, and he asked: "So what does this mean, then, Dani?"

I couldn't answer him. How could I? Hiei, however, just shook me once with a gentle undulation of his arm and repeated: "What is going on, Dani? Tell me."

"Dude, what's wrong with her?" Kuwabara asked, coming to join me and Hiei on the floor.

Hiei shot him a sharp look, and then Kuwabara's eyes glazed over. A second later he shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs, and he looked at me in newfound horror.

"Is Hiei telling me the truth, Dani?" he asked in a low, urgent voice. Narrow brown eyes were open wide in concern and shock. "You're… you're a Bright One?"

My lips trembled. "I… I don't know!" I said, and I let Hiei go so I could wrap my arms around my knees and bury my face in them. "I don't know anything! I died! I didn't get put in a chrysalis and live for ten thousand years underground, I'm not a Bright One, my mom's not a Bright One, I'm not—"

As actual sobs managed to break through my wall of numb disbelief and unfelt tears, I heard Yusuke say: "Hey Hiei, show us too!"

A second past, and then Kurama murmured: "This certainly does change things."

Hiei let out a low growl, one that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise to attention. His heat left me as he stood, and when I looked up I saw that he had drawn his sword from its scabbard, advanced on the Grand Mother, and was pointing the weapon straight up at her face. She towered over him even though her back was curved with age, but that didn't faze Hiei in the slightest.

"Tell me, witch," he said. "What tricks are you playing?"

She said in perfect, accented Japanese: "There are no tricks here, demon. What you see before you reflects the truest truth."

"Hey, you speak Japanese!" Yusuke said accusingly, walking to Hiei's side so he could further threaten the Grand Mother with his presence. "What's up with that? I thought all you people hated—"

"I have lived long enough to see what lies beyond these lands, and to know that ignorance could spell death," the Grand Mother said imperiously, and she met my eyes. They were much softer all of a sudden. "Tradition dictates that men are inferior to women, but I do not hold such teachings as dear as others of my kind. Your mother, Danielle… she taught me there was more to life than staunch tradition. I have many things to thank her for." Her chin inclined a little. "Now please, show me your true face. I tire of Pamela's when what I really want to see is your own. After all, it has been so long."

Because she asked and because I felt like keeping my own face a secret was a bit of a moot point, I somehow quieted my tears, forced myself to change back into my own face, and stand up. I recovered my staff and clutched at it, drawing strength from its silky skin and the way it purred in my hands…

"Oh, Danielle," the Grand Mother said. Her sigh wasn't one of petulance or patronization, just of longing fulfilled and distinct relief. "It is so good to see you again, even if you've never seen me as I've seen you."

I didn't want to think about me right then, or ever. "You knew my mother?" I said. My tears had dried; perhaps I was just numb, but whatever the case was, I was glad to be able to think clearly again. Hopefully the spell would last.

She nodded. "And I knew you, too, though only through the glass of your chrysalis."

My breath shuddered when I drew it in to say: "I don't remember this place. And I don't remember going into one of these chrysalises. I don't remember anything."

"Many of the Bright Ones did not remember their internment in their case," the Grand Mother said. "The memory was traumatic for some of them, and during their sleep they blocked it out in order to heal the pain. You must be suffering similarly."

"But," I began, and she shushed me.

"Danielle, you must forgive me for interrupting you, but there is something you must do before I answer your many questions." She walked forward, between Yusuke and Hiei without sparing them a second look. "And I will answer your questions, but you must wake the Bright Lady, Lauren, up. Time is of the essence."

My breathing hitched. "Seishou?" I said. "The Dark One?"

"Yes," she said, nodding. "He will take her if he can and he will use her to meet his own ends, ones I know of and ones I will not allow to pass if even if I have to give my life—" She stopped, trying to compose herself, and then she looked back at me. Her eyes held a heartfelt plea. "So please, Danielle—wake your friend up. All have tried, but you will not fail. I know it."

I looked over at Lauren's pod; I could barely make out her form amidst the blue glow surrounding her like a menacing halo. "I have no idea how to wake her up, though," I said, and the Grand Mother took my free hand in her own. Mine seemed the size of an infant's lying against her gnarled palm.

"I will show you what others tried to do, and failed to do," she said softly, and she tugged me after her toward Lauren's resting place. I met Hiei's eyes as I started to climb the stairs, and in them I could see many things—things like doubt, wariness, and a hint of worry I knew was supposed to be for me. Seeing him gave me a little more strength, and I flashed a tentative smile in his direction before standing with the Grand Mother before Lauren's pod.

The crone took my hand, held it up, and pressed my palm flat on the glass. "Keep your hand there," she said, and she backed away. The glass felt icy cold on my skin. "You will see it in a… there."

What happened next was a curious thing. The blue light around Lauren flashed brighter for an instant before pulling in on itself, growing more and more concentrated within the pod's chamber at the cost of making the rest of the room grow dim. Eventually the light coalesced on Lauren's body, specifically on the small metal nibs and netting decorating her skin, and then the pinpoints of light beamed themselves outward like a thousand tiny projectors. The multitude of bright blue laser-points shot onto the inside of the glass, and they swirled around in a series of geometric shapes and numbers before forming a square around my palm and spread fingers.

To my surprise, a clicking metallic voice came from nowhere and said: "Scanning in progress."

A solid horizontal line of lights shot off of Lauren's body and scanned the square around my hand from bottom to top. A faint buzzing in my palm and a chilling sensation were the only other things of note.

"Scanning complete," the voice said, coolly feminine and passionless and more than a little creepy. "Welcome, user. Initiating vocal verification. State your name."

I hesitated, then said: "Danielle Elaine Thompson."

A click, and then: "Verification complete. Welcome, Danielle."

The Grand Mother, still standing at my side, said in English: "If you ask it to do something, it will try. But you must know the words to persuade it." She put a hand on my head, long fingers giving my hair a slow caress. "Your mother could not guess the words, but she said you would be able to given your friendship with the Bright Lady. She said your friendship itself was the key. I have no idea what she meant, but time, she said, would prevail." She stepped back again. "Good luck."

I nodded at her, and I looked at Lauren. I tried to keep my own face calm, but…

I felt nervous. Of course I felt nervous. Lauren's face—dimmer now that the light wasn't backlighting it—seemed serene, and knowing that I pretty much held her life in my hands, that Seishou would take her if I didn't hurry and get her out of the barren wasteland of a world…

I had no time for worry, or for hesitation. I needed to dive right in.

"I want to wake Lauren up," I said as loudly and clearly as I could. "Wake Lauren up, please."

A light click echoed through the room. Then the voice said: "Revival protocol initiated. Name subject."

"Lauren Renee Oppenheim," I said, and there came another click followed closely by a low thrum that made the glass on my best friend's pod shiver. My elbow shook a little from the force of the vibration, but I tried as hard as I could to keep my hand steady.

"State pass sequence," the voice said, and waited.

I sat there, thinking about it for a long time, wondering just what the heck Lauren would have chosen as her pass key. Surely not her birthday (Lauren wasn't stupid enough to choose something like that, not like I would have) or her pet's name (again, that was me, not her) or her hometown (I'm an idiot). She was the type to choose the Fibonacci sequence or some obscure mathematical theorem, and just how the heck was I supposed to contend with that?

What was it the Grand Mother said? I thought, staring at Lauren. That our friendship was the key?

No, I thought. No, that's not all she said. She said my mother said that time would prevail here. That not even time could separate Lauren and I, and…

My breathing hitched, and I blinked back a prick of tears.

You always were a rank sentimentalist, Lauren, I thought, smiling a bittersweet smile, and I didn't really think as I took a deep breath to prepare myself for what came next. I just looked at Lauren, at her pretty sleeping face and her smudge of dark lashes, and sang: "If you're lost you can look you will find me—time after time." I paused, swallowed, and went on with: "If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting—time after time."

For a moment, I thought I'd failed. Nothing happened after my thin, high voice drifted off into the blue-black dark, and I heard one of the boys shift from foot to foot behind me. Then, however, the voice burbled a little and the lights on Lauren's skin abruptly went out.

"Pass sequence confirmed," the voice stated calmly. "Preparing subject revival and evacuation. Standby."

The glass under my hand shuddered and seemed to twist, and I pulled back. I would have tripped backward over the first step had the Grand Mother not been standing behind me, and I landed against her and she wrapped her arms around my torso, walking us back down the steps until we stood at the foot of Lauren's dais. The guys crowded in around us as the Grand Mother let me go to stand on my own feet and staff, and then Hiei grabbed my elbow and put his lips up against my ear.

"That song?" he said, warmth hissing over my skin. "She sang that to you when you were children, I saw it."

I shuddered, leaning into him a little because all of this was just too much at once, dammit, and I needed something.

"It was ours," I said, and his hand tightened on my arm. "It, it seemed to fit."

"Finally," the Grand Mother murmured. "She awakens."

And so all of us, all of us together… we watched.

The lights slowly came back up, a smattering of stars inside the pod that I knew were lined up with the metal net snaking all over Lauren. They grew brighter and brighter until it almost hurt to look at them, and then I heard an odd hissing noise and a billow of white cloud surge into the pod's chamber. The clouds obscured the light and made it spread all along the cloud, glowing like a luminescent sea, and then the cloud seemed to dissolve into countless tiny whirlpools and get drawn deep into the pinpoints of light. They grew brighter with every swirl of steam until the light became too much to bear and I had to shut my eyes and look sideways at the wall. Even then the light burned through my eyelids, and I had to cover my face with my hand to keep from feeling like I'd go permanently blind.

Though the light was by no means warm, I still felt it go out like a heatlamp getting turned away from my face. I dropped my hand and blinked up at the pod, seeing that it had all grown dim and dark and that the room was now almost unseeable in the gloom, but I hardly cared because I heard a sharp pop and then a glide of metal on well-oiled metal and the glass door was swinging wide open and—

Her hair spilled out, first, in a golden tumble dyed dark with shadow, and then one pale leg moved forward. She stepped out of the pod in a daze, hair tangling with her feet as she moved delicately down onto the metal floor. Her eyes were only halfway open (I couldn't see the blue, just a vague bright glitter) and her lips were parted as she breathed deeply, slowly, deliberately. Her hair draped around her body, swathing her in a fine gauzy curtain of pale strands like a spider's web.

"Awake," the Grand Mother said. She had tears in her eyes. "Finally… awake!"

But Lauren didn't look like she was awake, not really, more like she was sleeping walking or whatever—

I couldn't help stepping forward, up one stairstep, then two, and saying: "Lauren?"

Her face, framed as it was by that absurdly long hair, turned in my direction, and then she smiled. Straight white teeth, pink lips, cheeks moving up so high her eyes squinted further shut… Her voice was scratchy when she spoke, but it was her voice, so undeniably Lauren's voice that I immediately felt more tears spring into my eyes.

"I thought I heard you singin', Dani," Lauren said in her wonderfully low alto. Her slow drawl sounded just like it always did, full of warmth and contentment and told-you-so. "I missed that."

I swallowed because I would have sobbed otherwise. "You're… you're OK?" I asked, looking her up and down.

"Oh, maybe," she said, swaying a little. Her eyes fluttered. "I just got out of one of the chambers, didn't I?"

I could do nothing but tell her: "Yes."

She yawned. "'splains why I'm so tired," she said, grinning. "I'm 'bout to fall into a restorative sleep, Dani. Take care of me while I'm out 'cause I ain't wakin' up anytime soon." Another yawn, and this time her knees gave out. I hopped up the steps with a cry of her name, but she waved me off as she rested on her hands and knees, sinking wrist-deep into a cushion of her own hair.

"I'm fine, Dan," she said, but this time she couldn't crack a smile because her body had gone as limp as a wet rag. I grabbed her shoulders and eased her onto her back, hair tangling everywhere as I cradled her larger body in my arms as best I could.

"I never thought I'd see you again," I whispered, reaching up to touch her face with trembling fingers. She felt too real, too warm, too solid, I thought she was gone forever but now she's here and

Her eyes were closed and her lips hardly moved, but I could still hear the smile in her voice when she said: "I told ya I'd see ya again, dummy."

"But how could I be sure?" I asked. My voice cracked on the last syllable.

"Time after time, remember?" she said, and her head lolled bonelessly to one side. With a lurch her breathing turned deeper and guttural and harsh—

"Is she OK? She sounds like she's choking!" I heard Kuwabara say, and I let out a peal of laughter that bordered on the realm of hysterics.

"She's snoring!" I gasped out between laughs as my best friend sawed logs in my arms. "She's snoring! I used to want to kill her for it when we had sleepovers, but now—" I hunched over her, back convulsing as I laughed and chortled and giggled. "Now it's music! It's fucking music!"

She was still snoring when the Grand Mother walked over to us and took Lauren—my best friend, the Bright Lady, a goddess who wasn't one, not really, because what kind of goddess snores like that?—into her arms. I was too limp to protest, but when the Grand Mother said my name I snapped out of my trance long enough to start twining the length of Lauren's long hair around my arm in an unending silken loop.

"Thank you, Danielle," the Grand Mother said when I finished gathering up Lauren's hair. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said. I took a deep breath. "Can I have my answers now?"


Since we were safest in the hall of the chrysalises, we took a few minutes to get settled in better. The Grand Mother laid Lauren out on her back so she could sleep in peace, snoring all the while, and while she fussed with her—really, she was acting like a doting mother or something—she rescued the gas mask from where I'd dropped it by the pod and carefully put it over Lauren's face. I missed the sight of Lauren's peaceful face, but I could still hear her light snores and I kept one ear on them to monitor her health.

Each snore was a blessing. Like I said, each snore was music.

I turned to the boys while the Grand Mother worked with Lauren. They already knew the long and short of it (about my name on the pods and my mother's name, and thanks to Hiei being a productive scamp they knew who Lauren was to a brief extent) but I still filled them in on my thoughts.

"… and so I opened the chamber thing with a password only I'd know since Lauren and I are friends, and apparently no one else could do it before me," I finished, and I glanced at Lauren. She lay at the foot of her pod, head in the Grand Mother's lap. "And I'm a Bright One apparently, but I remember dying and there's nothing in my memory about those chrysalis things."

"Well, if the Grand Mother knows answer, we'll get them out of her," Yusuke assured me with a wink, and he cracked his knuckles as he turned to the aforementioned woman. "Hey you! I know you speak Japanese, so start talking so we can understand!"

Black eyes turned my way, and in English the Grand Mother asked: "Would you like your men to know the truth as well?"

"We're all in this together," I said in Japanese, and the Grand Mother gave a small nod before resuming her stroking of Lauren's brow. "Where do you want to start?"

She said nothing for a time, and Yusuke let out a frustrated sigh before throwing himself down on the dais's steps. Eventually, however, she began to speak.

"When they brought you to me when they found you after being poisoned by Sioh, Danielle," she said, "I recognized your face as Pamela, your mother. But I knew as soon as I felt your energy that you were not her. Her energy was darker than yours, and, toward the end, it was less focused."

My heart thudded. "The end?" I said, not liking the sound of that at all.

She nodded. "Besides yourself and the Bright Lady, your mother was the last Bright One left," she said slowly. "She woke up a little over five hundred years ago, while one other Bright One still lived with us, with no memory of her past life before emerging from her chrysalis."

My heart rate thudded even faster. "You mean, she didn't remember—"

The Grand Mother shook her head. "She did not remember you until several years later, when she bumped her head in a nasty fall. Then, however, she came back here and looked at your sleeping face, and she remembered everything."

"This remembrance changed her," she continued. "She watched the other living Bright One, Sister Andrea, waste away and die from this world's poison, and when she saw what the air would eventually do to her—and later, to you—she became obsessed with finding a way to beat the weaknesses of the Bright Ones."

"So she designed the gas mask," I said, glancing at Lauren's covered face.

"Correct," said the Grand Mother. "Pamela disappeared from our midst to look for the proper building materials, wandering in from time to time to rest, but she never found what she sought." Her tone grew grieved. "One day, she never returned."

Mom… died? I thought, remembering the long-ago scene of watching a shapeshifter get slain by two ogres. Was that how she died? Is that how I got this body?

"The Bright Ones who emerged in the last thousand years or so have been very special, Danielle," she said, not noticing my preoccupation. "They have emerged with longer-lasting immunities to this world's air, and with strengths more befitting demons than the earlier, weak-in-body Bright Ones. Your mother in particular had a strong natural ability, the ability to change her shape at will, and this afforded her a very unique gift. By shifting her shape to a demon's, she was able to resist being poisoned by the air." Her tone went darker. "Her demon form, however, was terrifying to behold, and when she took it it changed her. She became savage, bestial, and violent…" A pause. "But I can very easily assure you that she was the longest-lived Bright One in our history, living for many years when most of her kind could barely stand a few months."

Which is why I'm immune? I asked myself. Because I'm inside my mother's body?

Suddenly, my skin began to crawl.

And her 'demon form' must be that horrible Noh-mask thing I can turn into, I thought, wrapping my hands tighter around my comforting staff. So it drove her crazy? Maybe she just forgot to come back, because she was so wrapped up in that form.

A new thought occurred.

Will taking it turn me into a beast, too? But at the same time, will it boost my immunity here?

My stomach churned.

Am I really in my mother's body?

"I assumed you were your mother, returned to us at last, when the Riders brought you before me," the Grand Mother said, oblivious to my inner monologue. "Then, however, I felt your energy and I knew you were not Pamela. But who, then, could take on her face, bear the mask—the product of her toil—and know enough of the Sisters to find our homeland?"

"The name 'Elaina' clinched it for me," the Grand Mother said. "It could only be you, her daughter. After all, you had only vanished from your pod a few months before—you could have withstood the air for that long, especially if you had inherited your mother's strange traits… which you have."

I swallowed. "I suppose," I managed to say.

Kurama stepped forward and addressed the Grand Mother at theat point, but she did not sseem to take it as a sign of disrespect. "So you say Dano vanished from her chrysalis several months ago?" Kurama said.

The Grand Mother nodded.

The demon turned his shrewd green eyes my way. "You vanished from here around the same time you appeared in our world, Dani," he said in a low voice. "You must have wandered out of here and through a randomly occurring rift to the Human World. It's a long-shot of a coincidence, but it fits."

I swallowed. "I don't remember anything."

The Grand Mother pushed past our words without seeming to care, and her eyes crinkled with a smile. "So did you meet Pamela in the outside world?" she asked me. "I assume so since you carry her mask. I am elated to hear she still lives, and—"

I shook my head to silence her. "I didn't meet her," I had to say. "I don't know if she's alive, and I didn't know what had happened to her when I woke up." I took a deep breath. "I don't remember being put in the chrysalis, nor why I would have been put there. My last memory before waking up in a place very, very far from here and meeting these men, is being stabbed to death."

The Grand Mother's face darkened.

"I saw a girl, about to—about to get raped," I stammered. "I tried hitting the man over the head, but he turned around and he stabbed…" I squeezed my eyes shut, hating to have to relive the memory and hating the way it called up memories of Ryu's recent and unholy attack. I still felt cold in the hollow beneath my ribs. "That's where my memory ends."

"Then all the times you mother visited you in your chrysalis, whispering her plans and drawing strength from the sight of your face… your subconscious must remember that even if you don't," she said. Behind her eyes I saw that this was her opinion and that it would never change, so I did not try to do so.

"I suppose," I said, not really buying it, but what else was there to believe, anyway?

"We could discuss the reasons for your remembrance all day, of course," the Grand Mother said, and her tone went wistful. "Your mother, Danielle… she was a dear friend to me. I was a Rider when she came among us, and we were close. She often stayed in this room, speaking to you and the Bright Lady, telling you stories about the Sisters and telling me stories about the you and the Lady as children." She laughed a little. "I know the two of you painted a tree when you were small. The Lady led that charge, but you went along gamely enough and used your hair to scoop up paint."

The memory made me smile. "I remember that," I said (Kuwabara muttered something about me and Lauren not being kept in the same room; I ignored him). "But can I ask you a question?"

The Grand Mother nodded, not hesitating in the least. "You are my Sister, a Bright One, a friend of the Lady, and a daughter of a beloved friend. You may ask me anything."

I smiled in thanks. "Did any of the Bright Ones say why we were put in our chrysalises?" I asked.

Her smile faded as quickly as it had come. "They did," she said. "It is a secret only the Grand Mothers are allowed to know, for it does not paint a pleasant picture of our deities."

I snorted. "We're not deities. We're just—"

"Humans?" the Grand Mother supplied, and my mouth snapped shut. "Yes, I know that the Bright Ones are merely humans, but the rest of the Sisters do not. That secret is also guarded by the Grand Mother, though it changes little on how I feel about the Bright Ones. Your kind taught us things about sanitation, medicine, and architecture that have helped our people prosper. The circumstances of your race matter little as a consequence."

"But why are we in the chrysalises?" I asked.

"Because your people destroyed themselves," she said simply. "The lords of your world placed their favorite and most useful individuals into the chrysalises in order to ride out the destruction of your world, and this is where you ended up." She shook her head. "I am not clear on the details. Few of the Bright Ones were, either. Memories grew hazy during the time while you slept, or they disappeared completely."

"I see," I said.

"No, you don't," the Grand Mother said. For once her composure cracked; withered lips parted over pointed teeth, snarling at something only she could see as she stroked, stroked, stroked Lauren's too-long hair. "You only see the half of it."

"What's the other half, then?" I said, a feeling of foreboding rising high within my chest.

Her words were tense. "The Dark One," she said, and I felt my heart rate start to sprint. "He is not what you think he is, and for all my talk of secrets, his looms the largest over me."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Yusuke said suddenly, and the Grand Mother looked down at him. He stared back, uncaring that she saw him as little more than a bug, and I almost smiled at that. Leave it to Yusuke to make me smile at a time like that, right?

"It means that the Dark One's origin is something passed from Grand Mother to Grand Mother, with no intermediate Sisters in between," she said. "None of my counselors know, none of the Riders know, no one knows. It is simply myself and the Dark One. We hold the secret fast." Her chin lifted. "Feel honored that I am about to impart this secret unto you."

"Yeah yeah, lady," Yusuke muttered, but the Grand Mother did not hear.

"When our first leader, Hinotama, first found this place and saw the Bright Ones, she did not find only this room." Her eyes met each of ours in turn, as if daring us to contradict her. "When the Salamander came and began to prey upon the Bright Ones, Hinotama chased it from the room, down a long corridor, and into another room. This one was also filled with Bright Ones."

"OK, so there were more of them," Yusuke said. "What's the point?"

The Grand Mother pinned him with a glare. "The point," she thundered in a whisper, "is that all of these Bright Ones were men."

My jaw fell to pretty much the floor. I heard Kurama mutter something, and Hiei growled a little at my side. I glanced at him; he appeared to be seething, but when I looked at him his anger quelled.

The Grand Mother stroked Lauren's hair, as if looking for comfort in its softness. "All but a few of the chrysalises in that chamber were destroyed in Hinotama's fight with the Salamander," she said, "and when she slew the beast, it collapsed atop one of the final untouched chambers, bleeding on it and around it until it swam in a sea of blood."

"She left that pod alone, assuming it was dead and that its occupant would never bother anyone again." A hand fisted in blonde strands. "But she was wrong. A thousand years later the chrysalis sprang open, and the man, whole and unharmed, stepped out."

"One of the previous Grand Mothers found him, of course, since she knew he existed and had been watching for his potential release. Our ways back then were different than they are now, and the man was taken as one of our many slaves and treated with markedly less honor than we treat our men today, who we now regard as partners." She took a breath to steady herself, and said: "The abuse proved to be too much, and he grew—mad, I think you'd call it. Insane."

My mouth had gone dry.

"Everyone has their breaking point," she went on. "He, too, eventually snapped. Enraged one day after being beaten for a minor transgression, he slew an entire group of Sisters with powers none of us knew he had, and he fled, appearing a year later to attack us again. Ever since then, this man has been known as the Dark One, even though his nature is closer to that of the Bright."

"Seishou," I gasped, short of breath and feeling very much faint. I wasn't sure why I blurted out my next words, but they seemed important and— "Seishou, he's the Dark One, and he's working with Hogosha!"

Rather than act surprised, the Grand Mother merely closed her eyes, resigned. "I know," she said, hurt radiating from every syllable. "I know. Hogosha's man, that human boy named Ryu… he rules her, and he has allied himself with the Dark One. I had hoped she would abandon them both after taking part in the Hunt, but…" She smiled a broken smile. "I cannot help but love my granddaughter."

I froze.

Granddaughter?

SERIOUSLY?

I could hardly wrap my head around that one. Luckily, the Grand Mother did it for me.

"My daughter flirted with danger and conceived Hogosha," she said. "She died in childbirth, and Hogosha was saved by Sister Andrea's hand. She is forever indebted to the Bright Ones."

"And that," she said softly, "makes her betrayal sting all the worst." She looked up, but her eyes held little apology. "I confess, however, that it mostly my fault. I allowed Hogosha to be treated badly. 'It will make her strong,' I thought, but now…" She trailed off, looking back down at Lauren's face. "Now she works with the man who seeks to bring us to ruin, by using the Bright Lady's power to end it all."

"The Bright Lady has powers?" I asked, because it sounded kind of important and thinking about Hogosha would depress me in a flash, and the Grand Mother nodded.

"They are another secret of mine," she said. "The Bright Lady, or so the other Bright Ones have said, was the one who created the chrysalises." A part of me was not surprised by this, but I resolved to think about it later. "Her mother, though, was the one who created the device that destroyed the Bright One's home."

The bottom fell out of my stomach. I dimly remembered Lauren's mother working for the government, but I banished the thoughts because—

"The Bright Lady, therefore, could possess the key to reawakening this power, whatever it may be," the Grand Mother said. "Keeping her safe and out of the Dark One's hands means keeping the world as we know it intact."

"That is what we are here for, Grand Mother," Kurama said, stepping forward again. The Grand Mother raised an eyebrow, but perhaps his diffident tone and somewhat feminine appearance afforded him a higher level of tolerance. "We are here to keep the Bright Lady, and the worlds, safe."

"I expected as much from Danielle, who is surely her mother's daughter," the Grand Mother said. She looked back down at Lauren, fingers brushing the gas mask in a slow caress. "Tell me, Danielle—would the Bright Lady be safer amongst my people, or would she be safer, perhaps, with you in a place far from here?"

I did not hesitate, because I knew the answer to that one as surely as I knew I could count on the boys behind me. "She'd be safer with us," I said, voice firm as I stood my ground and met the Grand Mother's eyes, and her face contorted into sadness marked with pain. "These men are the most trustworthy people I have ever met, and they are dedicated to keeping her, myself, and the safety of the world itself intact. If the Bright Lady had to pick new allies, she could find no one better than my men. They are…" I paused, swallowed, and smiled. "They're my friends."

"Dani, that's so sweet!" Kuwabara said, throwing an arm around my shoulders with a grin and a good-natured ruffle of my loose brown hair, but he bumped my raw tattoo beneath its bandages and I flinched.

"Watch the back!" I gasped, and he hurriedly began to apologize and simper and—

The Grand Mother let out a low laugh. "You are close to them," she said, "and they would not abandon you." Her arms tightened around Lauren, but I saw the resignation in her eyes. "Very well. I give you my blessings, Danielle: take the Bright Lady and go. Flee far from here, and defeat the Dark One once and for all, for he will surely follow you in pursuit."

"But the other Sisters," I began, and she shook her head.

"They knew that, since the Bright Lady was the last and that time is not everlasting, one day she would disappear," she said. "They are prepared for this. I will speak to them, and they will pray for yours and the Bright Lady's safe return."

"And we will return," I told her. "You are a new family of mine. I would be a fool not to visit, and Lauren… she owes you years of protection, and trust. She'll come back. I'll bring her myself, I promise."

A dark smile melted me. "I look forward to it," she said, and she slowly put Lauren's head out of her lap and onto the floor. She turned away and vanished behind a nearby pod, but a moment later she appeared bearing the packs containing our belongings. She crossed to us and handed them over, and then she walked back to Lauren's side. Her cloak came off with a rustle, and she carefully wrapped Lauren up in it before reaching into her tunic's neck and pulling out a long silver knife—

"Whoa there!" Kuwabara said, but all the Grand Mother did was take Lauren's mane into her fist and slice through it. Her hair fell shorter, probably falling to about her hips instead of forty feet away, and then the Grand Mother began to baid the severed hair into a long rope.

"On this island, far to the north," she said slowly, not looking at us, "you will find a field of ice that spans most of the river. Cross this to find yourself in the forest where you first met my riders." She paused, drinking in the air as she pulled strands of spun gold through her fingers. "I do not know your way from there."

"Thank you," I said. Kurama handed me my backpack, and I knelt so I could retrieve my cold-weather jacket and pants. I pulled them on over my jeans and sweatshirt, feeling like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man as I clumsily laced up my boots, tied my hood on, and slipped my hands into my gloves.

The Grand Mother watched as I and the boys dressed ourselves, and then she cradled the cloak-wrapped Lauren in her arms and approached us. Laruen's head rolled in her sleep, and Kuwabara stepped forward without being asked.

"Carry her well," the Grand Mother said to him as she helped settle the sleeping Lauren on his broad back, and then she looked to me. "If you need allies, we are here to fight the Dark One with you," she said. She motioned for me to turn around, and when I did she placed her hand flat over my covered tattoo. "Call to your marked Sisters with your brand, Danielle, and we shall hear you."

The tattoo, the minute she got near it, began to smolder. I shuddered, and when I turned around she tugged the neck of her tunic down. A mark like mine, one of the salamander 's' shapes with a whip curling around its length, scarred the skin on her withered chest.

"We," she repeated, "shall always hear you, Sister."


We parted ways with the Grand Mother, Lauren in tow and with just as many questions as we had answers, and together we made our way north. The trees on the island provided us cover, but Hiei still kept a watchful Jagan eye on the world around us. We did not know where Seishou had fled to, nor did we know what Ryu had done after I attacked him, but we had little inclination to linger in this place when the sanctuary of Genkai's temple was but a few kilometers away, over a river and through the woods…

To Grand-Mother's house we go, I thought, and giggled.

The irony of that statement was not lost on me.

At any rate, it took only half an hour to walk to the northern most tip of the Bright One's small island, and with every step we took the air grew colder. Trees blocked the wind, of course, but cold began to creep in over the tops of my boots and through the small circle of opening in my hood, and Hiei stuck close in front of me to provide his unusual brand of comfort. My staff too seemed warm, like it was trying to keep my hand limber with its buzzing, heated energy, and my tattoo seemed to burn brighter in the cold as well, but Hiei was my saving grace.

He was not, however, a saving grave when we reached the ice fields.


NOTES:

Lauren's last name comes from one of the inventors of the atomic bomb. This information is pertinent to this story. Wheeeee!

I went back up to college on Saturday (urgh, travelling, right?), and classes started Monday and swamped me with homework straight away, so I only had time to reply to a few reviews and writing this chapter was something of a battle. It's also why this chapter was full of talking and not much action. SO SORRY! But yeah, college. Not good. I'm still going to update Future Talk, though! And once I get used to being in school again we'll be back in action to an extreme degree. YAY!

To the no-name reviewer: I explained several chapters ago that human psychics with strong auras (EX: Kuwabara and Ryu) are immune to the air in Demon World. Hence, Ryu can indeed survive. Read carefully, please! Lol! XD

And now we have answers. Peachy keen. But not all of them. Dani still has to struggle with the implications, and you KNOW she's gonna have to talk with Koenma on the whole affair. We'll see their reunion soon enough!

We'll also see more on Ryu's attempted marking of Dani soon. OH THE HUMANITY.

Next chapter WILL BE DEDICATED TO NOTHING BUT ACTION UPON ACTION UPON ACTION. SHIT YEAH.

And my lovely reader are super-extra-special lovely, BECAUSE I LOVE THEM ALL TO ITTY BITTY PIECES AND WANT TO SNUGGLE THEM. Yeah. Because that's not going to make you want to run in the opposite direction or anything. XD The Tokyo Time Killer, DevilAngelWolf27, 0nfateswings, yumchaitea, Mihakuu, RebellAngell21, spiritfoxxx821,FoxgirlRay, Elegant Lady of Sin, Turtle Kid the Woolgatherer, Snubbed, AkaMizu-chan, the Under-Cover Fangirl Masuyo Shun, Naitza-Kururugi, TallyYoungblood, Katt Jeane, Blazing Neko, Mosinger, DanzaPalooza, DaAmazingMeepers, Supreme Baka, Destinyswindow, Yoko Kiara14, j.d.y., AmoreVampiresv-v, Itsallaboutbob, Reality Bores Me, chocolateluvr13, Devonlizz , Snowgirl7589 , Takara Rose Oizumi , -induviduality-has-a-name-me- , DoilyRox ,Kaiya's Watergarden , Misuzu-PM , MusicFiend666 ,LMR, Out-Of-Control-Authoress , colbub , etowa-ru, misswarchan, Angel of Randomosity, Kai-Chan94 ,Fox, Bi Gay Straight Who Cares , Koryu Elric , American Senpai , Ry171819, LadyxAbsinthe, Dreamehz, XxXfiction, Asking Alice, spiritfoxxx821, WishingWanderer!