Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Escaflowne characters or the plot line. I do own Jewel, Kat, Narisia and the new Dragon Slayers.
Chapter Fourteen: Home at Last
"All guymelef units, prepare to land," Dilandau's voice came over the COM line, snapping Jewel out of her reverie. She put her full attention into landing her guymelef; after all she hadn't exactly been the best in landing it before. But luckily she landed it with a small bump, a much better landing then before when she had almost cut half of the unit off.
She jumped out of her guymelef and headed out of the room. She had to get to her room, and fast. She had things to do.
Kat jumped down from her perch atop Dilandau's guymelef. She watched as Jewel hurriedly left the hanger. She sighed. That girl has more problems now, she thought sadly. She truly pitied Jewel. Her family abused her, no one understood her, and she had problems in finding her true self.
She was born with a genetic defect, one that truly scared her parents. Her mother had been attacked by a rabid mountain cat while camping with the family once. The cat had an injury, and when it attacked her mother, it ripped open her stomach. The cat's DNA mixed with her mother and Jewel herself.
This caused Jewel's mother to give birth early. Jewel matured in a matter of days, and when she was born she had cat like eyes and fur. Her parents were very scared about this; their beautiful child was a hybrid, a monster. But just as Jewel was born, her biological mother died from the mountain cat's own DNA mixed in with her own.
And so a fearful family had raised Jewel, fearing her for what she was. Her father remarried but her stepmother was always away, and this helped Jewel none. When she finally reached puberty, it didn't help that her animal instincts began to take over. She would suddenly brake out into a violent rage in school, harming many. Or she would suddenly start to growl or she eyes would change into cat like eyes.
It was very painful, and most pupils stayed away from her and feared her. She had no friends. And then her forms began to change. At first it hurt her, changing into a cat hybrid and back into a human. But eventually she got used to the sudden changes and she could control them. But now that she had full control over her form, humans could sense that something was wrong with her.
Strangers would shy away from her without knowing it, people became more distant and more closed up around her. They wouldn't even look at her. It was hard on Jewel, she had no one and she hurt because of it. Finally she became self-dependent, and she withdrew herself from the world. No one liked her and they shied away from her, so why shouldn't she do the same? That's how she dealed with her pain.
Kat felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Dilandau behind her. He motioned towards the door, and they walked out of it together. They walked in silence towards their room. Kat could tell Dilandau's thoughts were on Van and Jewel. Van… It seemed so strange. She remembered Van dying, she knew he was killed in the battle. But, how could he be alive? "Dilandau, wasn't Van killed when Willow was here?" Kat suddenly asked as they rounded a corner.
Dilandau snapped out of his trance and looked at Kat. "Yes. But some wizards brought him back to life. They reincarnated him."
Kat nodded slowly. "Van is back, and Hitomi lived. So now they're together…" She shook her head. Fate had a funny way of making the future, she decided.
Suddenly they stopped. Kat recognized the door to their room, and looked at Dilandau. He punched in a code in a panel, and the doors slid open. They walked in together. Kat barely had time to look around the room before she was thrown backwards. A heavy, shaggy, black thing was on her, licking her face.
She tired to push it back, but it resisted. Finally Dilandau heaved it off of her and Kat sat up. She looked at the large, black wolf standing in front of her. She smiled at it and got to her knees. She wrapped her arms around its neck and hugged it. "Oy, Blue!" She greeted it. She was greeted in return with a bunch of licks to her face.
After that she stood up and hugged Dilandau. She rested her head against his shoulder as his arms went around her waist. "I missed this place a lot," she whispered.
"And we missed you."
Kat smiled and looked at Dilandau. "It's good to be home again."
****
Jewel sat in her room, staring blankly at her window. It was so much… She had thought of every possibility of why Zaibach would want her. And nothing, not even something crazy of logical, fitted into their possible motives. She was haunted with why they would want her, why they would go to so much trouble to make sure that she was loyal to them.
She glanced at her digital watch, something Kat had slipped her before they left the campsite. It was two in the morning… Funny, she thought idly. I would've been out of the house before now, wandering the park, alone. Alone, with only my depressed thoughts… Only my memories…
There was a soft knock at the door suddenly. Jewel jerked out of her thoughts and stared at the door. Suddenly Kat materialized before Jewel. Jewel, taken aback, fell off her perch on her bed. Kat chuckled and walked over to her and helped her out of her odd position on the floor. "Hey," Kat whispered softly.
"Hey. What's with the reappearing act?"
"I can phase through walls and create dark energy. Part of the job."
"Aaah, I see."
"Yup. But come with me."
"Why?"
"Because I have something to show you."
Instead of waiting for an answer, Kat grabbed Jewel's hand and pulled her towards the door. Jewel was about to protest when suddenly they walked right through the door. That shocked Jewel into silence. It stayed like that, no one talking, as Kat led her down the dark corridors. Suddenly she phased them through another door, and Jewel found herself in a very dark room.
Kat fumbled around for a second before she hissed and hit something. There was the sound of something clicking, and suddenly the lights flashed on. Jewel was surprised, she didn't think that they had electricity. But there, above her, were florescent lights. She glanced at Kat. Kat started into the room, pulling Jewel along.
The room wasn't anything special. It was an overly large stone made room, with the stones looking old and worn. There were weird machines that looked like really big computers. But the thing was, there was no tower for the computer. They were just huge monitors and some type of keyboard.
Kat led Jewel over to a monitor that was on. There were words written in some type of language on it, but Jewel could understand what they said. And the weird keyboard was just a bunch of colored squares. Jewel raised her eyebrow and looked at Kat, but only to find that she was quickly hitting the squares and staring at the screen.
"Is it like a… a keyboard? You know, the kind back home?" Jewel asked suddenly. Kat took one of her hands off the keyboard and made the 'so-so' gesture. Jewel nodded, not quiet understanding it but deciding to leave Kat alone.
After a few more minutes of typing, the monitor suddenly made a loud beep, and Jewel's picture came up on the screen. It was followed by symbols, and more letters that Jewel didn't understand. "This is your file. Zaibach keeps a file on everyone within it. Let's see…" Kat told her.
"What does it say?"
"You came here about seven weeks ago, Dilandau found you in the forest. Hm… They tended to your injuries, injected you with Prolein, made adjustments to your physical capacities, injected Melane into your brain, and then waited for you to wake up. You woke up once, caused more injury to yourself, they fixed that, and then you woke up and they began to train you."
Jewel remained silent. So they had injected her with chemicals, had they? They had twisted her mind, they had violated her privacy, and most of all they had taken away the real her. "What's Prolein and Melane?"
Kat looked very grim. "Prolein is what they use to help make the alterations in a person's body easier. And Melane is what they use to wrap the subject's mind, it helps them to insert artificial memories and change the person's personality."
"What?!"
"It looks like they played plastic surgeon with your body and your mind. But worst of all is that after you woke up, they injected you with Mithlein."
"What's that?"
Kat turned to Jewel and looked her in the eyes. She suddenly looked very stricken. "Mithlein is used to control the subject. It basically creates a link between your brain and a machine. Once they inject you with it, they can control you at any second, and moment, of your life," she said quietly.
Jewel's eyes contorted into her cat eyes. A low growl escaped from her throat and vibrated through her entire body. She was physically shaking, and hard. They had violated her very being! Zaibach, oh how she wanted to take them and rip out their throats…
Kat's hand was suddenly on Jewel's shoulder. "Jewel, this is very serious. This means that they could take you over at any moment, and you wouldn't be able to stop them. They could make you do anything, stuff that you don't ever want to do."
"Can't you stop it? Can't you do something about it?"
Kat stood there, staring at Jewel. Jewel's eyes shine with a masked hope. Kat sighed and looked away. I can't help her without killing her and I swore that I wouldn't do that again. But she doesn't want this… She hates Zaibach for what they've done to her. She already risking mutiny with this knowledge, she thought. But how can I help her…
Finally Kat turned back and looked Jewel in the eye. "I can't promise anything, and I can't promise that I'll share all the information I find, if I find any. All I can tell you is that I'll try."
Jewel's face looked relieved, but her eyes still held anger at Zaibach. "I'll take you back now," Kat said. She took Jewel's hand in hers and phased them out of the room.
****
I thought getting the information for Jewel would've been easy. But I was wrong. Zaibach had an upgraded security system, and it was top of the line. Best in its class, very hard to penetrate. In fact, I doubted that even if I was able to penetrate it I would live to tell the tale. All that I knew was that Zaibach wanted to keep something secret from us.
Kat shook her head as she stood up. She stretched out her arms and legs and bent backwards, stretching her back. She looked glumly at the pile of books on the table that she had been occupying. It was amazing, a few hours of research turns into almost two whole day's worth of research.
And all for nothing, she reminded herself. She had been looking through everything she could find on Jewel related things; about hybrids, prophecies, legends, history, lore, anything and everything that might refer to Jewel. Of course Kat knew this wasn't going to help Jewel any, what good would knowing about your past on Gaea do?
She sighed and put a hand to her face. Two weeks ago she had promised Jewel that she would try her best to stop Zaibach from going on with their plans. But what Jewel really wanted was for a way so she could be sure that she had total control over her body. There was really no way to stop that process, in a way that Kat wouldn't kill Jewel.
And so I go to researching her past, Kat thought bitterly. That won't help her any if Zaibach takes her. So why do I still research? She ran her hand through her hair in a frustrated way. Why persist on something that wouldn't help Jewel? Because, something inside of her said, it will help in the long run.
Kat looked at the piles of books one last time before leaving the library, forever. As the metal doors slid shut behind her, she knew that if she wanted to find the answers Jewel and she both needed, she wouldn't need books to find them. No, the answers they wanted lay in only one other place. And that place… That place was a death wish.
*~~*
TBC…
Chapter Fourteen: Home at Last
"All guymelef units, prepare to land," Dilandau's voice came over the COM line, snapping Jewel out of her reverie. She put her full attention into landing her guymelef; after all she hadn't exactly been the best in landing it before. But luckily she landed it with a small bump, a much better landing then before when she had almost cut half of the unit off.
She jumped out of her guymelef and headed out of the room. She had to get to her room, and fast. She had things to do.
Kat jumped down from her perch atop Dilandau's guymelef. She watched as Jewel hurriedly left the hanger. She sighed. That girl has more problems now, she thought sadly. She truly pitied Jewel. Her family abused her, no one understood her, and she had problems in finding her true self.
She was born with a genetic defect, one that truly scared her parents. Her mother had been attacked by a rabid mountain cat while camping with the family once. The cat had an injury, and when it attacked her mother, it ripped open her stomach. The cat's DNA mixed with her mother and Jewel herself.
This caused Jewel's mother to give birth early. Jewel matured in a matter of days, and when she was born she had cat like eyes and fur. Her parents were very scared about this; their beautiful child was a hybrid, a monster. But just as Jewel was born, her biological mother died from the mountain cat's own DNA mixed in with her own.
And so a fearful family had raised Jewel, fearing her for what she was. Her father remarried but her stepmother was always away, and this helped Jewel none. When she finally reached puberty, it didn't help that her animal instincts began to take over. She would suddenly brake out into a violent rage in school, harming many. Or she would suddenly start to growl or she eyes would change into cat like eyes.
It was very painful, and most pupils stayed away from her and feared her. She had no friends. And then her forms began to change. At first it hurt her, changing into a cat hybrid and back into a human. But eventually she got used to the sudden changes and she could control them. But now that she had full control over her form, humans could sense that something was wrong with her.
Strangers would shy away from her without knowing it, people became more distant and more closed up around her. They wouldn't even look at her. It was hard on Jewel, she had no one and she hurt because of it. Finally she became self-dependent, and she withdrew herself from the world. No one liked her and they shied away from her, so why shouldn't she do the same? That's how she dealed with her pain.
Kat felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Dilandau behind her. He motioned towards the door, and they walked out of it together. They walked in silence towards their room. Kat could tell Dilandau's thoughts were on Van and Jewel. Van… It seemed so strange. She remembered Van dying, she knew he was killed in the battle. But, how could he be alive? "Dilandau, wasn't Van killed when Willow was here?" Kat suddenly asked as they rounded a corner.
Dilandau snapped out of his trance and looked at Kat. "Yes. But some wizards brought him back to life. They reincarnated him."
Kat nodded slowly. "Van is back, and Hitomi lived. So now they're together…" She shook her head. Fate had a funny way of making the future, she decided.
Suddenly they stopped. Kat recognized the door to their room, and looked at Dilandau. He punched in a code in a panel, and the doors slid open. They walked in together. Kat barely had time to look around the room before she was thrown backwards. A heavy, shaggy, black thing was on her, licking her face.
She tired to push it back, but it resisted. Finally Dilandau heaved it off of her and Kat sat up. She looked at the large, black wolf standing in front of her. She smiled at it and got to her knees. She wrapped her arms around its neck and hugged it. "Oy, Blue!" She greeted it. She was greeted in return with a bunch of licks to her face.
After that she stood up and hugged Dilandau. She rested her head against his shoulder as his arms went around her waist. "I missed this place a lot," she whispered.
"And we missed you."
Kat smiled and looked at Dilandau. "It's good to be home again."
****
Jewel sat in her room, staring blankly at her window. It was so much… She had thought of every possibility of why Zaibach would want her. And nothing, not even something crazy of logical, fitted into their possible motives. She was haunted with why they would want her, why they would go to so much trouble to make sure that she was loyal to them.
She glanced at her digital watch, something Kat had slipped her before they left the campsite. It was two in the morning… Funny, she thought idly. I would've been out of the house before now, wandering the park, alone. Alone, with only my depressed thoughts… Only my memories…
There was a soft knock at the door suddenly. Jewel jerked out of her thoughts and stared at the door. Suddenly Kat materialized before Jewel. Jewel, taken aback, fell off her perch on her bed. Kat chuckled and walked over to her and helped her out of her odd position on the floor. "Hey," Kat whispered softly.
"Hey. What's with the reappearing act?"
"I can phase through walls and create dark energy. Part of the job."
"Aaah, I see."
"Yup. But come with me."
"Why?"
"Because I have something to show you."
Instead of waiting for an answer, Kat grabbed Jewel's hand and pulled her towards the door. Jewel was about to protest when suddenly they walked right through the door. That shocked Jewel into silence. It stayed like that, no one talking, as Kat led her down the dark corridors. Suddenly she phased them through another door, and Jewel found herself in a very dark room.
Kat fumbled around for a second before she hissed and hit something. There was the sound of something clicking, and suddenly the lights flashed on. Jewel was surprised, she didn't think that they had electricity. But there, above her, were florescent lights. She glanced at Kat. Kat started into the room, pulling Jewel along.
The room wasn't anything special. It was an overly large stone made room, with the stones looking old and worn. There were weird machines that looked like really big computers. But the thing was, there was no tower for the computer. They were just huge monitors and some type of keyboard.
Kat led Jewel over to a monitor that was on. There were words written in some type of language on it, but Jewel could understand what they said. And the weird keyboard was just a bunch of colored squares. Jewel raised her eyebrow and looked at Kat, but only to find that she was quickly hitting the squares and staring at the screen.
"Is it like a… a keyboard? You know, the kind back home?" Jewel asked suddenly. Kat took one of her hands off the keyboard and made the 'so-so' gesture. Jewel nodded, not quiet understanding it but deciding to leave Kat alone.
After a few more minutes of typing, the monitor suddenly made a loud beep, and Jewel's picture came up on the screen. It was followed by symbols, and more letters that Jewel didn't understand. "This is your file. Zaibach keeps a file on everyone within it. Let's see…" Kat told her.
"What does it say?"
"You came here about seven weeks ago, Dilandau found you in the forest. Hm… They tended to your injuries, injected you with Prolein, made adjustments to your physical capacities, injected Melane into your brain, and then waited for you to wake up. You woke up once, caused more injury to yourself, they fixed that, and then you woke up and they began to train you."
Jewel remained silent. So they had injected her with chemicals, had they? They had twisted her mind, they had violated her privacy, and most of all they had taken away the real her. "What's Prolein and Melane?"
Kat looked very grim. "Prolein is what they use to help make the alterations in a person's body easier. And Melane is what they use to wrap the subject's mind, it helps them to insert artificial memories and change the person's personality."
"What?!"
"It looks like they played plastic surgeon with your body and your mind. But worst of all is that after you woke up, they injected you with Mithlein."
"What's that?"
Kat turned to Jewel and looked her in the eyes. She suddenly looked very stricken. "Mithlein is used to control the subject. It basically creates a link between your brain and a machine. Once they inject you with it, they can control you at any second, and moment, of your life," she said quietly.
Jewel's eyes contorted into her cat eyes. A low growl escaped from her throat and vibrated through her entire body. She was physically shaking, and hard. They had violated her very being! Zaibach, oh how she wanted to take them and rip out their throats…
Kat's hand was suddenly on Jewel's shoulder. "Jewel, this is very serious. This means that they could take you over at any moment, and you wouldn't be able to stop them. They could make you do anything, stuff that you don't ever want to do."
"Can't you stop it? Can't you do something about it?"
Kat stood there, staring at Jewel. Jewel's eyes shine with a masked hope. Kat sighed and looked away. I can't help her without killing her and I swore that I wouldn't do that again. But she doesn't want this… She hates Zaibach for what they've done to her. She already risking mutiny with this knowledge, she thought. But how can I help her…
Finally Kat turned back and looked Jewel in the eye. "I can't promise anything, and I can't promise that I'll share all the information I find, if I find any. All I can tell you is that I'll try."
Jewel's face looked relieved, but her eyes still held anger at Zaibach. "I'll take you back now," Kat said. She took Jewel's hand in hers and phased them out of the room.
****
I thought getting the information for Jewel would've been easy. But I was wrong. Zaibach had an upgraded security system, and it was top of the line. Best in its class, very hard to penetrate. In fact, I doubted that even if I was able to penetrate it I would live to tell the tale. All that I knew was that Zaibach wanted to keep something secret from us.
Kat shook her head as she stood up. She stretched out her arms and legs and bent backwards, stretching her back. She looked glumly at the pile of books on the table that she had been occupying. It was amazing, a few hours of research turns into almost two whole day's worth of research.
And all for nothing, she reminded herself. She had been looking through everything she could find on Jewel related things; about hybrids, prophecies, legends, history, lore, anything and everything that might refer to Jewel. Of course Kat knew this wasn't going to help Jewel any, what good would knowing about your past on Gaea do?
She sighed and put a hand to her face. Two weeks ago she had promised Jewel that she would try her best to stop Zaibach from going on with their plans. But what Jewel really wanted was for a way so she could be sure that she had total control over her body. There was really no way to stop that process, in a way that Kat wouldn't kill Jewel.
And so I go to researching her past, Kat thought bitterly. That won't help her any if Zaibach takes her. So why do I still research? She ran her hand through her hair in a frustrated way. Why persist on something that wouldn't help Jewel? Because, something inside of her said, it will help in the long run.
Kat looked at the piles of books one last time before leaving the library, forever. As the metal doors slid shut behind her, she knew that if she wanted to find the answers Jewel and she both needed, she wouldn't need books to find them. No, the answers they wanted lay in only one other place. And that place… That place was a death wish.
*~~*
TBC…