The Prince of Roses
Part Five
By Silver Vaporeon
Now this is where it starts to get interesting…oh hohohohoho.
What the heck?! *another* plot twist? "Come on," you say "why the hell are you jumping around more than a Mexican jumping bean that has eaten Akane Tendo's radioactive pudding?"
Mes amis, this is the start of the turning point of the whole fan fiction. Completely different than how I first intended the fic to be (heck, it was going to be a LOT shorter too). Now on with the weirdo story that puts everyone through the emotional blender of hell! Yay! =D
*********
A filtering red trail of blood defused in the water as the unconscious Jessie sank slowly into the depths of the lake. Her hair fluttered in the slow currents and bubbles escaped her mouth. The wounded girl seemed out of place in such a tranquil environment such as the aquatic realm she was sinking in and many a puzzled magikarp nudged at her in curiosity only to swim quickly away afterwards.
"Mmm?" Jessie's eyes fluttered open. An (upside-down) aquatic world met her eyes. Caught in tall salvao weed, Jessie held what remained of her breath and attempted to break free. The persistent weed was of a stringy substance and it took nearly all her strength to pull one of them free. A spasm of pain ran through her right shoulder and the remaining oxygen escaped from her mouth as she cried out in pain. Sensing the danger she now faced, she frantically tried to use her hands to snap off the tall weeds that had woven themselves around her body. The process was time consuming and her futile attempts grew frantic as she felt a lightheaded sensation overpowering her will to keep consciousness.
It was strange how just a few days before Jessie had nearly taken James' life away…and now the tables had turned…
It wasn't long before darkness claimed her again.
@--}-''
"Yes…I applaud you for your excellent work, Agent," Giovanni praised Kat as he observed James suspended from two chains attached to the ceiling; his uncovered toes barely dangling above the stone floor. A device consisting of a black band of thin light metal and several electrodes was placed around his head from the back of the cranium with the electrodes humming at his temples, keeping him unconscious and under control.
"I took the liberty in placing the headset on his head as it is very tiring to hold the rose to simply keep him manageable. I regretfully cannot drive properly while holding it in one hand," Kat explained the reason why she had placed the device on James' head. She had shackled him by the orders of Giovanni.
"No need for apologies. I have what I want. Leave us."
Kat gave a small nod and walked off. As her footsteps faded into the distance, Giovanni looked at the rose in his hands and smiled. His ultimate goal was within his grasp.
"The game has just begun," He chuckled as people with their faces covered in their cowls of their robes filed into the dark room lit by a single torch.
"Lord Giovanni," the leader of the robed figures addressed his superior. "The boy is ready?"
"Yes, he is ready," the middle-aged leader said as he set down the rose on the mahogany table in the middle of the room. "He is ready." Giovanni walked over and lifted the metal band from James' head. James moaned and slowly opened his eyes. When everything came into focus, they widened with fear and he swung his body back, keeping as far away from Giovanni as he could without much success as momentum just sent him back. The shackles dug into his wrists as he twisted this way and that.
"Get away from me!" he cried. The robed figures quickly held him still; holding him around the chest and lower extremities.
"No-! Let me go-! Jessie! Jessie! Oh, God! Help me, please!"
"Your training will come soon. The final round awaits, young James… " Giovanni advanced towards his shackled victim who could only cry aloud.
@--}-''
Jessie's consciousness stirred within her. She swore she heard James calling for her but….
"Jessie…Jessica. Jessica Musashi! Open your eyes."
Jessie's sapphire blue eyes fluttered open. She found herself standing upright on a floor of marble. She surveyed the room, silently marveling at the craftsmanship that went into creating such an elegant room. A shining white marble mantle was to her right and a small fire danced in fireplace as if in attempt to outshine the light that was already illuminating the room from a hidden source. Bookshelves of dark mahogany lined the walls where the fireplace was, filled with volume after volume of leather-bound books which glowed with the classic liter She looked down to see her figure clothed in a tightly-clinging blue silk Chinese cheongsam with embroidered silver and gold dragons that had diamonds for eyes snaking across the fine fabric. Her hair flowed in waves, nearly floating behind her, free of the style she usually wore it in that defied the law of physics. Her usual green earrings were replaced with small dangling ones with fine spheres of opal-like crystal that sparkled in the light at the end of the tiny chains that held them to her earlobes. Aside from the coil of silver in the shape of an oriental dragon that encircled her upper left arm, there was no other jewelry that adorned her figure. Her feet were set in high heeled shoes of the same color of her dress. She couldn't help but think that she was a princess or at least dressed in the manner fit for one. She was aware that her shoulder wound did not hurt anymore and she craned her neck to see that it had healed over with only a thin white scar to mark where Ja- He had wounded her.
Prying her eyes away from her healed shoulder, Jessie looked towards the source of the voice. A man, perhaps in his mid-thirties advanced towards her. He was rather handsome, his silver hair tied back into a thin ponytail that reached down to his lower back and his fox eyes of blue fixed on her. A heavy cloak of dark indigo draped over his armor that seemed to have originated from feudal China. He moved towards her with the ease of someone who was wearing silks instead of metal and walked with the debonair grace of an emperor.
"I am glad to see you have joined me here, Child," he said at an arms length. Jessie blinked, puzzled about the objectives of the man who stood before her.
"Who are you? Why have you brought me here?" she asked.
"It matters not. The only thing to know is that I am of the White Dragon Clan; the same as you."
White Dragon…? Jessie inquired with a slightly raised eyebrow. He made it seem like a fanatic religious cult that had borne itself out of nothing.
"There is no time...you must take up the Sword and take your place as being the sole warrior of the White Dragon Clan."
"…..Huh?"
"There is a rivaling clan in this world; old enemies of ours. They have finally found their warrior. You must destroy the warrior of the Phoenix." The man had felt it necessary to explain that there was a fight she had to take part in but not the reason why? Jessie was infuriated.
"What-! You never even asked me!" she said indignantly. "What the hell is going on? Why must I fight?!"
"I've observed you from afar, young one. You have many strong desires. You wish to obtain fame, fortune and love, do you not, princess? How does it feel like to be the only one who could save the world? Take the sword."
"Wha-?" Jessie would have scoffed if she weren't so taken aback. The thought of a complete stranger watching her run around half-starving and less than at her prime was enough to make anyone shocked and suddenly paranoid about past deeds.
The man closed his eyes and lifted his right arm into the air. His fingers twisted in a beckoning manner before he brought his arm down again close to his chest. A ball of light gathered in his closed hand and his lips moved in the manner of chanting an incantation. Jessie heard sound likened to the sound of pulsing energy and her eyes widened as she saw a beam of light energy heading towards her. Without any time to react, she cried out in surprise as the beam circled around her neck and condensed into the shape of a necklace. When the light cleared, Jessie saw that a glittering crystal pendent in the shape of a diamond-like prism rested around her neck, supported by a chain of miniscule links. In the center of the pendent, there was a small half-sphere of a gem. It had no set color…or colors for that matter for they all swirled about in it like the mystic clouds that are contained in the crystal ball of a soothsayer.
Normally, Jessie of Team Rocket would jump at the chance for fame and glory or having the title of a princess but something held her back. She couldn't put her finger on it but something deep inside told her not to "take the sword" whatever that meant. She stared at the stranger in front of her, questions buzzing back and forth through her mind so quickly that one could not be distinguished from another. A second later, her mind reverted to her usual system of thoughts.
A man suddenly comes out of nowhere and request that she fight for some Clan that she had never even heard of. To top it off, the same man had been secretly watching her for who-knows-how-long and probably knows a whole lot more than she would have liked. Or perhaps he was a liar. In any case, she was not doing anyone's dirty work if there was no evidence to back up the fact that she would get anything in return. She stayed silent, looking back at him, her eyes demanding an explanation.
"Take it," the man repeated his command.
"Not until you tell me everything I want to know," Jessie glared back. The man did not answer.
Water started peculating silently upwards from the floor and Jessie felt herself standing in ankle-depth cool water quickly. The flame in the fireplace continued to burn even when water seeped into the hearth. The water continued to rise but Jessie did not break eye contact with the strange man who stared back at her with equal determination to make her obey his command as if he were a father silently telling a disobedient child to do what he wished. A full-grown man would have cowered under his gaze but Jessie continued to look back into his eyes, her spirit unwavering. The young woman had a strong will and he knew that. It was a virtue revered by the Clan and his approval of her nearly shown through his stony glaze. The water was soon waist deep and Jessie finally seemed to realize that the water was rising from under her feet at an extraordinary rate. Stubborn, she still did not look away. Not even when the room was completely submerged and all other lights had disappeared and only the fire burning under the water provided the only light. The man's sapphire eyes seemed to glow in the eerie light and yet Jessie persisted, silently demanding answers to her inquiries. She had to hold her breath….had to keep persisting…
@--}---
Giovanni was such a foolish man, the woman thought and tossed her long black hair back casually with one hand as she walked down the dim-lit hallway. Her steps resounded through the small area. Katherine "Kat" Suzaku knew what he was after and laughed at the fact that he would even consider that he had a chance in succeeding. Giovanni Sasaki was a powerful man, yes. A clever one, yes. But he was like all the rest of his fellow men. And like all the rest, he wanted the one thing that would separate him from all the rest.
He had submerged himself in old texts and finally found the book that would allow him to obtain it. But Kat had known the book's teachings through the course of her entire life and she knew that her employer was making a tragic mistake in his haste. James had the power to give him what he wanted, all right but Giovanni himself would not be able to gain a single thing from his laborious efforts.
As the familiar florescent lights appeared at the end of the hallway, she shook her head in amused pity.
It seems that Giovanni would have to learn the hard way.
@-}--- '''
Jessie awoke, sprawled on her stomach on the banks of the lake, her whole front covered with the wet mud she was laying on. She raised herself and sat back on her knees and coughed harshly to rid her lungs of the water that had entered. She managed to take in staggered breaths of oxygen that she had been deprived of for what seemed like eternity. When her shaking abated, she started wringing out her hair, which was very saturated with water, in the manner that a person would a towel.
I could have died… her heart nearly stopped at her first rational thought. Jessie tried to piece together the events that had happened. She had fallen into the lake after Ja- He stabbed her in the shoulder and she was trying to untangle herself when…
She blinked and looked back at the large body of water. Was all of that a dream, she thought. Something her oxygen-deprived brain had created when she nearly drowned? She looked at her shoulder and saw that it was still healed in the manner as she had seen before. Jessie quickly came up with several likely scenarios and none of them fit. A breeze stirred up and the soaked girl shivered and hugged her shoulders.
"Huh?" Jessie felt a metallic object poking at her arm and her right hand clutched at it, wrapping around a small object. She brought it to her eyes and felt it attached to a light chain which was around her neck….
Not quite willing to believe the thought that arose in her mind, she opened her hand and the crystal pendent that was given to her glimmered in the light of the setting sun. Unlike her sodden blouse and shorts, it was not smothered in mud and glistened as if it were just recently polished. The kaleidoscopic gem's colors continued to swirl about its containments as the pendent lay in her hand. It seemed strange to have the strange object and the blood-rose on and in her palm. She hadn't disturbed the mark since she had discovered it, hoping to gain some sort of solid sign for its purpose. As for the pendent, she had no idea what she was to do with it. Half of her told her to keep it and another insisted for her to sell it for money. Yet another half urged her to hurl it as far into the lake from which she obtained it as she could which made as much sense as getting one whole from three halves.
She had the evidence to confirm that the meeting with the man was real but she needed answers. She hauled herself up, feeling extremely dirty and disgusted about the fact that her clothing and a considerable amount of skin was caked in an ugly brown sludge.
Sludge…..
The thought of James hit her like several tons of bricks. She was so preoccupied with what had just happened that she had nearly completely forgotten about him. In acutallity, she admitted to herself that she was trying to forget about him for the moment because the image of him slashing at her shoulder was still severely painful in her mind. She looked into the lake at the damaged glass gazebo-like structure. It had never occurred to her that James would leave the scene after hurting her and Jessie immediately thought back to her dream from the night before to quickly dismiss it as quickly as it had come forth into her mind. He wouldn't have done that. But still, that woman disgusted her.
That woman…
"She was controlling him like some kind of puppet…" Jessie thought aloud. "And she had the rose with her."
The scene back at the lighthouse finally made sense to Jessie. Unknowingly, she was able to control her friend for a brief amount of time while the flower was in her hands. His blank expression and his sudden silence after she had told him to stop in his tracks…he was helpless against everything and had no willpower to resist the commands of a person holding the rose.
"He would have done anything she commanded him to…" It made her shutter that people could manipulate James in such a simple way.
Help me…
Jessie spun around. She swore she heard the familiar voice calling again.
"James?"
Help me…
"Where are you?"
Help me…
*********
Whoo! Another chapter down; probably the fastest I'll ever get a chapter up (I am a junior now, doncha know?). I am not quite happy with it but then again that's how I was with every other chapter so…yeah. Maybe this chapter really does suck, I don't know.
Now you're probably thinking why the hell I wrote it like this. I know…there's a completely new concept that smacks you like a sack of cement and now you're going, "wah! You have two big ideas going at once! What kind of idiot writer are you?!"
I had intended to set up the idea of the WDC so it WOULD be confusing(yes, it will be cleared up. =P) but I didn't account for Jessie thinking about two things at the same time so yeah, I am aware that that is a messy attempt to make it make sense. Oy, oy. Doesn't this sound like Sailor Moon or something? o_O;
Please leave some feedback, pretty please? I want to feel loved and appreciated like many other fanfiction writers do! ::whine whine::
Until next time!
-SV