Carolyn's Comments:
Mood: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Rant: (sung to the tune of 'Halleluiah') IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! (NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY) IT'S MY BIRRRRTHDAY!
Okay, not really. Technically my birthday was on the 7th, but I couldn't get on the computer before now. It broke again, go figure. YOU GUYS GET TWO EXTRA-LONG CHAPTERS TO MAKE UP FOR IT AND TO CELEBRATE MY BIRTHDAY!
For my birthday, Katie, Caitlin, and me went and saw 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. I LOVE that book, and the movie was just as good in my opinion! It was one of the funniest movie's I've seen in my life. 'So Long and Thanks For All The Fish' was stuck in my head the rest of the night. And people in the audience got so INVOLVED with the movie. They cheered when Arthur and Trillian finally kissed (myself included), they all whooped in delight as Zaphod dodged bullets with dance moves while disoriented, we smiled at Marvin, the chronically depressed robot, and we all roared with laughter when Arthur, Ford, and Zaphod were being whacked with those shovel things on the Vorgons home planet. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I COMMAND YOU TO GET UP AND SEE IT NOW!
And now if you'll excuse me, I have a reservation at a restaurant at the end of the universe.
It was the day of the ceremony.
All the preparation, all the hard work, all of everyone's fears and hopes; it all came down to this. This one event would decide if the Lifeless would swallow all life or not.
The temple workers were bustling around, getting every last finishing detail in place. Magic candles were laid out around the ceremony hall, and wood was gathered to fuel the fire for the urn around which the three Pure-Hearts would chant. Every time Mia asked if she could somehow help, people would hastily push her away, as if they weren't worthy of being in her presence.
After awhile, she gave up trying to help out, and took refuge in the food hall. It seemed like that room had become a sanctuary for her and her friends. They could sit, talk and eat without interruption. People wouldn't swarm around them like Mia had first expected; they would stay back and observe them with a quiet awe.
Taking up there usual table in the back corner of the room, the group began to talk about the events of yesterday's attack.
"So, Sam," Sora asked, "What sort of powers do you have?"
"What do you mean exactly?" Sam asked.
"Well, I heard Carolyn call Tom 'Guardian of Fire' once, and I she said that Katie has power over darkness. So how about you?"
Sam grinned. He tried to be modest, but he did enjoy showing off when he could. "I am the beholder of Wind and Weather. I have control over weather patterns and storms. I can call up lightening, wind, rain, and pretty much anything else I want. Plus I've got the ability to teleport anywhere that isn't being blocked by a ward, as you saw yesterday."
"So do all the Guardians have power over different elements?" Kairi asked. She had always thought there were only four elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. But since there were seven Guardians, she wondered how this could be.
"Yep," Caitlin smiled, "All seven of us. Take me for instance: my element is Earth. I can call up plant-life wherever I want and talk to animals. And I've got my healing sword-flute. I can change the ground and control earth and rock too."
"So be nice to her, or she'll drop a mountain on your head." Alex joked. He let out a yelp of pain when Caitlin stomped on his foot underneath the table.
"So what about you then?" Riku asked, "What power do you have, Alex?"
"Ooooh!" Katie squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat. "His is neat! It's the coolest!"
A smile was oozing slowly onto Alex's face. "Well," He said, trying to establish drama while Katie continued to jump up and down, "You know that all objects on this plane of reality are composed of matter, right?" As he spoke, he drew his sword and held it up for them all to see.
"Right." Riku said.
"Well, one of the basic laws of existence is that matter cannot be destroyed; it can only change shape and properties." He seemed to be focusing very hard on the blade of his sword.
"Yay!" Katie said pounding her fists on the table repeatedly, "Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!"
Suddenly the steel on Alex's blade began to bend. Riku blinked, not sure if he was seeing things correctly or not. The top half of the steel was beginning to bend outward, curving while the edge became sharp. Suddenly Alex wasn't holding a sword anymore; it was a battle-axe.
"That's my power," He said grinning. "I can changed the shape of matter into any form I choose. I can turn my sword into an axe, a mace, or even a spear if I wanted to. I can turn any object into pretty much anything else." As he spoke, the blade on his sword snapped back to its normal shape and Alex put it back in the sheath. "I can open holes in walls if I want. I can even change the properties of objects, like weight. I can make a two-ton boulder weigh as much as a feather."
"Show 'em!" Katie screamed, seizing Alex by the front of the shirt and shaking him, so that he shook painfully back and forth like a rag doll. Katie was screaming right in his face. "You've got to show 'em!"
"Alright, alright!" Alex said pushing her back, "Leggo of me." He got to his feet and walked over to another table. Like the other tables, this one was wooden and about ten feet long. Alex looked at it carefully, then nodded. "Now watch."
Alex walked to the end of the table and knelt down. He seized the end of the table, and, with a quick upward swing of his arms, he hurled it straight up in the air! Mia jaw dropped as she watched it come back down. Alex caught it easily, and hurled it back up into the air, catching it in the other hand. As he continued to do this, Mia realized he was actually juggling with the table.
Alex began to hum as he juggled; it was an unfamiliar tune, but Mia supposed it must've come from Carolyn's world. She watched in amazement as Alex grabbed a chair, and added that to his routine. The chair and table looped over his head over and over again, as he continued to hum that enchanting melody. His smug grin had widened across his face. He was at a climax of pride.
"Hey, guys!" He called out suddenly. He caught the chair in one hand and quickly set it down on the floor. Using the other hand, he caught the end of the table and held it up above his head. "Catch!" He drew his arms back and flung the table at the wall on the opposite side of the room. Mia shrieked and fell back as the table hurtled towards the stone wall, about to smash into pieces.
"NO!" Katie screamed, standing up and knocking her chair over. She stuck both her hands out. Long threads of darkness sprang from her fingertips and lashed out around the table. It halted in midair, suspended by the strings from Katie's hands.
Katie was suddenly dead serious. "Christ, Alex. Don't scare me like that again." She gently lowered the table back to the floor, as the others looked on in awe. The threads retracted into her hands.
Alex smiled and stretched his arms over his head. "Aw come on. It was just a little joke!"
"What was that!" Sora yelled, pointing at Katie. Those shadows had been just like the kind that they'd seen in the room with the Lifeless.
"My power!" Katie said, pumping her arms, suddenly perky again. "I have control over darkness! Stop looking at me like that, I'm not evil!"
"Usually." Carolyn stated.
Katie went on, ignoring her. "I'm not using raw darkness. I can summon up darkness, bind it, and force it to serve good. I control shadows, as you just saw. I'm not affected by the Dark element, which is why I could protect us from the Lifeless yesterday. I can see through demonic disguises, and the undead view me as one of their own, allowing easy infiltration."
"...Wow." Riku managed to stammer.
"My fifteen minutes of fame are over..." Alex sighed.
"As for the other Guardians..." Carolyn went on, "Tommy and Lauren aren't here, but Tommy has the power over fire. He can called up fire anywhere he wants as long as there's sufficient oxygen. He can mold it to burn anything he wants, and it won't go out unless he wills it to. Not even water will stop it. And Lauren has power over water. She can speak to aquatic life, she controls water currents, and can summon up water or ice with a wave of the hand. Plus she can 'scry' and form defensive barriers."
"What does 'scry' mean?" Mia asked.
"It means she has the power to search for people or places in pools of water." Carolyn hastily explained.
"Damn..." Sora said in awe, "You guys have an impressive arsenal."
"We try." Carolyn said with a smile.
"What about Cronos?" Cedric asked. "What's his element?"
"Element?" Sam laughed shapely. "Cronos isn't limited to a mere element!"
Mia found it odd that Sam was mocking his own abilities. Was Cronos really that strong? "What sort of power is it?"
Cronos was smiling a little now. The bruise on his face had faded and he was back to his former strength, so Mia was glad to see life in her friend's face again. "Life." He said simply.
That wasn't really an answer at all, so Mia started to ask again. "What do-"
"I can harness Life energy. I use my emotions to power them. I can take the very essence of my spirit and fuel it into energy attacks. When I'm angry, my rage can be channeled into an attack; the same goes with joy, sorrow, and any other emotion I'm feeling. The raw essence of the human spirit is mine to command."
"That easily makes him the most powerful of the seven guardians." Caitlin finished.
"Is that why you were able to wipe out those soldiers that killed Aiden?" Cedric asked. "Because of your rage?"
Cronos nodded. "Yes. Long before Fiona made the prophecy or before the jewel was even born, destiny had me picked out. It knew I would be a Guardian one day, and it was already giving me my powers."
"We all received small shadows of our powers before the jewel was reunited." Caitlin said. "When the gem was finally restored, our might tripled."
"Um…What jewel?" Kairi asked frowning.
"Wait a minute," Carolyn said, "Cronos, you didn't just tell Cedric, did you?"
"Yeah," He groaned. "I only told Cedric. The others have no idea."
All the Guardians moaned in exasperation as Cronos began the long tale once again.
"Well, it all started 200 years ago when..."
(I think you all know the story already)
About an hour later...
The group of friends began to clear out of the room after hearing Cronos's fantastic story. They each had to go prepare for the ceremony. They had to get their part checked one last time, go over what they had to say, and to get in the proper attire. Basically it was a lot of fussing around over minute details and stupid stuff.
Mia lingered behind however. She sat on one of the benches and drew her knees up to her chest. She rested her forehead against her knees, trying to digest the large piece of information she'd just been given.
Cronos's story had left most of them in shock. They stumbled out of the room with dazed expressions, just like Mia, trying to make sense of it all.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
She looked up and felt a chill dance through her bones. Cedric.
"Hard to believe someone could go through all that while remaining sane, huh?" He asked.
Mia nodded. "I feel so awful for him. Poor Cronos...he never knew his real parents and lost his second ones so quickly. At least I have memories of my birth parents; Cronos doesn't even know what they looked like." She whimpered. "Makes me feel like a brat for complaining."
"You're not a brat." Cedric said, "Not even remotely. Cronos grew up to be strong, despite his hardships, and so will you. That's one of the things he told me."
Mia didn't reply.
"He also told me something else..." Cedric said stiffly. He looked at her with a blank expression. "We need to talk."
She nodded in answer and stood up, following Cedric out into the hallway.
Elsewhere...
Frederick's face held its usual stoic smirk as he descended the winding stone steps of his castle. He was headed down into the dungeon chambers with a bloodstained sack in his right hand. He hummed a merry little tune as he walked, swinging the sack with each stride.
Torches were set into the walls at regular intervals, filling the stairwell with a flickering orange light. When he reached the bottom step the way opened into an even larger chamber.
His torture chamber; his pride and joy.
Frederick ceased humming, but continued to swing the bag in joyful mockery of the gruesome room before him. There was a rack with spikes sticking from the metal bars. Each spike was encrusted with a dark red substance that even a fool could identify. More crude instruments of torture were strewn about: knives, chains, saws, and iron pokers. A smell of sulfur hung in the air, remnants of fires often used during 'interrogations'.
Frederick chuckled at his own inner joke. Times had changed; the world had moved on; become more sophisticated. It was a time when torture could be handled in a sterile environment with almost surgical precision. These days it was a matter of knowing where to cut and which chemicals to use. Frederick, however, was old school. He enjoyed the old 'barbaric' means of getting useful information, or just causing pain. He used thick, rusted chains to hang prisoners from the ceiling while they were beaten with iron whips. He would brand his name into the flesh of people giving him a hard time. He would give them concussions with metal clubs and then throw them into one of the cells along the walls of the chamber, so that they could bleed in peace.
But his favorite method was just ahead. It was for this that he had the sack.
As he made his way across the vast chamber, he took note of the cells lining up and down the walls. Many of the stones in the chamber had been soaked red with blood that no amount of scrubbing could erase. That was fine with him; it gave future prisoners an idea of what they were in store for.
Future prisoners...like Cronos.
Just thinking of the half-blood's name made Frederick want to retch. Cronos, bastard son of Fiona and Aiden. Cronos, without whom he would've succeeded on that bloody campaign 200 years ago. Cronos, the abomination that had thwarted him every time fate tried to give Frederick what was rightfully his; Fiona.
Or should he say, Carolyn?
Did it really matter what she was called? Both women were his, no matter if they shared the same body and even if one hadn't grown into a full woman yet. That was of little concern to him. She was his; she belonged to him; Cronos wasn't supposed to be near her. He shouldn't even have it in his head to touch her or talk to her like he had!
But he did. Somehow he did. Like a thief in the night, he had snatched Fiona's host away before Frederick could get a proper grip on her. Wooing her with words of love and making her dizzy with affection. Damn them both! Damn them and their bloody free will!
He reached the edge of the pit. The opening was circular and about five feet in diameter, dropping down about twenty feet. At the bottom, the hole played host to about five snarling demons.
Fredrick smiled and dangled the bag above the pit, watching them snarl and clamber on top of one another, trying to leaping up at him. They weren't even separate creatures when you watched them fight like that. They were one mass of shaggy brown fur with claws and teeth.
Deciding not to keep them in suspense any longer, he turned the bag upside down and dumped its contents into the pit. Large hunks of meat rained down on the beasts, who dove on it and snatched it up in their greedy mouths.
As Frederick watched them eat, he calmed himself from his earlier rage at thoughts of Cronos. Once the boy's usefulness had been served, Frederick would have his broken, battered body hurled into this very pit. Better yet, he would do it himself instead of sending servants to do it for him. He would watch as Cronos was ripped apart himself; and he would laugh in time with the boy's screams. He would see the light go out in those disgusting red eyes.
Those were his dual obsessions; to see Cronos die, and to possess Carolyn. The jewel didn't really matter anymore; it was just a hunk of glass. But Frederick knew he could die happy if he granted his rival death and took back his woman. That was all.
And as for those otherworldly warriors...Well, he hardly concerned himself with thoughts of them.
The Dark Lord drew back his head and laughed a laugh that seemed to make the walls of the chamber catch frost and go cold. Suffering was in the future, no doubt about that.
And in the end, that suffering was great.
