The Saturn Adept

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

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A/N: Hopefully, you guys will be getting this before I go to Japan...

...Yes, you read right! I'll be in Japan from the 23rd to the 5th of July, so no updates until sometime after then. My LJ, as usual, will probably still be updating, if I can get ahold of some internet connection... But 'til then, deal without, mmkay?

I love you all, just to let you know. ;D So, you know, if my plane crashes into the Pacific, at least I said "I love you!" to everyone who reads this. Even those who... ahem... Borrowed some ideas. e.e

Xanaeya is pronounced 'zah - nai - yah', for those of you who are (remotely) curious. But for all heck, it could be pronounced 'zah - nay - ah' or 'kah - nai/nay - yah/ah'. ...Um, yeah. But it's the first pronunciation I had in mind when I made up her name...

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Since Karst refused to help in any way, Jenna had to haul/drag/heave Xanaeya into the living room of her home and dropped her on the couch. Karst was sending her Very Evil looks throughout the entire dragging process, and now that the blonde was unconscious and lying on a couch, Jenna presumed that Karst thought it was now okay to rant very loudly.

"She's one of them, Jenna! We can't house her and her evilness! And where's her pet, anyways?"

"You mean Isaac?" Jenna asked as she put a cool cloth on Xanaeya's forehead, which was suddenly quite warm. She considered Karst's demands, and wondered why she was doing this again... Oh, yeah, because it was The Plan. She sighed. "I don't know. Maybe we got lucky and he wandered off somewhere..."

"Psh. Not likely to happen. He has.. what, an invisible, unbreakable bond with her, right? We're lucky if he doesn't Ragnarok your house down when he finds out Xanny's unconscious here."

"Look, Karst, I have a plan, and..." A thought occurred to her, and with a little smile, she said, "Hm, I wonder what happened to Menardi? Did Syruss go and take her to be in his harem of beautiful Weyardian women, or...?"

"H-how dare you!" Karst sputtered, slamming the bottom of her scythe into the wooden floor angrily.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't seen her all day... I wouldn't be surprised if she's feeding Syruss grapes in some haven full of shining purple crystals and pools of healing water..." Jenna continued, allowing her imagination to sit in the director's seat for a moment.

"Jenna..." Karst said, her tone rather dangerous sounding.

"But really, Karst, aren't you worried at all about Menardi? She could be dead, or being tortured, or..." She trailed off, looking at Karst with one of those 'And You Know What Else' looks.

"You just want to get rid of me, don't you!"

"I'm worried about your sister, dearest Karst. She WAS going to help us fight these... things... but now she's been enchanted by one. You should go and find her, Karst! Weyard may depend on it!" The other redhead exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of Karst, hands clasped and held above her head. "Please!"

Jenna was afraid Karst would finally blow and stomp on her, but the Proxian lady glared at her, grit her teeth, then stalked out of the house. When Jenna watched her leave, she saw the flowers lining the walkway leading to her house wilt as Karst passed. With a sigh, she turned back to Xanaeya, rising to her feet.

"Well," she said to the (presumably) unconscious blonde, hands on her hips, "I have to keep you alive... Can't get your Dark Secret from a corpse, after all..."

"Jenna, would you – oh!"

Jenna turned around to see Marie standing in the entryway to the kitchen, a skillet in one hand. She looked surprised to see the unconscious girl on the couch... Jenna couldn't blame her, though. "Yeah?"

"Who is that?"

"A... friend." Jenna said carefully, glancing back at Xanaeya momentarily. "Her name is Xanaeya, and I think she, um, has a fever or something..."

"Oh no! That's horrible." Marie said, growing more and more concerned looking by the second. Jenna blinked. "I'll go make some of my soup... Mother always said it was life-nourishing." The girl turned back into the kitchen without a further word, her copper hair whirling around majestically as she went. Jenna raised an eyebrow.

"Life-nourishing. Right." Jenna sat down on a chair nearby Xanaeya's unconscious form. She sighed. "Maybe lighting the lighthouses was a bad idea... If it made all these new elements and Adepts pop up..."

She was about to go into the stereotypical girl angsting process at that moment, but a rapping noise distracted her. (Oh, the horrors that would be if she had fallen into that process!) Jenna followed the noise to the back, where her room was. Looking toward the window, she saw something prodding it, and went to inspect, ready to backhand anything that attempted to... ahem, touch her.

"Who's there?" She called, stepping slowly in the direction of the noise.

"It's me, Jenna!" A familiar voice called. Jenna's eyes widened, and she ran over and threw the window open.

"Felix?"

"Jenna!" A normal sparrow with an oddly spiky brown crown (1) perched in a tree outside chirped. Jenna stared.

"..." was all she could muster in response.

"Um..." Felix... er, chirped, seeing her look. "That girl turned me into a sparrow for easier... uh... safekeeping. But she's an idiot, and I flew out when I had the chance. I have to go back before she notices that I'm gone, though, because I'll be roadkill..."

Jenna blinked, and her brain and its thought processes suddenly returned to her. She leaned out of the window and asked the tiny bird, "Who is this girl?"

"I don't know! She's blonde and she has... I think she has purple eyes, but sometimes they're green, other times they're – "

"NOOO!" Jenna screamed, clutching at her hair. "She wouldn't! She wouldn't!"

"Jenna! Jenna, calm down! Tell me what's wrong!" A small part of Jenna's mind was half-heartedly amused that he was still the typical worrying older brother while in the form of a sparrow, of all things. Xanaeya should've just turned him into a brick... But then the other half was going nuts, and of course, the psycho half always overrides the first, more mentally stable, half.

Jenna whirled around from the window, and her long ponytail flew and slapped sparrow!Felix across the face, sending him tumbling off the branch of the tree. The Mars Adept, however, didn't have a clue she had just made Felix more paranoid because of her dangerous hair. She walked across the length of her room, pulling at her hair and gritting her teeth. She knew Xanaeya or somebody had Felix locked away in a room full of plush couches and purple silks! But now... now...

"Felix!" Jenna turned back to the window and walked back over to it and stuck her head back out. "Felix?"

"I'm... alive..." A sparrow flew in an odd fashion back up to the same branch as before. "I'm... I'm fine. What were you going to say?"

Feeling disturbed knowing Xanaeya, his captor, had said something eerily similar just a few minutes ago, Jenna frowned and looked at the ground. "Uh. Um. Oh, shoot, I... I don't remember!"

Felix tried to sigh, but found it hard to do so while in a bird-ish form, and settled for ruffling up his feathers. "Jenna, I have to go soon, so..."

"Oh yeah!" How could she forget? "Does this evil captor-lady of yours try to turn you into sashimi using a katana?"

Both of them mused for a moment how either of them knew what sashimi was. Then Felix said, "No. Why?"

She'd expected the "Why?" Anyone who knew Felix knew the "Why?" was always, always, slapped onto there for good measure, without fail. And, of course, because Felix was his normal paranoid self. "Well, dearest bro... All evil ladies carry katanas, you see. But, uh, aside from that... Is she blonde? Have blue eyes?"

"No. More like finely spun gold thread that glimmers far brighter than any falling star... And the most sapphire of eyes... So deep, you can drown in their depths..."

Jenna jabbed her brother roughly in what she presumed was his stomach. But, heck, he was so fluffy, she couldn't tell for sure. "Stop that."

"Huh? What?" The bird blinked at her. Jenna restrained herself from backhanding her brother.

"Do you... randomly spout random prose about your evil captor-lady? Prose that deals with gold thread, falling stars, and sapphires?"

"No. Not that I know of – "

Jenna screamed. Was everyone except Karst and herself under this evil woman's spell?

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A few minutes later, Felix had to fly off to wherever he had come from, and from what he'd told her, Jenna knew Xanaeya's hideout was in the forest nearby, in some huge tree that apparently nobody noticed before, despite its greater-than-Mt. Aleph-tallness. Whatever.

And she owned a stallion named Jakinda or other, and an eagle she used for hunting. Jenna saw all that coming, of course.

Worst of all, Xanaeya did have a harem.

Or, at least, Jenna thought she did. Felix had talked so quickly – and his chirpy voice made it all the harder – so she wasn't very sure. But when she asked, "Does she have a harem of pretty boys?" he squawked something about a dungeon... Then he seemed to catch onto something, and reprimanded her for asking about pretty boys.

I can't help it, Jenna thought irritably to herself. All the pretty boys are under her control, after all. There's none left for the normal girls.

She was beginning to wonder what the definition of "normal girls" was.

She tramped back into the main room, and saw that Xanaeya was still as dead to the world as her parents were after bingo night. But just to check, she waved her hand over the girl's face a few times. No response. But this being Xanaeya, she'd still better watch her step and avoid saying anything about a brown sparrow with odd feathers outside her window... Jenna figured she knew all ready, though. Being Xanaeya, of course.

"Marie," Jenna called, standing at the side of the couch, "that soup done yet?"

"Almost!"

The Mars Adept sighed and plopped herself down on a nearby chair, running a hand idly through her hair. Where did all these girls come from? How did they manage being so easily charismatic and beautiful? And have gorgeous hair she wanted to have? Why was her brother emprisoned?

Well, he's a part of her harem, right?

Ignoring the cynical part of her mind, Jenna glared down at the floor. Sure, she knew life wasn't fair. It if were, not only would these psycho chicks not be around, she wouldn't had to have dealt with Saturos and Alex. Male Proxians were nutty. She'd found out the hard way. And blue-haired evil freaks with nicer hair than Menardi's? Guys like Alex always signaled bad things.

Speaking of Alex...

...Nah.

What would the loser be doing now, anyways? Surely, not... planning her demise or something?

...Of course not. Jenna flicked away an annoying strand of hair, then noticed she had a split end. She yanked it out viciously.

"Soup's ready!" Marie called happily.

"Great," Jenna said, not quite as enthused.

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Some time later, Karst came tramping back, with no Menardi in tow. Guess that meant she was unhappy, Jenna thought. Or maybe it's the fact she's charred, and the flowers and grass are wilting?

"How'd it go?" Jenna asked, going out to meet her. She knew the answer. But asking was such a temptation.

"Bad." Karst said shortly. She glared at Jenna, as though to say, This is all your fault.

"Um." Jenna responded. What would you say to a burnt and grouchy Proxian warrioress, after all?

"That Xanaeya girl still here?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"And Marie?"

"Yes..."

"No angels running amok or anything?"

"Not that I know of."

"Your brother around?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

Was Karst blushing? Jenna decided she'd used up her luck for the day and didn't ask about it. The two of them went back inside. Karst disappeared into her room, presumably to come up with some Deviously Evil Plan. Jenna watched Marie spoon soup (Which was an odd green color) into Xanaeya's mouth.

Wait, hadn't Xanaeya been unconscious?

So Marie had a healing touch. Better than Mia's, Jenna bet. ...Whatever, went her cynical mind.

"Is she doing any better?" Jenna asked of Marie.

"Oh, yes! Her cheeks aren't such an ashy color, and her fever's going down." Marie smiled a beaming smile that almost blinded Jenna with its... brightness.

"Er, okay. That's good..."

The door burst open at that moment, startling Marie. Jenna sighed.

"omg wheres xanaeya!11?"

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END CHAPTER FOUR

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(1) – I think it's called a crown. I own cockatiels and don't know if it's called a crown or a crest... I think you guys get it, thought...

If you're going "Who's that?" in response to the last sentence... Go read the other chapters again, foo. :D

If this sucks – it's because I wrote this in really short amount of time. Given more breathing space, it'd be longer and better. But since I'm going to the airport in, oh, less than three hours, I had to scrap up more than half of it really quickly. Eheh. When I get back, I'll fix it up, 'kay?

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