(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)
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A/N: The Karst parts of this chapter came out real well. I was pleasantly surprised.
Warning! Really weird het pairing contained within! But then, to have canon!offspring!Sues, you normally have very normal pairings or very strange pairings... And you all SHOULD know I hate the really normal pairings, so I always go with the weird ones. :D
Keep in note that, like all Suethors, I have no idea where my stories'll be going. So expect some really weird plot twists...
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Teach Saturos to completely ignore her and her sister because some chick with pink hair was sitting in his lap and being all giggly! Karst bared her teeth in the expression of a determined demon hell-bent on revenge, hauling Katelyn along with her, the Teleportation Lapis now in her pocket.
"You have a right to fear, Saturos!" Karst screamed maniacally, stomping through the stretch between the main gates and the small village itself. The snow, as usual, was deep, but there was no longer a blizzard to throw the frail people around as they went about their business. A fine powder was being sprinkled downward onto the two girls, and Karst gave another short bark of laughter and made her way towards Saturos's house, smoke filtering out his chimney in an unusually cheerful way.
Cheerful? Saturos? Karst narrowed her eyes as a gusty wind blew flakes of snow into her dark eyes, shifting Katelyn into a less cramping position in her arms. That pink-haired girl had turned him into a tame pet, hadn't she? Roaring and scaring away a pack of curious children, Karst doubled her efforts to get to his house, forcing her feet to trudge faster in the ankle-deep, quicksand-like snow.
The door made a satisfying SLAM!-ing noise as Karst burst into Saturos's brightly-lit house. Karst wasn't fazed in the slightest when the door creaked and fell off its hinges, splintering into several hundred pieces as it crashed onto the floor.
"SATUROS!" Karst shouted, looking quickly this way and that. "You slimeball!"
Karst saw something fly at her and ducked. That something flew straight over her crouched form, out the door, and into the eternal cold. Karst turned around, and saw a very pink mass splayed out on the snow.
"Serena!" A masculine voice cried out.
Karst whirled back around. Saturos stood in a nearby doorway, looking positively horrified. He dashed past the red-head and into the snow, gingerly helping the pink mass to her feet. Serena? (1)
"Saturos?" Karst ventured hesitantly. Surely, this wasn't Saturos? Saturos barely cared whether his house burned down or if Menardi walked off a cliff – it had been the talk of the town when he'd been chosen for the Lighthouse Expedition a few years ago. He seemed so indifferent, so passive... So what was that impassioned cry she'd just heard? Saturos was never 'passionate' – perhaps about fighting, but that was as far as it went. Nothing else. Nope, nada, zilch.
"Are you okay, Serena? Nothing broken, I hope?" Saturos asked the pink-haired girl, seemingly oblivious to Karst, even less Karst's confused question.
"Saturos!" Karst snapped, not used to being ignored. (It was hard to ignore a girl like Karst; everyone everywhere knew that.)
"Huh?" The blue-haired man straightened and looked back, finally noticing her with the unconscious Wind Adept still held in her arms. "...Do I know you?"
Karst stared, and then gave a blood-curdling scream.
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Jenna paced in the front room, worried sick. Partly on cause of what to do, and partly on cause of her unconscious sidekick. She could hear Airetaliel singing softly as she concocted a potion, and the soft murmurings of the wind gusting around Xanaeya's abode. (Whoah, did she just think that?)
What would her brother do?
Well, Felix placed others' problems before his and his companions' – he seemed to have a sort of martyr complex. He had completely spazzed upon seeing the water-related problems of the residents of Altin, and had decided he needed to be the savior of the dwarfs of Loho. Hmm. But Jenna was still not her brother, and didn't have a martyr complex, nor did she need one.
What would Picard do?
Picard... Picard... Jenna struggled to remember his face, it had been such a long time since she had seen him last. Picard was a quiet, deeply philosophical Lemurian, and he probably was. Living in Lemuria all of your life normally made you like that. He would, had he been in her current situation, gone to save Sheba and then ran like the dickens back to Vale. Or perhaps some other secluded area, safe from Xanaeya and her creepy lover and Elf friend.
What would Karst do?
Blow the entire place up. Jenna frowned, but refrained from crossing her name out all the way on her mental list.
Jenna went through her entire list of friends and elders and acquaintances, reaching no good ideas. At that point in time, the Karst side of her was starting to set in, and she wanted to burn something up so terribly it... burned.
Sigh, you're doing really badly, Jenna. Her cynical mind said in a pitying tone. Resorting to bad puns... Always a bad thing.
So help me out here! Keep me from making bad puns! Jenna snarled at it, glaring out a window and trying to convince herself she wasn't seeing little fairies frolicking out amongst the wildflowers outside.
Sorry, I'm just your cynical mind. It sighed in mild annoyance. I'm just here to be cynical, y'know? I'm not the thinking part of your brain.
...Loser. Jenna muttered to herself.
I'm still a part of you, so you just called yourself a loser! Nya ha ha! It laughed.
Jenna silently seethed as she flexed her hands, wanting something to claw at. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a scream came from the kitchen.
She first glanced at the stairway, expecting Xanaeya or Isaac or perhaps both to come running down the stairs. When neither of the two came, Jenna crept towards the kitchen, unconsciously reaching for her short sword, still strapped to her waist. (Hey, who knew? Maybe something had attacked her, and Jenna could "accidentally" take out the Elf with the beast...)
Jenna crept to the little alcove hidden behind the wall of the staircase, where Xanaeya kept the spices and things in a large cupboard. With a shriek, she jumped out, sword brandished.
Nothing but another unconscious girl on the floor.
Panicpanicpanic! shrilled the cynical mind. What do we do? Unconscious Elf! Suspicious! Highly suspicious! RUN! RUN AS THOUGH THE CHICKENS ARE AFTER –
Jenna knelt down, waving a hand in front of Airetaliel's face, kind-of-hoping for a reaction. How would she describe the problem to Xanaeya? "Oh my goodness! She just dropped to the floor all of a sudden! I swear it wasn't me, even though I hate your 'kind' and you and Isaac and Sheba were upstairs while I was down here with her! Honest!"
PANIC!
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After Karst finished her screaming, she stood staring at Saturos, breathing in long, dragging breaths. The blue-haired man gawked at her.
"...Are you sane?"
"No, I'm not." Karst snarled, gripping Katelyn's arm harder than she needed to and forming a nice purple bruise on her wrist. "Saturos, what happened to you between then and now?"
He blinked. "How do you know my name? And, again, do I know you?"
Saturos was about to respond when Serena, the pink-haired girl, tugged on his sleeve. Immediately, he knelt and listened as she whispered into his ear. He nodded every few moments, and with a pat to her head, rose again. Karst raised an eyebrow.
"That girl – what is her name?" Saturos asked, a hand on Serena's shoulder.
Karst was personally very offended at his question – he was asking about Katelyn and apparently really didn't care much about her. Pah, still careless in that weird way of his. "It's Katelyn."
Saturos didn't notice the snow around Karst's ankles begin to melt away at an alarming rate of speed, but did notice the beady glare Karst was giving him. He turned to Serena quickly, and she whispered some more things in his ear. Karst glared venom, and if that man didn't shrivel up and die sometime soon, she knew her glare was no longer effective. And if it was powerful enough to make Agatio nearly wet his pants, then it was darn well powerful enough to make – force – Saturos remember her.
"You are... Menardi's sister, correct?" Saturos asked her, standing almost protectively in front of the girl.
Karst scowled darkly. "Yes. Took you long enough."
Saturos continued, "And this girl's mother?" (2)
The red-head gawked silently for a moment, then began floundering for words to express her shock, her rage, her rants of What have you been smoking recently?. Instead, she merely screamed again.
Karst abruptly stopped, though, when Serena came plodding through the snow to throw her arms out and squeal, "Mommy!"
Then she fainted dead away.
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Jenna was still hyperventilating and unintentionally imploding her brain when she heard Xanaeya and Isaac coming down the stairs, laughing and chatting gaily. She looking around for something to hide under, in, or behind, but found nothing. Gods were out to get her for some reason or another.
"Jenna?" Xanaeya called, looking for her first in the main sitting area, and then spotting her trying to hide behind a kitchen stool. "Jenna, what are you doing?"
"I... I... don't know..." Jenna muttered, straightening slowly and absent-mindedly adjusting her sword at her side, before her cynical mind kicked in, rolling its eyes, That looks suspicious, you idiot.
Xanaeya gasped, hands flying to her mouth. "Airetaliel! What happened to her?"
Jenna looked around, hoping she didn't appear straight-off as the culprit. Isaac was staring at her. "I... Um, she just fainted all of a sudden... Like Sheba did, and..."
Xanaeya leaped up from her quick examination of her fallen Elf friend, eyes wide with – what, panic? fright? "There is someone or something after us!"
One of Jenna's muscles near her eye involuntarily twitched, and she took a step back. "Er, come again?"
"No, no, I have to think logically..." The blonde shook her head, radiant strands shaking like golden waterfalls. (3) "But if Sheba went, and now Airetaliel..."
The assassin suddenly lunged for Jenna, and the flame user squeaked as her hands landed on her shoulders, gripping them tightly. "X-Xanaeya?"
"You must be on your guard, Jenna! You hear me? Be on your guard!"
Jenna stared. Xanaeya stared back, large green eyes unblinking.
"...For what?" Jenna ventured slowly, finding her hands had somehow encircled Xanaeya's surprisingly delicate wrists in a subtle hint to stop invading her personal space.
"Anything. Think, Jenna! (Jenna was rather offended at this.) Your friend suddenly is unconscious, then Airetaliel – one of us is next! And even I do not know how long they will remain unconscious..."
No! No! NOOO! I NEED MY SIDEKICK!
Jenna felt some sort of weakness creeping up on her, starting from the backs of her knees, and when Xanaeya suddenly had four very blurry green eyes, she knew she was going to pass out. But at the very last moment something kicked in, and Jenna stumbled backwards, blinking bemusedly. "...W-whoah..."
"Jenna? Are you all right?" Xanaeya moved towards her, probably to try and stable her or to check her temperature, but Jenna shook her head quickly, making the world spin topsy-turvy around her again.
"Ugh, I need to... sit down..." By herself, Jenna managed to get to the chairs she and Sheba had been discussing world perils and such in and collapsed onto one, one hand covering her eyes. (Jenna was rather proud of herself to get to the chairs without Xanaeya's assistance.) The world felt slanted to her, and everything was fuzzy...
"Jenna." Xanaeya was calling to her, but her head felt too horrible at the moment to try and form a coherent response. "Jenna."
"Mmrph..." croaked Jenna.
"Jenna, what you just felt, I'm sure, is what overcame Sheba and Airetaliel! But, unlike the others, you were strong enough to resist!"
Sheez, Jenna thought to herself, does this woman know she sounds an awful lot like Kraden sometimes?
"...cannot be just aligned to Mars! You must have something else in you, to add stability..."
Jenna shot into an upright sitting position, blood surging around madly in her head and making the room shake violently again. At the moment, though, her weakness wasn't bothering her, it was what Xanaeya had just said – she was aligned to one of those weird, non-existent elements? What? What?
"...wouldn't surprise me if you're a descendant of perhaps Saturn itself..."
Oh, screw this, Jenna thought, and then fainted dead away. (4)
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Karst awoke with a start from a rather hideously strange dream to find herself in an unfamiliar room, in a bed she didn't recognize at all. Logic told her that wasn't a good thing, but when the door opened, and in skipped her "daughter," Karst felt a sinking realization in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away, be it at the edge of the world or in Tundaria... Just anywhere but here.
"Mommy!" Serena screeched, seeing her awake and blinking blearily at her surroundings. "Do you feel better? Does your head hurt? Are you hungry?"
Karst winced, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. Where's my scythe? She glanced over to the door, and saw it leaning against the dresser. Well, drat. No way to get to it easily... "Kid – er, Serena..."
The pink-haired girl beamed and drew closer, to the side of her "mother"'s bed.
Karst sighed, continuing to rub at her forehead in an attempt to dispel the massive migraine she had woken up with. "Who's your father?"
Serena blinked innocently, swaying back and forth slightly. "Well, Uncle Saturos (Uncle Saturos? repeated Karst mentally) says his name was Sean..."
Karst stared at her daughter through her fingers. "Sean."
The girl nodded.
The Proxian resisted the urge to yank at her own hair in frustration. Who was this Sean? (5) Sean? She remembered no such Sean... "Ki – Serena, I've never had a husband. If I never had a husband, much less know who he is, can you tell me where you came from?"
Serena twisted a strand of pink hair around her small index finger, looking thoughtfully at her mother. "Uncle has always said it was a..." Her face scrunched up as she tried to remember the words. "A... A seam in time!"
Karst raised an eyebrow. "...Right..."
"I think he said that it was a... pair-uh-lel dih-men-shun..." Serena recited carefully, emphasizing the words, no doubt to try and impress her newly found mother.
This, however, only made Karst want to bang her head against a wall even more. "A guy named Sean, a seam in time, and a parallel dimension..." She sighed again, rubbing her eyes. "So, then, how'd you end up here if you're from a parallel dimension?"
"I... I just appeared... Uncle Saturos found me sitting on his doorstep, and he took me in when he saw how lonely I was..." Her lower lip wobbled, and Karst tensed. Please, not the tears... "I've missed you so much, Mommy! Why did you have to leave me all alone?"
Serena burst into tears and threw herself at Karst. Karst, numb with surprise, shock, and a sense of Oh Mars, what have I done?, allowed the girl to cling to her and sob into her shoulder.
Somebody save me.
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END CHAPTER NINEx x x x x
(1) – Serena: the ultimate Sue name.
(2) – OMG THE PLOT TWIST.
(3) – I had to stick something like that in there for the heck of it... Those Suethors and their hideous descriptions... ;P
(4) – What's with the fainting? Oh, that always appears in Sue stories. Mostly the badly done chat/script humor fics, but hey, fainting allows a certain passage of time to occur, and it's DRAMATIC, foo. When it doubt: faint.
(5) – Kudos if you remember who this guy is. (I warned you – really strange pairings!)
Sorry for the shortness, but I didn't know how to extent this any further. This was the "OMFGWTFBBQ!" chapter. Because all Sue parody fics need one.
Hope you enjoyed!
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