This is your warning, and I will only say it once. This story will be violent. This story will be bloody. There will be character death, cursing, and LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS. And the rating will go up, making this one of the few M-rated Baten Kaitos fic on this site.
And, most importantly of all, there will be no happy ending.
Oh, and I don't own Baten Kaitos. There. I warned you.
Wait. One more thing…
PLAGERIZE AND DIE. THERE AREN'T ENOUGH BATEN KAITOS FICS ON THIS SITE FOR YOU TO HIDE FROM ME.
There. NOW I warned you.
Summary: We all know what happens in the Lava Caves. Well, things are different this time. The Spirit isn't going to be helping Xelha this time. In fact, she's not going to be leaving Kalas… KalasxSpirit, One-sided KalasxXelha and MelodiaxKalas.
This story is more of a 'what if' story than anything else... The Guardian Spirit's name is Vera, although you might see some similarities with Crimson Rain when they get to the Guardian's world, this story doesn't have anything to do with my other Baten Kaitos fic. Also… don't expect this to be updated very often. Because, quite frankly, writing this depresses the heck out of me.
Oh, and for those of you who DO read Crimson Rain, I AM going to be updating soon. Just need to iron a few things out… look for it tomorrow.
Now, without further ado…
White Shadows
Prologue: Cast from the Light
A girl sat in her wheelchair beneath one of the trees in the courtyard of the campus. She was dressed like the typical dork, blue turtleneck sweater and blue plaid skirt, sensible but not fashionable brown loafers, navy blue knee socks that covered her far-too skinny legs. She looked like one of those anorexic teenagers that you see everyday, pale and so thin that she could have passed for a scarecrow. But unlike them, she did not starve herself to look like a sack of bones. It was how she had been born.
And look, there go a pair of the idiots now, she thought as a pair of unnaturally skinny teenagers wearing too much makeup passed her, pausing only for a moment to shoot her looks equal parts pity and scorn. Her cheeks burned under that stare. Everyone looked at her like that.
She tucked a limp strand of black hair behind her ear, scanning the campus grounds nervously and looking out for the person who was coming to pick her up, her blue eyes (in her opinion, her only redeeming feature) darting all over the place. The campus was very pretty, really, with the trees covered in their autumn leaves and the blue, blue sky…
Bit it was just a little too cold for her to be outside much longer without a jacket. Even though it was mild, low to mid fifties, it was still to cold for her feeble body. She was going to get sick if she stayed out much longer…
"Vera!" exclaimed a bright-looking young woman dressed in a dark blue tank top and black slacks. Her enthusiastic smile didn't quite reach her stormy gray eyes.
"Mariel," Vera replied, nodding, not bothering to try and replicate the false warmth in the other young woman's voice. "You're almost a halfan hour late."She tilted the joystick on her chair and urged it forward. Time to go at long last…
Mariel lived alone in a small, one-story house with a basement. Her parents had died shortly after she had turned eighteen. Vera secretly believed that Mariel had done something to them magically. But whether or not foul play came into the equation, Mariel was still the only local in their coven, and the only one who had a house to herself. So circles were always held in her basement, away from parents and prying eyes.
"Let me help you out of the car," Mariel said, opening her door and offering her a hand.
"I can do it myself, you know," Vera reminded her 'friend'.
"Yes, but if you overexert yourself, you won't be able to stand through the entire circle. You should stay in your wheelchair for now."
Vera made no more complaints; she knew that Mariel was right. So she allowed herself to be wheeled inside and carried into the basement. Mariel's basement reflected what happened in there, the walls were lavishly decorated with all sorts of pagan wall hangings, and the room smelled of incense. There was even an elaborate altar.
"This is a very complicated circle, Mariel. I'm impressed," Vera said. And she was. Instead of the basic pentagram that they normally used for circles, thecore design was a hexagram, surrounded by countless runes, over half of which the sickly girl didn't recognize, written in a rusty ink. The ones that she could didn't have very positive meanings, but this was nothing new to her. It's not like white magic is ever going to heal this cursed body of mine… "Is this in blood, perhaps?"
"Yes."
"What kind of blood?"
"You're happier not knowing," Mariel said as she placed the ceremonial candles in their proper places. (Colored white, turquoise, red, green, blue, and black today). That meant that the blood was human.
"Oh. I hope if you used an unwilling subject you disposed of the body discreetly," Vera sighed. Try as she might to ignore it, the thought that her 'friends' had murdered someone in cold blood to fuel the power of a circle threw what was left of her conscience into rebellion. Stop it. This is the only way I'll ever be normal.
"This'll be the first time you've participated in a circle of this kind," Mariel said as she bustled around with the final preparations, running a hand through her perfectly wavy and shiny red hair. "You should be proud. That means that Abel trusts you enough for the really dark stuff."
"I'm ready. By the way, what kind of circle is this?" Vera asked, rising shakily from the fold-up chair that she had been deposited in and tottering over to the circle, stepping inside as carefully as she could to avoid ruining the painstakingly painted design and leaning down, so that her bad eyes could make out the archaic symbols better.
"It's… a banishing circle," Mariel said with an evil smirk. Vera gasped involuntarily as she felt what little physical strength she had been born with leave her body, and her legs, which had always been feeble no matter how she tried to strengthen them with exercises, gave out. "Well, actually, it's not just a banishing circle. This is more like payment. You see, we've racked up a lot of debt with dark things, kid, and they want payment. Despite the fact that your body and life force are pathetically weak, your soul's power is very strong, very… bright. So, instead of being sucked into one of the Other Realms… we're sending you there instead."
"So… you recruited me with the intent of doing this to me from the start," she gasped. "You bitch."
Mariel only smirked. "It's not my fault you're a gullible goodie-two-shoes, although I will miss the power boost you give to the coven… not to mention Abel and I, of course. And the other members of the coven should be here in three, two, one…"
"Ah, Vera, I see that you've made it. I had heard that you might be returning to your hometown, and I was most worried that you might not be here tonight. Six months of preparation would have been ruined," Abel said as he entered, followed by the other eleven members of the coven. Damn, and if I'd decided to go back home and visit Mom for her birthday the way I'd originally planned, I wouldn't be here right now…
"Abel Norrison, you have broken your oath to me, and it shall rebound upon you. I hope it kills you," Vera spat. You promised… you promised…
"Not true, my sweet and foolish invalid. I promised I would make it so you would no longer have need of wheelchairs, glasses, and medication. And once you are a spirit, you will have no need of any of those things… of course, I can't guarantee you'll survive the denizens of the nether dimensions, but you have a very powerful soul. You might make it." However, judging by the malicious glint in his gorgeous dark eyes, he found this to be highly unlikely.
"If I ever return here, I swear… by the graves of my ancestors… I'll kill you first," Vera vowed in a breathy whisper. For a moment, Abel hesitated at the fiery rage in her normally forlorn blue eyes. But he gave himself a mental slap and snapped out of it. Even though Vera's powers were greater than anything he'd ever seen before, strong enough to hold her in this world when she should have died long ago of a weak heart and other birth complications, the hexagram would restrain her until they could send her off. And even with her great spiritual strength, Vera would never be able to return from the outer dimensions…
Vera watched as the twelve of them started to dance around her and chant, and she glared with a poison that none of them would have thought possible from the normally subdued young woman before that. Caroline McGuinneth, her only real friend in the coven, looked torn, and kept on shooting her 'I'm sorry' looks every three seconds. Yes, Carrie, I can tell that you're sorry, for all that it will help me now… hypocrite. She saw the 'twins', Jane and Vanessa, shooting her equally vapid blonde smiles, as if they were pulling one over on her. Useless idiots, those two. They'll probably be next… Abel and Mariel, the leaders of the coven, high Priest and Priestess, completely ignoring her, totally confident in their power, their beauty, their poisoned cunning… Traitors… kill them first… John Pewter, Jacob Porter, Harry Peterson, the 'muscles' of the coven, usually the ones that brought in the blood sacrifices. More stupid pawns. Daphne Calandera, her blue-green eyes and beautiful face as blank and unreadable as ever… only the tiniest trace of something that Vera thought might be scorn. Raven and Rivven, whose last names she did not know, two of the scariest human beings she had ever known, who truly delighted in the suffering of others. Morgan, the nice boy who had often helped her with her wheelchair, who was now staring at her with hungry eyes…
And suddenly the chanting that she had been unable to decipher grew to a fever pitch and she screamed and screamed as her soul was ripped from her feeble body.
The last thing that she was aware of was an inhuman voice laughing at her from somewhere in the darkness.
The explosion of energy as her soul and body were sundered shook the little house to its foundations. The basement door flew open and multicolored light streamed forth from every window. The twelve were knocked off their feet by the strength of the tremor that their banishing had invoked. The candles were upset, they sputtered briefly before going out simultaneously. The power went out at the same time. For a full five minutes, the earth shuddered like a wounded animal, then everything went still.
Abel, being the strongest, was also the first to recover. He got shakily to his feet and summoned his power. An orb of light flickered weakly into existence, casting just enough light to enable everyone to see their surroundings.
No one seemed to be badly hurt except Carrie, who had been unfortunate enough to be standing directly underneath a shelf, which had hit her on the head as it had fallen. She was bleeding where she had been struck, but surprisingly was still conscious.
"What… what the hell was…" Vanessa started, her typically breathy voice sounding even breathier as panic overtook her limited senses.
"The threefold law," Carrie interrupted in a singsong voice, her brown eyes disturbingly out of focus. "We shall reap what we hath sown."
People shifted nervously and looked vaguely guilty for a few moments. Abel ignored them and squatted down to look into her eyes. The girl, unsurprisingly, had aconcussion.
"Mariel, get Carrie to the hospital. Everyone else, get the circle off the floor and hide the other stuff. The police will probably be coming. Remember, Vera collapsed during the quake."
"But what if someone saw the light?" Mariel asked.
Abel snorted. "Even if they tell the cops, who's going to believe them? No one's ever going to figure out what happened to Vera. Business as usual."
Dark… so cold, so dark… so many terrifying things… I grow weary of being the only true light in this world…
Why was I sent here, God? What did I do that was so horrible? All I wanted was to fix the ruined body that you cursed me with… did I really deserve this?
Strange… I thought Hell was supposed to burn… didn't they always tell me that it was my fate to burn in Hell for eternity? I'd be more than happy to, now. I'd rather be anywhere but here… it's so lonely here… just me and the demons, no one to talk to…
Every day, I look at that castle in the center of this void. I have learned that it is called 'Cor Hydrae'. It glows with an unearthly light. I think there might be people living in the castle, but every time I get close I am repelled by some sort of barrier. It is an eerie place, and I doubt that anyone who lives there would be very nice, but even if Satan himself lives there, at least I would have someone to talk to besides myself.
What's this? A light in this void that isn't me or that hideous castle? Perhaps I have finally lost my mind. Or maybe it really is a way out… there's only one way to find out…
"I think that spirit likes you, Kalas. Why don't you try talking to it?"
"Ok… Hello, I am Kalas. May I ask your name?"
"I am…Vera."
"Well then, Vera, would you like to bond with me and become my Guardian Spirit?"
"Yes… but on one condition."
"What?"
"Please promise me that you won't leave me alone… I am so very sick of being lonely."
"Okay… I promise."