Disclaimer: This is where I say stuff about how I don't own Mountain Dew, Kalas, pixie sticks, skittles, and Baten Kaitos in general. Although, considering I'm lucky to have more than five dollars to my name at any given time, you'd have to be crazy to sue me.

A/N: NINE REVIEWS! NINE OF THEM! I'M SOOOOOOO HAPPY! (However, Quick Edit must DIE.)

On a side note, I'm introducing the rest of Astarael's family in this chapter. Since her mom is just such a WONDERFUL person, I think you can guess how DELIGHTFUL the rest of her family is going to be…

And Astarael has a stalker! He heh heh… I really created Rob to lighten the mood a little bit. He's a nice stalker (if such a thing actually exists). Astarael hates him, though.

Responses

Coatlicue7: I'll type you up a Baten Kaitos summary later if you want one, but I strongly recommend buying the game and playing it for yourself: half the fun is all the plot twists! (Although if you're reading this, you've just spoiled the best one for yourself… oh well, guess you'll just HAVE to read my summary…)

xwoman2: Oooh! A convert! Lol, I'm glad you're reading my story. I don't read very many Mary Sue stories myself, but somehow everything I write seems to end up being a crossover or a Mary Sue… guess that makes me a hypocrite, huh? (Although I love crossover fics, especially Yu-Gi-Oh/Harry Potter crossovers!)

wingsofheart: Yay! I'm glad you agree! I also played Tales of Symphonia before I played this game.

Chapter 3: One Big, Unhappy Family (KYAH! SOMEONE HELP ME WITH THE TITLE, PLEASE!)

"I'm home!" Astarael grunted, dropping her backpack in the mudroom with a thud that must have shaken the house to its foundations. It had been WORK dragging the damn thing home, mostly because she daren't risk a spell that could fix it. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that she had been being watched the entire walk home.

Her dog, Sabrina, barked and dashed to the mudroom , jumping up and down in glee at the prospect of her afternoon walk.. "Okay, Sabrina, it's time for your walkie!"

"Bark!" Sabrina exclaimed happily, her light brown eyes shining with the single-minded love that only a dog was capable of.

"Hang on young lady!" her mother shouted. "I got your progress report today, and…"

Astarael had never slammed the mudroom door shut so quickly in her life. Oh, shit! Progress reports weren't supposed to come home for…

Two days. They had gone out last Friday. There was no mail on Sundays. Which meant that the hateful Missive From Hades was… had been… due today. Monday.

The ONE day I get attacked AFTER school. God, I HATE Mondays! Nothing good ever happens on Mondays!

"Well, I hadn't been expecting the shit to hit the fan this soon, Sabrina," she said to her dog, who was currently chasing their cat, Smoky, across the yard.

Oh, today was just getting better and better…

"…in danger of failing every subject! I don't believe it! You just wait until your father gets home… and WHAT did I say about drinking soda during the week!" her mother snarled.

"Do I say things like that when you drink coffee?" Astarael asked.

"That's totally different!" the older woman shouted, slamming her iron down on the ironing board, causing the thing to overbalance and fall to the floor. Astarael suppressed a smirk as her mother shot her a death glare. Honestly, how could it be HER fault, she wasn't technically even in the same room!

"Yes, it is. This tastes better," Astarael replied evenly, downing the other half of the can of Mountain Dew in a few gulps.

"Don't gulp your drink! Only boys drinking beer gulp their drinks! You are a young lady, and you must act like one!"

"Yes, ma'am," Astarael replied in her very best neutral tone.

"And apologize for your outburst earlier! Proper young women don't talk back to their parents that way! I though you had learned that lesson!"

"I'm sorry, Mother. I'm just a tad on edge, since a huge bird tried to kill me on my way home today."

"Wait. WHAT?" An extremely displeased look crossed her face. "Astra, you need to be more careful! Do you want to end up in another coma?"

I don't know… I wouldn't have to deal with YOU, and that would be an improvement…

"No," Astarael replied absently, fishing around in the refrigerator for some cheese. Cheese and crackers was her favorite snack in the whole world, next to skittles and pixie sticks. But her mother would die before she let skittles and pixie sticks into the house, so she'd just have to settle for the next best thing.

"Astra, you don't seem very concerned."

"Well, it only took one swipe at me and flew away," Astarael lied smoothly.

"I can see. You've ruined another shirt."

"And my backpack."

"Astra…!"

"Well, if I hadn't ducked, it probably would have taken off my head!" Astarael snapped, finally losing her temper. She was so sick of the hypocrisy, the constant lectures, the deception…! "I could have DIED! And you're worried about some stupid piece of CANVAS?"

Her mother glared at her in a mix of hurt and fury for a moment, before her expression became cold as ice.

"I see where this is going."

Huh? Had she finally knocked some common sense into her mother? No, not with THAT expression… oh, I think this is going to be bad…

"You're trying to get me so angry, that I'll forget about your grades. You provoked that bird, didn't you?"

Say what? That is…

"That is… the most ridiculous thing…!" Astarael spluttered.

"Don't you talk back to me, young lady!" her mother roared. "You sit down!"

Astarael didn't move.

"You're not eighteen yet, Astarael. And unless you want me to make your life a living hell, you will sit down. Now."

"HELLFIRE!" Astarael shouted at the top of her lungs once she had reached the safety of her rooms. And, predictably, a stack of paper sitting on top of her desk burst into flames. Astarael only scowled at the burning paper; she had cast a fireproofing spell on her desk a LONG time ago. Once it had put itself out, she stalked over to the door between her sitting room and her bedroom and slammed it shut as hard as she dared, knowing that the silencing ward she had cast on her rooms would absorb the noise. Slamming doors wasn't nearly as much fun as it had once been, though. She couldn't put her full strength into the act of slamming, because that would reduce the door to splinters.

And she really liked her doors.

They locked. And if her mother was forced tobuy any newdoors, she was fairlycertain that the replacements wouldn't.

So, she resorted to her second favorite stress reliever: pacing.

Up, down. Left, right. How long until Azil and Rana were home? Ten, eleven, twelve, wall, TURN, one, two, three…

Sabrina barking. Who was home?

Azil, probably. The 3:10 bus at the high school is always home before the elementary school bus.

"Hi, mom!" came the falsely perky voice. Astarael barely resisted the urge to punch a wall.

Azil and Astarael both hated their mother, Deborah Sanders. That was where the common ground ended.

Azil got great grades but hated reading in her spare time.

Astarael's grades sucked, but she loved reading.

Azil was popular and loved participating in school sports.

Astarael was on speaking terms with a grand total of maybe four people in a school of sixteen hundred. Since Kala and Alys had gone to college, Astarael no longer had a reason to participate in the one sport she DID like. (Fencing, although technically fencing was a club sport…)

Azil dressed prep, or whatever the current 'in' fashion was.

Astarael dressed a mix of medieval cut stuff, random jeans, and some traditional Goth attire.

Azil was pretty in the normal looking way.

Astarael was pretty in the freakish-looking way.

Azil watched reality TV.

Astarael watched Japanese anime and other cartoons.

Azil seemed to have a new boyfriend every week.

Astarael (though much sought after) had never been on a single date.

Long story short, they were not on speaking terms. The fact that Astarael had quite literally died saving Azil's miserable life had not made things any easier. In fact, Azil had been pointedly avoiding Astarael ever since the latter had awoken from her coma. Azil refused to even be in the same room as Selih, a fact that pissed Astarael off to no end. Where dose that suck-up get off insulting my best friend like that?

Oh. Right. Azil equalsMom's pet.

Her door burst open. Standing in the doorway was the Princess Bitch herself.

"Mom wants you downstairs," Azil sneered.

Why does this girl remind me of Melodia?

"Whatever." Oh, yes. Another lecture. Joy and ecstasy.

Mondays hereby officially UBER suck.

"Phone's for you," her mother snapped, jabbing the iron angrily at the kitchen table. Stupefied, Astarael picked up the phone. Please be Selih, PLEASE be Selih…

"Hello?" Astarael asked tentatively.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! Astra!" replied the most annoying male voice on the planet. God no, not him! Haven't you tortured me enough today?

Apparently not…

"Hello Rob," she said coldly mouthing the words, fuck off, asshole into the empty air. "And before you say anything, I will not go out with you, I will not come over to your house, I do not accept gifts, I will not go into town with you and 'a couple of friends', and if you call me again today I will do something drastic!"

She slammed down the phone. She could picture Rob's hurt expression, and flinched in spite of herself. Normally, she at least tried to be civil when she was getting rid of him, despite the fact that he drove her insane. Rob was like a puppy dog: no matter how annoying a puppy dog was, it still made you feel like a jerk if you kicked it.

Rob was in her grade. He had had a crush on her since she had returned to school in the middle of their junior year, when she had politely turned him down.

He had not-so-subtly been stalking her ever since.

"Astra, I don't see why you're always so mean to Robert. He's such a sweet boy, and he really seems to care about you…"

"He's a stalker, Mom. He calls me every night, and tries to follow me around in school! It's not sweet, it's creepy!" There was no way she would ever date someone like Rob. He was a stalker, first of all. And about a hundred thousand times too clingy. Well… she MIGHT date him out of pity…

Possibly.

If her mother forced her to go to the senior prom…

"Astra, it's high time you started to date. I'm really starting to worry about you…"

The Boys and Social Life lecture again.

Joy and Eternal Happiness…

One argument with BOTH her little sisters later, Astarael found herself sprawled on her bed, nursing a bruised cheek. Rana had HIT her! And she, not Rana, was the one grounded! It didn't make any sense!

"I hate my life. I wish I'd never left Kalas," she sighed, staring up at her off white ceiling.

And what the hell had happened to Rana, anyway? She had always had temper problems, sure, but never nearly THIS bad (Except that one time she had chased Azil around the house with a knife… maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go into that…)

And her father, too. Lately, he was twice as prone to losing his temper as usual, and she was SURE that it wasn't her imagination. What was happening to her family? Why was everything falling apart?

Astarael buried her head in her pillow and did something she hadn't done since she had awoken from her coma in the hospital. She burst into tears.

The female with black wings looked down at the tendrils of darkness filtering through the area. The Guardian hadn't noticed them, she was new in her magic despite her strength, and these subtle things tended to escape her. This was good. The Guardian's friend was going to be a problem. The girl had almost matured to the point where she would be able to see the darkness running though everything. This was not good.

But it wouldn't matter soon. Soon, the Guardian would fall.

And then everything would belong to her, as it should be.

"…five more minutes…" the blue-haired man grumbled, rolling over despite the woman shaking him.

"No, Kalas, we need to go meet Mizuti NOW!" Xelha growled. Briefly, the yellow-eyed woman wracked her brain for a way to get her lazy lover out of bed. Her left hand fell on a Magnus card, which she picked up and looked at for a moment before grinning evilly. "Aqua Burst!" she shouted, throwing the card at Kalas.

"GAH!" he shouted as he was suddenly drenched in the cold wetness of the spell. Luckily, it was only a level one spell, so it didn't hurt him. Much. "That wasn't funny, Xelha!"

"Yes, it was!" she gasped. Kalas growled and hurled a wet pillow at her, knocking her off balance to land in a chair. "Aaah, sorry, Kalas. I guess you're just a bad influence on me."

"…yeah…" It WAS the sort of trick that he would have pulled, Xelha had him there.

"Well, now that you're up, we have to meet Mizuti in front of the Queen's palace! Come on already!" she exclaimed, tugging at his shoulder.

"All right, I'm coming!" Kalas replied, snapping on his winglet.

Astarael groaned, dried her eyes, and rolled halfway off her bed to look at the evil clock. 4:31 pm. About four hours and thirty minutes before she could lie and say that she was going to bed, but she REALLY wanted to go on a patrol NOW. So, this left her with only one option.

She closed all the drapes and focused her energies. Something that would protect her family while she was gone… (For some reason, her magic seemed to be strongest when she visualized something that she wanted to protect, and this was going to take most of her strength.)

Her energies clumped together and slowly, slowly, formed a very solid illusion of Astarael. It was more of a doppelganger, really. It was only capable of completing simple commands, could only say basic things like 'Yes' and 'No', and would crumble to dust if she didn't renew the magic keeping it animated after three hours.

Astarael frowned. It wasn't a very good stand-in, but it was the best she had been able to make after six whole months of attempts. In fact, it was only recently that she had been able to get it to move by itself or talk at all.

"Sit at the computer," she ordered the doppelganger. "If mom comes in, tell her you're doing homework."

She looked at the clock again. 4:51. Still an hour left before dinner.

With a wild grin, she summoned some of her rapidly-depleting energies to make herself invisible for a short period of time and slipped out of her house. No one would notice she was gone. In fact, as long as she stayed out of the way, no one had ever paid much attention to her. During past summers, before the accident, she had often spent days at a time in her bedroom, coming down only to eat. Her mother had only complained because her isolation didn't fit the definition of 'normal'.

Did any of them really care?

Stop thinking stupid things like that. First of all, it's pathetic. You're just feeling sorry for yourself. Secondly, it's counterproductive. You don't fight well when you're all depressed.

Because that was all that really mattered, wasn't it? Fight. Kill. Protect. That was all that a Guardian was good for, right? No one seemed to care as long as she did what she was supposed to.

Astarael Sanders! You will stop all this self pity crap right now! You're better than this!

Six wings of different colors beat the sky as the girl scanned the ground, looking for trouble, and possibly a little peace of mind.

(A/N)

Okay, I goofed. That little preview that I put in the last chapter? That'll happen next chapter. It just didn't want to fit in this one, which is part of the reason it's taken me so long to update. The other part of the reason is that I (foolishly) tried to beat Suikoden IV in two and a half days, which is the amount of time I had before school started up again and it had to go back to the rental place.