(A/n: I am going to formally apologize for the latness of this chapter. But I have a good excuse! My computer's internet connection spazzed out, and I didn't get it back until late yesterday!)
Phoenixfire: (sobs)
YamiPhoenixfire: What's wrong? Who's grave is that… (Looks at grave. It reads 'Here lies summer of 2005') Oh God. Why did I ask? (looks at other graves) And you've got graves for winter and spring breaks! God you are pathetic! …Hey, why isn't there a grave for last winter break?
Phoenixfire: (glares) Do you remember our last winter break?
YamiPhoenixfire: Well, no.
Phoenixfire: Colonial…
YamiPhoenixfire: WILLIAMSBURG! AAAH, THE HORROR OF BEING FORCED TO LEARN THINGS WHILE ON BREAK! AND THE LITTLE COUSINS OF DOOM! AND BEING SEPARATED FROM MY CONSOLE GAMES! AND HAVING TO DEAL CONSTANTLY WITH YOUR WHINEY SISTERS FOR OVER A WEEK! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! (faints)
Phoenixfire: Ouch, I guess she totally managed to suppress that memory. (To YamiPhoenixfire) And take that as my revenge! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh well, that means that I get to write this chapter. Finally…
Disclaimer: Y'know, counting the prologue, this is twelve chapters long. If you haven't figured out that I don't own Baten Kaitos yet, you're an idiot.
Chapter Eleven: Conversations (Yes, this is sort of a filler chapter. Bite me. But read the whole thing… the end gets very interesting)
(Friday, one day after Astarael was attacked…)
"Kyle, I'm against this! You can't just put copies of those tapes on the net!"
"Oh, really? Why not! This is huge… and it's not like the police are going to let us go public with it any other way."
"I'm not worried about the police, you idiot! I'm worried about that girl! The one who they carried away on the stretcher! I'm worried about how many pieces she's going to chop us into when she finds out about this!"
"She won't touch us. We have valuable information for her."
"Like what?"
"Guess who was smart enough to start his camera up again when we saw that other freak."
"You didn't…!"
"Oh yes I did! And I did some research on the net… well, actually, I hacked into the school's database. Take a look at this!"
"… and you're not telling the police."
"Oh, they'll find out. I've already put this up on the net."
"Y'know what… I wash my hands clean of you. No offense, but I don't want to die."
"Suit yourself. I haven't mentioned you yet… had a feeling you might feel that way. No one except the police even knows you were up here today. I'll try to keep it that way, Tamara."
"Thanks, Kyle."
"You're welcome." He turned back to his webpage and added, Questions? Comments? Death threats? Well email me at SeducerOfDarkness...
Get down here! Your sister is getting out of the hospital today! We're all going to pick her up!"
"Sheesh, I'm coming Mom! What did you think I was going to do? Stay home and play video games?"
"…"
"Well, for your information, I was planning on staying home and putting together a starter deck for Astarael. She seems sorta interested in Magic…"
"You do know that if you teach Astarael how to play Magic, Selih is going to kill you."
"That's why she's not going to find out, right Kat?"
"…how much will you pay me for my silence?"
"Katrina! No extorting money from your brother! Now both of you get down here!"
"Yes, Mom."
"Coming Mom."
"Hello, Sanders residence. Oh, Robert… yes, Astra's in the hospital, but she seems to be just fine. It's a miracle, after having lost so much blood… my daughter seems to attract miracles. We just got back from visiting her. She hasn't woken up yet… yes, friends can come in to see her…. Hm? Flowers? I think that Astra would like that. It's room 209… the same room her friend Selih was in, isn't that ironic? …so you'll be coming tomorrow. Thank you, I know that Astra needs the support of her friends right now. By the way, were you staying after school today? Azil didn't come home yet either… oh. No, thank you, you have been helpful. She probably just got a ride home with one of her friends and forgot to call me. Good-bye… my grandmother showed up in town this morning, and she's been giving me no end of grief."
"Gibari."
"Kalas. Xelha. Lyude, Mizuti, Savyna… looks like the old gang is back together, with a few notable additions," the fisherman said, nodding his head in the direction of Melodia, and Ayme and Folon (Lyude hadn't been able to leave the palace without bodyguards, and counted himself lucky that both Skeed and Vallye had been too busy to accompany him) "So, what's wrong this time?"
"We can explain on the way to Nekton."
"The Shrine of Spirits? Why are we going there?"
"Because we need to visit Astarael…"
"It's the strangest thing I've ever encountered in all my time as a doctor, Officer," the doctor sighed, taking another sip of his coffee. "I was in charge of Miss Sanders when she was first admitted three years ago after that car accident. Did you know about that, by the way?"
"No, we weren't aware of that, Doctor. We're here to learn about any abnormalities in Astarael Sander's medical history."
"Yes. Well, she came in here three years ago after she threw herself in front of a sports utility vehicle to save her younger sister. Noble, that was, very noble. Yes, well, Miss Sanders suffered multiple injuries from that little stunt. Fractured almost every bone in her left arm and shoulder… broke multiple ribs, fractured her pelvis… and broke her skull and the vertebrae in her neck. She landed on her head, from what I've heard."
"What are you…"
"What I'm trying to say, Officer, is that Astarael Victoria Sanders was already dead when she came to the hospital. She wasn't admitted into a bed… she was checked into the morgue. It scared the heck out of the boys working there when she suddenly started breathing again. And again, today. She was picked up by the paramedics with a huge hole in her lung, dislocated shoulder, damage to several of her other major organs from some type of projectile that I've never even seen before… she shouldn't have lived. But, by the time we got her into the ER, half of her injuries were already healed. I also took a sample of her blood, three years ago, and a sample today. I'm having a friend of mine do a DNA analysis. Do you know what I think he's going to find? I think that he's going to find that her DNA is vastly different from what it was three years ago… and from that of normal humans. Something happened to her while she was in that coma after the accident… I just wish I knew what…." The discussion was paused, however, by a series of screams.
"What the devil…" the officer muttered, grabbing his gun. Just then, a nurse burst into the room.
"Officer! Doctor! It's horrible! The sky's turned green, and there's some sort of horrible… thing… floating there!"
"What!" They all rushed to the windows.
Sure enough, the sky had indeed turned green, blotting out the very sun itself. The only light came from the odd glow that the new sky produced, casting the area into twilight. As they gazed off into the distance, they noticed that the greenness ended abruptly, as if they were inside some sort of giant jar. Anything that had been on both sides of the border was now burning merrily. Trees. Houses. Probably people as well, the border was too far away to be able to tell. And floating several miles over their heads and to the northwest… was some sort of castle, a castle so different from anything he had ever seen before that it was impossible to describe.
"What in the heck…"
"Cor Hydrae."
Everyone turned to the speaker. She was a teenaged girl, slender and tall with wavy brown hair and piercing green eyes. She was dressed in a blood-red spaghetti-strap shirt that showed her black bra straps and a pair of tight black pants, as well as a pair of black boots. She was very pretty, but there was something dark and otherworldly about her that couldn't be put into mere words. Something disturbing.
Something evil.
The police officer found his hand straying to his gun as he spoke to the strange girl. "Do you know something about this, little girl?"
She laughed, a cold and hard sound that chilled the blood of everyone who heard it. "Oh, I know everything about this, considering that I am the one who caused it. If you destroy me, little man, you can reverse it."
The officer didn't understand what made him shoot at the teenager. She seemed weak and harmless, and her clothing was far too tight to hide a concealed weapon. And her words were far too ludicrous to be true…
…but somehow, deep down, he knew she wasn't lying.
"Ha… hahahahahahaha!" she giggled. To his horror, the bullets had simply bounced harmlessly off her skin. "I am a god, stupid little man. Did you think that it would be so easy? That your silly metal pellets would harm me?"
"What in hell are you?" the officer shouted as the other people screamed and ran away.
"Weren't you listening, you fool? I shall tell you again. I am Malpercio, god of death, hatred, and destruction. Of course, you could always ask that annoying Guardian… but you don't even know what a Guardian is, do you? My, my, I am so glad I transferred a portion of my consciousness here along the bond. Terran humans are so much stupider than Kaiten humans. This is going to be so easy… I must remember to thank that Raven when I return to the Kaiten realm fully recharged. Everything… is going almost exactly according to plan." She made a gesture at the window, and it exploded outward, showering the people who had been stupid enough to leave the hospital to gawk in glass. "I shall leave you for now. So little time, so much to do…!" She leapt out the window, six black wings erupted from her form, two from her head and four from her back. However, if you looked at the wings very closely, you could see that not all of them were actually black. The two extending from her shoulder blades were, but the ones on her head were actually extremely dark shades of green and turquoise, while the ones on her lower back were nearly black versions of red and blue. Almost as if the blackness had corrupted them
The police officer's gun dropped from his nerveless hands and went off accidentally, firing a bullet into a nearby wall. Something told him that his day was about to get even longer…
"It has begun," sighed the old woman.
"What? What are you talking about, Grandmother?" asked Deborah, Astarael's mother.
"The remains of the ancient gods… the curse of Malpercio, has bled over into this world at long last. A thousand years after we Guardians sacrificed our lives and our souls to create the artifacts needed to destroy them, the curse of the gods has come full circle."
"Oh, more of your stupid fairy tales? This is not a time for bedtime stories, Grandmother!"
"Look out the window, you foolish girl!" The old woman shouted, pointing to the now green sky. "Look, and with your own eyes see the truth! This is no fairy tale… it's the truth! It's real! You… Deborah, my granddaughter, you have the strongest magical abilities of your generation, but you never use them! You deny their existence, and in doing so you weaken them! Our world is in danger! Do you care so little for Terra, and your family, that you will continue to sit and deny your very heritage?"
"What do you know of my family? You're never around!"
"Because you shut me out!"
"You're a danger to the children with your silly stories!"
The older woman shook with rage. Her fists clenched on the sides of the chair she was sitting in, and it took a visible effort for her to calm herself. "Did you know that one of your children is a full Guardian? Do you still remember what that means?"
Deborah dropped the mug that she was holding. Fragments of things her mother and grandmother had told her as a child came back in full force to mock her. Full Guardians are far more powerful than normal Guardians… learn three more spells… cannot die by normal means…
…cannot die…
…by normal means…
…Astarael…
"Don't be stupid, Grandmother. You think I wouldn't have noticed?" Deborah scoffed.
"You never see. You refuse to see. I sensed both a full Guardian and a Fallen Guardian here. That is why I came." She paused at this, and looked her granddaughter straight in the eye. "You know what this means."
…To fall from the Light is an unforgivable crime, and shall be punished by death without exception…
…To consort with the Kaiten realm is henceforth an unforgivable crime and shall be punished by death without exception…
And within hospital room 209, a young girl slept. Even while dreaming, her brow was knitted with worry, as if she already knew what was going to come…
Phoenixfire: (Pokes YamiPhoenixfire) Hey, she's still out cold. I guess this means that I can do the Reviewer Responses too. Maybe I should knock her unconscious more often…
Seducer of Darkness: Heh, I did have a feeling that you were a guy, but I just wanted to be positive. I hope you like your part… Aw, crud, now I'm getting nervous. Hey, you! (kicks YamiPhoenixfire) you're taking the blame when you wake up if he's dissatisfied! This was YOUR idea to begin with!
Karina Gomez: Phew. No more dogs. The Baten Kaitos crew will be showing up in two or three chapters… (No, not next chapter. I have some plans… can't have them there to foil them too early…)
blooangel: My dark half would be glad to know that she has fulfilled one of her lifelong goals; making people be afraid of toys. Although you should watch out for the Cabbage Patch Kid dolls that eat the plastic food… one of them tried to eat my finger once. Literally.
Folon rules: Here's your update.
crazygirl306: Glad you liked the last chapter.
Iname as One: Yay! Now I have blackmail! Thank you! Can't answer any of your questions, as they would be direct spoilers. Oh, and if you're going to seal away YamiPhoenixfire, stick her in a shoe box, not a millennium item. She's dangerous enough without direct access to the Shadow Realm.
Luna-Starr: Yup. You're right.
Vanya the Elven Maiden of the Valar: We were always planning on having the Ayme and Folon in Astarael's world be fakes, but the Cabbage Patch Dolls were sort of a last-minute add-in for humor's sake. Because let's face it: Last chapter was a very dark chapter. And next chapter will be a VERY dark chapter. That's all I'm saying for now.