Phoenixfire: And what do we do when we finish the chapter? We go straight into the next one!
Selih: Or else…
YamiPhoenixfire: (Wakes up) (to Phoenixfire) Unnh… what the heck happened? I remember asking you something, and then everything went black… (to Selih) And what the heck are you doing here?
Selih: I'm here because I'm sleeping over at Phoenixfire's house. You passed out… something to do with a trip to…
Phoenixfire: NO! Not twice in one day! I need her help to finish this story, so you can't kill her yet.
YamiPhoenixfire: You're hiding something from me… how to get you to spill? I could always use torture… (pulls out anti-good wards)
Phoenixfire: Yes, but if you do that, Iname as One isn't going to give you the escape magnus…
YamiPhoenixfire: Darnit! (puts wards away) Okay, since you used subversive methods to prevent me from writing the last chapter, I get to do this one!
Phoenixfire: Okay, but you have to read the last chapter… Selih, let her borrow the copy I printed out for you.
Selih: Okay, fine. (hands over the paper) And watch your evil version blow up in three, two, one…
YamiPhoenixfire: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP! AND I HAVE TO MAKE SENSE OF ALL THIS? I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! NOTHING FRICKIN HAPPENED!
Phoenixfire: Did you finish?
YamiPhoenixfire: No. (reads the rest) I take it back. You're brilliant. I could kill you for the random conversations, but… you're still brilliant. I can't believe you came up with something so deliciously evil without my help.
Phoenixfire: Let me explain them before I forget. (they kick Selih out of the bedroom and hang up a sign that says 'Spoilers within")
Selih: Drat. And I was going to tell you everything they said… oh well. They still don't own Baten Kaitos or Mountain Dew… such a shame. If they owned Baten Kaitos, I could force them to novelize it, or better yet, make a movie out of it, since I don't play video games…
Chapter Twelve: Warnings of Betrayal (Oh come ON, I told you there was going to be more than one…)
Kalas groaned. The room he was in was all white, and painstakingly boring. It also reeked of disinfectant. There was a window, but he couldn't even look out of it. He couldn't move. All his attention seemed focused solely on Astarael.
She was sitting on the bed, propped up by the pillows. She was dressed in some sort of horrible greenish garment. Her skin looked paler than she had when he had last seen her in a dream, and there were huge dark circles under her eyes. She looked haggard.
"It's so very boring in here. I wish they'd let me out… I'm as well as I'm going to be…" There was a knocking at the door. "Oh, come in. It's not like this door locks from the inside… "
Kalas found his attention directed towards the door as it slowly opened. Nothing could have prepared him for who walked in.
It was… him. Himself, but not really himself. For his eyes were no longer glowing blue orbs floating in a sea of black. Nor were his wings white…
This wasn't the real him. Not anymore. It wasn't!
"Ka… Kalas?" Astarael gasped, looking as if she had been slapped.
"Hello, Astarael," The dream-Kalas said with a grin that could only be described as evil. "What's wrong? Not happy to see me? I brought you flowers…" he tossed a bouquet of white roses on her bed. "All girls like flowers…"
"This… this isn't right…" Astarael muttered, shoving the flowers off the bed. A single tear slid down her face as she continued. "This is a nightmare. Or else I really died this time, and I've been sent to hell. I refuse to believe this."
"Oh, that's right, I got something else that belongs to you, too," the dark Kalas said, tossing a whip with pointed metal spike like things sticking out of it at intervals.
"My weapon! How did you… you didn't…"
"Don't worry about those men… they won't be bothering you for a while… well, actually, without some really good help, most of them won't be bothering you ever again."
"You… you killed them… why…?"
"Well, mostly because I could," the dark Kalas said with an evil grin.
"NO!" Kalas gasped, jerking upright. Except it was more like jerking wildly and almost falling, since he'd somehow managed to fall asleep on the White Dragon. He would have fallen off, too, if Xelha hadn't caught him.
"Are you okay?" she asked reflexively.
"Yes, thanks to you," Kalas replied, stifling the hundreds of smart remarks that had popped into his head. This was, so far, the only conversation they'd had since Mintaka that hadn't started with them yelling and screaming at each other. (Which was why everyone else was riding on Lyude's airship, The Silver Dawn)
"So, have a bad dream?"
"Nightmare. An awful one." He proceeded to tell her about his dream. She had looked slightly miffed at the part about the flowers, but she didn't say anything about them, for which he was relieved.
"Kalas, that's horrible, but I think it was just a nightmare."
"Are you sure? Everything seemed so real…"
"Well, you've made some mistakes in the past, but you're not the kind of guy who's stupid enough to make them twice. And you've never had any prophetic dreams before, right?"
"I…" For a brief moment, he considered telling her about the other nightmare he'd had… but there was no way he could do that without bringing up Ayme and Folon. Which would lead to talking about their three additional traveling companions, which would lead to yet another fight, and he had never liked fighting with Xelha. "No. It's probably just because I'm worried about Astarael. I'm also worried about you."
"M-me?"
"Yes, you. You've been moody, and sometimes you're sick in the mornings." And you're gaining weight, Kalas silently added. He wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud. He'd learned enough about women after living with Xelha to know that only a man with a death wish talked about a woman's weight. "Are you sure you're not sick?"
"I'm not sick. I'll be fine, we've been over this before."
"Okay, okay, I trust you. I just… you'd tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn't you?"
"Of course!" Kalas shot a glance at Xelha… she'd said that just a little too quickly for his liking. But he knew from past experience that he wouldn't get anything else out of her, and that pressing the topic could possibly be physically painful for him.
"So, how much longer do you think it will take us to get to Mira?"
"Well, even though the islands have returned to the Earth Mira is still in the dimensional rift. Because we still have to go through the Trail of Souls we'll probably lose a day to three days." He'd already known the answer of course, he'd just been trying to change the subject. Xelha seemed to understand this and was grateful. Hah, I am getting the hang of living together after all.
Selih looked down on her best friend as the girl writhed in restless sleep. Astarael was clearly having some sort of nightmare, but she had been forbidden by the doctors to wake her. Logically, she knew that the doctors were probably right. Emotionally, however…
How could strangers know anything about her? Not even her parents know anything, really…
She could still remember the first day that they had met…
"Hi, my name is Astarael, but almost everyone calls me Astra. Who're you?"
"Se-Selih Adnama," she stuttered. For the girl in front of her had translucent wings growing out of her head and back. She could tell that no one else could see them…
"Why are you staring at me? Do I have something on my face?"
"Your wings are very pretty," she blurted out without thinking.
"O-okay… you're kidding, right?"
"Yeah. Just a joke. Actually, that just sort of slipped out of my mouth from nowhere… I don't even know why I said it. Sorry for acting weird."
"That's okay, I do stupid things all the time."
But no matter how often she told herself that she was seeing things, those rainbow wings wouldn't go away…
And here was her best friend, pale and sweating, and she couldn't do anything!
"This isn't fair," she muttered.
"I agree. The kid has a habit of attracting bad luck," her brother agreed.
"No! I'm not talking about that… grr! I'm going to the ladies' room. I'll be back."
"What was that all about?" Iname wondered as his younger sister stormed out of the room.
It's not fair… Selih thought to herself as she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. She then faced the mirror. Her reflection now sported a pair of translucent wings each one a different color, a three foot wingspan. Wings that only she could see.
Wings that wouldn't go away, no matter how often she told herself she was seeing things.
It's not fair, that after everything she has done for me, that I can do nothing for her…
"What is the meaning of this?" Deborah Sanders snarled, and the poor policeman who had been dispatched to question Astarael Sanders quailed. He really wished that Officer Keith had stayed instead of delegating the task to him, but some things couldn't be helped. With that freakish thing in the sky, all the officers had been ordered to return to headquarters to see if they could form any contact with the outside world. "You think you can just waltz in here and take my daughter away? You think I'm going to let you do that? She's only seventeen years old, and she's already almost died twice! Why can't you people just leave her alone?"
"I… I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I have orders, and…"
"That is enough. If you wish to take my great-granddaughter in for questioning about this phenomenon, then you're wasting your time. She won't wake up for a while yet. Take me instead, and I will tell you what I know."
"Grandmother…!"
"Shush, Deborah. I will be alright. After all, they wouldn't hurt an old, frail woman like me…"
"Are…" God, he didn't want to ask this question, but Keith said that he had to. "Are you, perchance, the Guardian?"
The old woman's eyes narrowed. "Who told you of the Guardians?"
"I… am not at liberty to answer that question."
"Well, then perhaps I am not at liberty to answer any of yours!"
"Grandmother, please don't be difficult…"
"What, you mean like you were just being?"
And as the two women argued with the policeman and each other, a somewhat shady young man walked over to the information desk and asked for the location of room 209. He thanked the receptionist, and walked calmly over to the elevator, where he punched the button, waited, and then got into the elevator on the far left. As soon as the doors closed and the elevator started to carry him to the second floor, the middle elevator reached the ground floor, and the entire Adnama family stepped out.
"What's wrong, Selih? You look a little…"
"I just got a sudden chill, that's all Kat."
"Well what's going on around here would be enough to creep anyone out. Do you think it's aliens?" Kat wondered.
"Kat, don't be stupid."
"Well then why don't you think up a good explanation, Iname!"
"I…" Iname's eyes took on a somewhat evil glint. "I think it's something from a Magic booster that hasn't been released yet that's somehow come to life!"
"Inaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!"
"I was kidding! Just kidding!"
"I think you're both wrong." I think it's Malpercio and his evil minions… not that anyone is going to believe me! Astarael, please wake up…
Astarael had finally woken up. She had seen only a nurse who had forbidden her from leaving bed, even though she felt just fine.
I don't really blame her. It's kind of hard to believe that I could recover from those injuries in a little over twenty-four hours…
The room was deathly boring, all white and sterilized and dull. The only thing in the room was a clock, which seemed to go slower every time she glanced at it. Now it was 8:45pm. God, I'm going to be in here forever!
"It's so very boring in here… I wish they'd let me out. I'm as well as I'm going to be…" she sighed. Just then, she was distracted from the tedium by a knock on the door.
Thank you, thank you God! I finally have someone else to talk to!
"Oh, come in. It's not like the door locks from the inside…"
Time seemed to come almost to a halt at that moment. The door creaked open in agonizing slowness, and Astarael was seized by an incredible feeling of foreboding. And when the door opened, and her visitor walked in…
No…
Blue hair, like hers.
No…
The familiar light armor, the brown cape…
No…
The blue eyes, wreathed in an inky and endless blackness. Majestic and beautiful white wings.
NO!
"Ka…Kalas?" she gasped involuntarily.
"Hello… Astarael," the dark Kalas said with a wicked grin.
Phoenixfire: Yes, a cliffhanger. Shoot us.
Okay, if ANYONE couldn't figure out what was wrong with Xelha… what happens when you're young, stupid, in love, and have never attended health class?
YamiPhoenixfire: Oh, and for everyone who guessed who Old Lady Corietta is… YOU WERE ALL WRONG! She's Astarael's GREAT-grandmother. MWAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, and another note. We were going to wait a couple of days to post this, but Selih is still here, and she said that we should be nice and give this to you now. So everyone bow down and worship her! (Iname as One is exempt due to family relations)
Phoenixfire: Since we kinda posted the last chapter at midnight last night, most of you haven't had time to review. We will respond to those who did, however.
Karina Gomez: Heh… I hope you enjoy the reason for our delaying the Baten Kaitos crew yet again. I came up for the idea for this in chapter eight or so, and haven't been able to use it until now! Please don't sick Death Destruction on me…
blooangel: I totally agree. Computers are out to get us. Oh well… where would we be without them? (YamiPhoenixfire: Still doing our health homework…)
LighteningRae: I've made stupid mistakes. When I was in sixth grade, I thought "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' was pronounced "Legend of Zelda: Orcianna of Time' (YamiPhoenixfire: Everyone feel free to laugh at her. I do.) (Phoenixfire: Shut up, you…)(Shoves YamiPhoenixfire in the closet)