(A pile of ashes in Phoenixfire's room. Zoom in on pile of ashes. Pile of ashes erupts…)
Phoenixfire: (cough, gasp) And I arise… from the dead!
YamiPhoenixfire: About time… I was starting to worry about you. Do the disclaimer.
Phoenixfire: We don't own Fire Emblem… um, wait, this is Baten Kaitos fanfic. We don't own that either.
Chapter Nineteen: Gambit
Love made an irritated noise as she scanned the church. It had seemed like a perfect place to leave Kindness, there was no one around for her to run off and help (thanks to the presence of Despair in the graveyard). No demons either. No way for the idiot child to get into trouble.
Of course, whenever she found a foolproof way to keep said fool out of danger the little moron always managed to circumvent her plans. Usually by failing to stay put.
"DESPAIR!" Love shouted, sticking her head out the window.
"…"
"I know you can hear me. Did you see where Kindness went?"
"No."
Love rolled her eyes. Of course Despair hadn't seen anything. Said woman started singing again. And even though the song didn't throw her into a crippling bout of depression the way it would have a normal human, it still grated her nerves. With an annoyed half shriek, Love stormed off, her single pale black wing flaring out before she could contain herself. When she found the brat, she was going to wring her ungrateful neck…
All Kalas could do was stare. He wanted someone to slap him. Hell, even Xelha and Wake-Up via the Aqua Bursts of Doom would be preferable to this nightmare. Because it had to be a nightmare. A very bad one, with a rather familiar-looking little girl clinging to his cape as his evil twin leered at her and smirked at him.
"So, you're the real Kalas. I don't know why, but I expected you to be… more imposing."
Kalas snorted. "So says the person who stole my face and then proceeded to kill people, which resulted in me getting arrested as soon as I got here…"
"Aah, actually, that was all just to piss off Astra. Oh, wait, you call her Astarael, don't you?"
Kalas blinked. "You've been trying to provoke Astarael?"
"She's rather easily angered if you know which buttons to press. So… Real Thing, you're here looking for her, aren't you?"
"Why would I tell you if I was?"
"Don't play games, you're bad at it. Why else would you be here? She's one of the very few things in this world that has value…"
Something in the fake Kalas's expression and tone of voice made the real one want to throttle him. If only he had his swords with him… but no, all he had was this idiotic stick that he had picked up from the stupid man in the blue uniform. "Does any of this have a point?"
"Well, yes, it does. I happen to know where Astra is." That's not her name, imposter, and I never call her that. If you knew anything about me, you should at least have gone to the trouble of learning that.
"Really? Are you going to share?" Ayme asked sarcastically. Both blue-haired swordsmen started at the sound of her voice. They had forgotten that she and Folon were in the room.
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes. She's standing right behind you, Real Thing."
Kalas looked behind him, half expecting to see his old friend. But no, all that was there was the little girl who had called herself Kindness.
And suddenly, he knew why the kid looked so familiar. She looked like a shrunken version of Astarael.
"Tell you what, since I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you have until… oh, say sunrise to figure this out."
"And how the hell are we supposed to know when sunrise even is in this crazy place?" Kalas snapped.
"Well, that just makes it all the more fun, doesn't it?" asked the Dark Kalas as he headed for the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Ayme snapped firing off several bullets. The Dark Kalas dodged all attacks and ducked out the doors, careening off into the gloom laughing like a madman.
"You shouldn't shoot things at people!" Kindness implored. "You could have hurt him!"
Three people stared at the girl.
"Um… you do realize that he was trying to kill you?"
"Yes, but hurting people is mean!" Kindness insisted.
Everyone stared at the little girl for a few moments. "This is the Guardian who helped you whup our asses?" Folon asked Kalas.
"Of course not! She's about ten years too young to be Astarael!" Kalas snapped. Besides, even when we first bonded, Astarael wasn't this bad… "She's probably a younger sister or something. Now, let's find our real weapons before that imposter gets back!"
The red-haired woman blocked a downward mace stroke with her own mace and slid inside the monster's guard, proceeding to stab it in the eye in the center of the eye in its stomach. When she did so, the eyeball burst into flame. As it doubled over grabbing its stomach, she dashed off its head with her mace. And yawned.
"Boooooooooring," she sighed, yawning. Something in her tone suggested that she was also rolling her eyes, but the blindfold prevented them from seeing if she was or not. "Hey kid, next time you call me out, make sure there's a real challenge waiting, okay?"
"Um…" The brown-haired girl seemed confused. "What are you, anyway?"
"What am I?" the red-haired woman snarled. "Stupid question, doesn't matter."
"What, don't you remember?" The redhead said nothing, she simply continued to glare at them all from behind her blindfold.
"It doesn't matter. Questions like that always piss me off. You wanna fight, kid?"
"No! I just asked a question! You don't have to be so mean!" Rana shouted.
"Leave the girl alone!" Gibari snapped, stepping in between Rana and the mysterious redhead. "All she did was ask you something."
"I… don't like questions. You… unless you want to fight, leave me alone!" shouted the young woman, turning her back. "You people piss me off. I'm going back to sleep, so I don't have to deal with you anymore." With a flash of blood red light, she vanished, leaving only the glowing half of a medallion where she had been standing. Rana stepped forward and hesitantly picked up the medallion. When it didn't burn or shock her, she tied it back around her neck.
"Um… eheh… I guess you probably want an explanation, right?"
Xelha opened her mouth to ask, but at that moment they were interrupted by yet another shout, this time of annoyance rather than fear.
"GAAH! Where did that brat go this time!" snarled a definitely feminine voice that Xelha thought sounded vaguely familiar. A teenaged woman dressed in a black dress, carrying a bow and quiver stalked around the corner. "You four!" she snapped, brandishing her bow at them like a sword, "Have any of you seen a little girl with blue hair and eyes like mine? Probably running around healing the monsters instead of killing them like a sane person would?"
"Um… no. I guess we could help you look…"
The tension drained out of the stranger's shoulders, and she lowered her bow. "Thank goodness. She always gets herself into trouble without someone around to watch her, and I'm worried…" she trailed off, suddenly glaring at Xelha. "Have we met before?"
"Um… I don't think so. I'm Xelha," she said, stepping forward to greet her and offering a hand, which the stranger chose not to shake.
"I am… Love. It's… good to meet you, Xelha."
Melodia also came forward and hissed in Xelha's ear, "Do we really have time for this, Xelha? What about Kalas and the others? What about the Guardian?"
"Something is telling me that this is important, Melodia," Xelha retorted, any misgivings she had had before being washed away by Melodia's protests. Telling herself that she wasn't simply being childish, she continued, "Of course, if you don't want to help her find her sister, you could always leave. Alone."
Melodia glowered at this but said nothing. She thought that Lyude, at least, was too honorable to let her go off on her own, but she didn't want to press her luck. So she simply stewed in silence as the others came out of the clothing store to join them.
"Finally, we have our weapons back," Kalas sighed, twirling his sword before returning it and his dagger to magnus form as they left the building.
"You should really be careful with that. Someone could get hurt…"
"Kid," Ayme sighed, clearly getting annoyed. "That is the point of weapons. To ki… hurt things."
Kindness frowned. "Well, that's mean. Why do you make something if it only hurts people?"
"To stop people from hurting you," Folon chipped in, smiling cheekily.
"But…!" she trailed off, clearly confused at this point. "Why can't everyone just be friends?" she sighed.
"That's not the way the world works, kid," Kalas sighed. "Where are your parents?"
"I don't have any."
"Is there anyone taking care of you?" he asked, sincerely hoping that there was.
"Um… well, Love usually hangs around me. I'm not sure why, she usually yells at me for helping people out…"
"Is this before or after they try to attack you?"
"Um… sometimes before, sometimes after. But they don't really want tohurt me! They're just lost and confused! They just want to go home!" she said cheerily, pointing at Cor Hydrae.
Kalas's eyes widened. "You heal the monsters from Cor Hydrae, too?"
"Someone has to! They have feelings too!" Kindness protested hotly.
Kalas, Ayme, and Folon exchanged a look. Clearly, they were not getting through, weren't going to get through. "So, what does this caretaker of yours look like?" Kalas asked, changing the subject.
"Um… she's got black hair, and she wears black too. Her eyes are like mine. She goes around with a bow and arrows. And she wears flowers in her hair."
Shouldn't be too hard to find… "Where was the last place you saw her?"
"The church! It's this way! Follow me!" she replied cheerily. With no real choice but to do so, they trailed behind her, trying not to feel too stupid as they did so.
"Um… do you know Astarael?" Kalas asked her as she skipped along ahead.
"Hmm… Name sounds familiar… um… nope, I don't think so!" she replied. But there was something too… peppy in her reply. For the first time since they had met, the little girl, Kindness, was lying.
It is late spring outside the bedroom, almost painfully bright and cheerful. A younger Astarael, one who has clearly not been to Baten Kaitos yet looks out the window, her brown eyes filled with longing.
It's clear at a second glance that she's not feeling well, her eyes are slightly glazed and rimmed with dark circles. Periodically she will stop in her task of cleaning her bathroom and burst into a fit of coughing or clutch her head in pain, sometimes taking a trip to her bedroom to use the tissue box. The fumes emitted by the harsh cleaning solutions seem only to worsen her condition. Overcome by dizziness, she staggers out of her bathroom, closing the door behind her to trap the fumes with the ceiling fan in hopes that they'll go away. She throws herself on the bed, her expression clearly saying that she wants nothing more than to simply go back to bed and sleep for five or six more hours.
At the sound of her door opening, she leaps off the bed, fixing an expression of eagerness on her face, one that is not entirely successful in banishing the weariness in her eyes. "Hi, Mommy!" she chirrups, her tone falsely perky.
The fakeness is not lost on the older woman, her dark brown curls losing the battle with old age and slowly turning a shade of steely gray. However, from her expression, she interprets the reason as being spiteful or cheeky, not an attempt on the part of her daughter to hide exactly how ill she is feeling. "You don't seem to have made a lot of progress."
The girl winces, but recovers quickly. "I did the bathroom, though. Want to see?"
Without replying, the woman sweeps into the tiny space with an air of command. She takes the limp white towels that are hanging from the rack and glares balefully around the room with the manner of someone who is looking for something to critize. She sweeps the shower curtain back. However, what she sees clearly does not please her. "Did you use the Comet?"
The younger Astarael flinches. "Um, no, it didn't look too bad to me, so I used one of the spray bottles instead…"
"You stupid girl!" the woman roars. "I told you to use the Comet!"
"But-"
"Why won't you do anything the way I tell you to! I told you to scrub it down with the Comet, and you – will – use – the Comet!" She pauses in her rant. "Do you have Comet?"
"Yes, but…"
"And a sponge?"
"Two, but…"
"Then get started! If you're not done with the room in an hour, you'll have to stop to work on your paper. And you won't be going to church or school until you finish!" she then flies around the room, opening windows, upsetting things that get in her way, and storms out with a final shout of, "And keep the door open! I want to see what you're doing whenever I walk by!"
With a glare that is equal parts hurt and angry, Astarael goes around the room and shuts all the windows that were opened, tugging her sweatshirt more tightly around herself as she does so. She picks up everything that was upset and inspects it carefully, lovingly to make sure that each item is unbroken, and puts everything back where it originally sat. "But… those stains aren't going to come out no matter what I scrub with," she says to herself in a whisper, tears welling in her eyes. "Bitch…"
She claps her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening in shock and surprise. Then her expression becomes thoughtful for a moment, and as she thinks, her expression hardens to one of pure anger and… a touch of something that might become hatred, if given time to fester.
She nods once, decisively, and repeats the expletive with more confidence and feeling, although it still has a somewhat foreign sound on her tongue or a word not often used.
"Bitch."
With a defiant expression, the younger Astarael closes her door and locks it. She then, with a shudder and a regretful expression, peels of her sweatshirt and goes to the pointless task of scrubbing out her shower…
With flick of her wrist, a green-haired teen the same age as the Astarael in the memory dispelled the scene. Her yellow eyes narrowed at the space where memory-Astarael had stood only moments before. Days and days spent here, trying to figure out what emotions felt like, and she was no closer than before. She threw herself on the full-sized bed, much as Astarael was wont to do when she was still whole, and sighed. As she fell on the bed, her appearance changed drastically. She seemed to gain three years as she fell, her hair lengthened to waist-length, and her clothing shifted to a baggy dark green t-shirt and pale jade slacks. The only thing that remained constant was her chronos-green clock earrings and hourglass pendant. She sighed again and rose from the bed, drifting over to an old-fashioned mirror, the wooden border carved with roses. The clock on the left side was stopped at 7:53, the other turned still. As long as the right clock continued to turn, she still had time to remember what emotions felt like.
And maybe if she could remember what emotions felt like, instead of just recognizing them, she could persuade the others to become whole again. Because, as Memory, she knew without a doubt that if the nine of them did not re-unite, they would be destroyed.
YamiPhoenixfire: This would be where we would give out reviewer responses, but with the invention of the almighty 'Reply' option, we can't do that in the story anymore. Phoenixfire wants me to tell you anonymous reviewers out there that she loves you all anyway… but meh, I don't do sappy things like that.
Review, minions! And Iname, I know you're not dead. As a matter of fact, I know where you live. SO UPDATE YOUR FANFIC!
Phoenixfire: (throws a dust rag) Be nice.
YamiPhoenixfire: (hits send button while coughing)