Beetlejuice
Season 2: The Sleeper Saga
Episode 35: Cause and Effect
The whispers nearly drove her insane. A constant stream of voices whispering "They've done you wrong", "You should rule, not humans", among other temptations that made Lydia feel empowered and entitled. Earlier that morning, she awoke with a splitting headache and memories that weren't even her own came flowing though her head with such force it felt as if her mind was going to explode. Lydia began gripping her ears while she sat on her bed breathing heavily and panicking. Her day has pretty much been this, simply watching as the memories of another flash before her eyes like home movies. Hearing a constant stream of whispers as if there were a moderate sized group of people behind her. Delia and Charles convinced that it is just a mere flu by Lydia herself. Beetlejuice may not have been able to hear the voices or see the memories but he could feel her pain and knew how it was tearing her apart inside. She was sweating profusely and had been crying since ten o'clock in the morning. She had been sent home from school for those very flu symptoms before the voices began to whisper in her ears.
A moment of silence fell in his mind. Finally the voices were gone. Grimnak relaxed and enjoyed the lingering peace letting his thoughts drain and his mind clear from all of the stress. He felt his muscles loosen and his pains flee. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a deep slumber awaiting beautiful dreams to alleviate his weary mind.
More memories continued to haunt Lydia's mind, memories of a young dragon half, the youngest of three siblings. The three traveled side by side, two of them learning and teaching great things while he, the youngest brother, sat feeling useless, but interested in the teachings of his brothers none the less. He loved to learn. The more he knew, the happier he felt in his accomplishments. Smiling and laughing as he discovered new things of this place his brothers called "The Outerworld". Once he had found an old spear tip from an ancient tribe and had brought it to his brother to utilize his gift to see through time. The past, in particular. The brother placed his hand on the spear tip and began explaining the tip's origins. But simply stopped half way through, the sounds of his voice getting fainter and fainter as the seconds flew by.
Flames arose from nowhere as Lydia found herself standing in the middle of a village unable to control her actions, hearing in her head, "They must burn", "They know nothing of suffering", and "Since they invented war, they all should live it!" She caught herself laughing maniacally at the misery surrounding her and was shocked to her herself grunt out, "Who is the superior being now?"
"Lydia!" She heard a familiar Australian voice call to her. She turned around to see Ben, Claire, Prudence and Bertha standing there all with determined looks on their faces. "Stop this now!" Ben continued. "You've done too much damage to these people!" The whispers grew louder in her mind as they suddenly turned to speak differently. "So where were they when your mother died?" In her heart Lydia knew that her mother had died eight years ago and she had never even heard of these people she now calls "friends". However, the memories rushed back into her head as sadness almost immediately consumed her. She gripped the back of her head and shut her eyes tightly, screaming at the top of her lungs in grief, "Stop it! Stop talking! Leave me alone!" Tears streaming from her eyes like rivers of saltwater and pain as she huddled in her bed.
A pair of arms reached to embrace her only to be forced back by another pair of arms belonging to something else.
"Let this child go, you evil bitch." Elizabeth growled at the hands repelling her from Lydia. "And who, pray-tell, commands a demon of temptation to release her subject?" Elizabeth never answered, only keeping her determined gaze to the creature resembling a woman with crimson skin. The demon resembled Naria in a way. Besides the different colored skin, the demon beheld horns similar to her and similar eyes. The demon hissed similar to that of a snake as she loomed over a shaking and torn Lydia. Another difference to this demon is that she had on no clothes and she crept like that of an insect.
Elizabeth quickly swung her right arm across the demon's waist, which loomed just over Lydia's head, only to miss and witness as the demon vanished, dodging the strike completely. The demon, landed five feet from the right side of the bed, crouched low to the ground hissing and angry. "This girl's guardian angel, that's who." Elizabeth finally answered revealing a gleaming golden roman broadsword in her hand. She then opened her left hand to allow another sword exactly like the one in her right hand to slide down. She gripped the handle with great skill, never allowing the sword to touch ground. "This girl's deceased mother you mean." The demon hissed as she bore her fangs and claws to Elizabeth.
"All-the-more reason to protect her." Elizabeth shot back as the demon lunged at her. Elizabeth dodged left while swinging one of her swords, cutting the demon on the cheek. Furious, the demon screeched loudly and lunged again toward Elizabeth just as Delia and Charles opened the door, worried about the poor delirious Lydia. Charles stood by while Delia actually picked up the grief stricken Lydia who had now slipped into a restless state of unconsciousness and had absolutely no clue as to anything that was happening and simply fell limp as if she was in a coma in Delia's embrace.
The demon, grinned evilly with a twisted plan to enrage the remainder of the family, however while distracted, failed to notice Elizabeth darting in to deliver a forceful punch to the cut cheek, throwing the demon clear out of Lydia's window. The demon sprawled out and landed with a thud on the ground. With majestic wings spread outward, Elizabeth flung herself out of Lydia's window and into a glide to overtake the demon by air, until the demon revealed her own set of wings and flew up to meet her adversary in midflight. Another screech signaled that the demon was through playing around and decided to unveil her true power. Her already sharp canines lengthened while her claws grew and her humanoid legs reshaped themselves to be that more of a gargoyle, a claw on her ankle and elongated foot ending in clawed toes. A second set of wings sprouted near her hips as a long tail with a spear end rapidly grew from where her spine met her buttocks. The tail ended approximately three feet long and proved to be quite flexible as it whipped back and forth. A second set of horns then grew from the demon's forehead just outside her original set of horns.
She grinned with bloodlust turning her gaze back to Elizabeth. "Ah, I haven't felt like this in eons. Anything to say before I devour your flesh and soul?" Elizabeth said nothing, only fixed her gaze to her foe with a ferocious look of determination on her face. The demon's grin quickly shifted into a scowl of hatred and ferocity, "Oh, I'm going to enjoy dining on you. The flesh of a blessed soul will satisfy my new hunger for an entire year." "I think you'll find that I'll be far too tough of a catch." Elizabeth stated just before darting in to swing her left sword. The demon stayed in place until Elizabeth took her strike, moving only to extend her hand to catch the blade in mid-swing. Surprised, Elizabeth glanced at her sword as it stopped its journey. Her eyes turned back to the demon as it grinned back rearing to open its jaws and bite her neck. Elizabeth released the handle of her sword and jetted back just as the demon clasped her jaws shut. She then flapped her wings as hard as she could to gain as much height as possible only to be met with the demon in mere seconds. The demon raised the stolen sword and brought it down to strike at Elizabeth. She blocked the strike with her other sword as steel clashed against steel with such force that it sent her hurling down to the ground on her back. She struggled just a moment before feeling the creature's knee drive itself into the small of her spine. Her body held fast without breaking but still, pain and agony shot through Elizabeth as if it did snap in half. Elizabeth screamed aloud with tears welling up from the pain.
"What do living souls call this? Irony?" The demon asked as she lifted the sword she still had with the tip pointing down planning on driving it through Elizabeth's heart. She thrust the blade downward and for a split second felt as if victory was in her grasp until the sword was forcefully flung form her grip and landed harmlessly a foot away from Elizabeth's face with the blade sticking out of the grass. The demon turned to see where the assault had come from only to feel something rip through her thigh muscle. Blood and flesh flew in three different directions as the demon reared back and fell to her back in her own pain. Elizabeth placed her free hand on her sore back and slowly stood up in pain. She turned her head to see why her assailant hadn't finished her off only to see the demon writhing on the ground in pain, watching the destroyed thigh muscles and flesh crawl their way back to their host and reattach themselves.
As soon as the demon was finished repairing her wound, she turned over onto her hands and knees turning her burning gaze back to Elizabeth. "What trickery is this?" She shouted only to feel the same thing rip through her left shoulder. She fell to her face screaming in agony as Elizabeth looked in the direction of the attack. Off in the distance she could see a soldier dressed in white lying on his belly with a gleaming white sniper rifle. The soldier seemed to wave at Elizabeth as she recognized him. "That boy." Elizabeth sighed as she shook her head. She turned to look back at the demon only to find it had vanished while they were distracted, not even a piece of flesh had remained.
She could feel Lydia's fears and stress begin to subside. She took a breath and gently flapped her wings to levitate herself upward to the window, trying to ignore the throbbing pain with every flap. She reached the window as her pains subsided, her blessed soul having quick healing abilities, and saw Charles sitting at the foot of Lydia's bed with Delia drenched in tears from crying and Lydia finally resting peacefully in her bed. A gust of wind blew by Elizabeth and she nearly jumped out of her robe when a voice said gently to her, "You know you're not allowed reveal yourself to them." There, by her right side, was the sniper who saved her earlier, a friend Lydia bet before going off to the military. "I know James. No matter how much I want to." His face, still soft and gentle stood by her side for around a half of a minute before saying, "I can see why the two of us were assigned as guardian angels to her and not just you." Elizabeth turned to her partner quizzically as he finished his thought. "Something powerful wants her. Something evil." His face hardened with determination and focus. Elizabeth shifted her own expression to that of worry. "I don't know. But, all I can do is protect her."
Deep within the dark cavern, underneath the broken temple, a dark shadow sat in his dingy, aged, crystalline prison, thinking to himself and enjoying the silence. He could hear the sound of dripping water, rhythmically ringing from close by. A still breeze came from the top cooling down his skin and passing between his oily, dirty hair. He clenched a fist and released it only to clench it again, hearing his joints pop once as the muscles in his hand relaxed. He then proceeded to move his scrawny malnourished arms and legs, feeling as if rigor mortis was quickly subsiding. He slowly stood up breathing in slowly through the long shriveled nose on his aged and cracked face.
Suddenly, the demon skittered through as if a lizard crawling into a den, latching onto the walls and then to a large crystal in the center of the prison. "We must get her back", she whispered to the crystal. "We must destroy all of the angels and blessed souls in the outerworld." She stopped only realizing now that she was talking to an empty crystal and suddenly felt five sharp objects pierce the back of her neck, with a grip of intensity she had never felt before. "Welcome back, demon of temptation." The prisoner whispered in his dark dry voice. "Impossible. How are you free?" She asked in shock and panic. "With enough patience, anyone can escape a prison." He responded. Feeling her doom near, the demon began to try and use her persuasive abilities once again, "So, you still need me. I can fight by your side now instead of whispering in your ear, driving you crazy. You can finally regain your sanity." A nervous smile stretching across her face. "Sanity? Such a bright illusion for the weak of will. However, there is one more thing I require of you." Fear locked into her eyes, the demon asked, "And what is that, oh lord of dark magic?" "I haven't eaten anything in eons." He responded darkly as he pulled her back and bit into her right shoulder. Her screams echoed throughout the desert as the shriveled old man began devouring her.
End of Season 2 Episode 15