Guess who's home! All righty, I've got a brand-new chappy for you all to enjoy today. I wasn't gonna post this until a little later (after some more editing), but for some reasons my sisters reaaaally get into my writing. If they don't like the ending, I may need to find a new place to live.
Once again, I feel compelled to remind you that this was ALL planned out from the beginning. If anything you read here shocks the hell out of you, then I suck horribly at foreshadowing.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing but my own OC's. Kira belongs to Murdering-Star.
People tend to be surprised when they meet me. I'll admit I'm not what most expect for the future Guardian Angel. I was always a bit odd. For example, I used to love the dark. Did you know that if you put your ear close enough, you can hear its pulse? It's breath? As if it could just swallow you whole and take you to a place where all your pain would just ebb away. Some people fear the darkness… but something you'll learn if you live long enough or see enough is that there are very few things in this world worth being afraid of. Unfortunately... she was one of them.
A cold chill swept up the school steps as the sun began to lazily drift across the sky. There was a newfound stiffness in the atmosphere, shrouded by wall of silence- a pink elephant in the background, if you will.
"A phoenix?" Mary repeated. "W-where would you get that idea?"
"L.J. mentioned it." Kid looked at the Junior Elements as they shifted uncomfortably. "So it does mean something then?"
"It doesn't matter." Adam said, shooting the others a stern look. "Just something from a long time ago."
"Adam…" Leah whispered, grabbing his arm lightly.
"It's not our place to tell. If no ones told him yet, then there must not be a need to." Adam said through gritted teeth. "She's fine. If L.J. was too far away from us, we'd feel it."
Leah settled for chewing on her lip anxiously, and Isaac sighed, adjusting his cap.
"Look Kid, suffice it to say that there are some things you don't know about L.J."
Do you ever have one of those days where everything is so far away from 'fine' that you wouldn't be surprised if you've actually died without realizing it and have been in hell all this time? Well, I've been living in that state for a long while, and I've just begun to understand. My life sucks. Really, I should be surprised by now. But no, I guess a part of me has always been doubting my good luck; waiting for that anvil to drop and wake me from my delusions that things might actually start to be okay.
"I can't believe I was this stupid." I mumbled to myself.
Because I should know better.
"…I thought we were friends."
"We are friends L.J." Damian said, fiddling with a baseball. "But there are some things you don't understand."
"Like what?" I asked dully, staring blankly out the window.
"Well…" Damian caught the ball in his hands thoughtfully.
The car was parked somewhere in the desert, beside a lonely looking gas station where John was outside using a pay phone.
"…Like the past. How long have you been trying to run from your past, L.J.?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." I rubbed a red spot on my flesh as it began to itch,- the injection spot where the needle had been plunged into my arm.
I'd just regained consciousness, and my head was still spinning.
"Oh, we know all about her." Damian waved it away. "You can be honest with us."
"Ironic."
"I guess. Anyways, it's kinda the same deal with John and me. We can't run from our past. So we decided to do something about it."
"Do go continue, I love a good yarn." I deadpanned boredly.
Damian was interrupted by John climbing back into the car. "They'll be here soon."
"Don't suppose you're talking about the pizza delivery guy?"
"Sorry." John shrugged, glancing at me. "How much did you give her?"
"Enough."
"What exactly was it you gave me?" I asked, rubbing my arm as best I could on my jeans, as my other hand was cuffed to the car handle.
"A diluted version of the serum. It won't do anything permanent but it, to put it simply, will de-power you. Now that you're awake it'll be taking effect soon. For a few hours atleast, you're basically as good as human." John said, glancing at the clock. "It's really nothing personal, L.J."
"Yeah, we like you and all." Damian added.
"But we don't really have a choice." John went on.
Right now, I just wanted to bash his head in with a croquet mallet, but I restrained myself with difficulty. I probably could kick their asses even without my powers, but I... didn't really want to hurt them. And call me curious about the guys I'd lived with for four years betraying me.
"Do tell."
"Well, when we were kids, our parents were…uh…"
"See, they belonged to this cult that idolized a small renegade group of witches. These witches believed that if it weren't for weapons, then they wouldn't have anything to be afraid of. So when Damian and I developed the ability to shape shift, our families tried to burn us at the stake."
"Not very original." I said wryly.
"No." Damian agreed. "But see, were saved, by someone I'm pretty sure you've heard of. She wasn't quite able to take on physical form yet, but she was still way more powerful than those witches were. And she made a deal with us. She'd give us shelter, protection, whatever, and all we had to do was pledge loyalty."
"And you did it! ?" I sat up. "What? Why! ?"
"Hey, we'd just been kicked out of our home in the most homicidal way possible, had no where to go, and she'd saved us. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"'Seemed?'" I repeated.
"Well, yeah. After a while, the orders she'd been giving us got progressively shadier. But like we said, we don't have a real choice." John explained. "And then, she said if there was a reason she ever had to leave, that we would be sent to watch you."
"John." Damian, nudged his comrade as a car began to approach from the distance.
"Right. Listen L.J. We know you never finished reading your mom's diary."
"How-"
"Because we stole a few pages-specifically, the ones that your cousins bookmarked for you. And there's something in here that even Rachel doesn't know." John shoved a few crumbly sheets of paper in my hands, and I hastily skimmed them over.
"But…this-"
"It's real, L.J. And this is the only shot we've got."
"You used me. You were never…you were working behind her back and mine." I let the dusty pages drift from my hands.
"That may be true, but only because we know that you can't let this opportunity pass. Making a new fragment for you're mom'll be easy. It's killing one that's difficult."
I took a shaky breath and gazed out the window, to the cars that were coming closer.
"…I get it." I nodded, leaning back in the seat. "I'm going to have to die."
"Adam, please!" Leah begged, cornering him in the empty library. "Something's wrong, I know it!"
"It's not our secret to te-"
"Guys!" Both demigods jumped as a new voice came bouncing into the library. "Hey! Where's L.J.? She and Kid aren't in the closet where I left them…"
"Kira." The two said in unison, almost exhaustedly.
"You haven't heard?" Adam asked, folding his arms.
"No." Kira blinked innocently. "…They didn't kill each other, did they! ?"
"Of course not." Leah rolled her eyes.
"Oh. Well, my voices keep telling me that I really need to make sure L.J.'s okay. She is, right?"
"Go on, Adam." Leah said pointedly. "Tell her how 'okay' L.J. is."
"You're overreacting. It's only been a few hours!" Adam protested. "I swear, you girls- ack!"
"Are you alright?" Kira scurried over, Adam grasping his head and Leah doubling over.
"I feel kind of strange…" Leah struggled to maintain balance.
"Does your arm feel numb?" Adam grunted, suddenly breathless.
"So for some reason, none of your powers are working." Maka said, observing all the Junior Elements as they sat in the nurse's office.
"How is that possible?" Mary demanded, trying in vain to manipulate the water in a nearby glass.
"Well, I don't see anything wrong with your individual wavelengths, but you said once that you all draw your power from L.J., isn't that right?" Maka scanned them over as she took a seat.
"Yes, but-"
"Then we're to assume something's happened to her." Leah said.
"But none of us have gotten sick." Isaac pointed out. "So she must still be nearby. But for some reason…her powers aren't working, therefore not charging us."
"And ergo, we might as well be human." Adam said, disgust in his voice.
"Hey!"
"Gee, don't you wish someone had known something like this was gonna happen? If only." Leah snapped.
"Give it a rest-"
"Fighting won't help." Kira said, biting her nail.
"What's wrong with you?" Isaac looked up.
"I…I feel like I'm supposed to…they all keep talking at once!" Kira wrung her hands anxiously. "I'm…I'm going to lie down!"
"O-kay." Leah watched the girl go before rounding on her boyfriend. "That's it, Adam. L.J.'s our friend, and if you won't do anything, then I'll tell Kid the truth."
"What do you think he's going to be able to do?"
"More than we will by sitting here. At any rate, at least he's not de-powered like us, and this proves something's going down!"
"Excuse me." The Junior Elements looked up as Kid entered the room with Liz and Patti.
"So. Guess who went running to daddy." Adam grumbled. "How much do you know?"
"He told me to consult you for myself."
"Prove it." Adam challenged. "I'll talk if Lord Death wants, but L.J.'s our friend, and she made us swear to never bring it up again."
"Plus, she's reeeeaally scary when she's pissed." Isaac nodded.
Kid crossed his arms. "Rachel. It's about someone named Rachel."
…
"Okay, you know how the temperature just dropped twenty degrees? It wasn't me." Mary insisted.
"Who is Rachel?" Maka asked, looking around.
It was Adam who spoke first. "I guess you could say that… L.J. wasn't really the first fragment our Lady of Light created. Rachel was the first."
"Another fragment? What happened to her?" Liz asked.
"That's a complicated question. A lot of things happened to her. The official story is that she was a little unstable. Making a fragment isn't easy, I guess, but…well, Rachel became obsessed with getting stronger. She was already really powerful, but what she really wanted was to surpass her mother- be 'better than the original'. Being a copy isn't something a lot of us deal with too well. And Rachel took it to the extreme. So, Lady Life, sensing Rachel's…issues, created a new successor. Life Junior, who we all know as L.J."
"But no one really realized how unsound Rachel really was. With L.J. being the new successor, Rachel would just become a…protector of sorts, a mentor. Which didn't sit too well with her." Leah took over. "Rachel challenged L.J. for the position while their mother was away. We tried to interfere, but we weren't a match for her."
"Then L.J. kind of… snapped." Mary fiddled with the hem of her blouse. "It was the first time her first sphere had ever connected, and it was enough force to…banish Rachel's soul."
"First set?"
"Oh. Uh, the Guardian Angel has three Spheres, representing the angelic hierarchy and her control over all of them. Basically it's her version of the sanzu lines, only they're on her stomach.
"Okay, but how did she banish her sister?"
"It's an ability that the Guardian has, but by connecting her spheres L.J. tapped into it. The in-between is this…pocket, I guess. Between life and death, between the world of the humans and gods. L.J. somehow managed to banish Rachel's soul there- I don't know exactly what happened, we weren't conscious. But apparently, Rachel and L.J. are still connected, as they were both made from the same source." Isaac sighed. "I can't imagine what it must be like, to have a connection with a monster like her."
"We all knew Rachel growing up." Adam said. "She was studious, dedicated, strict- basically a model fragment, before it was revealed what she really was. But Rachel was everything L.J. wasn't, and Junior's always felt inferior because of that. Ever since the beginning Rachel seemed like the perfect successor. Her powers were unbelievable- that's why everyone called her 'The Phoenix.'"
"But I don't understand!" Leah said desperately. "How could Rachel come back? No one escapes banishment to the in-between, and L.J. destroyed the body to sever Rachel's connection to this world."
"But you said that Rachel is connected to L.J.? So, theoretically speaking, couldn't Rachel find her way back that way?" Kid asked, his expression unreadable.
"It still doesn't make much sense." Isaac grumbled. "She won't have a physical body until she completely crosses over, but she'll still have some power."
"That must be why she took Excalibur!" Mary nodded. "It's useless to try and force the Spheres to connect, a demigod can only tap into their parents power when they're ready, so Rachel can't cross over that way. But the Holy Sword might have the ability to cut the fabric separating here from the in-between."
"Either way, we're back where we started: we need to find L.J., and by doing so we'll find Excalibur and Rachel." Adam said. "How do we find her?" '
A/N Oooh, the plot thickens! Okay, now before you all bite my head off about John and Damian (as I know my sisters will), lemme ask:
Anyone notice how John and Damian met L.J. right after Rachel disappeared? And how they never wanted to talk about their past? (ch. 1)
Who made sure L.J. was at the lock-in? More importantly, who was the only boy who wasn't at the lock-in? (ch. 5)
Who was absent at the time Excalibur went missing? And then who turned up an hour late to the training session? (ch. 8)
Did anyone notice how the witch was stabbed? Who turns into sais/daggers? (ch. 9)
Who challenged Black Star to a soccer match, and thus made sure all the students were in one place? Then who raised the alarm and got the witch caught? (ch. 8)
And as for L.J.'s sister, there are lots of chapters referring to an anonymous 'she' or a 'her' from L.J.'s past.
Yes, I put WAAAY too much thought into this. I know. I was having too much fun. And in my defense…I have no life. Oh, and there's one more 'big reveal ' coming up! So Review if you wanna guess what's gonna happen next.
Hugs,
OA
