Hello again peeps! *Ahem, faithful readers/reviewers* This is the twentieth chapter of my awesone story! Yay! But the bad news is that this story's almost over! O.O Nuu, right? Don't worry, there'll be a sequel! And it'll have a lot more stuff in it then this one - kinda like this story was setting up for the sequel more so then telling a story, but there's a plot, like - oh, I shouldn't tell. I may give a preview for it in the last chapter of this story, so look out for it! Here's the next chapter of Fallen Angel! Read on!
Summary: Kurt is a Fallen, an indescribably beautiful race of demon–angels. Kitty is a fledgling priestess with a hidden power. Kitty knows that Kurt isn't her enemy, but can she prove it?
Fallen Angel
20. Planning
Shade wandered the Forest, some ways away from Treehaven—she had never really liked being around people, and so she found herself walking the paths of the Forest, beneath the cover of a star-studded night sky.
While humans could barely see a foot in the dark of night, Shade was no human. She was a Fallen, and as such, could see fine in shadows. She found a clearing bathed in weak, transparent silver moonlight, and sat, attempting to meditate. However, as it had never been one of her best points, she found herself thinking almost immediately.
A shift in one of her elements arose to her mind. She looked around in confusion; had that been a stirring of Darkness?
She stood quickly, dark eyes sweeping the foliage all around the clearing. For a moment all appeared calm; then she spotted the black flame flickering among the ferns; while it did not set anything on fire, it was withering away the plants beneath it, and even the great trees of the Forest seemed to be creaking.
This was pure Darkness, able to corrupt anything that touched it at will.
Though she knew immediately not to go to it—maybe it was because she held the dark/light element, and the element was telling her such?—she also felt drawn to the flickering dark fire. Her body moved on its own, carrying her to the Darkness, and as she reached out one hand, her fingertips brushing against the flame's edge, the Darkness reacted.
Shade slipped into the waiting blackness, her last thought of the fact that she knew she shouldn't have come to the Darkness, but she had done it anyways…
Kitty paced around in circles. Kurt had teleported them all out of the strange chamber, and surprisingly enough they had ended up back in the first Fallen's realm. Now all that had to be done was the gateway re-sealed (now that they had left the other world and returned to their own in the Shrine of Stars) and then they could be on their way to really save the world.
Time dragged by, and it seemed like almost half an hour before Sparks appeared at the doorway of the Shrine of Stars, and announced that the gateway's bindings had been re-affirmed.
"We're going back to Treehaven, right?" asked Kitty, just to be sure.
"Yes. But just to see. We have to make a plan. Rushing in there blindly will do us no good," explained Karma.
"Right," mumbled Kitty in agreement. "Do we fly there, or—" she turned to Kurt "—can you teleport us there?"
Kurt shook his head. "Not over this great a distance. Besides, I don't even know the relative direction of Treehaven from the Valley of Mists. Sure, I've heard about this place and all, but I've never actually been here until now. So we're going to have to fly."
Kitty was actually sort of happy that they were going to be flying—after all, she needed some practice, for flying from the training hollow back to her place in Treehaven really didn't count as rather good practice.
And so they were off!
It had been decided that Kitty would be the one to go into Treehaven, to see if she could find Shade. After all, Kurt and Sparks were more recognizable then Kitty was; neither Karma nor Fervior could go—Karma was believed to be dead, and Fervior was supposed to be evil. And that left Kitty. Kitty looked relatively 'normal' so she should be able to pass as a regular, random Fallen, and (hopefully) no one would pay too much attention to her.
"I'm ready!" she called. "When should I come back?"
"As soon as possible," stated Karma. "You just have to glimpse her and that'll be enough. Don't make too many suspicious actions—like searching too obviously. You might become a target."
Kitty nodded once, lifting off from the tree (which had been designated their rendezvous point) and flew lightly through the air, her eyes finding Treehaven, nestled into the trees. Slowly she soared across, flitting from one rooftop to the next, eyes searching for Shade.
She spotted the Fallen girl walking through Treehaven. That's funny… Kitty thought, staring; She doesn't look any different…
Suddenly Shade looked up, and Kitty quickly ducked behind the nearest rooftop, panicking. Did she see me?
Shade kept walking; obviously she hadn't seen anything wrong, or at least, if she had, she wasn't making a fuss over it. Kitty breathed a small sigh of relief, and twisted around to look across the rooftop. Shade still didn't seem different, but what drew Kitty's attention was the shadowlike thing following the other Fallen. If Kitty squinted hard enough, she could just barely see a shadowy creature following along behind Shade. It kept pace right behind her, and Kitty wondered how Shade, let alone the other Fallen at Treehaven, didn't notice the thing.
Then it occurred to Kitty that the creature—most likely the Darkness—was probably either in Shade's shadow, invisible, and the only reason Kitty could see it was because she held all elements, or it was manipulating the light or air to make it seem as though there was nothing there.
Clever, really, once she thought about it. Waiting until Shade and the Darkness creature were out of sight, Kitty flew out from behind the rooftop and soared over Treehaven, heading back to the tall tree—the rendezvous point.
There was information to be shared and plans to be concocted.
Karma was the only one Kitty could see as she approached the tree, landing on the branch beside her pre-incarnation. But then Kurt appeared, amid a poof of smoke and a small spark of light, with Sparks in tow, announcing they'd been surveying the treetops (for who knows why) and Fervior was farther up the tree, but Karma said he was listening all the same.
"Did you see her?" asked Karma.
Kitty nodded. "Yup. She didn't seem different—but that was just her. I also saw this weird shadowy creature-thing following her. No one else seemed to notice it thought, not even Shade… I'm kinda wondering about that…"
"The Darkness is probably using its powers to make itself be ignored by everyone…including its new host…" surmised Karma, drumming her fingers against the tree's bark.
"So what can we do?" Kurt asked.
Karma frowned. "I'm not sure…"
Sparks spoke up. "I remember something about the original sealing of the Darkness…supposedly they used the full manifestations of the elements Light and Spirit, for it was known then, and managed to scatter the Darkness so that it wouldn't gather itself for many centuries. We could try something similar—after all, we do have two all-elements wielders, do we not?"
"True…" murmured Kitty, recalling when she had used the arrow of Light, Dark, and Spirit to banish the Darkness from Fervior. "But wouldn't we have to use the Dark element as well?"
Sparks shook her head. "No, not unless you want to strengthen the Darkness. Since the Darkness has fully manifested itself—and taken over Shade—we shouldn't need to use the Dark element, only Light and Spirit. And this way, we can simply destroy the malicious part of the Darkness, and not the element itself."
Kitty nodded slowly; that made sense. "So how can we fully manifest Light and Spirit?"
Sparks thought for a moment. "I'm not really sure about that part. It wasn't all that clear. But I do know for a fact—if you attempt to fully manifest an element—any element—you could lose yourself to the chosen element. Remember that the elements are neither good nor evil, but they can be used as such by their wielders. In order to prevent from losing yourself during manifestation, you must have an anchor to this world—someone who shares the element, ideally, but someone who is close to you, or is family, works just as well."
Kitty tilted her head. "So we just…choose an element and someone who'll keep us from slipping away?"
Sparks nodded. "Kitty, you should probably do Light; even if you could summon Spirit, I doubt you could control it. No offence to you or anything, but…"
"No, I get it. Spirit doesn't really work for me." Kitty agreed. "So Karma, you'll do Spirit?"
Her look-a-like nodded swiftly.
Kitty questioned, "How will anyone anchor us to this world? I mean, do we have to be touching?"
"Holding hands will suffice," stated Sparks, and Kitty nodded, half to herself.
"When do we start?"
"All you have to do is choose an anchor. We can leave as soon as you have decided," explained Sparks.
Kitty looked around at them all. Kurt would be the obvious choice, but she wanted to think about the others first. Sparks was a friend, yes, but not more so then Kurt. Karma was like a clone of Kitty—more accurately, Kitty was a copy of Karma, but Karma would be embodying Spirit. Fervior was the odd one out—she didn't really know him, at all, save for the memories 'borrowed' from Karma, or was it the Spirit arrow? Anyways, her mind was made up.
"Kurt?" she asked, and the blue-furred Fallen looked up. "Yes Kitty?"
"Will you help me?"
He grinned, his fangs showing. "Of course, Kitty. You know I would. All yah got to do is ask."
She smiled and turned to Karma. "Ready?"
Her sort-of 'twin' was silent for a moment, eyes closed, clearly thinking. After a couple seconds, her eyes flickered open, and she lifted into the air, flying up to Fervior's perch. She jerked on one of his wings, and he followed her back down to the larger branch.
"Yes," she said once back on the branch.
Kitty smiled to herself.
Time to go save the world!
Whee! The real world-saving starts now! And I've hit twenty chapters! Yay! You know what to do, peeps! The review button - and me - awaits you!
~ Shadey