THE PLOT THICKENS!

Oh wait, this is the 'other half' of that prompt I mentioned...

and all gets 'rationalised' in the next chapter too :)

BTW I always planned to draw a fanart to accompany this fic, though technically it goes with Chapter 11, but I haven't had time to manifest it in a good enough form... but before the fic ENDS okay? (Since we're only about halfway through, that gives me a while.)

CHAPTER 10

KURAIN

The mountains

MAYA:

We haven't visited that 'haunted mountain' since, um, 'then'. I declared it off-limits to the other residents too, it's all too dangerous and unpredictable!

I only gave them vague detail of why though. *shudder*.

So if we have mountain training activities, it's in the smaller, unconnected mountains on the other side of Kurain. The gaki's not going to be able to cross through the valley without detection, because the Grand Magatama of the Main Hall is in the way, not to mention a billion mediums who'd detect it. The huge power radius of the Grand Magatama is something no vengeant ghost can stand up to!

So Nick and I make our training pilgrimage to the other mountains, and the Sacred Stones And Waterfall of Ami Fey there. (She sure has a lot of them! Lucky for us, I guess!) For some reason, Nick's obsessed with training lately.

I admit he's getting good at it. He eyes that waterfall like it's some murderer witness he's breaking down in court. If it were glass instead of water it'd surely shatter under his gaze. He's so resolute, it makes the Aluminium Samurai look like... well, a joke...

(Wait, scratch that, the Aluminium Samurai wears a mask. The Unmasking Episode didn't count!)

Last night we sat vigil at the Sacred Stones, and looked at the stars, or at least I did... I think Nick looked at me most of the time, and when I looked at him he had a set expression. But it was nothing bad, I could tell by the way he kept his arms clamped around me. Then a waterfall session all day...

But anyway, it's almost evening, and I'm starving! Maybe if we hurry, Burger King in the next town won't be closed yet! Or at least we might not miss Pearly's dinner. "Hurry up, Nick!" I call. What's taking him so long?

"W-won't be much longer..." It's a distant echo. I thought he was following but he's still way back in that cave!

"No one can see you!" So paranoid. Ever since our filming of the 'secret meeting' or whenever he has some weird idea the mediums here are playing voyeur or something, spying on him. I don't get it. So he's changing his wet clothes in a pitch dark cave where no one can see. And he can't either, silly guy. I guess that's why it takes forever.

I hope he's not lost in there!

But I hear rapidly approaching footsteps in the distance behind, so I continue, rounding the meander down the boulders... "NII-IICK... AGHHHH!"

Someone's materialised behind me.

"Don't scare m..." I whirl around, glaring straight into..

"Hello, Mystic Maya, dear."

...The eyes of Aunt Morgan.

"A...Aunt Morgan!" A kind of petrification freezes me. I haven't seen Aunt Morgan again, ever, since that trial where she framed me for murder, ages ago. And it suddenly jolts my emotional and bodily mindset back to that time.

I n-never visited her in jail, and I thought she was executed years b-back... I grasp for sentient thought through the splinters of my chilled brain. She's being channelled, right? She's... she's not some kind of Super Ghost... a-and whatever medium is channelling her has human limitations. Y-yeah. Deep breaths...

For all I know, some silly old Mystic here just wanted an illegal chat with her old friend, and did the channelling up here 'cause it's officially banned.

"I...it's nice to see you, Aunt Morgan," I smile forcedly. "Mystic Pearl is doing well." (How can I get out of here?)

"That's lovely to hear, my dear!"

"Are you visiting an old friend? Well, I m-must be going..." I turn, but a rock hurtling from somewhere behind socks me in the gut.

I can't help wincing, and in the disbalance Morgan stabs out with a tantō .

N-not again!

I'm too quick, my reflexes already on edge from the shock of seeing her, and she misses. Just.

I'm a little jarred, after the 'Dahlia incident' before I had all the antique weapons in Kurain locked up behind security glass! But I don't have time to meditate on where and how she got it, as a massively huge figure - a man - has tackled me under him, smack into a drift of ice. I don't bother suppressing my scream.

It's not Kristoph, the jerk is huge and muscular and I don't recognise him. Under the suffocation, I dig my hands into the snow, writhe, and with the sheer adrenalin of pure terror, slash the buried Master's staff through the tunnel of heaped snow undetected, connecting with his groin. It's the one I inherited from my mother with that questionable secret sword on the end, and I guess I've found a use for it.

The jerk gives a sick grunt, and releases his grip just long enough for me to scrabble free.

Morgan's reaching for me, and the horrible man is about to tackle me again, when something crashes into him out of the sky.

"Nick!"

Nick seems to have launched himself off an overhead boulder on top of the man, I've got to admire both his bravery and idiocy. I'm free, but Aunt Morgan is stabbing wildly at me again.

The jerk has shaken Nick off; it's no contest in terms of weight, and has seized my staff before my grasping hands can snatch it again. He swings to stab me with it, but I crash aside just in time.

There's a kind of altercation where crazy Morgan turns on the jerk, wildly stabbing at HIM with her knife and shrilly ranting that she expects to kill the Master herself!

I seize the staff. I know Morgan's being channelled, and though I don't have the Spirit Severing Stick, hitting a medium over the head unconscious is usually enough to break connection. It goes without saying I can't just stab her, who knows what poor medium is hosting her!

I swing... and miss as I'm knocked off balance as the tantō is swung at me again. The staff goes flying as the jerk's fists connect with tender parts of me. The jerk lumbers forward but Nick gets there first.

"Maya!"

Is he going to try to give the staff back to me?

"Nick, no! Hit her over the h-head!"

I think Nick gets it. He starts circling, like a predatory cat, wielding the staff in sweeping arcs at both of them in turn.

"Run, Maya!"

"Nick, I won't leave y.."

"RUN!"

I leap several feet in the air as I detect the source of his urgency. A third stranger-pursuer has arrived on the scene. This one has a gun.

Only speed and the cover of rocks can protect me. The one comfort is that fleeing is leading them away from Nick.

The pursuer isn't used to the mountains, and soon I lose him in the maze of crevasses and granite.

I allow myself to slow enough that my frenzied panting begins to normalise. I'm under the delusion I'm safe... until a boulder under my feet suddenly and un-naturally rolls and trips me up.

Then another boulder hurtles from above, just narrowly missing crushing my skull but still grazing a terrible pain as I lurch aside. Now every single thing in my vision suddenly has a conjoined aura-twin.

My legs fall into a sprint of pure instinct in terror of recollection.

This is what happened... on the 'other' mountain.

I don't know which way to go. Concealment by line of sight, like behind a boulder, only works on fooling HUMAN eyes. I know that all too well from last time.

My head keeps exploding from pain, and the instinct guiding my legs comes more from my E.S.P. than my ruptured, confusing vision. My subconscious steers one step ahead of the gaki and the cursed objects it hurls, but it spreads like fire, and my aching physical body is no match for something not bound by the laws of mortal physics. But I keep running, trying to weave a path DOWN the mountain. I'm totally disoriented, but the twin kaleidoscope spectres are gradually beginning to blur back together into proper landscape. Now everything's just spinning alarmingly instead. I'm sure I'm making progress down though, it looks lower, right?

A chunk of rock below my feet mysteriously collapses, and I crash painfully into a pit. I blindly begin to scrabble, but someone has materialised from behind a boulder nearby and an impaling blade knifes me down. My arms are seized and twisted painfully behind my back in tandem with a sudden heavy clink.

Handcuffs.

"GOTCHA!"

I don't get the joke, but Kristoph Gavin's near wetting himself with amusement. My bruised body is dragged prone onto the next-door boulder, like a sacrificial altar. His weapon prods me along like one might pick a snack with a toothpick.

"We meet again, Master!"

For the first time I get a good look at my adversary as his foul face leans over into mine. He wears a strange floating and slightly feminine white robe. His golden hair is very true to life, though strangely metallic. Frosted mirror-white glasses block his eyes, heavy white gloves not out of place on a knight subvert prints. He's even wearing a weird clear apron, like you might find in an abattoir – what, to protect himself from blood?

"I must say I enjoyed last time. Was it mutual?"

There's a slash of gilting metal. He's wielding what I suppose is his idea of a vanity sword – it's in a weird bladed spiral like his hairstyle, pointed to a sinister bladed tip. I'd laugh if the situation wasn't so serious.

It is serious. He flicks a switch and the thing whirs menacingly.

It's all gone into hideous slow-motion again and I can feel every pound of my thundering heartbeat, my reflexes on knife-edge. Futile 'cause he's got me so I can't move. He pokes me. I expect the stab, the fatal drill through the heart, but it's not coming. He's listening for something. Smirk, smirk….

I choke nausea. He expects this stabbing to be for an audience, and I think I know exactly who he means.

No! I'm some kind of sick bait. And sure enough, we hear frantic and familiar footsteps charging closer. How did Nick even find me? Wasn't I impossible to track? Guess I didn't get far at all, just was led in circles, like a spider luring me into its spiral trap.

Die with honour. Not much use, either way, it'll traumatise Nick for eternity to see me dismembered.

Now Kristoph's ripping at my clothes with the other hand. So much for dying with honour. What should I do? We haven't found a single spiritual practice that I could perform now to subvert this freak show. Besides, he's taken my Magatama. I try to knock the drill sword itself, maybe I can make him drop it, but I don't get very far, just cut myself open on the edge…

"BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU!"

I have never seen Nick so angry. His fists clench, his eyes flare, his Magatama pulses with waves of eerie bluish light, he tears forward and throws himself towards us with animalistic fury.

But Kristoph smiles his amusement and languidly jabs me with the sword, positioning for a more mortal blow the moment Nick causes him inconvenience. I involuntarily gasp as I feel the blood beginning to seep from that old wound, blinking my eyes shut at the waver of instability and the strange blue-ishness rolling in clouding my vision.

It's like being hit by a hurricane.

I wince and cower as I'm flung aside, somewhere into the horrible dirty snow. I shield myself behind a rock, and peek out, choking on clouds of smoke and bruised by scattered handcuff parts. They're all charred out of shape and fell open. I swear I'm not delusional!

The whir of Kristoph's sword screams and dies as blue flames have engulfed it and the vicinity. I think it has melted. And now there's a new screaming. I prop myself unsteadily by the boulder. I blink several times. Where is Nick? It seems I wasn't saved by Nick at all, but some weird miraculous Act Of Ami, as some huge hulking mountain vulture or eagle is now pecking at Kristoph's eyes. There's blood spraying everywhere, and it's not mine.

"Nick?" I croak. I've got to find him, I can't run away and leave him at Kristoph's mercy! Perhaps he got to that other rock over there in the confusion; it's just luck this miracle incident happened now like on that late night TV show 'When Eagles Attack'.

I send out E.S.P., but it's no use, Nick can't use it. Well, at least I don't think he's dead yet. I can't see properly to the other side; the attack scene is blocking the way. There's a sick metallic clang of slashing claws like that meat cleaver Aunt Morgan used to use, and gusts of whirlwind churn the air in every flapping direction. The snow has melted in a messy radius and is now a muddy, slightly reddish mush.

Kristoph's still wielding the warped sword furiously, beating at the mutant eagle with its now useless blade, but the blue flames the bird's discharging over it reach a critical mass, the metal glows white hot, and Kristoph emits a high pitched scream, drops the sword, and sprints away lopsidedly, the cliffs and boulders soon cutting him from view. I crawl shakily forward. "Nick? Nick? He's gone, Nick, please, where are you, come out!"

"Hmm. " The bird runs a claw to its askew-spiked head feathers, then starts preening them fastidiously.

Only now do I notice my own slash wounds, still oozing. They kinda line up with that thing's claws, I guess it happened when I was 'thrown aside'.

I suddenly want to crawl back behind that rock and hide, but that's not much use. Any one of those people from earlier might come back, anyway!

"Apologies, Master."

"Um… it's nothing major…." What? "You can talk?"

"Only in E.S.P., which, thankfully, you are gifted in, terribly inconvenient when your target is not…."

Is it going to attack me next? But no, it seems horribly busy, staring into a pool of meltwater as it claws at its head crest obsessively, tilting in total consumption.

Perfect time to make a getaway!

I limp off in the other direction, scanning the snow for Nick's footprints, but I hear the bird's claws crashing up the snow behind me. I turn with some trepidation.

"E-excuse me, Mr Eagle. Have you seen Nick? He was there just before you f-flew in…"

"Eagle?" There's a tinge of pretentious irritation. "My name is Mystic Phoenix, you are Master Maya Fey, are you not?"

"Y-yeah….. Nick, please come out, I think the bird's harmless!"

Actually, check that. I'm not so sure. The bird's E.S.P.-voice is deep and menacing, with a mild hiss like you might expect out of a snake character. Metal spurs – spikes, jut out of its wings, metal claws are knife sharp, and its brutal-looking hooked beak is filled with rows of spikey little knife-edge TEETH. It's also HUGE.

I take a step back.

But it steps right back forward.

Pupil-devoid eyes glow with a cold blue light. Right out of something that could burn you up, this thing's gaze could chill you to the bone.

"W…why are you following me?" I stammer.

"I heard the call of the Master, and the Ancestral Magatama! It was clear. 'Avenge the House of Fey!'"

I swear that bird is smirking. But I have no time for that.

"Where's Nick?" I'm getting agitated.

"Ah. Yes. He who bears my name." Its face becomes thoughtful. "You can say he is here! Well, his psyche slumbers…. Wait. One moment…"

"Where is he?" I demand, but the E.S.P. channel is nothing but that brutal hiss, the bird's tensioned muscles angled elsewhere. The air churns as it lunges with force of a blowtorch.

More smoke.

A charred butterfly wing falls from its beak as there's a light crunching and gulping, but the bird's sides heave and it spews squashed insect ashes back into the snow.

"Vile! D-do not eat it!"

Would I?

"You killed it!" I marvel happily.

"N-no. It was already dead. And it is not the origin anyway… no use whilst that remains."

"How do you know so much? And tell me where Nick is! You said you sense him - he might be hurt!" Comatose?

"I told you! He is in my presence! Not hurt!"

"You possessed Nick?" My voice is a growl.

"Oh no. I was definitely called. By him as well, if we must be specific."

I have a sudden cognitive snap. "I get it! Nick's CHANNELLING YOU!"

"Channelling? I am unfamiliar with this terminology…." The bird blinks its eyelids a few moments. "Well, I guess it is largely analogous…"

My stomach lurches in excitement. It's got to be true. I mean, now I know exactly where I've seen those weird spiked head feathers before!

It's also wearing the Magatama.

"S-so who are you? Where did you come from? Where do you live? Are you a dead porcu-eagle?"

"I told, you, Master," the bird repeats politely, "I am Mystic Phoenix. I do not know where I come from. I believe I slumber much of the time. The Phoenix is eternal!"

"And how did you know who I am?"

"Who but the Master would own the Ancestral Magatama? I believe I'm somehow allied to that artifact… as are you. Your powers are in it, are they not?"

"Y-yeah, but…" So were Pearly's…

"They called me! And I have awoken in your, uh, disciple's psyche before. Well, next to it, actually. Curious to observe… I suppose your acolyte has improved this time. Quite impressive!"

"So-so what happened?"

"Like I said! I heard the call of the Ancestral Magatama, the Master, and your Acolyte Mystic Phoenix! 'Avenge the House of Fey!' What else could be the instruction of such fury? Then I found myself here, as you can see, and my manifestation has physical form this time. Good thing, too." It launches off again, alighting nearby and clawing through the snow with a foot.

"This is yours."

I carefully extract the offered object from his beak. My magatama, the one Nick charged for me.

"I am ever at your service, Master. I must leave, before your acolyte falls ill.." It staggers off hastily, round the bouldered bend.

My delirium runs out.

"Nick? NICK? NICK!"

A crumpled body, in the snow.

"Niiiiick. Wake up. Please!"

"M-Maya?" His sides start heaving, spluttering. "Vile… taste in my m-mouth… sick… why is there… smoke…"

"Don't pass out!"

Nick lies motionless for many heart stopping moments.

I throw myself on him. "Please don't die!" First aid? I can't carry him, I'll have to drag him, which will hurt him worse…

Nick suddenly jerks upright. "WHY am I NAKED? What happened? I'm covered in SOOT!

"Nick, you CHANNELLED! You channelled a ghost and attacked Kristoph Gavin!"

"I channelled a nudist arsonist. Right. Very funny. Ha. Ha. Ha."

"No. You channeled a BIRD!"

"Did I FLY?"

"Of course!"

"Why am I wearing nothing but a magatama?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't see that part. Perhaps your clothes burnt up? We can look for them…"

Nick staggers up. He seems to be able to stand. I take his arm anyway. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I felt really tired but it's wearing off for some reason. What really happened?"

"Just like I said! You channelled a bird, a phoenix, and attacked Kristoph, and he ran away after you burned him."

"Um. L-look, can we get home. I'm sure we'll both feel better after a nice long sleep. S-smoke inhalation can affect the brain.."

Huh? "Wear this." I hold out my Master cloak. "Let's go."

"R-right after I t-throw up…"

Ew.

###