Chapter 8: Aftermath of the Awakening
Jaeger had not known what she was doing when she had attacked the creature. There had just been some part of her that had told her exactly what she had to do, and then she did it. But ever since the darkness had enveloped her skin she had felt stronger, and at the same time she had felt sick and weaker than she had been before. She dropped to a single knee and dropped the dagger to the floor as she looked at the armor that covered her body.
The armor only covered the parts of her body that had already been clothed. She had been wearing a shirt, pants, and shoes and they had been changed accordingly. But her arms were mostly bare and she didn't have any sort of helmet.
"Jaeger...you've...you've turned into a Dark Knight..." Kyle stammered in a soft whisper.
Jaeger just stared down at what had once been a pink shirt and was now black armor and began to try to take off the armor as quickly as she could, as soon as she could figure out how to do that, she would throw it away and never ever leave the light of the Tower again. She was not a Warrior of the Darkness. This couldn't be happening to her. It couldn't be.
'Warrior of the Dark.' A voice beckoned in her head and Jaeger cringed on the inside. The voice was the same that had spoken through Ashley's crystal and it appeared to be coming from up the stairs. How Jaeger could tell that a voice in her head was coming from any direction at all was a question that did not even occur to her. It just felt like it came from that direction, and that it was the Crystal of the Wind. 'Do not be afraid of what has happened to you. Come before me when you are ready, and I shall explain everything that I can.'
She stopped trying to take off the armor as she slowly stood up and looked between Jeff, Kyle, and Nick. Jeff was looking at her blankly and she couldn't tell what he was thinking, but Kyle flinched the moment she looked at him and he backed away as if she had caught a flu. Nick on the other hand had regained consciousness and was already smiling as he looked up at the three of them.
"Did the bat thing die?" Nick asked in his usual happy manner, but his voice was weaker than it usually was. Jaeger couldn't answer him, and Jeff was the one who finally nodded. Nick sighed in content and then sat up. "Alrighty then, that means I can finally go steal the shiny thing and explore the cave." As soon as Nick announced this he got to his feet and began to stumble slowly up the steps towards the Crystal.
Steal the shiny thing? Kyle thought as he felt his throat constrict and a vein in his head throb. Steal the SHINY THING!? STEAL THE SHINY THING?!
"YOU TRIED TO STEAL THE CRYSTAL OF THE WIND?!" Kyle shouted at the exact same time Jaeger and Jeff yelled something similar. He didn't quite catch what they said themselves, but it was much the same thing.
"The what?" Nick asked as he turned around and looked at all three of them confused. "Sorry, you all kind of said different things all at once."
It was all clear to Kyle now. The sacred Guardian of the Crystal of the Wind had attacked and tried to kill him because Nick had tried to steal the Crystal, and because Jaeger had been taken by the Darkness.
Kyle didn't know what to think about Jaeger yet. She had been his friend, and his rescuer, his whole life and she had saved his life from the Guardian. But becoming a Dark Knight... He didn't know what to think about Jaeger anymore. Too much had happened all at once today for him to feel sure of anything...
Well almost anything. What Nick had done had nearly gotten them all killed, and that was something he could ground himself on. It was something that Kyle had some experience with because Nick, due to his oblivious nature, would often create situations that caused trouble for everyone else. Most of the time the trouble was not life threatening true, such as the pillow and mattress fort in his room, but Kyle still remembered the time Nick brought baby werewolves home.
"The Crystal of the Wind, one of the four pillars of Light on which our world exists." Jaeger explained with crossed arms as she explained what Nick should have heard every week in church for the past 12 years of his life, but had apparently missed the memo. "Without the Crystal our world would have never come into existence."
"Oh that." Nick said as he nodded along in understanding, and Kyle thought perhaps he had gotten the wrong idea. Then Nick pointed his thumb back at the Crystal. "What's that got to do with the shiny thing?"
"The shiny thing is the Crystal, ya 'tard!" Jeff yelled as Kyle hit his own head in frustration.
"Really?" Nick asked in surprise as he scratched the side of his head. "How do you know that?"
"Because we...we..." Kyle began, but he was forced to stop as he groped for an answer. "Ummm...we..." Kyle had just realized he did not have an answer for Nick's question at all. Even when the Crystal had spoken through Ashley's Crystal he had just...known that it was the Crystal of the Wind. Kyle looked between the others and found that they looked as clueless as he felt.
"We just knew." Jeff said as he turned towards Nick and shrugged.
Jeff didn't understand what was going on any better than the others, but he tried to keep his face smooth. Jaeger was a girl and she had never had to kill anything in her life before, and it didn't help that she had been transformed into something she reviled in the process. He had to look calm for her and Kyle's sakes.
Technically, Jaeger was more of a man than Jeff was now. She had stepped up and saved them all from the Guardian, which was much more impressive than killing a deer or some werewolf, but Jeff's adoptive parrain had told him that most women and some men just weren't made to grow up that fast. His parrain had gone on to say that growing up was something that you prepared to do before you did it, or else when it came you just stared around like a lost puppy searching for its master to comfort it and tell it what to do. Jeff had thought he understood that last part, but he had only just realized what his parrain had really meant while Jeff watched Jaeger stare back down at her armor with glazed eyes.
Nick had taken her mind off of what had happened but now that the conversation had died, Jaeger was probably thinking about what had happened again.
"Well," Jeff said as he searched for something to say and the right way to say it. "It doesn't matter how we know its the crystal. What, uh, matters is it'll tell us what's going on." Jeff finished lamely. He wished that he had something more forceful that he could say, but this was not exactly his forte.
Kyle nodded as he began to climb the stairs, but Jaeger didn't seem to have heard him. He tapped her on the shoulder of her armor and she jumped away from him.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed as she slapped his hand away.
"Ow! What's wrong with ya, woman?" Jeff asked as he rubbed his hand in pain. Jaeger hadn't hurt it badly but the slap had stung harder than it should have.
"Just-just back away and don't touch me!" Jaeger screeched as she waved her hand wildly to ward him off. "You might get it too!"
"Get it?" Jeff asked in confusion as he lowered his hand. Jaeger didn't have the pox or anything, but now that he looked at her she did look sick. But that made sense considering everything that had happened to them today. "Get wha' exactly?"
"She's talking about the Darkness." Kyle explained from near the top of the stairs. He stared at the ground and spoke as if he understood exactly what was going through Jaeger's mind. "She's afraid that if you touch her, you'll get it too."
Jaeger didn't look at Kyle or Jeff, but she just nodded her head as she fell to her knees and began to cry softly. "It came out of my skin. I can feel it inside me even now. You can't touch me."
Jeff couldn't think of anything to say. He stood there motionless for a time and so did Kyle and Nick, who both looked upset in very different ways. Kyle looked as if he felt helpless. Jeff knew what that was like because he wanted to help Jaeger too, but he didn't know how either. Nick on the other hand looked as if he wanted to kill something, and as Nick turned towards the crystal Jeff realized that Nick had apparently chosen his target.