Chapter 9: Confronting Doubt and Fear

"Hey, crystal!" Nick shouted as he began to run up the last steps and confronted the floating light blue-green object. "You're the one in charge of this darkness and light stuff right?! Why aren't you helping Jaeger?!"

Jeff ran up the stairs after Nick, but as he did so his intentions changed from tackling Nick to agreeing with him. If anybody should be doing something to help Jaeger right now, if anything could help her, it was the freaking Crystal.

'I'm sorry, but events were not intended to happen this quickly.' The crystal explained. 'We were hoping that Jaeger, and the rest of the Dark Warriors, would have been allowed to grow into their roles. Events forced my hand and I realized that I could wait no longer and summoned you here. There are worse things to tell her, and these are things she is not ready to hear.'

"Alright," Kyle said bitterly after hearing that they would have to hear even worse news in a short while. "But can you at least tell me why you didn't call off your bodyguard?"

'You do not understand the current situation.' The crystal protested. 'I would have called off my Guardian, if I had been sane enough at the time to do so.'

Jeff's jaw clenched and his eyes bulged as if he had been kicked in the stomach and was trying to not crumple over. The fact that the divine crystal had just admitted that it could have called off its guardian was one thing, but it was another to hear that the Crystal upon which so much faith was placed had lost its sanity for any length of time.

"Okay," Nick said as he raised a single finger and turned towards the others. "It is officially not my fault we were nearly killed by a rabid bat." Nick said as he jerked his thumb towards the crystal. "It's the stupid shiny things fault."

"You probably shouldn't call it that." Kyle said without conviction as he turned his back on it and walked down the stairs towards Jaeger, who had not moved.

"As far as I'm concerned its name is officially 'Stupid Shiny Thingy.'" Nick said firmly.

"You probably shouldn't call it that either." Kyle replied.

"You're right I guess. It isn't a stupid shiny thingy. It's a stupid shiny rock." Nick said as he shrugged. "So its name from this moment forth shall be: 'Stupid Shiny Rock.'"

"That's not what I...whatever." Kyle replied.

"All right, fine. It's just a Stupid Rock then," Nick said before turning back to the crystal. "Anyways, I didn't catch the part where you told me 'Oh yes Nick, I will be solving all of Jaeger's problems right now so that you don't break me in half.'"

'Would that I could solve all of her problems,' The Crystal responded sadly as it floated up and down in the air both powerfully and impotently at the same time. 'But sadly I cannot solve her current dilemma. It is something that she must come to terms with in herself.'

"Apparently," Jeff said as he cracked his knuckles and began to drawl his words even worse than he usually did. "The Stupid Shinin' Rock didn' catch th' part where we's gonna break it in half, Nick. I fer' one really thin' we oughta stress that poin'."

'You could break me in half, but it would not solve your problems and you mistook my meaning. Bring Jaeger before me and I will do what I can to counsel her.'

Nick and Jeff shared a look, and it was obvious that both of them completely agreed for once. The 'divine' Crystal of the Wind was in reality nothing but a 'Stupid Shiny Rock'.

Kyle at the bottom of the stairs had not been able to convince Jaeger to allow him to touch her, or he had not overcome his fear of her yet. Jeff assumed this because Kyle was sitting a few feet away and he kept reaching out a hand towards her and pulling it back. Jaeger herself had gone into the fetal position while sitting on her feet and keeping her head buried beneath her arms, but Jeff couldn't hear her crying anymore at least even though she was visibly shaking.

"Jaeger..." Jeff said softly as he kneeled down next to her. "I need ya ta stan' up now an' be a big girl." Jaeger didn't move and she just continued to tremble.

Jaeger had always thought that she was stronger than all the other girls her age, and that she was somehow different than the others. She had always enjoyed playing with the boys and running around in the mud and dirt rather than playing with Rachel or Elizabeth, and this had always been something of a sour point to Mistress Mallory. She had always insisted that girls should wear pink and play with dolls. Jaeger didn't mind wearing pink, but what she minded was being told she should wear something else if she was going to play in the dirt when pink was the only thing the headmistress would buy her.

But now she had seen and felt the force that had made her feel stronger all these years and it made her sick. Jaeger could feel the Darkness inside of her, and it felt alive and comfortable to her in some ways. It was like a cool blanket was wrapped around her that would keep her cool and safe from the Tower of Owen's occasional solar bursts. But it also made her want to throw up. It made her feel ill physically as well as mentally and spiritually. She had never wanted anything to do with Darkness, and now somehow it had found its way inside of her and she wanted to tear it out, but she didn't know how.

If she couldn't get rid of the Darkness inside of her no one would ever be able to touch her again. No one would ever adopt a child of Darkness, and she would be forced to go out and live in the wilderness far away from people. She would have to live alone for the rest of her life. The more she thought about this the harder she cried, and the harder she tried to stop crying the more she cried, until she had run out of tears and then she just continued to sob.

She wanted someone to hold her, someone that would tell her that everything would be all right as she cried into their shoulder, someone that would make everything better somehow. She wanted Ashley to get up and to walk over here and be her mother, if only for a minute. She wanted Jeff or Kyle, or even Nick, to just hold her. But she couldn't do that to anyone ever again. In her mind, she knew that she would have to be alone for the rest of her life.

And that is when she felt a very sharp pain on her head.

Jeff had watched Jaeger for a few moments helplessly as he tried to think of what he should do, when he saw Nick kneel beside Jaeger on the other side. Jeff stared at Nick, who seemed to have calmed down and looked more serious than Jeff had ever seen him before. Nick just looked at Jaeger for a few moments in silence, before Nick raised his hand quickly and then brought it down and slapped the back of Jaeger's head as hard as he could.

"OW!" Jaeger cried as Jeff and Kyle's jaws dropped. Jaeger grabbed the back of her head and then she turned and punched Nick as hard as she could in his shoulder, and just kept punching him over and over and over again as Nick fell back to the floor and laughed.

Nick's laugh didn't sound like a human laugh. It sounded more like some sort of high pitched bird call, and it sounded so odd that it usually caused others to laugh as well. When Nick laughed everyone in the room found it hard to keep from joining in usually, but right now only Nick was laughing as Jaeger pounced on top of him and began to punch him over and over again.

As Jeff watched he realized that Nick had expected this to happen, but he couldn't tell why Nick had thought it was a good idea. Jaeger needed a hug more than she needed a smack to the back of her head, ya slime-brain, Jeff thought to himself, but his own revelations meaning was lost on him for the moment.

Jeff watched for a few moments as Jaeger seemed to become less violent and more tired as she beat on the idiot underneath her. It was as if she was spending all of her aggression on Nick, who was laughing uncontrollably and raised no hand to defend himself as his left eye began to turn black and his face began to swell.

Finally, Jeff did realize what Nick's plan had been. Jeff walked forward slowly and grabbed Jaeger's arms and held her still. She struggled against him for a minute and she was about to break free when she gave up and went limp in his grip.

Nick, his face a starting to swell, smiled up at Jaeger. "See? We can touch you."

Jaeger's head came up in the sudden realization that Jeff was touching her, and then she broke free of his grip and crawled away from the two boys.

"Look." Jeff said as he reached out his hand, trying to look as calm and as compassionate as he could. "Ain't no Darkness on eitheh of us." Mallory would have thrown a fit over his 'double negative', but Jeff would have enjoyed that and he actually was hoping the Crystal would complain. To be honest he was surprised he had been able to keep this up as long as he had before reverting to proper speech, but as long as the Crystal was within hearing range Jeff would continue to speak in a drawl. Jaeger looked at his hand suspiciously and then at Nick slowly.

"How do you know that it won't spread later?" She asked finally.

Nick chuckled as he sat up. "Honestly, I wouldn't care." Nick said as shrugged his shoulders with a grin. "If it does, then at least you wouldn't be the only one!" Nick laughed from his position on the floor as he slowly sat up. He seemed oblivious to the pain his face must have been in right now.

Jaeger walked up to him slowly, and then she raised her hand as hard as she could and hit him upside his head.

"OW! That hurt!" Nick laughed as he rubbed the back of his head. "What was that for?" Jeff had no idea why Nick would complain about a whap upside the head and not the beating he received two minutes ago. Jaeger said something to Nick softly as she grabbed him and hugged him as hard as she could. Jeff and Kyle just stared as Nick squirmed in Jaeger's embrace; at last Nick looked like he was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

"Um. . .help?" Nick asked the others, but Jeff was not about to get involved because he had finally realized how right he had been earlier about Jaeger needing a hug. Then again she probably would not have let anyone hold her for very long if Nick hadn't done what he did first.

Jaeger soon released Nick, and then she ran over to Jeff and squeezed him to the point he had trouble breathing and it didn't help that she was wearing armor now. Jeff had not thought that she would also embrace him too, after all he had only stopped her from hitting Nick and hadn't really earned a hug from his point of view. Then again, this was for her sake more than his, he reminded himself.

When she let him go she glanced over at Kyle slowly.

Kyle looked uncertainly between Jeff and Nick, who had both emerged unscathed from their encounter with Jaeger (not counting the beating), and then at Jaeger who was looking at him as if she was unsure if she would be allowed to approach him. The question placed before the two, Jeff observed, was if Kyle would turn his back on her or not. Jeff made it a point to stare very menacingly at Kyle. If he hurt her right now when she was like this...

But Kyle didn't even notice Jeff, or if he did his eyes didn't betray any fear. Kyle just stared at Jaeger and after a long tense moment he extended his hands out to her weakly, and that was all Jaeger apparently needed as she ran at and tackled Kyle, who screamed as they fell to the stone floor.