Chapter Text
Téa sat on the bench in the park, staring at the direction the sun had set in. Hours ago. Her hands gripped her lap through her shorts.
‘… Why?’
There wasn’t anything that had actually gone wrong today.
Serenity had asked for a tour around town earlier, before she went back to wherever it was she and Joey’s mom lived. And she gave it, because she honestly could have fit right into their friend group. She was a wonderful person.
Then, dropping her off, she had plans with the Pharaoh to go to their second… date? The thought he even would consider that a date brought a tiny blush to her cheeks, before it got buried under the sickly feeling of her stomach again.
But they’d had a wonderful time. Even just hanging out was enough to make her happy. Then, after a few hours, Yugi switched back and then went home.
Leaving her here.
With no buffer to her thoughts.
Serenity’s great… but…
The only part that hadn’t made her flesh crawl was the place Joey had dueled Espa Roba. From the docks onward, even saying her feelings out loud. She was just…
Why did I agree to take her on the tour?? Téa mentally scolded herself. I never want to go back to any of those places again!!! Even just those kids dueling in the park hours ago…. Noah tried to kill us. Even if he didn’t go through with it, there…
There was the rest of Battle City she had to deal with.
The large gaps in her memory that led her to being on top of the tower…
Even this date hadn’t really helped with her anxiety, that one day… The Spirit of the Puzzle was going to be gone….
She coughed loudly, trying to keep the bile in her stomach from rising. Maybe I need to go home… it’s getting cold.
It still took effort to move from her seat, but luckily, she wasn’t staggering. Who knows who was around, and if they thought, she was drunk or something.
Téa held the sides of her jacket closer to each other, mostly looking at the ground as she walked. So absorbed in her own thoughts, she barely heard the roar of motorcycles…
“Watch it!” a voice snapped, as it was suddenly unclear who was in the wrong, the three of them being too close to the sidewalk or her more in the street than she thought. Not that it mattered, because they just as quickly sped away as they even crossed her to begin with.
She still screamed after them. As if they could hear.
The anger she felt at those jerks was enough to keep her head up to walk into the door of her house.
——
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M FIRED??"
The noise was too loud, Téa knew. If anyone were nearby, they'd have jumped at the volume of her voice. But having been called into the manager's office was already not a good sign, she hadn't even changed into her uniform yet for her shift. Standing there in a tank top and shorts, in this oddly frigid office was already making her nervous.
But, sighing in defeat, the overweight, middle-aged man looked at her with great disappointment in his face. They had a mostly professional relationship, with a few remarks from him that made Téa felt like she could have been safe there. That if anyone was irreplaceable, it should have been her.
"You know the rules" he sighed, as if in great pain. She was a pleasant girl who always showed up on time, even taking extra shifts to cover for her fellow coworkers. He didn't like this any more than she did. "You can't be in high school and have a job here."
The cold in the office wasn't just on her skin any more. It had formed over her stomach, turning it into a giant ice cube that felt like it punched the organs it had just taken over. How... how did he find out??
"Evidence from a criminal recently arrested was sent to me from the police department," he continued, as if he was reading her mind, in the same tired tone. "Although it is not an arrestable offence, I could lose a lot for this business if this leaked out I had hired a teenager, when you're supposed to be focusing on school."
For a moment, it felt like her heart had stopped... only...
The man sitting at his desk watched as her emotions started to change very rapidly. Her face went from scared, to a moment of contemplation... which quickly got replaced with an angry scowl over her face that he shuddered at.
"I'm the one who got threatened and blackmailed, and I'm the one getting punished??" she suddenly demanded as loudly as her previous question. But the surprise was completely gone from her voice. She was just... mad.
"There was clear definitions lined out in your contract, Miss Gardner. I can make sure your last paycheck is mailed to your home, but…" he replied and at that point his voice started to trail off as she just felt her anger, making Tea start to grind her teeth and almost start snarling at this man who started sweating profusely. The cold was completely gone from her stomach as she suddenly felt nothing but suddenly very hot prickles.
Not seeing the point in begging through the very foggy lens of her rage, she stopped snarling and just remained glaring at him. Digging through her bag, she threw her old uniform onto his desk before turning out and slamming the door behind her.
There were a few employees watching as she stormed out of the kitchen and out of the front door, also turning a few head of the patrons of the restaurant. She couldn't remember if Tristian was working today. She hadn't succumbed to her tears just yet, but she still barely saw anything else but the exit.
Aside from the jingling of the bell and omnipresent quiet pop music on the intercom, the tables that were seated there barely minded that she had stormed out of the restaurant. With an exception.
--------
A man sat staring at the door she had exited out of from his seat as his table. His companions were arguing, and although he wasn't paying much attention, the sound of it was that it was unimportant and not going well for either of them. But that was how most of their arguments went anyway. He was only keeping a half ear in case they started making one of their scenes in public.
"... Raph?" an accented voice asked him as he hadn't moved his head in the last half of a minute, watching the door with an intense, thinking look on his face. His expression was stern and decisive. He suddenly stood like a gigantic shadow in the otherwise bright and colorful restaurant.
"Where the hell are you going?" the redhead at the table asked, raising an eyebrow at the sudden standing. "What happened?"
He didn't reply right away, deciding on a quiet "Not sure, but I'll find out..." as he grabbed his trench coat off of his seat as he started to walk away.
"Hey wait!" the other voice suddenly demanded loudly. "You're not leavin', are ya?" They hadn't even ordered yet! "You're not sticking us with---"
Before the sentence even had really begun, the standing, towering wall turned and glared slightly at the two of his companions still looking at him incredibly confused, but also scared of the sudden mood shift. The look was enough to say this was over.
Wordlessly, what seemed like blinks between occurrences, he'd suddenly had his wallet in his hands, slammed an amount of money between the two of them, then continued walking out of the restaurant with only the command to behave themselves after putting on his coat. The redhead gingerly pocketed the amount for later to pay for the bill.
As a blue haired airhead introduced herself in the third person and welcomed them to the restaurant, the two young men remaining for a moment shared a mutual, surprised look. Which had successfully adverted them fighting in public, besides small acknowledgement talk of what Raphael had done, the two had the rest of their lunch in puzzled silence.
——
Kicking a large chunk of undiscernible trash in front of her, Téa had finally succumbed to her tears as she had let her rage ebb in some of her panic as well. He was worried for this dump's reputation, not that she barely made it out safely from that man. But without this place, what was she going to do?
She stared up at the darkening sky. Rain had been threatening in large buckets from the start of the day, but they hadn't fallen yet.
The sky looked the same as it did in New York. She inhaled loudly as her own rain kept cascading down her face, trying to convince herself the sky over there wouldn't just be a memory.
It didn't work.
This place was her only way back over. She needed the money. Even if he kept her employment at her age a secret, it wouldn't be for long. No place was going to hire her after that, not until she got out of school.
Her parents weren’t an option either. They had told her point blank she was making a mistake, choosing wanting to dance.
She'd had nowhere near enough for a full four years over there, she had barely had enough for her plane ticket over and, provided she didn't need to do things like eat, maybe the first half of a year in an on-campus dorm room....
A sudden, bright light from behind her illuminated the entire alley she had wandered into.
Now what, she thought, annoyed, turning towards it with a glare that she hoped was overcompensating for the fact that her face was reddened and tear stained at the moment. Almost as quickly, her face dropped as well as feeling her heart thump in the process.
The light was coming from a gigantic teal motorcycle. And the rider, though silhouetted at the moment, did not look friendly.
Téa had known a lot of men in her life. There were her friends, that Odion guy from Battle City, Mako Tsunami from Duelist Kingdom. Those creeps from the digital world, not the least of whom was Kaiba's stepfather. Most of them were big. Not many were fat, except that penguin creep she had dueled, but they were all huge and wide, easily dominating and scary to look at.
This guy made all of them look like little boys.
Him standing up off his bike was easily the tallest person she had ever seen in her life. And the widest. Although his arms were hidden in the shadow he was in right now, she could just make out his legs from him getting off his seat, and they looked as thick as tree trunks!
He turned off the light to his bike's headlights. Though dark, it was still daytime out, and she could make out his all dark clothing from here. He looked at her for a moment, taking his sunglasses off. Then she heard his boots crunching against the ground as he started walking towards her.
I didn't even say 'Could today get any worse?'! she thought, trying to make light of the situation occurring. It always helped everyone else in the group get over their anxieties when she, or maybe Tristian, had cracked a little joke here and there.
She couldn't move her legs still, but her arms suddenly began to twitch as he looked away for a moment but kept moving forward, moving quickly as he was looking in the many pockets of his trench coat at the same time.
Téa felt all color promptly drain from her face.
Oh no... She started to twitch again as he kept coming closer... No... please!!!
Her arms suddenly snapped from her sides as she put them up in front of her face, with a loud shrill scream.
That's when the crunching stopped.
More than a few moments passed. And when the knife she was expecting him to pull out from his pockets never came, her blue eyes opened again, freshly glassy from tears of fear. She took a sharp inhale of breath before starting to move.
Her hands lowered, but still put in front of herself as a pitiful shield, turned to look up at this towering giant of a man, right in front of her. With... a surprised and mildly confused look on his face, making the bright blue of his eyes almost glow in the dark of this alley. In the hand that had been checking his pockets, he was holding something... a dark blue handkerchief?
A few moments of silence later, he started first. The hand that was holding the piece of fabric he extended to her, holding it in a way that meant he was offering it. "I saw you leave that burger place earlier. And you looked upset."
He had a big voice, deep and scratchy, but there still carried an incredible softness that the brunette certainly was not expecting. The sincerity of his claim made her lower her arms slightly more until they were at her sides, though she clenched her fists still. He held out the handkerchief in his hand to her. "I wanted to ask if you were okay."
Today was just full of surprises.
She stared at it a moment longer, before shakily reaching for it without breaking her expression. "... You really couldn't have picked a more normal way to say that...?" she sort of mumbled without thinking about how it would insult him, wiping the stains off her cheeks.
It wasn't meant to be heard or said out loud, but it sure was. Tea looked up to see that, even in the darkness of the day, his expression changed from a neutral, stony-faced look to one of surprise, and then a faint flush covered his cheeks as the expression turned embarrassed. He smiled uneasily, "Heh... um. Sorry."
As if it had just suddenly hit him what this might have looked like to an outsider. And what it could still very well be, to the person he was interacting with.
"Yeah... maybe I should have thought this out a little bit" he continued, sticking his hands into two pockets of his trench coat, trying to look casual about it. This giant muscular wall of a man, trying to look demure and casual after an introduction like that...
Téa let out a loud snort, followed by some sincere, if shaky, chuckles. She opened her eyes from her fit, to see not only was the pink on his face slightly deeper on his face, his smile had turned slightly more excited and less awkward. Something about it made her mouth do a tiny tug upwards as well, despite everything else that had happened today.
He held out his other gigantic hand to her. She accepted it, seeing how small and dainty her hands were compared to his. The tips of his fingers were slightly rough, and she could only assume his palms were as well, being under his gloves, but he both held and shook her hand gently. "... Hi. I'm Raphael."
"Téa."
"Do you need to talk?" he tried again. "You just... looked like you needed someone to listen to you."
A tired smile came over her face. "Yeah... yeah, maybe I do need someone to talk to right now. Thanks." Something was making her bite her cheek, internally, that she had lots of people to listen to her. It's not like she knew where any of them were right now. And if this guy wanted to hurt her, he would have been able to do so, no problem.
Being downtown, they didn't take very long for them to find a place to sit down and 'talk'. It gave her hope for the world, if people like Raphael were around. A total stranger, willing to listen to her problems, buying her a hot chocolate from the nearly cafe they wound up in.
And listen he did, sipping a coffee he'd ordered occasionally as she vented her frustrations about suddenly being fired on the spot, with a vague reason as to why. There was no reason to share something that... intimate with a total stranger, regardless of kindness. She mentally giggled at how out of place this gigantic, darkly dressed, muscly biker looked in such a quaint, softly colored little shop.
After a few moments of contemplation when she had finished, loudly downing the liquid in his cup, then gently putting it down on the table in front of him. He spoke, staring at her with sincerity and stoicism.
"No."
"... No?" Téa repeated, slightly insulted and showing it with a small sneer and eyes slightly narrowed at him. What did he mean by no?
He held up a hand, as a sign of defense and apology. "Don't misunderstand, that's what you're upset about right now. And it's upsetting, completely." Raphael's stern face came over with an expression Tea knew he was thinking of how he was phrasing what he was going to say next. So she gave him a moment, albeit with her irked expression. "Just... are you sure that's... all you're upset about?"
Téa’s mouth opened a few times, just to close afterwards, her face losing all of the sass she had just moments ago.
"You're really crying about losing a dead-end job?" he continued, raising an eyebrow at her. "You weren't planning on doing that forever, right?"
An uncomfortable silence came with a chill that suddenly crossed the cafe, as any attempts for Téa to speak either didn't come out, or in one instance, came out as "Well... I..." before dying altogether as she both wrestled with the… feelings from yesterday starting to bubble up with her.
Her chin went into her hand while she was looking downwards at the table, trying to start a sentence multiple times and failing. There was a sparkle of a beautiful aquamarine in the corner of her eye, looking back up at Raphael. He was wearing a necklace that she had somehow missed, but was now holding it by the charm in his hand, staring in contemplation at it.
"That's such a pretty stone..." she said instead, hoping it might change the subject even a little. "Where'd you get it?"
After a few more moments of silence, a smile broke out on his face as he had come to some sort of internal conclusion. She may have been withholding details, but it didn't matter. He could help her. "I can take you to him."
Téa, despite the curiosity she was feeling about the stone, made no motion to stand, instead looking puzzled at Raphael. “… Who?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My boss”, he replied, trying rapidly to think of a reason for her to come along. From the look on her face, there was something that wasn’t sure about going. “I think maybe he’d be able to help you out with a job…”
“I mean… I don’t know…” Téa’s slight frown only deepened as she wrestled internally with her thoughts. The last time she had gone off with someone she thought was nice, she would find herself strapped to a chair under a giant, looming crate.
But there wasn’t a way to tell that to Raphael.
“Well… why did you need the money from that place anyway?” he tried instead.
That was a question that could be answered without making it too weird. “Oh, I want to go back to the States. I was saving up to study dance in New York.”
“‘Back?’”
“I’ve been there before. My dad had us move out there once, for work.” A tiny, real smile came over her face, index finger running around the ring of her own mug, looking away in thought. “It was like something out of a fairy tale. I've always wanted to go back...”
Raphael paused before offering, slowly, “Our company is in the States. We’re heading back tomorrow morning.”
The slightly dreamy look on her face, talking about returning to New York, returned to an uneasy, guilty expression. “Tomorrow morning? That’s… really short notice. And I’m still in high school.”
“We’ve always got spots open,” he insisted. “It could just… be an option.” He waited a moment before continuing “If he doesn’t think you’d fit in, you’ll know right away.”
“…”
“Téa.” There was a serious, but not angry, tone to his voice that caught her attention. “I promise, if my… boss doesn’t like you, I’ll take you back to your house myself.”
After a few more moments, her uncertainty in her face and voice didn’t let up, but she looked up. He really did want to help her, she could tell. Téa finally breathed out “… okay… I guess…”
Raphael’s offered a gigantic hand to her again, a small smile on his face. She looked a little uncomfortable, and he understood. But this was going to be good for her, so it’d be worth it in the long run he was a little pushy.
They took the short walk back to his bike where he’d left it.
With loud rumbles, first from the motorcycle's engine and the second from the sky in echo, it finally started to rain on the scene.
"Do you ride?" he asked, unsurprised that she shook her head in the negative. "Thought so, here..." The seat was a little bit larger suddenly as he pulled on the back of it, and she gingerly sat down behind him.
"Where do my feet go?"
"There's a space down there."
"Oh."
As awkward as it was to get on, an unexplained flush came over her own cheeks this time as Téa wrapped her arms around Raphael as much as she could. She couldn't even get her arms completely around his torso!
With a quiet promise to her to drive slowly for her safety, Raphael revved the engine to his motorcycle and drove off.
—
The elevator up only beeped as it went towards the top.
Raphael looked down at Téa, staring at the numbers as they blinked in and out, passing the floors. He let out a small chuckle, which she snapped her head over to look at him. “… Never seen someone anxiously leg bouncing standing up before”.
The brunette mumbled something incoherently, probably an unnecessary apology, and tried to stay her bouncing leg. She wasn’t doing well, folding her arms even tighter as she started to sweat slightly.
“…. It’s gonna be okay.” he tried to assure. He wanted to reach out, but she seemed… tense.
“…. ‘Paradius’, huh?” she replied, trying to change the subject and still looking anywhere but Raphael’s face. “Never heard of them before.” Which wasn’t a lie; even knowing a CEO of a company personally. “What does it do?”
After a brief pause, he thankfully went with the change in conversation and looked up. The numbers were blinking closer and closer to the top. “Security, among other things. We just installed cameras in the city.”
“… I thought KaibaCorp was our security?” The tiniest fraction of confusion was in her voice over her fear. He kept going with it; maybe it would help with the anxiety.
“We’re branching out.”
“…. Did you install any cameras, is that what you do?”
“No.”
“So how do you work for Paradius?”
“I do a lot, but for trips like this I’m one of three bodyguards. I just met you on our break.”
“Body guard? For who?”
“Who you’re going to meet.”
With one final beep and a loud swoosh of the elevator, accompanied with a startled noise from Téa, they came to a very short hallway of the building. There was a gigantic red door with an insignia on it: an ankh, with some sort of geometric pattern over it, inside of a circle.
She barely got to stand in awe of it. Raphael turned to offer his hand again, but he didn’t really need to. She was already up here, it was too late to back out now.
Raphael opened the door.
Standing in the middle of the office was a figure that was just as surprising as everything else was in here. The blue hair that greeted them fell close to the figure’s feet that was tied in a very low ponytail. He turned around to look at the two walking in with mismatched, gold and green eyes. He was beautiful, wearing a dark blue suit and perfectly clean white shoes. A stern, unimpressed expression almost instantly melted into a tiny look of surprise, as quickly breaking into a charming smile as he and Téa made eye contact, slightly hiding behind Raphael’s arm.
She wasn’t sure why, but it just sent a shiver down her spine.
“Raphael.” he began, with a voice that was very smooth and soothing. “I see you’ve brought a guest with you.” He closed a folder he was reading, placing it on his desk to start walking towards them, never taking his eyes off of her. Téa felt herself slightly tense, as he continued. “I will handle this from here, you’re dismissed.”
Raphael closed his eyes and nodded once, turning without another word out of the office.
“Wait, Raphael!” Téa quickly said a bit too loudly. No doubt she had caught his attention, but he couldn’t stop and reassure her. She would be fine, but she still caught the guilty expression on his face.
The door quickly shut, with the man quietly chuckling at her reaction of surprise at his sudden departure. “I can take a guess as to why a young woman suddenly being alone would make her nervous…” He stopped a few steps ahead of her, and held out a hand as he continued “But you have nothing to fear from me, my dear. I’m an old man. Please, call me Dartz.”
Téa accepted politely after a few moments, before giving him a shy, uneasy smile. “Really? But you look so young...”
His smile grew a touch flattered at her comment, releasing her hand. “My, aren’t you a sweetheart.” Dartz gazed her over a moment, almost appraisingly. “Oh yes... I can see why Raphael brought you here. You do need help.”
“Help? Help with what?” she immediately asked back, slightly irked but mostly confused.
His smile became slightly sad as he looked her over. “The soul does not lie about the weight of the heart, Téa. You’ve been hurt, even if you were not... completely honest with Raphael about how you’ve been feeling as of late.”
Téa once again felt frozen by such an accusation she forgot, temporarily, to be scared about how he knew her name before she had told him anything. Shakily, an awkward smile came to grace her face. “What are you talking about? I’m... fine.”
An eyebrow being raised and an unconvinced expression was all it took for her to reconsider that statement.
“I--- I mean... I was fired today. That was really upsetting....” she mumbled, trying to look away. But the unchanging, constant gaze was suddenly hitting her with a thought about what Raphael had clearly seen in the cafe earlier. Was that what Dartz was talking about, too? “I mean... Raphael was right I didn’t want to be there forever. But I need the money to get back to the United States...”
“Yes, my dear,” he interrupted with an air of impatience. “But there was also your friend’s grandfather getting kidnapped and hospitalized over a trading card.”
Her mouth suddenly closed.
Why is the floor so far away...? Téa thought to herself, suddenly seeing nothing but the floor, suddenly down a dark tunnel. What was she standing on??
A look of small sympathy crossed over Dartz's face as she suddenly seemed to grow paler and paler by his words. “Being almost assaulted by a teacher from your school where you practice dancing... being followed by a man and used as part of a wager in a game… your friends almost being burned alive… you and your friend being kidnapped by a group of thugs and possessed… losing a friend to a dark nightmare... being kidnapped again into a digital world where you almost died, and your friend did, even temporarily. You were turned to stone, and when you barely escaped being blown up, another of you was struck down by a god...”
Téa had no idea she was even crying until a surprisingly soft hand brushed over her cheek, having suddenly stopped. “There there...” he quietly cooed, which jolted her in her place. “My apologies for putting it so bluntly, but it also seemed that you yourself had been denying yourself time to think about such things.”
Shakily demanding, “How did you know all of that?”
The calm, pitying smile remained on his face. That was his favorite question to be asked. “You told me. Your soul does have windows, after all. And it’s quite a beautiful soul, just in such pain...”
Suddenly feeling weak in the legs, Téa started to wobble a little from how hard her head was swimming. Can this guy read my mind?? She suddenly felt herself being walked to one of the thickly cushioned seats that sat near the walls.
Dartz held one hand, the other on her opposite shoulder to not only help lead her, but the way she was losing color from this assessment, well. It was safer to assume she needed the help walking than her pass out on him. He was a gentleman, after all. “Have you not... had time to reflect on these events, my dear? Allowed yourself time to process it was upsetting?”
She all but collapsed into the chair once they were close enough to it. Through numb lips, a tiny, shaking ‘No’ was only barely heard. Voice feeling thick, she coughed, to continue only slightly louder "... they all just sort of… kept happening."
How long ago was the start of Battle City? Suddenly she couldn’t remember. Maybe a month? And it just happened so quickly after Duelist Kingdom, they barely got a chance to settle back in before the guys had run off. And even that wasn't all that long ago, so short after Solomon was hospitalized...
“You poor thing... your so called ‘friends’ expecting you to always be okay for their sake...” Here, Téa suddenly snapped up with a visibly shaken and scared expression. “You feel it too, don’t you. They place all of their needs on you and never check on your own. Just because you support others does not mean you don’t need support in return.”
Hot, angry tears kept pricking in the corners of her eyes. "My friends are important to me!"
Dartz nodded sympathetically. “Of course they were important, and they should be. Your loyalty isn’t something to be ashamed of, Téa.” Then a sharp voice, meant to question but still stung as the words hit her.
"You've have died because of them. Even if temporarily. Which is more important, their pride or your life?"
Even sitting down was making her feel dizzy. He was silent, watching her intently. There was no hiding how she was actually feeling, or... forgetting to feel. But he had a point, which suddenly came crashing down onto her as she thought about what he was saying...
How much was being the cheerleader of the group actually wearing her out? They'd been through so much insanity lately, and she had to be fine...
“I... I just wanted to be helpful...” she mumbled again.
“You should never have to regret doing the right thing. Even if it is for people who don't understand you.”
Here, she turned up to look at Dartz. “My friends understand me fine!” she snapped at the accusation.
“Do they?”
She opened her mouth a few times to start her retort, only to make at the very most squeaks. It opened and closed a few times before the weight of his words finally hit. The thoughts flooded in before she could stop them.
When was the last time anyone listened to me? Even a little? The Pharaoh had… just… he had to fight, but he didn’t… is everything I think just… wrong to him? No one listens when I’m calling out traps or…
What I’m feeling doesn’t matter to him, because he believes a prophecy from someone who had been wrong before… Ishizu could be wrong, even she said. We all saw! She was wrong about Kaiba of all people!
Tristian and Duke had sided with him over me when I didn’t want him to fight Marik… Joey never listens to anyone that isn’t the Pharaoh or Yugi but… and Yugi didn’t think I could take care of myself in the Digital World… How hard could a stupid card game be?!
‘Do they?’
The question from Dartz just repeated itself over and over, thinking to all of the events of the past few months. And the more it repeated, the harder it was to pretend it was wrong…
Her mouth opened one more time to try. Choking on her words, she started to counter with a squeaked “Th-they…”
Dartz was quicker with his counter argument. “Did they ever tell you how you reached the top of the Tower? You started watching a duel with your friend Joseph… and then you were up there.” His expression was stern. “They know how you got there, did they tell you?”
The tears had come back, placing a hand over her mouth to try and fail to force the sounds back down. She huddled over in the seat until her forehead touched her knees before she finally let out a choked sob.
Dartz kept the smile off his face but not out of his head, arms folded and watching Téa finally start to accept unpleasant truths.
Perfect.
She heard a hand go into his pocket, which made her uncover her eyes and look up, eyes still wet. He was holding a stone that was just like the one Raphael was wearing. "Here, not only do we understand, we appreciate. Return the kindness." It started to glow with a wild, wonderful light as he offered it to her.
She looked beautiful, as if she was etched out of the bright green glow from its otherworldly intensity. “You’d be safe with us, Téa. You would finally get to be taken care of.”
“What... is that?” Despite its sparkling beauty, her heart had skipped into her throat for a moment. She was certain she heard a woman whisper...
Don't.
"It is something that has been waiting for you for a very long time. All you need to do, is take it."
Don't take it.
"It is a gem that admires the beauty of a soul like yours... it knows when a soul is darkened by evil, and when one is glowing with light."
Téa, please! Don’t take that stone! Another voice joined into this strange whisper’s begging and pleading, only to have another yelling, and another, another, more, until a cacophony rose in her head until it pounded. Her hands were twitching with the urge to cover her ears, even if it wouldn’t help.
“We will provide you with what you’ve given to others but never received. You’d not only be helpful, but important.”
A charming smile came over his face. “Well?”
The whispering just kept getting louder! It sounded like so many people and things, not even giving her the reason why she shouldn’t take it! They were all just yelling at her and ignoring what she wanted! The one main voice, though, it sounded like a woman’s pleading, begging, screaming for her not to take the stone. It was already getting too loud in here, he was right, but then…
You need to calm down, please.
‘Calm down???’ she thought angrily to herself, grinding her teeth as the voices vanished with her decision. ‘I don’t WANT to calm down!’
She stared at the stone with the glare meant for the voice.
‘I deserve to BE UPSET!’
Her hand shot out.
——
Raphael, standing just outside the door, opened his eyes to see the bright, glittering light of the Orichalcos stone around his neck suddenly flare into life.
In the city but miles away, his two companions noticed their stones outshining the light of the stars in the sky above for one moment, as quickly as it came it was gone.
A new soul had been accepted.
——
There was a burning sensation in her forehead as Téa held the stone seconds after receiving it from Dartz. It traveled to her eyes, her vision blurring for a fraction of a second, before it all vanished. She still was gritting her teeth and trembling slightly from the pain, looking at the cold, green stone that lay in her palm. She looked to Dartz, perplexed.
He smiled.
“Congratulations, dear. Welcome to our family.”