Beginning And End Library
Underground training room
The magic gathering at the space between Kathy and Hyacinth's hands, had stabilized to form two orbs. A black shadowy orb had formed for Kathy and a gold shinning orb had formed for Hyacinth.
Simultaneously, they both separated their hands and clapped their hands together under the orbs before sitting cross legged. The circle lit up and turned silver while the two orbs moved to just above Sloane's chest and stayed unmoving. The outside square was then divided in half with where Kathy sat, black and shadowy just like her orb while Hyacinth's was gold and shiny.
Seeing as the orbs hadn't fluctuated or disappeared in anyway, Kathy and Hyacinth looked at each other and sighed
"The first stage has gone by quite smoothly" Kathy said and Hyacinth nodded
"Are you guys alright back there?" Hyacinth asked the spirits which were aiding him
"Lord Hyacinth, you have too much magic power" Jab complained
"We've got the control down, but keeping this up for three days might be a bit difficult" Pint said
"What are they doing?" Xavier asked with folded arms
"Advanced level spirits like myself, don't have proper control over our magic power" Hyacinth said "Only intermediate or basic level spirits have control over their magic power and a spirit's size depends on their magic power. These guys are basic...or better yet, general ranked spirits who have the best control of magic power to the point they can even control that of others. As such, they're aiding me in control"
"Oh" Xavier let out
"What are you two doing? How can you possibly be having such a nonchalant chat?" Kathy asked while suppressing her anger
"Sorry" Xavier and Hyacinth said
"I'll be entering stage two and increase her demon side to catch up to the spirit seed" Kathy said as the black orb slightly increased in size "Please wait for me to catch up"
"Sure" Hyacinth said before addressing the spirits "Keep the pace and every other thing the same"
"Got it" Wood said as him and the other spirits kept their hands steady on Hyacinth's back
"Xavier, you might want to increase the barrier by one tail" Kathy said
"Understood" Xavier said as he transformed into his fox on two legs and a single tail appeared. The barrier he had set which had come in the form of the room's square shape, had become visible as a peach colour made its way around the walls.
"Start" Kathy said as her side of the square lit up brightly
Due to the way the circle had been drawn in the large square, certain areas of the circle were touching the square. These areas were, where Kathy and Hyacinth each sat, and the sides of the square where Kathy's and Hyacinth's magic power met. Through those areas belonging to Kathy, her magic began to pour into her side of the circle, before reaching Sloane. At that point, her side of the circle was no longer silver but black while Hyacinth's remained silver.
'This is certainly going to be difficult' Hyacinth thought while looking at Sloane who seemed to be more at peace 'However, the results will be rewarding at the end of the day'
******
Meanwhile, in Sloane's subconsciousness, she was in a very dark space. There was nothing in her subconsciousness other than the darkness. However, as she looked into the darkness, a little further down, there was something covered in a white tarp.
She looked from side to side but there was nobody with her and it seemed the only thing illuminating the place was the glow around her chest and the white dress she wore.
'Where am I?" she wondered 'Last I remember, I was fighting two people and then, the seed became a nuisance and the last thing...' her hand reached for her neck 'I need to get back' she looked around again but couldn't see any signs of an exit except for the thing covered in a white tarp.
Cautiously, she walked over and stretched her right hand towards it with steady breaths. As her hand touched the tarp, she let out a sigh of relief that nothing had happened before gathering her confidence and pulling the tarp off. Her eyes widened when she saw what it was and she took a step back
"No...it can't be" she said
In front of Sloane, was a mirror. However, it wasn't the mirror that caused such a reaction from her, but the reflection in the mirror. It was a reflection of herself except, in replacement for her human ears, there were two fury white wolf ears.
Her hair was white with two long white horns sticking out from her forehead while her eyes remained it's current gunmetal blue color. Her nails were elongated and white but the rest of her arms were normal. Her legs were a thick white color but how far it went, she had no idea unless she lifted up her dress and a long furry white tail grew from above her ass. The tattoo she had acquired after losing control of the spirit seed, seemed to have become permanent.
She took a step forward and rested her palms on the mirror. Her reflection naturally did the same thing as she stared at it and it stared back but then, the reflection looked to where her and Sloane's palms connected before clasping their hands together
"How long do you plan to reject me?" the reflection asked and Sloane's eyes widened
"You're...the devil's bloodline" Sloane said
"You-"
"I'm sorry" Sloane said immediately "At the time, I wasn't ready to accept you because, I...was afraid when I looked through your eyes once. I believed if I accepted everything that you were, I'd lose everything that I was"
"Then, are you ready to accept me now?" the reflection asked
"Our memories, our emotions, our thoughts and even our powers are connected. Here, I can't even reject you because...there are people I'd like to protect" Sloane said as she took one step forward and her leg went into the mirror "Without those things intact, I'll be empty. And who can an empty shell protect?" she placed her other leg into the mirror as her reflection moved back to let her in and pull her forward "I accept you" as she said that, her whole body disappeared into the mirror
******
Beginning And End Library
Underground training room
Kathy opened her eyes and slowly reduced the size of her orb until it was the same size as Hyacinth's. She was breathing heavily as her side of the circle started to turn silver again while her side of the square remained a steady shadowy black.
"You alright?" Hyacinth asked
"Stage two has been cleared" Kathy said
"He asked about you. Not the stage" Xavier said
"Well, as you can see, Xavier, I am perfectly fine" Kathy said "The Princess is just draining me of all I have. However, now we can move to stage three at this pace"
"Can't we take a little rest?" Pam asked
"Did you seriously ask a child to do this?" Kathy asked
"This ritual needs to be done with those who are close to the Princess or it wouldn't work" Fox explained "For her demon side, you need to have strong ties with her demon and need to care deeply for her. For our side, we've spent ample time with the Princess. We couldn't change the person at the last minute"
"I see" Kathy said
"The advanced spirits I talked about, are kind of like you demons' princes of hell. We are direct descendants of the Spirit King. And there are only twenty of us" Hyacinth said "So the spirit inside the Princess is a relative of mine"
"How weird" Xavier said "This is why I'll never understand spirits" he said and Hyacinth chuckled which made his orb to fluctuate
"Hey" Kathy called out and Hyacinth went back to concentrating "If anything happens to the Princess, both of you will pay dearly"
"Sorry" the men both said
'This woman is surprisingly scary' River thought
"Enough resting. Let's move on to stage three" Kathy said and Hyacinth nodded. The orbs started to get closer and closer to each other while the whole circle lit up silver as the orbs began to slowly merge. At this point, Sloane's tattoo appeared and began to resonate with the two orbs.
Suddenly, River sneezed and the gold orb fluctuated
"Keep the balance, River" Hyacinth said "Any mistakes at this point and the Princess will die. Keep it steady"
"Sorry, Lord Hyacinth" River said
******
Training ground
Rielle took her hands off Norman and Owen's heads. She was with Dante and the others while in the room where everyone used to transport themselves to the human world.
"I've implanted the new memories" Rielle said "I made Owen and Norman think they went to Sloane's house and met her there talking to Kathy. They asked a couple of questions but, after figuring that Sloane was leaving town with Kathy due to everyone blaming every death by wolves on her, they lost interest in the case and returned back to their department, continued with work and headed home"
"So you're sending them home?" Jerald asked and she nodded "But boy was that a great lie to implant in their heads"
"You got their address from their memories?" Nathan asked
"Yeah" Rielle said as she held the door nob and after thinking of Norman's address and adding his bed into consideration, she opened the door "Toss Norman inside. Will you?" she asked and Dante grabbed Norman by the collar and tossed him through the gate. Rielle shut the door and opened it again after thinking of Owen's house address and bed "Toss the..." before she could even complete her sentence, Dante tossed Owen inside
"That solves one problem" Mary said while Rielle shrugged and shut the door
"Are they going to be fine?" Giselle asked
"Rielle's memory magic won't kill them or cause any brain damage" Virginia said "They'll be perfectly fine"
"Now, what I'm more worried about is the war" Allen said
"If you're so worried, you can head on home. I'll wait for Sloane" Nathan said as he walked away
"But your parents-"
"My parents are two fully grown adults who are three times my age" Nathan said with his eyes like larva "They can take care of themselves even for a few minutes. Plus, Sloane is my responsibility and I don't just go abandoning my responsibilities"
"You-" just before Fernanda could oppose anything, Alexa grabbed her shoulder
"Don't, Fern" Alexa said "Time runs differently here. If two hours out there is equal to two months here, that means days here could be mere minutes or seconds. None of us can return without Sloane" she said as Fernanda pursed her lips
"This...has never happened before" Priya mumbled to herself while holding the library key
"What is it?" Timothy asked and she showed him the key which was blinking
"Something's wrong" Priya said as she clenched the key "I shouldn't have left her alone. Who knows what she's going through right now?"