A/N: 12-27-07 This chapter edited due to a hoard of spelling errors. u.u; It looks much better now. n.n
"Who are you?" This from a defiant looking woman perched on a table in a corner.
"Who are you?" a Cruxis angel asked her in reply.
"I...Give me your name and I shall give you mine," she said, smiling slightly with a rebellious glint in her eye.
"Arrogance will get you nowhere," said the Seraph, crossing his arms. "My name is of no importance. Your name, however, is. Or would you rather be referred to as a number? Becau--"
"Alright! My name is Anna," said the woman, looking defeated.
The Seraph looked at her. "And here I was told that you don't listen to orders..."
"Well, that really wasn't an order..."
"Where are you from?"
"I'm from...Luin," she said, eying the angel curiously. He worked for Cruxis, this much she knew, but he wasn't yelling or hitting her with something. She wasn't sure if she should be thankful or worried.
"OK, Anna, from Luin, I want you to tell me your story."
"My...story?"
"How did you come to be in this place? What has happened to you while here? Apparently, Kvar is starting to see you as more trouble than you are worth. Considering the circumstances, that is really saying something."
"Good," she said, smiling widely. Her pretty, white teeth stood out in her dirty and battered face. "Let him get pissed. Why should I care?"
The angel shrugged. "Its your life on the line, not mine."
"Do you honestly think that he'll kill me? 'Cause I don't. Even if he did, I would rather die than be submissive like an abused dog."
The Seraph was uninterested in continuing this conversation. It depressed him to know that this woman would rather throw her life away than mind her manners.
"I think," he said, "That we should start with how you got here."
"Won't you...won't you need a computer, or a notebook and pen?"
"No," he said absently. "I have a wonderful memory. Now, begin, please."
She started her story with a faraway look in her eye, like she was playing the scenes slowly in her mind as she talked to the Seraph.
One rainy day, almost seven years ago, a group of Desians came to Luin.
"Bring all of your young women into the street!" They shouted.
I was fourteen then, and apparently, that qualified me as a young woman. My mother begged my father to hide me. "Please!" she wailed, "They won't notice one missing! They probably aren't even aware of her existence!"
"No!" He shouted, pulling me. "If we don't bring her and the Desians find out, they will kill us all!" He pried my mother's arms off of me and drug me with him into the wet street.
I was put into a line with every girl that I knew and some that I didn't. The rain poured down around all of us. Most of us had our father's hands clasped on our shoulders, as if they were afraid that we'd try to run. One girl, however, stood alone. I could tell that she was older than me. She stood straight and proud, like she wasn't scared at all. I can remember thinking about how brave she looked.
My best friend, Lily, stood next to me. "What's going to happen to us?" she whispered.
"I don't know," I replied. My father tightened his grip on my shoulders.
The Desians moved slowly down the line. Every now and then, a girl was plucked from her father's grasp.
Lily leaned over and whispered, "We're all going to catch a cold!" Her father shushed her.
After what seemed like hours, the Desians reached us. They already had five girls with them. Lily and I were each jabbed with a needle. I winced as a Desian drew our blood. He labeled the two vials with our names and handed them off to another Desian with a computer.
After a few moments, the Desian looked up. "We have a match, Sir. On both of them," he said, looking back to his computer.
Lily and I were shoved into the group with the five other terrified looking girls. Before we were taken out of the city, three more girls were added to our number. The last one to be taken was the older girl who I had noticed earlier.
As we were marched out of the city, some of us could see our mothers. Their tear stained faces looked at us sadly through windows streaked with rain.
We were led to the Asgard Human Ranch. After the initial testing and an unpleasant process that they called "sanitization", we were all brought to a large room.
Lily was still beside me. It soon became clear to me that she wasn't taking our situation seriously. We were at a Desian Human Ranch! Did she realize that?
"Look how ugly our dresses are!" she whispered to me, holding up the corners of her faded brown dress. "And, our feet are bare!"
"Stop complaining, Lily!" I growled quietly at her, rolling my eyes.
A man walked in front of us. He had long gray hair that was tightly pulled back. His eyes were so squinted that they looked like slits in his face.
"How in the world does he see?" Lily said quietly. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
"ShutUP, Lily!"
The squinty-eyed man began to talk. "My name is Lord Kvar," he said. "I'd like to congratulate you for being here."
Congratulate?
"You ten girls are very special," he continued. "You are the only girls in all of Sylvarant who are compatible with my newest project!"
I did not like the sound of being a Desian leader's project.
"I'd like to start off by telling you that just because your bodies are special, it does not mean that you will receive any special treatment. You are still inferior beings and you will still be treated like all of the other inferior beings here.
You will work twelve hours a day and be fed two meals. If you misbehave, you shall be severely punished. You will live in cells apart from the rest of the humans. There will be three of you in each cell; one cell will contain four."
Some of the girls cast nervous glances at each other.
"Now, when you leave this room, my associates will take you to separate rooms in pairs of two. There, a unique version of a devise called an Exphere will be attached to your bodies. This Exphere will remain a part of you until the day you die."
I gulped. He said that last part in a way that indicated that day might come sooner than we all hoped.
I wound up being separated from Lily. Three Desians pulled me and a smaller girl down a long hallway and into a tiny room.
A woman stood inside. I had never seen a female Desian before. She smiled at us. I'd never seen a Desian smile either.
"Just come over here, please," she said, pointing toward two chairs that were against the wall.
I looked down at the girl beside me as we walked toward our chairs. She was probably no older than eleven. She looked terrified. I touched her arm and found that she was shaking.
I didn't know it then, but that little girl would be the first of us to die.
A few hours later, I had an unpleasant blue jewel attached to my throat. It felt like someone was pressing their hand against my neck. It hurt and it itched badly.
We were thrown onto the stone floor of a cold cell. I was surprised and relieved when I looked up to find Lily smiling at me from one of the three beds. After hugging her and sitting down beside her, I realized that we were the group of four that Kvar had mentioned. The older, proud-looking girl who I had been admiring earlier sat on a bed with her back against the wall. She had her eyes closed and a light green Exphere was poised on her pale neck.
We were all silent. I wanted to ask the other girls who they were. I opened my mouth to speak, but Lily cut me off. "I'm Lily and this is Anna," she said, first pointing to herself and then to me. "What're your names?"
"I-I'm Namiko," squeaked the small girl, from her place on the third bed.
"My name is Yumi," said the older girl. She blinked her eyes, as if she had just realized that she wasn't alone in the cell.
"How come I've never seen either of you before?" Lily said. She sounded suspicious.
"My...family...actually, just moved to Luin..." squeaked Namiko, rubbing her Exphere.
We all looked to Yumi, who hadn't answered yet. "I don't really come outside much."
"Why?" questioned Lily.
"I...because!" Yumi snapped. She leaned her head back against the wall and said no more.
Lily started to say something else, but I elbowed her in the side. She glared at me and soon fell asleep.
Later in the night, the sound of ragged breathing woke me. I sat up and looked around. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw Namiko scratching at her Exphere, which was glowing a bright red.
I scrambled across the room. "What's wrong?!" I whispered.
"I...can't...bre...breathe!" she squeaked, clawing at her neck with both hands and gasping.
I looked around. Lily would do me no good. She didn't know magic or anything. I didn't think any of the guards would help me. So I woke Yumi up.
"Huh... wha...whadduya doing!?" she grumbled sleepily as I shook her awake.
"Its Namiko! She can't breathe!"
Yumi went quickly to Namiko's bed. She looked down at the small girl and mumbled something like "You call this a 'young woman'?" She placed her hand upon the flailing child's chest and I watched as her hand glowed green.
Namiko stopped struggling to breathe. "Th..thank you!" she said while taking gulps of air.
"Wow!" said Lily excitedly, trying to be quiet. "How'd you do that, Yumi?"
I realized my mouth was hanging open and closed it quickly. I had never seen anyone do magic.
"I am...uh...m-my mom was..." Yumi stammered. She looked around at us all staring at her. "I'm a half-elf, OK?!" She looked embarrassed and quickly got back to bed.
Lily, Namiko, and I gaped at each other. Why did they put here in here, I found myself thinking. If she's one of them?
"Yumi..." I started.
"We don't-" Lily started to finish, but Yumi cut her off.
"I don't want to talk about it!" she said to the wall. She sounded like she was crying.
"So this woman, Yumi, she was a half-elf?" asked the Seraph, who had found a chair for himself.
"Yes," said Anna.
"I've never heard of a half-elf being held at a Ranch," the angel said, more to himself than to Anna. "I suppose it didn't matter to Kvar, as long as her body was compatible..."
"Yumi was the only half-elf I have ever known," Anna said quietly.
"Was?"
"Yeah."
The human looked very sad for a moment, and then continued her story.
The next morning, we were taken to a room where we each had a number tattooed on our hands. Mine was A012. Lily's was L178, Namiko's was N093, and Yumi's was Y051. I scratched at my hand while we were led into the sun to do our work.
It was meaningless labor, this I realized soon enough. We pushed large,unbelievably heavy blocks around in circles all day. But we knew better than to pause, because we had just seen a child, no older than five, whipped until he passed out.
After twelve hours of this, we were thrown back into our cell. They gave us a hunk of bread and some old cheese. We shared a mug of water.
I sadly recalled the meal I had shared with my family before I had been taken from them. I wondered if my parents were thinking of me and a tear slid down my face.
"Do you...do you think that our parents are sad?" asked Namiko, who had apparently been thinking the same thing I was.
I looked at her. She was so small. "I'm sure they are," I smiled at her. She smiled back.
We followed the same routine the next day. Pathetic food, pointless work, more pathetic food, and sleep. It went like this for more than a month. We were like drones. We were all whipped at least once. Lily got it twice. One thing we noticed was that we were the only ones in the entire ranch who had our Expheres on our necks. We looked for anything abnormal, some minor ripple in the daily sameness.
Finally something exciting happened.
After eating, Yumi motioned for us to come close to her.
"I've found out why we're here," she whispered.
"They're using our bodies to grow something," she continued, "Called a Cruxis Crystal."
"Cruxis...Crystal?" said Lily. "What's that?"
"Well, I don't really know all of the details. But remember when we first came here and Kvar said that these things," she pointed to her Exphere, "were unique forms of Expheres?"
We nodded.
"Well, it turns out that they're evolved forms, and Kvar is trying to turn them into Cruxis Crystals. He calls it the 'Angelus Project'."
"How?" I said.
"Apparently, they're feeding off of us. They use the mana from our bodies to thrive."
"If they're taking mana from us, we'll die!" whispered Namiko. She had grown considerably thinner and paler in the past month. "We should just take them off then!" She reached up toward her neck.
"NO!" whispered Yumi frantically. She grabbed Namiko's hand. "No. If you take it off, it will turn you into some kind of monster."
"Wait," said Lily. "How is it that you know all of this?"
"Lily, I can't tell you that," said Yumi. "Because I don't want Hi-- I don't want anyone getting in trouble."
"So," said the Seraph, "She was getting information from somewhere?"
Anna nodded. "Yes."
"An insider?"
"Yes."
"I see," the angel leaned back in his chair. "Go on."
Anna started to continue, but a door opened behind her. A Desian walked in.
"Lord Kratos," he said, bowing. "Lord Kvar says that Lord Yggdrasill has summoned you."
"Hmn..." said the angel, nodding. "Tell him I will be right there."
The Desian nodded and left.
The Seraph turned toward the girl. "It appears that we'll have to continue this conversation some other time."
"When?" she said, standing up. "When will I see you again?"
"Why does it matter?"
She looked at the floor. "You..." she crossed her arms. "You aren't like them."
"No," he said. "I suppose I'm not."
"So when are you coming back?"
"I will return soon enough," he said.
Before she could say anything else, be left her. The girl stood alone, waiting for a Desian to come and throw her back in her prison.
Kratos...