Sparkly

Drop

Crystal dropped to the ground in a field of grass blown by the intense winds of a raging storm. Diamond's presence, which she was sure had called her here, was gone.

It had taken Crystal a while to figure out that the signal calling her wasn't in her world at all- this was another dimension entirely.

"DIE!"

Crystal barely managed to get her shield up in time to block a heavy sword swing that would have cleaved her in half.

The magical girl behind the sword was Amber, her face twisted in rage.

"What happened to you, Amber?" Crystal said, gathering her shield firmly to block Amber's repeated blows.

Amber just screamed at her, battering at her shield in a blind fury.

Crystal wondered for a moment what had happened to Diamond, but she focused her attention on the situation at hand.

Crystal closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her will firmly, then opened them and placed a command in Amber's brain.

"Sleep."

Amber went out like a light, and the storm began losing power. Crystal hadn't even realized it had come from her.

Crystal bound Amber's hands together with shining blue shackles of magic energy.

She picked up the sword he'd been using.

"I see. You want to consume me, but you're already focused on someone else." Crystal said, somehow feeling that this was a creature that took the form of a sword.

She'd never seen a creature like this- but in her days as a magical girl she'd seen a lot of new beings. It didn't phase her anymore.

"Are you to blame for Amber's..." she wondered, trailing off.

Was Amber possessed? Just angry? She'd always seemed irritable when Crystal had seen her in the past, but that wasn't the same as murderous rage.

Crystal planted the sword in the dirt at the base of the tree, picked up Amber, and teleported to the bottom of a rocky canyon somewhere on their own world.

"Wake up," Crystal said, focusing her magic on Amber's brain.

Amber opened her eyes, blank at first, then with gathering aggression swimming to the surface.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. Can you tell me what happened?" Crystal said softly, like she was talking to a scared animal.

"I'm not worried about you hurting me. You should be worried about yourself, Crystal." Amber said, glaring at her.

"I'm glad you remember me." Crystal said diplomatically.

So he hadn't lost his memory. Why did he want to hurt Crystal, then?

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" Crystal tried.

"I feel so angry." Amber said, putting her hands to her face, seeming surprised to feel that they were bound together.

The gems floating around Amber returned to her chest and she turned into a blonde haired boy in an upper class outfit.

___

Darius immediately felt more like himself. Not just in that returning to his body felt like greeting an old friend, but in that he had regained some part of his reason.

Darius sighed. Still...

"I've left behind my entire life. Everything I had, friends, family, home. I don't know how to start anew, or if I even deserve to," he said, remembering what he'd done to the mansion.

"I can help you." Crystal said gently.

"I could hurt you. This gem isn't bonded to me, it's bonded to my shadow, a negative piece of me that the Cursed Weapon detached. And the Cursed Weapon..." he glanced around, realizing he didn't have it anymore.

"It's gone." Crystal supplied.

Perhaps that was best.

Crystal patiently waited for Darius to gather his thoughts.

"Is there any way to get rid of this?" he asked, gesturing to his chest where the gem was half merged with his skin.

At some point, the shackles had dissolved.

"I don't know yet, but we can work on it. And in the meantime, how about we find you a job, a place to stay, help you meet some friends?" Crystal offered, extending a hand toward Darius, palm up.

"You don't know what I've done, or what I'm capable of." Darius warned her, although the offer was tempting.

"Wouldn't you rather leave it behind you? I believe in you." Crystal said, smiling at him.

There was absolutely no reason for her to trust him, which somehow made Darius want to prove he was worth that unfounded trust.

He took her hand, and she teleported him into a small, neat living room.

Crystal's gems returned to her and she turned into a blonde haired woman around early middle age.

"My name is Caroline. What would you like to be called?" she asked.

Darius understood that she was offering him a chance to assume a new identity, along with a name, but he liked his own. He was used to responding to it, too.

"Darius." he said.

"We'll have lunch, then see about registering you as a visitor from another dimension. They don't check too closely to make sure you're that and not an illegal immigrant. Just make up a few facts about the world you come from and what sort of magic spell made you end up here." Caroline said, gesturing for him to follow her into the kitchen as she started preparing lunch.

Darius nodded, but something else was on his mind.

"Do you know if Diamond is okay?"

Caroline shook her head.

"I'll see if I can get in touch with her. Psychic communication is tricky and works best in dreams." she said.

Darius nodded, dropping the topic as he offered to help her prepare lunch.