The Witch Within Awakening Arc Part 3

A Fall From Grace

It was a year after The War Of The Witch Within and peace was endlessly around, until the awakened one started her work. She knew her sisters well enough to wake them up and felt that peace had lasted long enough and felt like it was time for the façade to drop. She also knew that Reho was in one of them but at that moment she did not have the opportunity nor means to do so.
     So she started her work by seeking out the remnants of the Disciples Of Grasharlo and used her magic to gather them. Once they had dine so she started working on her plan and told them. She made sure that they knew exactly what they each were doing and left nothing out so that if they failed, it would be on their own heads. She had each and everyone if them recite their parts at least three times and to visualize them doing it six before she returned to Underground Town.
     First she tried to lure them away and directly deliver them into her followers hands but when Loc commented about the fact that Gracey was acting off, then after seeing the Disciples Of Grasharlo she put the pieces together in her head. She kicked her hard enough to crack a rib and took Sharimons' hand and fled before she could recover.
     When they were sure that they were not being followed she contacted T.O.O.T.R.O.E.
     "Gracey she has awoken she tried to lure us into her followers hands." She explained. Sharimon looked at her sister in astonishment.
     "No! Not her!" She exclaimed. She turned to the Head.
     "Is there any way to reverse this?" She asked.
     "No, unfortunately once she has awoken she stays that way." He replied. Loc spotted that the corner of Sharimons' mouth twitched. Hollowly she sighed Loc looked away.
     "So this means that we can't have our sister back?" Loc asked as a lump in her throat arose.
     "No, and she must be eliminated as soon as possible before she wakes you two." He explained. With that Loc no longer had it in her to hold back the flood in her eyes. Sharimon placed a hand on her back as her words became a scrambled mess.
     Later when they were alone in their bedroom in Underground Town Loc was still drying her tears. Sharimon looked out with her lip curled and her eyes ablaze.
     "We have to warn her." She said in a tone that clearly stated that she had already made up her mind.
     "But-"
     "She maybe awakened but Gracey is still our sister. I could not care less for what those old fools said there must be a way to reverse this. There must be! We have to go to her and convince her to go back to the way she was!" She argued. Loc looked aside feeling guilty about giving up so easily. She nodded.
     "Yes, we must."
     They left that very night and found Gracey at a cliff on the edge of Underground Town over looking the deep ink blue Underground River and ahead was Underground River Town that sat above the water as if it was floating on its surface.
     "I knew that you would come. I also know what you plan to do and my answer is; no." She said her voice cold and confident.
     "I'm sorry..." Loc said not realizing what she was on about.
     "I will not turn back as I was before. No, I wish never to revert back to that pathetic state ever again nor do I wish for the same for you. No, I wish for something more. I wish for the two of you to be awakened too and for us to become one. Then I can get my revenge on that boy and his family." She stated. "And nothing will stand in my way."
     "And nothing we can say will persuade you otherwise." Sharimon asked as she let a sting of defeat enter her voice.
     "No, but I must thank you for coming of your own freewill for now I hardly need to come after you." She said with a false sympathetic tone. Realizing what she meant Sharimon gripped Locs' wrist and used her magic to magic them to their home. Leaving Gracey to think up a new strategy to wake her sisters. At this point all she wanted was to wake at least one of them, she did not care for which.
     A month later Loc was visiting Banchas' bookshop when a group of hooded figures walked right up to her and picked her up and as she kicked and she was about to scream when she felt something cold and hard press against her forehead and her body seemed to drop. She tried to move but nothing happened and she tried to scream but her jaw and voice box were unresponsive. As they carried her away all she could do was listen to the sound of her own heart beating and see her moving further and further away.
     Then she suddenly dropped and all she saw was a blure and then Sharimon in her sight. She would have looked up at her but her eyes could not move an inch. She then took out a dagger and started to attack them. For a moment things seemed to be looking up but then one of them pressed a red jewel against her forehead and she too dropped, but unlike Loc she looked as if she knew what she was doing and then she disappeared from sight as did everything else. Then she woke in a bunk in the T.O.O.T.R.O.E. Headquarters. Only then did she realize what had happened.
     Meanwhile, when Sharimon was taken and brought before Gracey she was manipulated into sitting at the long black table with different wood manipulated into a leaf pattern with the dark brown being the stem and the lighter being the leaves.
     "Hello sister." She said as she looked up in glee..
     Meanwhile Loc ran to T.O.O.T.R.O.E.s' head and told them what happened. They nodded in understanding and kept calm. They gave her a mandrake herbal tea to calm her down and make her feel better. Which tasted like a combination of camomile and Jasmine just slightly sweet and hydrating.
     "Miss Cerberus, even-though what you did was not your fault, I do say this; this situation has its comsaquences. For your sister, Sharimon might not be the same person when next you meet, however, having said that I and my fellow Elders will promise to help you in all which you ask and need of us. Now having said that, if you were to show any signs that you too have awoken then we will do our utmost to kill you." He explained. She nodded acceptant of the circumstances.
     "Then I will depart to confront Gracey and rescue Sharimon tonight. Please tell my parents where I am and what I am doing. If I am not back by tomorrow evening assume that I am awake and move my parents to a safe location and do all to eliminate me." She said with a voice that somehow hardly felt like her own.
     It did not take her long to find Graceies' layer nor did it take her that long to find them either! It was all a bit too convenient but then again she should have expected at such, for she knew that Gracey did want to be found by her. It was all too clear to see by the hands and feet in the wall that the assault on Gracey was as successful as a fish climbing a tree.
     She spotted her sisters together on the other end of the main hallway which was big and long enough to fit an entire street in with room to spare for a garden front and back almost the same size. It was lit by chandeliers with candles nested in them, and the walls were painted with drying blood.
     Sharimon was pail like she was about to collapse form illness. What had Gracey done to her to make her like that? What exactly had she been told? A sick feeling dawned upon Loc as she saw Gracey playing with Sharimons' hair slowly, putting the girl in a nauseating trance. Then she took out a book, seemingly out of thin air!
     "Lorra Cerberus I have been expecting you." She said almost in a singing like voice. She then wrapped her arms around Sharimon and placed the book in front of her as to force her to read it as she pointed at something that made her cry out in a long horrified scream.
     "No! You wouldn't! Just don't! Please don't!" She cried as Gracey combed through her hair several times until snap! She had plucked a few strands of hair from her head. Gently she placed the strands in the book like a bookmark and muttered words that Loc couldn't hear nor decipher. Then as if for a dramatic conclusion to what she had done she slammed the book closed.
     Sharimon became emotionless as Gracey backed away and she walked slowly over to Loc and took out a dagger seemingly out of nowhere. She lifted it above Locs' head and drove it down but before she was hit Loc jumped back. She then tried to strike her from below and again she dodged but just barely. Then she tried again but this time she was hit across her chest near to where the heart is.
     If something did not happen soon then Sharimon would kill her! She then felt something hit her in the shin and she fell to the floor. She then felt something hit her in the ribs. She looked down only to see the dismembered lims hitting her then a dagger hit her in the back where it hit bone. She then felt a kick in her gut.
     She then felt something rise out of her like adrenaline but this adrenaline made every part of her being feel saw. She just wanted it all to stop, Sharimon being forced to try to kill her, the dead lims that were attacking her and this thing that was rising in her making her feel saw all over. She just wanted it all to end.
     She then felt and immediate release from it all as a shadow covered the whole room and she spotted that electricity escaping from her body and traveling, like a ripple around her as she looked up Sharimon and Gracey became trapped in the shadow. Then the electrical charge struck them and the shadow grew up them. Then she spotted that ice now came from her pours and froze the pair in place as fire came out of her mouth and struck them as it began to rain balls or rock. Then the air became thin and Loc collapsed.
     Loc then woke up in Underground Cities' hospital as her parents sat beside her. Her mother slept as she held her hand tightly. Her eyes were puffy and had dark circles underneath them with twin lines of moisture cut across her cheeks like scars.
     The head of T.O.O.T.R.O.E. stood by her ankles.
     "Tell me what happened." He demanded Loc looked away as she felt her eyes overflow and lost all control over herself.
     She tried to regain control to explain but all she could to was tell him in snippets of sentences before she would lose control again. He then looked at her in shock as she tried to fight off the tears to explain what happened at the end.
     "You used the Elemental Shadow without being taught and lived to tell the tale! This is remarkable!" He exclaimed.
     "Is it?" She asked.
     "Yes, that kind of spell can kill an untrained man for it uses all of that persons' energy for that is why anyone with an average magical level would end up dead. You did it just to stop your pain!" He explained.
     "That is not what I meant. I meant is it remarkable that I killed my own sisters!" She cried as she again lost control of herself as her weeping echoed around the hospital...