A/N: To Madisen; Madisen and Leah are practically in the same dorm as Kay for the past twenty four chapters of the story. So, I'm sorry if you didn't catch that.
Omgizzle. Thanks for your awesome replies, guys! XD FO SHIZZLEE. Anyway. I am here to prove to you that it's my spring break by giving you guys another update! HAHAHA. This chapter should be a bit more convincing and interesting than the last chapter. Especially since this one is longer and has some action put into it. FO SHOOO. I worked on some of this last night and most of it today. HAH, I'm sick too, and it's not just allergies. BUT I GOT THROUGH THIS UPDATE ANYWAY. Bwahahaha! *hyper on Icebreakers again* So... yeah, anyway. here's the next update, yo. XD AND YES. Al ditched school. HOW EVIL.
Anyway, here's chapter 25! (All 7184 words of it!!)
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An Unlikely Adventure
ShinoRocks127
Chapter 25
Through Misleading Conceptions
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“Hello?” echoed a voice, “Is anybody here…?”
Shade peeked through the door, hearing a creak as he opened it completely. Kevin and Amanda slowly followed behind him, their feet tapping slowly as it bounced back through the empty room while they entered. It was now the time of after-school hours, and most had gone up to their dorms at this time to do homework in order to have free time later. Others might have chosen not to and took their time off of things now.
“Shade, would you mind telling us why we are here again?” asked Amanda suspiciously, pushing her hair back. She never let go of Kevin’s wrist, which she held tightly with both of her hands. She had decided to stay close-by in any case something would just jump up and attack them, or anything else dramatic for that matter.
“We’re trying to help Ash find Al, remember?” Shade replied, “Even if I wouldn’t know why he’d be in here…”
“I wouldn’t know either,” added Kevin, a little bit crept out by his voice echoing. “After all, nobody ever comes to the theatre; well, this one at least.”
“I do wonder why,” Amanda gazed at its assortment of brightly-colored tiles that allowed afternoon sunlight to pass through, making the dusty, old area seem extremely intense and, at the same time, just amazingly stunning, “Drama and choir might have a better feeling to this than the other theatre they’re always using now.”
“I would think so too,” Shade muttered, “But, let’s get back to what matters the most right now.”
They both followed to what the plan was: go find Al, tell Ash, and get back to doing homework- even though it was the least exciting thing of the day aside from classes. The three had later split up to try and accomplish things faster.
First, Shade had gone over to the stage, searching front and back through curtains and other places such as backstage. Then, Amanda explored through doors and places that would lead to other hallways or green rooms where performing arts classes would rehearse before a recital. Lastly, Kevin had fumbled through the remaining places, such as on or underneath the seats and chairs along with the ledges that stood above on the roof where the multi-colored spotlights were hung, or even below where possible trapdoors may have been located. And through their search, it had been unsuccessful.
Amanda sighed, “Still nothing…”
“Guess this takes things to drastic measures,” Kevin paused, trying to add a bit of ‘drama’ in the sentence, “… We have to split up.”
“That we can do,” Shade nodded.
“Guess so; if it’ll help find Al, I guess I’m in for it,” Amanda had agreed with the two as they all put their hands together, broke apart, and went on their own.
---
Ash and Kay were the two other people who went on searching for the missing Al as well. They had decided to think about what Al had said and start searching for the same elevator that he had mentioned to Ash.
“Okay, can you recall from last night exactly where you guys stood before you both split up to go to your dorms?” asked Kay, eyeing the carpet suspiciously as if she were a detective.
Ash lead Kay close to an elevator, stepping her foot directly on the spot, “Right here…”
“I see.” She said, tapping on the wall gently, full of thought, “Would you like if we should see for ourselves what would be beyond that elevator as we descend below?”
“… Let’s just get in,” Ash pointed, after the elevator had gone up when she had pushed the button that was aimed downward. Kay nodded and followed her as the doors slowly closed in between them.
---
Amanda had begun her exploring through the stairway corridor that had lead to the hallway of dorms. It was hollow and empty, leading through longer paths and had doors after every set of steps above, leading to each floor. She cautiously took each step as carefully as she could as she went.
“Now where could he be?” She murmured, carefully searching each and every corner she passed.
Amanda, at one point, looked over at her left and thought her heart stopped when she saw a look-alike of… Shade? Strange… He had looked sort of like an impish version of him that was a bit shorter by about maybe a foot or less. All he had done was nothing but just stared directly at Amanda with his big, blue innocent eyes. (A/N: This impy Shade is a little out of character from the one in PttSoW.)
“Umm, hi?” She managed to have said, her eyes widened with slight shock. Impish Shade did nothing much else but gawk at her, just as he had done since they had come across each other with each other, Amanda returning the stare with a bit of panic; only considering him as friendly despite the time being- and possibly, a bit… cute.
She silently crept up the following steps, and then had thought his imp version as sort of suspicious, though it had seemed to act extremely friendly, she didn’t bother to try and extend through the befriending as far as saying hello because she had to get back to searching; plus it wasn’t exactly like the Shade she knew.
Amanda went on until she had gone up the next flight of stairs, when she gasped all of sudden with astonishment, causing her to fall forward as she went through attempting to proceed. With a bit of alarm, she was, once again, taken by surprise seeing the same Shade above her. This time, he had, oddly, run around in circles until she had got to her feet, as if he was somewhat hyperactive. Amanda went up, standing close-by the door, bending down to her knees to eye the imp closely.
“Hi,” The voice sounded polite as she stared, “I’m… I’m Shade.”
Amanda was speechless. He could talk? For an imp, it seemed sort of rare to her, then again, it’s been a while since she’s seen one standing in front of her- better yet has she seen one. She had always heard that gremlins and imps were types that didn’t say much but gibberish murmurs that nobody in the world would bother to find out what they had meant. Though he had said a familiar name, she knew it truly wasn’t him from the start.
Amanda remember that she had heard stories from Florence a long time ago about how Shade was once in the spirit world and has now lost a few of his forms when he returned to his regular self, such as this impish character, who had still been standing in front of her. She had always believed that they were gone forever, but… now it seemed weird having one of them right there.
“Um, hi… Shade,” She replied nervously, “… What brings you here?”
---
Shade had taken a moment to sit down after taking the time he had to search outside where the courtyard of the school had been located. Normally, he would have actually ventured farther, but something made him want to stop and “take a break.” He took a moment to let his mind linger with his own thoughts. Shade noticed a presence through the quiet area, hearing as if the person sat down next to him.
“Hi,” He addressed with a murmur as he focused his gaze on the ground, never taking a glance to see who had taken a seat on his right.
“Hey,” The person had replied with the same tone, also turning to the direction towards the opposite, not even noticing Shade next to him.
Shade placed his hands on his lap, slowly glimpsing over to the right and gasping, jumping a bit to his left, “Oh, uh…” He suddenly grew speechless as he eyes the familiar face.
The same happened with the person sitting next to him, both of them unexpectedly bowled over in alarm. “… Shade, is that you?”
“Colin?”
“Well, this is… weird.”
“Yeah…” They both turned away, stung with shock to see the person who they haven’t seen in nearly months, probably close to a year. Shade and Colin returned to their still-surprised exchange of gawks.
“This can’t be,” Shade broke the long term of silence, “I haven’t seen you since… that one time in the spirit world when we first met.”
“I know,” nodded Colin, who was also a bit confused, “It’s just weird seeing you here.”
Shade smiled, “Yeah! And at least I can say hi to you again!”
Suddenly, he noticed that there was something strange about this picture; Colin lives in the spirit world, so why would he be here?
“Wait… hold on a second… How exactly… did you get here?”
Colin stood up from where he sat, Shade doing so as well, “I was able to get out somehow and get here…”
“How?” Shade leaned over in interest.
---
“AHHH!!” exclaimed a shriek that came from the roof of the school, “Stop with that stupid laugh!”
“I just wanted to say hello!” said a well-known voice that Kevin seemed to pick up right away, “So, hi!”
“Aren’t you…? What are you…?” Kevin stammered, scratching his head, “Shade? If… if this is a joke…”
Once again, there had been a Shade look-alike, not the imp that Amanda was talking to at that second, but otherwise known as the dark form of him. Kevin stared at this Shade suspiciously, mostly wondering why, even for someone with such a height, would seem to have such a strange, girlish laugh.
“This isn’t a joke!” cheerfully replied Dark Shade as he soared in midair, “I really AM Shade.”
“You don’t really look the part, or act like it, for that matter,” Kevin crossed his arms, barely even half-convinced.
“Okay, so maybe I’m not the Shade you know.”
“… You got that right.”
“BUT… I’m still a Shade. So you can totally trust me! … If you willing to, at least.”
Kevin still wasn’t fully persuaded with this just yet, “Wait a minute… Is there something you’d like to enlighten me with first? Shade told everyone a long time ago that you and his imp were gone when he came back to his regular self here. So, yeah, why would you be standing right in front of me?”
Dark Shade tapped his fingers thoughtfully, floating down to the ground while he had left Kevin to bend down in order to make direct eye contact as he spoke. “Well, actually, it’s been a while since someone’s actually cast a spell to release spirits from the other world.”
“What do you mean?”
“There were recent discoveries of an escape route between the boundary line of the real world and the spirit world- the word ‘recent’ meaning just around yesterday evening. Spells such as those are, thus, impossible to perform nowadays. In certain cases, it could be done, but there hasn’t been such an attempt in decades.”
“Decades, you say? How long ago?”
“I’ve heard that the previous one was made around near the sixties, probably seventies, before Shade or I came to existence, or even you or any other regular student here.”
“The seventies, eh? Weird, that was when the ‘library of the world’s hugest resources’ was destroyed, the late seventies- before DISOM even became… well, DISOM.”
“Precisely. That’s the thing; the library isn’t really destroyed. It’s still standing way underground, like it’s actually some secret society without anybody even there- kind of ironic actually.”
“So, if it’s still there, then why did the people say around the near-eighties that it vanished all of a sudden?”
“… You might know this story. There was a genius that had known every single bit of information about the world known to mankind, just as you may have heard. This person was the one who created the library, obviously. It appears that his purpose for creating it was so that the people on Earth had the help they needed for either their everyday lives or any resources for schoolwork or anything of some sort. That is, until he had noticed in the past decade that most of his visitors have come to have any sort of assistance on plotting out either their revenge or make head starts to take a step forward to make a triumphant finish to their sworn enemies, which thus caused his information to be a tool for starting war around the world.”
“It was then that he had now executed every person that only came to scheme vengeance. Even when it seemed that a few visitors hadn’t come over for that reason, he had still relinquished them anyway. Everyone had soon stopped dropping by over there as soon as they had gotten word of the paranoid causes of intentional, cold-hearted homicide and out of the ordinary disappearing of people. The creator had actually had others become somewhat convinced that the library was ruined in order to stop people from questioning and just get on with their lives, or at least try to get to the other theory that he was killed from the trembles and quakes that fell down upon him as he wrote due to how old it had been. It had fooled people for decades, and as of now, it seems that this is a first in years.”
“Wow,” Kevin stood there for a moment, “So the textbooks we’ve been learning off of were actually proving only factoids and fictitious evidence. Well, now that I think about it, I’ve always thought there was something wrong when I glanced on those pictures.”
“Exactly. Now it seems that there’s been a recent visitor in that library and cast a spell to help us escape here. I would wonder who, though…”
Kevin thought for a moment, later on gasping in sudden realization that struck him directly on the head, “It was Al! … That… That’s it! He wasn’t lying to Ash when he told her about the library he went to and how he cast a spell that wouldn’t work and… and how it was all the way underground and how the elevator was cursed!”
He practically grabbed Dark Shade and started shaking him as soon as he had discovered one of the huge puzzle pieces that could solved such an epic mystery, “Do you KNOW what this means?”
“… That I’ll die because of you choking me?”
“No! It means that there’s… wait, I thought you were already dead?”
“Never mind…” Dark Shade sighed. “I guess that’s where we can find that… friend of your’s.”
“You know what, that might be where he is,” Kevin darted down to the elevator, calling out a quick thanks before the doors closed.
“Wait!” called out Dark Shade, “You don’t know if you might survive there now that there’s evil spirits… around…”
Dark Shade shook his head, letting out a soft sigh, floating down to the first floor, “It was nice knowing him…”
---
“Gee, that explains the strange things happening,” Amanda murmured as she faced impy Shade, who she had been sitting next to while he was telling the story- his slightly higher voice had sort of scared her, even.
“Yup,” said the grinning, somewhat cheerful imp, “I’m pretty glad I got to get over here! Things are real fascinating around here in this… place. It’s, well, a school, right?”
She nodded, “Yes indeed. You’re looking at DISOM- don’t ask what the entire acronym stands for.”
“Interesting,” He said.
“But, wait…” Amanda said with her mind now thinking real hard, “If you’re here… and Dark Shade is here, then… wouldn’t Shade know?”
Impy Shade shrugged, “As far as I can tell, I wouldn’t know where he is.”
“I’m mostly concerned with the fact that having two of his other forms here might slowly drain out his energy…” She thought for a moment, “Wouldn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so…”
“I think we better find a way to get you guys back, then.”
“That, I can do…”
Amanda groaned a little, “But we’re all the way in the seventeenth floor- in a flight of stairs! How will get there in time?”
“Looks like Shade hasn’t told you what I can do…” Imp Shade grinned, leaving Amanda bemused for a minute.
---
“I guess that explains then,” said Shade, after Colin was there to explain every single detail.
“By now, I think most of the people in the spirit world have escaped,” Colin said, “And not only there, but… people from the dead.”
“Ooh,” Shade muttered in slight disgust, “I just don’t get how that person wouldn’t have destroyed the elevator that lead to the library; someone like Al could’ve gone there- and I’m afraid that he did.”
“I’m guessing he has alchemy powers?”
“Yeah…”
“Then he was the one that, obviously, did it. Alchemy is one of the only things that can be used in most of the spell books in that library,” Colin looked over at Shade for a moment with a bit of concern, “… You okay?”
“Sorry, I think I lost you for a minute there,” murmured Shade, closing his eyes for a moment, “But back to the point… that must be why he ‘ditched’ school earlier. You said it was last night when you guys got out, right? I guess that meant that he must’ve gone earlier today to try and reverse the spell.”
“Guessing so…”
“Only, if he was trying to undo it, wouldn’t you guys, you know, be back in the spirit world?”
“Seems like he was a bit unsuccessful.”
“Do you think you might know where he is now- seeing as he’s been gone for a while?”
“I wouldn’t know exactly, but I’m afraid that when the spirit world released all of us here, then there wasn’t only good that are here, but bad as well.”
Shade gasped, “We better hurry, then.”
“I’m right behind you then, Shade…” And with that, they both hurried out to find the library.
---
“Wow, this is a strange place,” said Kay, hearing her footsteps echo through the darkened library, “Hey Ash?”
“Yeah?” Ash managed to say, picking up a book and flipping through a couple of pages.
“Why are we here again?” Kay murmured, getting a bit scared.
Ash sighed, “We’re here to find that dork, Al. For all I know, he might’ve taken by some monster.”
“Uh,” Kay looked up, trembling and stung with shock, “I… I think… he was,” She grabbed Ash by the wrist, pointing over at a monster and then there was Al, who was shackled to the wall.
---
“Wow, that was strange.” Amanda said, looking from one direction to another. She gasped, hearing a familiar voice.
“Shade! Come on!” Colin said, putting his running to a halt when he noticed that Shade had stopped.
“I’m trying!” Shade had called out in exhaustion.
At this point, Amanda had known she was right, “Shade! Wait!”
Shade looked up, upon hearing his name being called, “Amanda?” He stopped to look over at the look-alike of him standing next to him, “… Whoa, what’s going on here?”
Impish Shade looked up at his regular self, “So this is what I look like…”
“You guys like almost exactly the same,” Amanda scratched her head, “But anyway, where are you and your… friend heading off to?”
“To the library; if you know what I mean,” Shade replied, still staring down at his imp form. “But wait, if you’re here, then… is Dark Shade here?”
“I’m thinking so,” Colin replied for imp Shade, “Haven’t come across him lately, but I saw him and this one when I was on my way out.”
“Oh boy,” sighed Shade gravely, “Guess this explains why I’m so… worn out.”
“That’s why me and your… um, imp here tried to find you,” Amanda said, “And, by the way, you never told me you have teleporting powers!”
“Well, back then I did,” Shade said, shrugging, “I don’t have them now.”
“Gee, sorry for being a little hard on you,” apologized Colin, “If I would’ve known, I think I’d probably be ten times nicer.”
Shade wasn’t one bit upset, “It’s okay; you were just trying to help out…”
“Well, anyway, we better get over there, then.” Amanda said, “Before it might be too late…”
“That we can do,” imp Shade broke from his silence, “Let’s go!”
Shade, still a bit weirded out by this, had started off behind them. Everyone was keeping up with the same pace as him, now knowing about his ‘situation’ at the moment.
---
Dark Shade had gone from one part of the school to the other, trying the best he could to try and find Kevin, to warn them about the dangers of going down to the library without anybody. It had taken him a while, but he found Kevin before he even stepped about an inch inside.
“Wait!” He called out, still not knowing his name.
Kevin turned around and saw Dark Shade floating to the ground. “Hey, you sound… troubled. What’s the matter?”
“I was trying to tell you something before you went down to that elevator in the roof, but it closed before you heard a word.”
“Well, I’m listening…”
“You can’t go down there!”
“And, why not? You told me that people are in danger and NOW I can’t go?”
Across the hall, a few more footsteps had run over, catching up to both of them. It had been Amanda, who was the first to run over, practically tackle-hugging Kevin. “It’s dangerous down there, that’s what!”
“What she said,” Dark Shade said, crossing his arms. Shade and the rest had soon caught up with Amanda, leaving Shade to be the most surprised to see his dark-self again; their last encounter had been back in the swamp.
“I’m guessing this is a bit of a family reunion, eh?” Kevin said, looking over at the three different forms of Shade standing together.
“Guessing… so?” shrugged Shade, “But let’s just get down to business; before something bad happens at least.”
And with that, everyone rushed over to the ominous elevator’s open doors, slowly making their way down through the subterranean part of the school…
---
“Wait, if casting that spell meant that everyone from the spirit world, then, wouldn’t he have done it more than once to have enough people actually get away?” asked Kevin as the elevator made its way downward.
“I’m guessing so,” Colin said, “After all, casting the spell only once gives the first person nearest to the portal an escape route and nobody else. So he must’ve done it… around ten times.”
“What?” Amanda exclaimed in shock, “Wow, he must’ve been crazy or something.”
“Seems like he was,” Shade murmured, leaning back on the wall tiredly. In a matter of minutes, the elevator finally came to a complete stop and the doors opened slowly in opposite directions. Everyone stepped out, fascinated in awe; save both dark and imp Shade, who have already been through this area.
“So it isn’t destroyed after all,” Kevin said.
“That’s kind of what I told you earlier,” Dark Shade stared.
Shade, being the one farthest behind, picked up a book that the rest of the group seemed to have missed, a spell book to be precise. It was open to the exact page where Al had cast his spell. Attempting to catch up with the rest, he exclaimed, “Hey guys! I think this is the one!”
“That’s great!” said Amanda, “Can’t we reverse the spell for ourselves?”
“Unfortunately, it seems like you can’t,” replied Colin, “This spell is only able to be performed by holders of alchemic abilities. Those kinds of people seem a bit ‘rare’ these days.”
“Well, the only two people I know who has them are Ash and Al, but they’re both somewhere else!” Kevin added.
“Gee, guess we have to find them then,” Shade sighed, “Which I hope won’t exactly be too hard to do…”
“… I don’t think it won’t be much of a problem, Shade,” Amanda stared over at the three people they could easily recognize- Al, Ash, and Kay…
---