Frozen Hell

"I'll be fine. You should know me by now." Lana said as she nuzzled the flame affectionately, reaching out her hand and allowing it to float freely in the atmosphere. "Show me the next two techniques."

"Okay well here it goes." Balo reappeared in the center of the room with his eyes closed. He muttered some words and suddenly the room itself disappeared and was replaced with nothing but darkness. Balo too was swallowed by the darkness leaving only Lana standing by herself. "Welcome to the Nightmare Realm."

"Nightmare...Realm?"

To be honest, this was starting to send shivers down her spine. It wasn't that she didn't like darkness, no, she liked the dark; but staying in darkness all by your lonesome is a bit creepy.

'Please tell me nothing is going to hop out and scare me half to death...' Lana mentally pleaded.

Balo's voice was coming from what seemed every direction. "This is why I didn't want to bring you here. This realm brings out your darkest, most horrific nightmare and makes you live it for what seems like years when it happens in really only 2 seconds. Even the most veteran vampire would fall in this space."

Balo couldn't risk it anymore. He immediately pulled back the darkness and brought them both back to reality. "After seeing that, do you still want to know what my last and possibly worst trick is?"

Lana took a deep breath before answering. "Yes...I do. Please continue, Balo."

"Just so you know, I won't use the full technique on you. If I did, the sheer amounts of fear would make you want to kill yourself." Balo placed ONE hand on Lana's head and suddenly Lana's body made movements as if to assume it was being ripped apart. Even at minimum, Balo's technique made Lana scared beyond all reason.

He released her head. As he did, she fell to the floor, shaking and sweating, even close to tears. "That was my Reaper's Touch. It makes you play your own death in your mind in several ways over and over in the same way the Nightmare Realm works but there is one difference between the two. With the Reaper's Touch, you still have all your senses. You can feel the pain, you can smell the fire, you can see the blood, you can hear your limbs being ripped off, and the worst part is you feel it all at once which overloads you mind. I only used minimum on you which kind of makes you wonder how it is like at full power."

"I don't...think I want...to know..." Lana gasped as she tried to stop her body from shaking so badly. Just as Balo had said, she had seen her own death...so many painful times. She could still feel the burns, the pain in her chest where she had been staked, her insides churning from being poisoned...and when her body was being ripped apart. The worse part though, was hearing her own bloodcurdling screams. They still rung in her ears and made her whole body shake and shiver.

Lana brought her hands up to cover her ears, just wanting the chilling screams to go away. Without even realized it, she had curled her body into a ball and even began whimpering, still pained.

Now instead of his hand, Balo placed his forehead against Lana's forehead. Thankfully, this calmed her down substantially. "Don't ever ask me to do that again please? I don't like the feeling of using this on you."

Lana managed a smile and wrapped her arms around him. "I'd have to be insane to ask you to do it again. You're not the only one who dislikes this feeling..."

Bringing him down for a kiss, she felt everything; the pain, the screams; go away. He made her feel safe, even if it had been him in the first place that had caused this. Lana didn't care about that, just that he was here with her.

For the first time in a long time, Balo felt like he was helping people. The fact that it was Lana he helped only made it better but then he remembered he was the reason why she was freaking out in the first place. Well, he was making progress at least. "As long as I am here, you will always be protected. I will always be watching over you. That's a promise."

"If you're going to be so busy protecting me, then who's going to protect you?" Lana asked softly, wrapping her arms tighter around Balo. "As much as I like the fact that you want to keep me safe, I don't want anything happening to you either."

"Don't you remember?" Balo looked into Lana's eyes.

Lana blinked a bit. "I guess I'm getting Alzheimer's at so young an age. Help me out here."

Balo sighed. "It happened a few years ago. 'He will be your knight in shinning armor and I will be his blade soiled with the blood of thousands.' Remember now?"

It all suddenly came back to her now. That was when they were still in Eshta Fer, when they were killing off the remaining people who had killed Balo's family, Aelfric included. He had turned into...someone else; Dracula, if she remembered correctly. The rest was history. Lana laughed softly and looked down at the floor, a bit embarassed.

"I guess I really am a ditz vampire if I forgot about that..."

"I guess so." Balo laughed out loud. "At least now you know right? Every guardian has a power source. Since that power is so great, it can't be contained by just us alone. We need a helper which is why he is in here." Balo pointed to his chest. "At birth, we are given spirits to aid us in our plight. These spirits are chosen at random and are not restricted to just vampire spirits. History has shown several of us having werewolf spirits and even elf spirits. As you can guess, every spirit has its own unique power. Mine happens to be the black flame. They protect us in return for us having them in our bodies. Without us, they wouldn't be able to sustain their forms in this world and therefore perish."

Lana smiled. "Then I should be praising Drake for doing that out of the kindness of his heart. Without him...I don't think I really want to know what would have happened back in Eshta Fer."

"Back then was nothing compared to now. Now that my powers have fully awakened, I can access more of his power than before which is awesome I must admit. At first, all that power felt painful to have but then I got more and more used to it. Considering I have one of the most powerful spirits out there, that shows something."

"Oh really? All I see is the same Balo Fry from before, an easy target for teasing!" Lana teased and stood a safe distance away, prepared to run if he was to chase after her.

As Lana was backing, Balo was already standing behind her as she tried to run. "That may be true but you won't get anywhere with that speed." Balo had a smirk on his face.

Lana was smiling as well. "Well, there's no harm in trying now, is there?"

Seeing only one way out of there, she raced to the balcony and jumped, but not before giving Balo a wink. She landed neatly on her feet, raising an eyebrow at her guardian, as if saying, "Are you coming or not?"

Balo whispered in her ear from behind "Already here."

"Holy hell!" Lana jumped in surprise and spun around, though a little too fast seeing as she tripped over her own feet and fell backwards into the snow. "Stop doing that! You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days..."

Balo laughed till his sides hurt. "Maybe that will teach you not to run out a window into the snow with dress heels on." Balo took Lana by the hand and stood her up. "Told you already. You will never be rid of me. Whether that is good or not is up to you. Now lets get back inside. You must be freezing just wearing that."

"I think I have a better idea..." Lana said hintingly, snatching up some snow and rolling it into a ball. "Snowball fight!"

She threw it at Balo, breaking out into laughter as it made contact with his head. Score!