Started: March 14, 2001 Finished: March 17, 2001 Disclaimers: As always, the G-boys belong to Bandai... that hasn't changed in the past day... as much as I wished for it. Damnit! What happened to the Force doing things for me? I've concentrated on that pencil for ten minutes at the very least! @_@ 1+2/2+1. As always. ^_^ Comments VERY welcome and encouraged! Oy! New stuff here. /// = past, or memories. Got it? Good. Imminent Fate, part 14 Shamera sitafire@hotmail.com ///Violet eyes passed through the crowd of younger children gathered besides him. Hands held tight to his own as he watched the battle going on before him. The wards were breaking. It wasn't hard to tell. In fact, you could even see the cracks that the wards were making. See the slight shadows that surrounded them and had the children crying. It was so hard... so hard not to break down and cry himself. But he had to be strong. He had to be strong for the children. For his mate. Blue eyes turned onto him and smiled gently at him behind the mask of terror and fear. They were both only eighteen. Had been married only two days ago. They had been eight when everything started to happen.... And now, this was the end. He knew it. The others knew it. While the Angels were fighting outside, the Void had managed to creep in on their circle that the mythical creatures had erected. The wards wouldn't be able to hold out for long. The only regret was to never see his Guardian again... His beloved Guardian, who was still outside fighting the battle and didn't know what was happening. Wouldn't know until it was too late. But he would go bravely. Perhaps if he were brave, he would be able to get some of the younger children out. Get most of the babies away from the Void. Distract them somehow, maybe. He was afraid. Oh, so afraid. He didn't want to be because he knew that it was a feeling that gave the Void power. But he couldn't help it. He knew that the others in the circle couldn't help it either. The sight of the shadows gathering around them, like sharks in the water... the thought of losing his soul instead of passing to a happy afterlife. He would do it for his mate. He was do it for the children that they had taken care of all their lives. He had to do it somehow... find a way to keep the children safe. The Lady was standing behind him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head sadly, letting pale brown hair creep out from the tight braids that she always wore. The Lady was the oldest child in the village, being only 23. She had been subjected the harsh payments when she had tried to take the children in under her wing, but was rewarded kindly as the child- ren slowly grew up and understood how they benefitted from her strict disipline. "I know what you're think of." she said softly to him. "Don't. You don't have to. They will get back in time. They will succeed." There were tears in her eyes. "Don't give up so soon." He craned his neck to look up at her. Smiled. "I'm not giving up. But this is something that I feel I have to do if the Void does break in. It wouldn't be fair to end the lives of children whom have barely started to live. I've seen happiness. That means, there may be some hope that I will not end up in the Void. Don't give up yourself, m'Lady." The tears in her eyes threatened to spill over, but she only bowed her head at him. "You have courage, little one." His mate squeezed his hand tightly, and he looked over to those cobalt blue eyes. There was a hidden depth in there, one that only he could see. "If you're going," his mate whispered. "Then I'm going with you." He opened his mouth to argue, then realized that the hidden depth in those eyes at the moment were nothing but love and devotion. The kind of love you knew would last forever, and the kind of love that would follow past Death, and perhaps, past the Void. For a moment they looked into each other's eyes, and everything was alright. It was for that moment that he smiled and tilted his head, not breathing out an answer but speaking only with their eyes. "I can't stop you, can I?" He asked, and took the look of amusement in the blue eyes as an answer. He looked back at the wards. The babies were crying now. There were red cracks in the wards that the most magical of creatures had tried to create in such a sort time. It looked like broken glass. It looked like hopelessness. "I love you, you know that?" He asked quietly, not caring as to who heard or not. "Aa. Of course I do. I love you too." Again, the grasp on his hand was solid, and he was able to smile as suddenly the walls of the ward broke... ...and shattered. "Because of that, I will die in peace." he whispered silently./// **NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOT AGAIN!!! YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T!!!!! DON'T DO THIS TO ME! NOT AGAIN!!!!** <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> So once again Zechs Marquise stood in the living room with the rest of the Gundam pilots. This time, instead of having a mask and being nervous, he was without his mask yet he was not nervous. Somehow he managed to keep his cool. "So you're saying," Duo's voice was starting to hitch. "A few weeks after you told us to contact and get a message to _Angels_, by the way, *which we did*, you now want us to go back in time?! What the hell is this, the X-Files?! After we finished this mission, would you like for us to wipe out the entire vampire population?! Or maybe bust the aliens out of OZ?" Zechs raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware of aliens in OZ." "That's besides the point!" "I think what Duo's trying to say," Quatre explained softly, rubbing his temple. "Is that you're exposing us to the supernatural too fast. We have barely come to accept that there's different worlds in the afterlife and that we were to contact that we used to think were nothing but religious infragments before you tell us there you have a time key that will help us travel through time?" "Something like that," Zechs said drily. Duo only groaned from where he was sitting, partly from the ache that the thought caused in his head, or the dull throb of his arm that served as a reminder of what happened the last time he decided to help. "Things have gotten complicated." Zechs tried to explain. "At first the mission-" there was a low growl from Duo across the room at the usage of the word, "was simple. Contact that Angels and leave it up to them. But now we have to solve the situation ourselves." "Then why don't you solve it *yourselves*?" Wufei managed to drawl out. He had his arms crossed across his chest and was glaring for all he was worth at the blonde OZ pilot. "Why do you need us to do this? We are not going to do the dirty work of OZ!" "I would do this myself," Zechs said, "If I could." Wufei continued to glare at him. "Those older than seventeen can't cross the time barriers without dying automatically. Just like demons over seventeen can't touch the Earth without destroying their souls. It is a strange policy, but one done to honors those who died in Conosere." "Conosere?" Trowa asked, echoing the question that they all had but were too proud to inquire. The others shot him a thankful glance. "Where you'll be going." Zechs explained. "Medieval Europe. You won't have to worry about communication, though. When you're going to be going, there are creatures there who have the magic to communicate." "What do you mean?" Quatre asked. "The years that you're travelling to is called the ten lost years. It's the ten years that history didn't record because no one remembers it. Conosere was once the most magical focus on Earth. It no longer exists. In fact, it never really exists." "Then how are we supposed to go back?" Wufei challenged. But anyone could hear that the arguement was now won. Ten years that history forgot.... 'ten missing years in history that no one knew about during the Medieval times, when the Black Death struck fear into the hearts of everyone and no one even bothered to count the deaths anymore.' Duo turned away from the arguement that Wufei was putting up with Zechs, and looked out the small window that served in that room. He suddenly felt clastuaphobic, and needed to get out of the small house. He had to have time to think about the remaining puzzle pieces that he had just recieved. Heero gave Duo a worried look. After a few seconds where Duo sat frozen, looking out the window and oblivious to whatever people were saying, Heero finally stood up. "We're going out." Zechs and Wufei stopped arguing and stared at him. Heero didn't give them a chance to say anything before he gently tugged on Duo's arm, indicating for the boy to get up. After Duo having done so, he lead the boy out the room room and out of the house, ignoring the stammering that he was recieving because of the action. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> "Where are you going, Duo?" Duo didn't stop nor turn, his hand clasped with Heero's tightly, leading them down the streets towards his destination. What Zechs said... that town, Conosere. From what he had read last time, about the Battle... the might be thrown directly into the war between the Worlds. Was that what Zechs wasn't telling them? He had to make sure... he was missing something here. Something about that missing Angel that Heero had talked about. Some- thing about that woman and the alicorn.... "Duo!" Duo jerked to a stop as he was whirled around to face Heero's worried cobalt blue eyes. The worried look there was only intensified as Heero saw the slightly manic shine in Duo's eyes, trying to figure out a puzzle that he couldn't figure out yet due to insufficant data. "Duo." His voice sounded normal now, in that same monotone and slightly nasal words. "Where are we going?" Where-? Duo blinked, then looked over Heero's shoulder to see where they were. A bit far away from the house, that was for sure. All he knew is that there was a piece of information that he had missed, that he could have found if he had been paying a bit more attention. "What?" He asked dumbly. "Where are you taking us, Duo?" Heero spoke softly, his tone changing to that of trying to calm a frightened doe. Duo gave that thought some processing. He was still working so much to trying to solve what he had that he was ignoring the other parts of his brain for a few moments. "Library." "Then we just went past it." Heero explained, and this time tugged Duo away instead of the other way around. "Come." Duo followed reluctantly. "Tell me that you're think about." Heero said gently. Duo blinked for several minutes as they got to the library and entered it, Heero finding them a table at the far corner so that they could get some privacy. It was the same table that he had sat at last time. "What Zechs said..." Duo started, painfully aware that there were much more people in the library this time than last time. His voice was barely above a whisper, taking painstaking care that no one would be able to hear him. "What he said... that he wanted us to go back to ten years that was never recorded in history... about how we're going back to somewhere called Conosere... Yesterday, when you were asking me what was wrong? Before Zechs came to tell us about the Holy Fire? I had gone to the library the day before that. I found a book... something about the ten lost years in history. "It was something about how demons and mythical creatures appeared on Earth for ten years." Duo launched into telling Heero all about what he had learned about those ten years, about what happened to the children of Conosere and all the way up the the battle between the Angels and the Void. "It said that there was an Angel that had been banned from the Angel World because she had broken the barriers. I'm not sure if that's the banished Angel that you were talking about, but it could be." Duo narrowed his eyes at something unseen in the distance. "I'm missing something, though. I know it. There's something else to this story that I don't know about. Zechs wasn't telling the complete truth. Why does he need *us* to go back? He could easily find cadets training for war under seventeen and make them go back. Why us?" Heero didn't respond, processing the information that he had just been given. "There could be a good chance that we could die if we go back. Perhaps it is because of that. To get rid of the problem, and to get rid of us. With- out loosing his honor." "That's the best that I could come up with. But I'm not really sure about that one. If it were so easy, any one of us could have easily figured that out. He knows that we aren't stupid." Duo bit his lower lip. "I'm missing something... I know I am. But what?" "Maybe it's something that you haven't read." Heero suggested. "It could be..." Duo admitted bashfully. "I didn't read the whole thing. I guess I kinda got disgusted with it after a while. Help me find it again?" Heero raised an eyebrow at Duo, a hint of a smirk on his lips. Duo smiled. "I'll take that as a yes." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ///They were too late. She looked upon the bodies of all the children that she had never before seen, yet knew all her life. Dead. Everyone of them. Actually, there were children who survived. There were those who will live on with no memory of this war, without knowing the sacrafices that the other children gave for them, with no memory of the love that they had gained over the last ten years. "It's a chance for them to start all over," she tried to say to herself. "A chance for them to live the lives that they were supposed to live." But it was hard to keep thinking that when she saw another body lying on the ground. Another soul that had been stolen by the Void. Another soul that was never coming back. She had failed. Oh, she had failed miserably and deserved everything that her fellow Angels could take out on her. An eternity of torture would not be enough for the souls that she had lost. The soul that she had lost. Her child. Her charge. Dropping to her knees, unmindful of the blood and gore that was staining her body (she was more aware of the blood that was staining her soul), she reached out a hand to the child that she had once been assigned to protect. A child that she had protected over 2000 years later. How could this happen? This was impossible... especially when she had offered her powers- her very being to protect this one soul and have her child die 2000 years before she had protected him. This was not possible.... Letting out a cry of anger and sorrow, she took this child into her arms, holding this child tightly as she sobbed with self-contempt. She wept for the soul that was now dead, for the life that she had snuffed out because she had been too weak... to late. Hearing soft footfall behind her, she turned her tear stained face to a friends who had been with her ever since she had been a child. "Why?" she asked hoarsely, her grip tightening. "Why did this happen? How could this happen?" Her friend could only stand there, could offer her no answers in the search that she was going through. "I'd give *my* soul... I'd give my soul in exchange..." she whispered, turning her eyes once again to her charge. She brushed away stray locks of hair, and held the child tight to her. "I would. I'd give my soul up for this child. My sweet Dae. My sweet Duo."/// End part 14. O_O;; Well, how many of you saw that one coming? I kinda freaked myself out the way she said that.... but basically, as always, things will be revealed in time. Like Duo said here, I'm giving random pieces of a puzzle that you *can't* figure out yet. If you can... well, shit, dude, you're either a complete genius or you can read my mind. As always, a-ri-ga-to!! My dear readers who have the patience to follow up on this story. *becomes teary-eyed* And reviews. You guys are my inspiration!