Ashes to Ashes (Shade, Simon, and Fury)

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!
SMASH!

The alarm clock shattered across the wall as Fury sat up in bed. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and pulled himself out of bed. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the lights. Taking a look in the mirror, he saw that he needed to shave. He pulled out his razor and shaving cream and got to work. Have to look pretty for the big day, he thought as he stepped into the shower to try to wake himself up and get clean.

Fifteen minutes later he stepped out of the shower and slipped into his clothes. He wore his all black combat fatigues that he had worn when he was in Task Force 3. He reached for his combat vest and slung it over his shoulder before walking into the small kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to watch the sun come up over the horizon.

This was the day.

This was the day that they all had been waiting for. After waiting nearly two months after he and his sister had gone back in time and across dimensions together, Simon had finally finished the machine that will allow them to take everyone to exactly where and when they needed to be to strike back against the Fringe. They were all going back to the day that the Fringe turned their lives upside-down and tore them all up. Well… it tore the others up. Fury had already been ripped from that dimension and world by that time by a mad scientist and his own damnable powers. It made him wonder what if as he sat there with the orange glow of the sun spreading across the land.

Today he was going to find out. Today, they were going to strike back against these monsters and make a stand. They were going to reverse everything those time-traveling trots did to them and finally get some peace. They were going to repel them back into the worm-hole in which they came and leave their world standing tall. There was no what only do.

Fury washed the coffee mug out in the sink and then walked to his daughters’ room. He smiled at the sight of both of them in their beds, sound asleep. His mind wandered to what would happen to them if he didn’t come back…

He shook his head. No, not “what if” only “do” Fury walked over to Alivia’s bedside and sat down on her bed. He brushed a loos hair out of her face and said, ”Come on, Time to get up.” She slowly woke up as he walked over to Serenity’s bed and mimicked the action to wake her up too. ”It’s a big day for you two. It’s your first day of school. We’ve got to get you two ready and down to the school area.” At hearing this, the two were suddenly awake. They both were rushing to get dressed in their SeeD uniforms as Fury helped each one of them. In a matter of moments, both were dressed and ready to go. After a quick breakfast, they were all off to go to the SeeD school.

Fury walked into the door of the school area with a small hand in each of his own. Walking in, Alivia quickly let go of his hand to rush over to talk with her friends. Serenity, on the other hand, was hiding behind his leg. Fury’s brow crinkled and bent down to face her. ”What’s wrong?” Serenity just buried her face in his shoulder. Fury brushed her hair and said, ”Come on, tell me what’s wrong.” The only answer he got was her head shaking back and forth on his shoulder. Fury pulled her back to look at him in the eye and said, ”Are you nervous?” Serenity slowly nodded. ”Oh, there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’re gonna do great.”

Serenity spoke so softly that Fury almost didn’t hear what she said. ”But… what if no one likes me…”

Fury paused, not quite sure what to say. ”Honey, why would you say that?” He could see that she was at the verge of tears. He hated it when they cried.

A tear rolled down Serenity’s cheek. ”Because I’m not from here…” And as if someone broke a dam, more tears rolled followed by sobbing and heaving.

Fury picked her up and sat her on his knee. He pulled her in for a hug and said, ”Ohhhh…. Come on, don’t say that. You deserve to be here more than half these kids. I mean look at that one,” He pointed to a small red-headed boy with curly hair and glasses who was picking his nose, ”He can’t even keep his fingers out of his nose, much less tell me all the different magics like you can.” A chuckle slipped out between sobs. ”Now listen to me. Those kids would be insane not to like you, but if you still don’t believe me, I have something for you…” Serenity looked up at him with her hazel eyes. Fury reached up behind his head and unhooked the chain that was hanging around his neck. He pulled out the small wing charm on the chain and put the necklace around her neck. ”This was your grandmother’s. Your Aunt Shade gave it to me to have and now I want you to have it. Whenever you feel lonely, I want you to grab those wings and remember that your grandma is with you, ok?” The tears had stopped and Serenity nodded furiously at him. He hugged her again and said, ”I love you. Knock’em dead.” He stood up as Serenity rushed away to be with the other kids.

The bell rang for them to get to class and Fury turned to walk away when he felt someone tug on his hand. He looked down to see Alivia staring up at him. He knelt down and scooped her up in a big hug and said, ”Good luck. I love you.” She pulled him in tightly and said, ”I love you too, Daddy.” He put her down and she rushed into the classroom. Fury turned and walked out of the school before anyone saw the tear roll down his cheek.

Fury walked into the central elevator and inserted his key into the emergency activation slot and turned it. Instead of going up like usual, the elevator started to descend. A few moments later, the doors opened up, revealing a stark white laboratory with large computer screens taking up most of the walls. Across the large room was a large, ominous tunnel. Fury walked across the catwalk over to a room off to the side. He opened the sliding glass door and walked inside. As he did so, the lights came on automatically, revealing the large armory. He began grabbing gadgets and weapons, preparing for the mission. When he was finished, he walked back into the laboratory and sat down, waiting for the others to show up.

He leaned back in his chair at the command console and pulled out a cigar and his zippo. He cut the end of the cigar off with his knife and lit it up with his zippo.

"...Fury. ...I honestly shouldn't be surprised Shade ignored my reccomendation."

The voice of the young Gadgeteer echoed from inside the mechanized tunnel. While the words were matter-of-fact, the tone spoke of weariness.

Of course, to explain that, you would need to know the hell that building a Rift Gate is.

Rift Gates are a means by which one may pass from one multiverse to another. This simplistic explanation, however, obscures the engineering marvel that such a thing is. To begin with, it involves creating a sustainable link to the Interdimensional Rift. Of course, the Interdimensional Rift is, in and of itself, a misnomer; it is not a rift, so much as it is a dimension in and of itself. Any Gravity is all Gravity. Any Magic is all Magic. When you take this into account, travelling in the Interdimensional Rift is, in fact, Time Travel. Since all "worlds" obey the same physical and metaphysical laws, it can be surmised that all worlds share a common genesis. Meaning, moving in the Interdimensional Rift is a full awareness of movement in, at least, the 5th dimension.

Meaning, to get back to their world, they would have move from one 4d world line to another. Sixth dimensional travel, at best.

Of course, all these are metaphysical concepts that most people don't understand. Simon, one of the men involved with the original project in their world, and the project head, here, struggles with anything above the Fifth.

Walking out into the light of the lab, Simon looked an absolute fright. Clothes singed from sparks and solder, soaked through in places with various liquids, and generally speaking of a hard day's night. And, yet, he wore the belt containing his Vent Cards, and the brace for his armorsytem. His shotgun and blade hung on the armory wall. Pulling a small bottle from his vest pocket, he drained the foul-tasting contents in one go. He'd probably sleep for a year, if they survived this, but, he meant to follow-through with this. Finish what he'd started.

"...I know better than to try and convince you, Fury. But, I think it bears repeating."

Pulling the card pack off his belt, and flipping the speaker on the buckle to mute, he slotted them together, the system ready to generate his armor at a moment's notice. Walking into the armory, Simon retrieved his weapons. He said the next thing looking down the edge of Dragonheart, from the hilt end.

"Even if the Gateway doesn't collapse behind us, or, worse, ON us, we'll be facing off against the entirety of the Fringe's martial might. ...This could very easily be a one-way trip."

Pinching the blade between metal fingers, he ground the superfine edge. An unnecessary action, but, somehting about that sound of sharpness was satisfying.

"...You're sure you want risk it? You're the only one out of all of us that has something to lose."

Fury had hardly even puffed once on the cigar when he started to feel sick to his stomach. He looked down to the cigar confused because he never got sick from cigars. He glared at the red-hot embers at the end of the cigar. Finally, he jammed the cigar into the ash-tray on the console and swore under his breath. Fine… I guess I’m done smoking… Thanks, girls, he thought as he pictured Alivia, Serenity, and Jayda flicking, breaking, and the flushing down the toilet of his cigars and cigarettes. When he got back, he was finally going to quit. Cold Turkey.

He took a deep breath in as he heard Simon begin to speak from inside the tunnel. Fury heard about Simon’s “recommendation” and told Shade very politely that if she would try to go through with it she could “blow the orders out her ass” because he was still going. There was too much riding on the line for him to just sit on the sidelines while everyone played ball. And he was damned sure he wasn’t going to allow this motley crew to go back without him.

Simon emerged from the tunnel in his haggard state and rubbing the oil and grease from his hands onto a wash cloth. Fury could tell just by looking at him that Simon was running on less sleep than was healthy for anyone. The boy was pushing himself to his limits over this, which made Fury wonder: If he was so pessimistic about the mission, why was he killing himself over getting it going? He knew that Simon was just as affected by the attack of the Fringe as the others, but he never learned the particulars.

”Simon, the gateway isn’t going to collapse on us, because we’ve had the best damn gear-head in the garden building it. Plus, Vex and I went behind your back and rechecked all of you readings.” Fury shot Simon a wink to let him know it was a joke. He stood up and grabbed the Grievance’s rifle bag and opened it up on the console. He removed the rifle from the bag and began to check over it. ”And don’t think like that. We’re all coming back from this, whether I have to drag you guys back kicking and screaming or not.”

He glanced up to Simon as he dragged his finger across his blade making the scratching sound. He studied him while searching for how exactly he was going to answer him. ”I’m not the only one with something to lose, Simon. We all have a lot to lose. Each one of us has something that we are going there for. Jayda and Vex have their parents, Shade and I have ours, Brix has her dad, and you have Caroline. Not to mention all the other innocents that will be hurt if we don’t help. I am not going to stand by while you all risk everything for us. I’ve never declined a mission before because of fear of losing because I don’t think about it. Defeat is not an option, only winning. When we’re in home dimension there is only the mission, nothing else.”

Fury slid the revolver home and brought the scope up to his eye to make sure it was still fine. ” Besides, I never go on a mission without being prepared. If something would happen to me, the girls will be perfectly fine. Which is all that really matters.”

Pleased with how his rifle looked, he placed it back in its case. He stood up again and walked over to the ominous tunnel and stood at its mouth. ”Sooo…. Now that we got that out of the way. You want to explain how this thing works in English?

Jayda's movements were a mix of sluggish, then haste, just as her mood was a mix of apprehension, dreadful worry, and the desperate want to be on their way. For weeks she spent mentally preparing herself for this mission, as well as helping her brother with his recovery and training to get his own skills back on track. She just got Vex back in her life after three long years he had been missing, and now just a few months past, they were off for the most important mission of their lives that may just tear them apart once again. Her fears didn't stop with just him either...


"Ready, short stuff?"


The young gunner turned with a start, not expecting her twin brother to have arrived at the armory so soon where Jayda was taking her time packing the various ammunition she would need. She greeted the same pair of eyes that were identical to her own with a warm smile. "Yew always were gewd at sneakin' up on meh, Vex... Shulda been one o'them snipers layk Fury..." Vex only grinned and chuckled as he walked in while combing his fingers through his hair, naturally the same auburn color as his twin. "Pfft... I don't have the patience to sit in one spot for hours like he does, sis. I'd fall asleep after just 10 minutes of doing nothing but staring through a scope!"


Jayda chuckled softly at the truth before turning back around and returning her attention back to her chore. Vex quietly came to her side and casually picked up a various boxes of ammunition lying on the table as if looking them over, yet his attention was solely concentrating on his sibling. The past few months were the best of his life, being reunited with her, as well as his life long friends again. Having Fury as a friend was an added bonus, too.... well, on the days Fury was in a good mood. But to have such a joyous time cut short by such a risky and deadly mission was a heavy weight on the twins, especially when their bond allowed them to feel what the other was feeling. "It's going to be okay, Jayda.... It's going to work out just like we planned. We covered all the bases there is to cover..."


She simply nodded slowly and quietly while shoving a few more rounds into her satchel, then zipped it up quickly and tossing it over her shoulder. "We best beh goin', Vex.... gawt one more stop tah make before we meet up with the oth'rs..." Her brother quietly nodded in return and followed Jayda out. Their walk remained silent as the activity of Balamb Garden continued on around them, no one knowing of the impending mission or what all it entailed. Thus far, this dimension of their world was completely safe, save for those who fought the Sorceress War, or who were a part of it not existing in this particular dimension at all. But it was still safe none the less from the very threat that nearly destroyed Jayda and Vex's time line. This was what gave Jayda a great sigh of relief as she now stood at the doorway of a classroom where she could see Serenity and Alivia setting their new school supplies within their appointed desks. They were safe... they would always remain safe here... that's what mattered.


Alivia was the first to see her, gasping with surprise with her blue eyes going wide. Knowing not to disrupt the class with a shout, the little girl simply slid away and ran for the doorway to embrace Jayda around her waist. "Daddy just left, Miss Jayda! Did you come to see us off on our first day, too?" The young woman fought back the threatening tears fiercely as she nodded with a wide smile while carefully smoothing down the child's blond hair back in place. "Yew betcha, darlin! Yew look sew purdy in yer uniform, too!" Alivia then caught of sight of Vex around the corner, and unable to contain her excitement, she rushed over to him, tugging on his arm. "Is it ready yet, Mr. Vex?" Knowing what she spoke of that meant so much to the little girl, Vex crouched down to be eye level with Fury's daughter, giving her a smile and a nod. "I fixed the last bit of glitches last night, kiddo. It's all wrapped up and waiting for you at home when you get done at school, okay?"
Even though Alivia looked ecstatic and was just about to say more, the Instructor called for class to begin, then gave Vex a tight hug before rushing back to her seat.


Seeing this, it caught Serenity's attention who just had to take a moment to greet Jayda as well, even if it meant getting reprimanded by the Instructor for not listening. Before hugging Jayda tightly, the younger sibling spared a scowl at the little red head boy who had been following her around endlessly for some unknown reason. Now looking up to Jayda while still hugging her, Serenity whispered with a worried look. "Daddy said I would make friends.... but he didn't say nuthin' about yucky boys..." Jayda bit back a giggle and tried to remain serious over Serenity's plight and whispered back after sparing the little boy a glance. "Maybeh he jus' wants tah be yer friend..." Serenity's face dropped into the most deadpan expression she had ever seen on a child "He just wants to wipe his boogers on me!"


Around the doorway and still out of sight, Vex erupted into a bout of laughter when hearing this. It was loud enough to even catch the Instructor's attention as well as the rest of the class. Serenity peered around the corner to giggle up at him just as Vex bent down and leaned close to whisper at her. "Just wipe your own back on him... that'll make him quit." He sent Serenity off back into the classroom with a hug and a wink, only to find his sister now scowling a bit at him before heading off. "Fury is gonna kill yew fer tellin' her tah do that..." Vex chuckled while following her with his usual confident, yet leisure gait. "Hey! I know damn well it works! It's how Shade got me to leave her alone when we were that age!" His sister rolled her eyes and scoffed without even looking at him. "Yew played booger-tag with EV'RYONE Vex!" He nodded repeatedly while shoving his hands in his pockets and still grinning from ear to ear from the childhood memory. "Yep! And Shade was the only girl with the nerve to pick her own nose and swipe her boogers back on my face..."


Now within the elevator, Jayda could feel the shift of dread within her gut. Vex gave her a nonchalant nudge with his elbow against her arm like he always did when sensing her emotions. It was their silent way of telling the other, hey, I'm here, and it's all going to be alright... She took in a slow breath and exhaled slowly just as the doors opened and the echo of voices drifted into her ears, revealing it was Fury and Simon already there. As they ventured across the catwalk, Jayda was able to make out the conversation between the two and had to bite her down on her bottom lip by the time she reached the room in order to keep her own tongue still. What Fury didn't know was that after Shade approached him herself over the matter of his girls, and getting nowhere in the process, she went to Jayda next....

"He listens to you, Jayda...."

The gunner shook her head slowly while pouring each of them a drink at her kitchen counter. "Shade, iffin' it's one thing Ah learned with the tew o' yew, it's that Ah know damn well when tah keep mah darn mouth shut..."

By this time, Shade was silently fuming with her fists on the other counter behind Jayda. "Those girls NEED him, damnit! He knows that! Loosing him will crush them!"

Jayda whipped around so fiercely, the drinks spilled over their rims even before she slammed both of the glassed down hard in front of her friend, actually startling Shade with a momentary blink to see Jayda with a very rare expression. She was obviously very...pissed... off... and the calm tone she used only emphasized as much

"Now yew listen tah me, Shade. Ah wuld think yew wuld have far more faith and confidence in yer own bruther by now then tah be sayin' stuff layk that!"

Shade's hues narrowed as leaned in to glare back at her life long friend who never once in all their years ever confronted and faced down Shade in such a way. That was always Brix's department. Jayda was the one who always had to break them apart. Keeping this mind was what kept Shade's temper in check as she sneered her next words. "I'm a realist, Jayda! Sorry if I don't fit into you and Fury's line of fantasy thinking that we're always fucking winners in all we do.... because the plain truth of it is, we're NOT! We as the group already know the risks of traveling through a controlled Rift... You yourself lost Vex for three damn years! He could have been dead for all we knew! Is that the risk you want those girls to suffer??"

Jayda's eyes went raging mad at her friend, nor did she back down an inch to any word Shade spat at her, but instead threw it right back into her friend's face. "That's behcuz we DIDN'T HAVE Fury back then, Shade! Did yew ev'r ONCE stop an' think that iffin' Fury wus ah part 'o us back then, ANY o' this wulda happen'd!? WE as ah team wulda succeeded the first taym, Shade! WE as ah family wulda been stronger!! We nev'r wulda lost Vex had Fury been ah part o' us frum the very beginning! An' YEW know that!"

Shade watched quietly as Jayda heaved for breath from becoming so worked up, then very slowly arched her left brow when Shade realized the the truth of the matter. As she silently stared into Jayda's glaring eyes, she watched the hazel hues slowly widen when Jayda also realized Shade now knew the truth. "....you could have just told me, Jayda." She replied calmly before turning away and leaving the apartment dorm with the door closing quietly behind her. Jayda's heart remained pounding painfully against her ribcage until she clutched one of the glasses within her hand and turned so fast, throwing the drink across the kitchen with a scream, with only the sound of shattering glass left to echo throughout the room before she slid to the floor and sobbed into her hands.


Jayda finally snapped back to attention once she and her brother entered the room just when Fury stood at the tunnel with his back facing them while questioning Simon about it. She gave Simon a quiet nod and took a seat, keeping her attention to cleaning one of her guns as Vex went to stand next to Fury, giving a long shrill whistle at the site of the tunnel. "Damn, man.... who the hell do you pay to clean this thing?"

Everyone spent their evening doing their own thing, preparing in their own way. For Shade, she simply sat in the dark at the side of her bed with her forearms resting on her knees and her fingers laced together as she stared at the painting sitting on the floor against a wall directly across the room facing her. It was the painting Gohrick had done on the night he first met her in Deling city. Although her hues studied every stroke, every color, and every detail of herself and Griever, her thoughts were a million miles away. Throughout the entire night, Shade allowed herself to embrace what memories she had in all the many years she spent within this realm since she first arrived before shutting them away forever within the darkest recess of her mind. They were buried so deep, there would be little hope in ever finding them again if for any reason she even wanted to.


But one valuable lesson from them all stood out above all others. Everyone leaves you at some point in life. No matter the difference in reasons, everybody leaves you.... Perhaps now, this was her time to do so.


She was shutting down all over again. Every wall was rebuilt. Every steel door was reinforced. She concentrated on honing her senses for the battle to come, and on nothing more. There was more at risk now then there ever was. This was the end of line....even if none of the others wanted to admit it.


Once the sun began to peek over the horizon, Shade finally moved for the very first time during the entire night. There was a full length mirror that hung at the back of her bedroom door, and now she stood before it, yet her hand hesitated over the light switch. Part of her didn't want to see.... but the stronger part of her had to.... she had to know. The light suddenly filled the room, and as Shade stood there in a pair of boxers and a tank top, the inevitable obviously grew worse. The hieroglyphic markings that had started a few months ago when she and Fury first traveled through the time rift had grown steadily worse.


Now, standing before the mirror, Shade blinked slowly at the sight she witnessed each and every morning after that day. Her legs were completely covered with various foreign markings, mostly in crimson red to a deep violet and even black etched throughout her skin. Both of her arms were coated in the same way, fading at the wrists. She lifted the hem of her shirt just a few inches to find even more had revealed their design over her stomach, which she assumed she would see had grown more once she was in the shower. Turning slowly, it was obvious her back was covered with the same ornate designs as well. The markings of the Sorceress had finally come, but Shade felt the overwhelming strength rise within her powers to know the truth before the first marking ever appeared. Not even Gohrick could have painted such elaborate detail and shifts in color, but it was nothing remarkable in Shade's mind. It was a heavy burden. There is no changing fate's design.....


She shook her head. It was time to get ready. During her shower, she never bothered to give the markings any attention. She just scrubbed herself down to get done as soon as possible. She made sure all of her clothing practically concealed any signs of the hieroglyphs. Her tank top rose high at her chest, her tattered, leather long coat and pants hid her arms and legs. She even adorned gloves so any hint upon her wrists wouldn't be seen. Just as Shade was about to storm out of her dorm apartment, she came to an abrupt stop when seeing the painting again. For several moments, she just stared in silence until finally Shade walked over to the portrait, opened a closet door, set it inside, and closed the door again. "I don't do good byes..." she snapped under her breath before leaving her apartment.


When walking through the Garden, she caught sight of Jayda and Vex, approaching them slowly and closely to see them with the girls, yet remaining out of sight. She caught the end of their conversation as they walked away, swallowing back the childhood memory they spoke of. Once they were gone within the elevator, Shade quietly walked toward the classroom, keeping to the side of the door so not to be seen, yet able to hear. When the teacher called out names for attendance, she heard Alivia and Serenity speak up when theirs was called. Hearing their last name as Leonhart led Shade's heart to swell with pride. Probably the last thing her heart would ever feel ever again....


"So! We ready to do this shyt, or what?"


Shade casually turned her head to see Brix leaning her shoulder against the wall while examining her manicure as if this were any other random boring day. "So long as you remember the drill, Brix."


The buxom blond gave her friend a slow growing grin with a twinkle of mirth within her brilliant blue eyes. "I ain't ever screwed up a plan yet, have I?" She watched Shade arch a single brow without answering then flew into her usual animated dramatics as Shade began to walk away toward the elevator. "Oh common! You still holding that Timber mission against me? Or the heist mission? Hey now, no matter how I screwed up, I always managed to pull the shyt off by other means! Shade! You listening to me? Hey wait up!" It was true though.... no matter how obnoxious Brix was, no matter how bad she screwed something up, when the pressure was on, she had an incredible knack for improvising at the very last minute to pull off anything successful. It was why Shade placed the most important things in the thief's capable hands.


Now within the elevator, Brix had her game face back on. She and Shade had their own drill for whatever circumstance threw at them, but Shade was adamant.... Brix was to see to her father first and foremost. Not that that needed to be emphasized. It was a hope Brix longed for ever since the idea of using time compression pockets to create a man made rift was suggested back when they were mere children. And Brix was gearing to go, even adding a bit of armor to her leather apparel, steel to her fighting gloves, reinforced titanium to her dagger blades, and thicker steel to the toes of her military boots for sure fire painful kicks of doom. Once the elevator doors opened, Brix was the first to march right out with her flamboyant strut and bouncing mane of wild hair with Shade calmly and quietly following her from behind.


Once they entered the room, Brix wasted no time approaching Vex and giving him a sound smack across the arse. "How's my favorite patient today, eh?" She gave his other butt cheek a pat as Vex yelped and tried to shuffle away from her with an amused chuckle. "Keeping yourself in nice shape as usual, I see..." She grinned sweetly with a wink. Vex smiled sheepishly, with even a slight blush to his cheeks while rubbing the back of his neck. "Ever the attentive physician as always, Brix."


Jayda forced a smile at the brief merriment, but kept her gaze averted on purpose while studying her gun and cleaning what never needed cleaned at all. Shade spared no one a glance or a greeting as she came to the entrance of the tunnel and crossed her arms while studying it for several moments. "So let's get going already."

(I hadn't realized this was in Advanced.)

"Think it'd be best for us all to be here for that, Fury."

Mostly because it saved him having to explain it five different times. The ins and outs of the device, he could expound on for hours. He'd publish the work, if he dared. But, the sheer simplicity of the basic description was brief enough to be annoying, repeated.

Simon was far too engrossed in his last-minute systems checks to see Fury's wink, or catch his tone. As such, he took his joke seriously. Not that he expected any less. Everything was on the line. He'd triple-checked his work, and had anyone who knew anything about interdimentional traveling triple check his work AND his checks. The risks involved, and the stakes behind it, were too great for anything less.

Fury seemed... ...Oddly jovial, all things considered. Maybe this was how he was. It seemed to clash with what he knew about the man, but, he wasn't about to bring it up, now. ...His little remark, though, got a response.

"If anyone needs to be dragged back, I doubt they'll be doing a whole lot of either."

Simon hoped he was wrong. He'd pray, if he had a god to pray to. But, at the end of they day, he was a scientist. A realist. When he started work on this Hyne-forsaken device, he started work fully expecting that there'd be fewer coming back than what went in. And, that's assuming anyone came back.

Fury began rattling off what each of them, in his mind, had to lose. ...He was CLOSE. Those were what they fought for. Important to keep in mind, to be sure. However, what they had to lose was something else entirely. Simon was about to tell him as much, when Fury hit on his precise meaning. ...He said they'd be fine.

"Well, you're a stronger man than I am, I'll tell you that much right now. Put me in your place, and I'd've probably washed my hands of this whole 'paramilitant' business a long time ago."

...That's what he couldn't get his head around. His daughters would survive, if Fury didn't make it back, but, they'd be without a father. ...Fury had to be either supremely confident, or impossibly foolish.

...Being a Leonhart, Simon supposed it was a little of both.

Still not looking up from the shotgun he was piecing back together, Simon heard the remainder of their group enter. Shade, Brix, Vex, and Jayda. ...Though an entirely offhand musing, it suddenly occured to him that, for some strange reason, Vex and Jayda had wildly different accents. ...A thought for another day.

"Well, it turns out I was overthinking the problem. The tunnel works like an Airship's wormhole generator, but, with much less power. That said, if you want to bring your crew with you, lemme know, and I'll have the engineering data sent along. Caroline's waiting in the Rift, with the Detachment, for us to get underway."

Fury bit his lip at Simon’s pessimistic remarks. He could tell the boy was under a lot of stress and he was close to collapsing. There was no point in causing an argument over something as trivial as their view on the mission. Fury hoped that the gadgeteer’s mood would change once they were in the portal, though, because a bad mood like the one he was in could be infectious to others on his team. If there was one thing that always led to things going wrong it was a foul mood. So, instead of firing back at Simon like he would normally do, he just remained quiet.

Suddenly, he felt as if he was hit by a bag of bricks. Just two simple sentences had the ability to completely destroy the rock that he clung to and those sentences weren’t even meant to hurt him. He mulled them over in his head. Soldiering was all he knew how to do. He was a soldier for nearly all of his life and he couldn’t think of anything other than that. He was a Leonhart for Hyne’s sake, soldier was in his blood. He was truly a weapon in human form.

But each mission he took created that much more of a risk that he wouldn’t return. Each mission took him farther from home and his daughters, who already looked up to him as nothing more than a soldier. He didn’t want any of this for them. He dealt out all the constant killing and death, for what? Because someone disagreed with how something should be done or who someone else believed in, or who had the most money? He could see both Shade and Simon’s points, which is why he had a very special package under his vest for his sister when she arrived.

The door slid open and Fury heard the approach of people. He heard Vex’s joke and a smirk broke across his face. He clasped hands with the man and patted him on his back before saying, ”Your sister didn’t tell you? Part of your new therapy is that you get to clean the whole Garden by yourself, Gear-head.”

As Brix gave Vex a warm welcome, he turned around to see Jayda sitting next to the console where he had previously sat cleaning her pistol. He could tell she was just barely holding it together. He went to move over to her when Shade stepped in between them and asked when they were ready to move. If he didn’t tell her now, he wasn’t going to get another chance. He grabbed his sister by the arm and pulled her over to the armory giving the rest an “excuse us a moment” before shutting the door behind him.

He paced back and forth in front of her for a while, not quite sure how to word what he was going to say. Finally, he decided he’d let the papers do the talking for him. He reached into his vest and pulled out a neat envelope with her Name written in cursive on the front and the seal of Balamb Garden on the back. When she would open it, it would read that Fury was asking to be pulled out of active duty and placed into either an instructor position or an administrative position, whichever she thought he would do better at. He waited for her to finish reading before he said, ”I want out. I want to be there when the girls grow up and I can’t do that if I’m gallivanting around the worlds on missions that don’t even matter half the time. I’m resigning from active duty.” He didn’t even wait for an answer; he just walked out the door.

Fury went straight for Jayda, who was obviously still upset about the situation. He knelt down in front of her and whispered so that only she could hear, ”I won’t let anything happen to any of you. You know that.” He then stood up and turned to Simon just in time to hear the quick briefing. He nodded to him and said, ”Let’s get the ball rolling, then.”

Vex gave one of those humorous deadpan expressions at Fury's little comment, and was about to slip in his own snide comment until Simon mentioned that Caroline was already within the rift, ....and with Simon's airship? He turned about suddenly with a confused look in his hazel eyes and his mouth open, about to question their scientific friend over the matter, until Brix swiftly grabbed Vex's arm to stop him. Her silent shaking head and look of dread silenced any question he wanted to voice as she finally muttered under her breath for only him to hear. "Just go with it... trust me... or we'll be here for ten years as he tries to explain this shit...." Vex blinked wide eyed a time or two before pressing his lips extremely tight until they turned virtually white.


Neither of the two noticed Fury slide away silently, but Jayda did from the corner of her eye. She never turned her head, or veered her attention away from cleaning her arsenal, but a soft, yet heavy sigh escaped her. ...Hyne please.... not another fight.... When she heard the door close to the other room, Jayda could only hope in silence....


Meanwhile, Shade was perplexed the very moment Fury took her by the arm and tugged her away into the armory room without a word. When he closed the door behind him and began pacing back and forth, her own panic began to rise. This wasn't like her brother at all before a mission. She suspected for some unknown reason, Fury was about to announce he was backing out all together. Her lips parted to ask him what the hell was wrong, but she bit back her words when seeing her brother reach into his vest and pull out an envelope for her to take.


As she quickly read over the resignation letter, she listened to Fury finally confess the weight that had been on his shoulders for some time. He was blunt and to the point.... and then he was gone.....


When the door closed again, Shade let out a shuddering sigh that nearly brought her knees to buckle. She had thought she shut her heart down, but the rush of overwhelming relief was like a tsunami slamming against her. Now leaning against the wall, she looked up to the ceiling while biting back the tears that began to swell as she whispered.... "Thank you, Hyne.... Thank you Goddess... or whoever finally got through to him...." It took her a few moments of staggering breaths to regain her composure, but Shade found herself more confident now than before with the knowledge that this was to be her brother's final mission. After this, his daughters would have their father safely with them every single day. She, herself, would have her brother safe...


Just as Shade opened the door to re-enter the room with the group, she saw Fury was before a worried Jayda, assuring the young gunner of his confidence over everyone else. Jayda met his gaze straight on, but her own words were stuck within her throat. ...it's not just everyone else, Fury.... what about you... But her voice abandoned her by that point, and when he stood back up and walked away, she was left with the echoing memory of a promise she made. Thankfully, Vex appeared at her side, feeling the rush of anxiety through his sister to give her his usual wink and a smile as he tried to lend her his own confidence. It helped... a little... and she gave him a weak smile and a silent nod before gathering her stuff together to be ready to head off.


Now at Fury's side again, Shade didn't very much care how the cursed portal thing worked, so long as it worked better than the damn portal Cid Kramer and his oh so spectacular team devised that dropped her and her team within these realms three years ago. Although, Fury did try to explain a few weeks back, since he spoke with more understandable vocabulary. If Shade understood the process correctly, it took both herself and Fury to activate the rift, but they were never able to direct their point of destination. Apparently, that's what this big ass worm tunnel looking thing was supposed to do. She simply crossed her arms and waited quietly, since her brother made the announcement they wanted to get started.


Meanwhile, Brix slid up behind Fury's shoulder with a cheerful grin. "I could really take that statement far and beyond.... but I won't.... BUT! I like how you think, Fury!"


BRIX!!
BRIX!!!

"WHA!?!?"

Vex just facepalmed himself and groaned.....

(Alright, waited two days. We said we weren't going to wait)

Fury ignored Brix’s forwardness and the resulting drama it ensued. He was in mission mode by now. He instead made one final trip to the armory to finish getting ready. He grabbed his AMP suit, anticipating the need for heavier armor over staying light on his feet. Once he was fully suited out in that, he grabbed his knife and placed it in its sheathe on his shoulder. Then it was time for his guns. He placed both his daughter’s pistols in holsters on his hips and placed spare magazines in with them. Then he grabbed the Peacemaker and the Deadmaker and placed both of the revolvers in holsters under his arms. Then he placed the Grievance back on its rack, he was going to need something with a little more of a kick where he was going. He grabbed the CHIMERA and placed it on his bike. He reached for his assault rifle next, sliding in a magazine and placing several spares in his armor.

Finally, he moved for his new creation. While Simon had been spending endless hours toiling over the portal system, Fury had been tirelessly working on his own secret project. He activated the retinal scanner on the wall and stuck his eye up to the scanner. A moment later a panel in the wall opened up revealing a monster of a gun. Fury reached for the gun, something he liked to call “The Magebane”, and pulled it from its rack. If all went according to plan, this 12-gauge shotgun could hold up to thirty slugs in its drum magazine and fire them at a fully automatic setting. The entire drum could be reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds meaning a whole lot of lead would be heading towards his enemies. While it still had limited range like all shotguns, he hoped its overwhelming firepower would give them a slight edge over the Fringe.

Finally, Fury wheeled his bike out into the tunnel and awaited the others. He watched Jayda out of the corner of his eye. She seemed extremely upset about the mission, more so than usual. His brow furrowed in confusion. If she kept rubbing that gun like that her fingers would fall off. Fury reached out and gave her hand a quick squeeze, just enough to let her know he was there. ”Hey… I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered to her.

Why was everyone so afraid? Yes it was dangerous, but everything they did was dangerous. So long as they were all a team, they would get through it. That was how it always was even more so now that they had everyone. Simon and Vex, the two best gadgeteers in all of the worlds, Caroline, who was probably even better at being a computer than CRAIG, Brix, one of the best doctors around and deadly to boot, Jayda, who could probably outshoot anyone in the worlds, Shade, whom many thought was a goddess of wrath in disguise, and himself, well he didn’t like to gloat. Alone they were all formidable opponents; together they were unstoppable.

When all were assembled, he looked to Shade. He nodded to her and she returned the nod. They knew what they had to do. Fury closed his eyes and he could feel Hyne’s powers flowing through him. His emerald eyes shattered into gold under his helmet and his tattoo that was much larger than it had been months ago began to glow an angry purple under his armor. He could feel his sister’s powers flare up also, mingling with his and working its way through the tunnel. Finally, he heard the tunnel start up and then everything froze before the world around them melted away like when he and his sister traveled those many months ago.

Next thing he knew, they were on the ground, just outside Balamb Garden. Simon’s ship with Caroline was sitting behind all of them and all seemed eerily calm. There was no Fringe, no fighting at all. Just a simple breeze rolling over the hills. It felt similar to Fury, though, like he had been there at that time before. He turned to the others and said, ”We should probably get to the Garden first and see what’s going on. Maybe we missed it or are too early, but we won’t know until we find out. No matter what, though, keep your guard up.” Fury threw a leg over his bike and started the engine before attaching the Magebane to the turret position on the bike’s front. Everything seemed calm, but Fury wasn’t convinced. Something just didn’t feel right.

Shade had a point. There wasn't any time to be screwing around here. He reached down, flipping the switch to trigger his armor's materilzation. All around him, a sphere of red light engulfed his body, slightly brighter rings rotating around him, and within themselves, as the armor materialized over his body. His shotgun affixed firmly to his arm, sword now held to his back by kinetic force, he looked toward the machine. ...He was ready.

Though Fury and Shade dumping their own magic into the machine sped the process up immensely, it was far from required. The mechanics of the device were not too much unlike inter-world capable Airship Engines. In fact, this device was weaker. Iroinically, moving in time is actually easier than moving through dimensions. It required MUCH more sensitivve instrumentation, but, the energy required to pull it off was drastically less. Activating the device sent a signal out into the Rift, to alert Caroline.

===========================================================

On board the Detachment, much of the ship was in a shutdown state. In Engineering and crew quarters, the only light came from the still-active instrumentation, though all control was slaved over to the CIC. In all but the CIC, the air was permeated by a thin, smoky miasma, due to life support being shut down on all unoccupied decks. The ship was in a minimalist state. Fitting, as the Detachment was, at the moment, almost entirely unmanned. The Trunade sat in the cargo bay, secoured down, in the event it was needed.

Up in the CIC, all of the control stations were offline, leaving the area astonishingly dark. The only light came from the forward control. Caroline sat in the helmsman's position, her own holodisplays synced to the Detachment's systems. From this one place, Caroline had control of the entire ship. Considering that Simon didn't want the crew involved, in the event of failure, this was all the better.

Recieving the signal, she smiled. It was finally time to end this. ...She hadn't been part of the initial attempt, but, she'd been briefed on it. They were going back to First Contact. Stop the global-scale murder before it began. ...This would change everything. She'd never end up dead before her time. Never lose the parents she never knew. Things would finally be the way they'd always meant to be.

===========================================================

Unlike interworld travel, which was a big to-do, time travel in the same world was considerably easier. Out of one time, into another, all in about a second. Caroline very quickly put the Detachment down to land a few dozen feet behind the main crew. ...As the ship's comuter, and Simon's Psycommu, updated to fit the chronology of this timeline, they both paled.

Simon quickly turned, to face the rest of the team.

"Guys, whatever we're gonna do, we need to do it now. Assuming my Psycommu's not entirely FUBAR, We're rapidly coming up on Zero Hour."

Caroline chimed in over the com-link, equally disturbed.

"Simon, you're spot on. That, or the Detahcmnet's just as FUBAR. We've got five minutes before they arrive, and, that's being generous."

Even as she spoke, she began maneuvering the Trunade out of the hold, and onto the field, for Simon to use right away.

((OOC: The bracelets being described here are basically a free for all for anything to be used amongst us that aren't in templates since it's only going to be NPC stuff that we're fighting against, not each other. So have fun with it))


Shade watched from the corner of her eye as her brother set off to make final preparations. She then slid her gaze to Vex, who was of course up beat as always in his own laid back way as if this was nothing more than a romping fiend mission in which they would back in time for dinner. Seeing her gaze, Vex gave a silent nod and retrieved his satchel he left by the door when they first arrived. He came back with a confident smile, unzipping the sack and reaching in to retrieve five thin, black wristbands. They appeared nothing more than plain black plastic, but that was Vex's artistic gift. To make things appear other than what they really are.


"You guys are gonna love this...." His old ways of leading up to the surprise always drew them in, but he had to wave Simon over to distract the always busy tech away from his work in order to present his hard worked surprise while building up the anticipation again. "Remember all the cool stuff we had back home? How we couldn't possibly bring our entire arsenal along with us when we made the first leap together? Welllll..........." He reached out and carefully grabbed Shade's wrist first, persistently tugging her closer, yet sparing her a curious look when she acted like his touch practically burned her skin. When he shifted the hem of her jacket sleeve up to place on her bracelet, he saw the truth. Not wanting to create a suspicious scene, Vex simply gave her a casual smile while shifting his body so no one else would see while adding his usual light humor to the moment. "Now come on Shade.... you know I don't bite" He mumbled low while giving her a playful wink while latching the bracelet on. He expected her skeptical scowl. He always did, but what Shade didn't expect was his calm reaction to the markings. Anyone else would have stopped dead in their tracks and demanded answers. Yet once he covered her wrist back over, Vex flashed his charming smile back at everyone else and handed the other bracelets for everyone else to put theirs on.


"These little suckers are programmed with all our old fun toys from back home. Yeah, yeah, I know you all got your new stuff while playing around this realm without me all these years, but one can never out do the original stuff we had, eh?" Once everyone activated their own, they would find a holographic menu pop up, to where all one had to do was choose what they wanted and it materialized to be used. "I figured since everyone else was doing their own special little gigs before this mission, I myself was working with the armory and tech departments... recreating all the old stuff we all had and programming them into these wrist devises to be summoned on call!" He looked to each face with an eager bright smile, but everyone appeared oddly perplexed. "Oh come on! You have to think this cool, right??"


They blinked out of their surprised stupors and gratefully thanked Vex for his hard work while testing their own gadget to find everything they all once used back in the old days awaiting them should the inventory be needed. By the time Fury ventured back out, everyone was already resuming their prior activities. Vex let out a long whistle by the site of Fury's new duds and motorcycle, not to mention the latest addition to his arsenal. "Daaayyaamm dude! Why do you get all the get all the cool shyt!? Makes giving this to you look nothing more than a trinket...." Vex reached in his bag again and pulled out another wrist strap and handed it to Fury. "Now don't get all freaked out on me.... this isn't a proposal, even though I still think you're a cool dude and all..." He gave a smirk at Fury and a sound pat on his shoulder before explaining. "Got your Cacoon file from Shade so I knew what all kinds of weaponry you were trained and skilled in, just in case you found yourself in a pickle and needed some back up. Just tap right on it and the menu comes up for you."


As he walked away slipping on his own glove devices, the group entered the tunnel without a word, yet the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Jayda found her own suddenly vanquished when Fury unexpectedly took her hand and whispered his assurance. After the boost confidence, she spared him a smile so he would see his words cheered her up. "Ah'mma holdin' yew tew that, Mist'r Fury."


"Let's go already!" Shade's words emphasized the timely manner they running on, and the fact she wanted to get this mission done as soon as possible. With her brother now at her side, she simply followed his lead, knowing he had the connection to the rifts to trigger them. When her own powers ignited, she hissed through her teeth from the intensity of their strength coursing through her veins, as well as her own struggle to keep them reigned back from consuming her. The hieroglyphs scorched over her skin, but she bit back the pain and concentrated on the rift, concentrated on home, on the faces of so many lost that day, and her rage for revenge soared her powers to a new height until suddenly.... all came to a dead standstill.


When she slowly pried her eyes open, they were still aglow with bright amber from her Sorceress powers as she scanned their surroundings. She didn't need Simon's warning or his tech to know.... there an eerie sense throughout the air, even for such a beautiful spring day. There was a trepidation in her step as she lifted her face to the sky, getting a sense for... something... They were on Centra territory, which was where the Garden was currently landed at the time of the attack... the day was exactly like this one.... "We need to split up...."


Suddenly, Shade turned around and charged right for Jayda and Vex. They blinked in surprise as each of her own hands clamped on their shoulders and her magic ignited again. "Remember the plan... Get home and save them. Do whatever you need to do! Keep communication constant, even if it's just to check in! Once you've you succeeded, you tell me so we can re-group. Do NOT take the Fringe in Balamb on your own! You got me?" Both gave her stern nods, but Jayda's hand raised up to clamp on Shade's arm as the two stared down once again. "Yew promise tah bring us back 'ere... Ah mean it, Shade..." The powers ignited, already beginning to pull the twins where they needed to be. "I would never lie to you, Jayda.... especially about that" Within seconds, the twins were gone to Balamb where their ranch home was waiting for them.


"Brix!"
"Yo! Let's get this jam started!"
Shade reached out with one hand and Brix slapped her own into it. "You know the drill.... stick to it....no showing off...contact me the second you get Zell out!" Brix smirked with her blazing blues narrowed as her form began to dissipate. "You really think I'm going to be careless about this?" Knowing full well what this meant to her, that Zell was all Brix ever had left from her family, Shade knew she wouldn't fail. Trabia Garden would survive.


Once she was gone, Shade turned about and swiftly approached Fury. "You have to trust me on the timing on this. Although there isn't much of it, we pull this off as planned then it's not only going to be us taking on the brunt of this race. It's going to be our own parents and theirs backing us up. All of us as one taking them down." Her head suddenly jerked to the side and her senses went alert. There was an echo of laughter in the distance.... she knew that sound.... it once belonged to her as a child. Although Shade's voice dropped to a whisper, she knew Fury would hear her. "It's starting...." Her arm raised and pointed to the distance where she remembered where her and her mother were walking over the terrain to find a picnic spot that day. "There... we're over there... which means the Garden is to the west."


Taking several steps back, Shade's hues erupted into a bright gold and her wings exploded from her back. She ignited her powers full force, knowing the Fringe would now detect her own before they did Rinoa's, which would buy Fury the time to reach them and get them to safety. "Simon! Do what you came here to do!" The sky suddenly exploded over the ocean as the expected rift shredded open to reveal a whole new portal. The very ground shook from the force as the sky ripped apart with an ear shattering tear. "Get your asses back here as soon as you and Caroline succeed!" Her hands were flaming with energy just before she blasted Simon and Caroline where they needed to be.


The intruding airship was massive, only to be described as the size of a small moon as its dark form entered into the planet through its own portal. Within moments, the enormous shard looking vessel would fire upon the Garden. Squall would be activating the cloaking shields by this point as well as getting the Garden into the air before setting off to find his family. With Fury knowing where he needed to go, Shade cracked her wings to soar into the air to hopefully distract the enemy in hopes to buy everyone some more time.


((OOC: RP whatever you want out of these things. Be it godmoddy or whatever. Just have fun with it))

Fury activated the bracelet that Vex had handed him while the others prepared to go their separate ways for their individual missions. He scanned all the different weapons and gadgets that were made available to him through the system. It seemed like every weapon he ever used was in the menu. It was so overwhelming he started to think he wouldn’t be able to find what he needed it when he needed it. He let out a long drawn out whistle before looking up to Vex and smirking. ”If this thing works like you say it does, I might have to propose to you.”

Shade then stated that they needed to get moving just as Fury noticed there was something off about the bracelet. He began to tinker with it a little bit until he heard Shade addressing Vex and Jayda. He looked up from his work and stared as they started to dissipate. Just as they were starting to leave, he nodded to them, silently wishing them luck. Then he was right back to working on the bracelet. He finished his work just as Brix was getting ready to take off. Again, he nodded to her and wished her luck before rebooting the menu system on the bracelet. The blue-glow of the bracelet’s hologram menu system appeared. Now he had access to all of the weapons in his personal armory on top of access to any weapon in his store. Plus, with CRAIG’s help, he had a robust gun smithing system built in to allow him to tailor weapons on the fly while here. He just thought the parts up, CRAIG fabricated them up in the shop, and then it will be shipped away to his hands. It was the perfect weapon system to have in a battlefield.

He finished up just as Shade turned to him. He nodded to her, understanding her intensity and the speed in which her mind was racing. He followed her arm and looked out over the rolling hills. He stared at her and waited her to finish before he nodded again and revved the engine of the Roc. He began to fish-tail the bike around to drive off towards his mother when he could feel his sister’s powers ignite. He stopped and turned around in his seat to face his sister. ”Shade,” he said as he stared into her blazing gold eyes, ”Don’t let it consume you. I know it’s a lot, but don’t let the power get the best of you. No matter how bad it gets, promise me you will keep it in check.” He waited until he got an answer then tore off down the road towards his mother.

As he sped down the dirt road, he could see the sky open up above him. The massive Fringe ship loomed high above the world, dominating the sky and casting a shadow over everything. As he came up over a hill, he slowed his bike to a stop to get a better view on the situation. He could see the Garden from his vantage point as it slowly cloaked into the surrounding terrain. It was too late, though. He could see missiles and explosions going off on the cloaked garden, causing the cloaking to flicker and disappear at times. At the same time, there were just as many explosions striking the hull of the massive ship as the Garden fought back. The sky between the two ships was a similar sight as smaller ships from both sides collided in battle. He turned and revved his engine to tear down the road as he could see small black dots spreading in all directions from the massive ship.

He was maybe halfway to where Rinoa and Shade’s smaller self were supposed to be when a group of airships flew over head of him towards their position. He swore under his breath and pushed the bike to its limits down the dirt road. He saw three ships break off from the main group and circle back to where he was driving and swore again. Missiles began to blow the ground around him up as he swerved and dodged on his bike. One got lucky and struck his front wheel, blowing the front end to bits and sending him up through the air towards the speeding airships. The world began to slow down as he flew through the air. He activated the bracelet that Vex had given him and summoned a missile launcher. He aimed it at the middle airship while he flew through the air. The launcher beeped three times and then blew him backwards through the air as the missile was launched at the middle airship. Halfway to the target, the missile exploded apart revealing six smaller missiles. The missiles all separated and sped towards all the airships and collided with the three airships, blowing them all to pieces.

Fury landed on his feet right next to his blown up bike. He looked over the wreckage that used to be his bike and swore. He was going to have to hoof it from there. He grabbed the CHIMERA from the wreckage and started to sprint to where Rinoa was supposed to be. He only hoped he was going to make it there in time…

Jayda felt as if someone punched her square in the gut when they finally appeared within the meadows of Balamb island. Hyne, how she didn't predict teleporting to come at such a blow! Vex seemed completely unaffected as his intense gaze quickly scanned their surroundings as he took his sister's hand and they jogged quickly across the meadow. They remained silent until they reached the top of a sloping hill, and far below in the valley, there it was.... their childhood home nestled in its own little paradise.

The pristine white house was a typical two level home with a wide wrap around porch, and off to the side was the small ranch barn within an overly large fenced in area where countless chocobos wandered about, ate, or lied within the thick grass to relax. They could see their father was already out and about busy with work, and naturally little Jayda was at his heels doing whatever she could to be his big little helper. Vex was there, sitting on top a stack of hay blocks, engrossed with something technical, whether he was fixing it or taking it apart to see how it ticked. "I remember...." Vex whispered while taking in the scene from the hilltop. "He never got mad at me for not helping around like you did, Jayda... He knew I was into different things and respected that..." Jayda watched her brother's expression change. It was rare to ever see her brother sad. "He wuz proud o' ya no matt'r wut, Vex... An he'd still be iffin he knew just wut all yew accomplished..."

Vex nodded slowly as he watched Irvine pause in his work, take off his old cowboy hat and slap it over his young son's head with a pat. The older Vex smiled, remembering what his father said at that very moment. "There ya go, kiddo, hold that for me.... Vex's whisper recited the next. "Now you can tell yer mum you helped out!" Just then, as if on cue, Sophie came out of the house, calling and waving them over to tell them dinner was ready.

And that was when all hell broke loose....


The air suddenly shattered by a ripping eruption through the sky and as Vex and Jayda turned, they already knew what they were about to see....but the sight of the massive ships tearing through the sky still brought the very same terrorizing fear washing over them as it did that very day when they were children. This was that very day... "GO! GO! GO!!" Vex screamed and went into action, and with a faint cry of urgency, Jayda immediately summoned her Doom Buggy and tore off down the hill. Vex summoned his own, but it was more of an all terrain two wheeler hyped with a speed cycle's engine, so he was easily able to keep up with his sister. By the time they reached the house, Irvine had already scooped up his children and rushed everybody in the house as the enemy ships continued to rip through the sky and already charging their weapons.


Now skidding to a turning halt up against the porch, Vex screamed for his sister to get inside to protect their family just before he slammed his palms together to activate his gloves. There came an enormous flash of blinding light from his hands before they even parted, and when they did, the light became painfully brighter. But what followed was a violent trembling within the air as the gloves produced a powerful soundwave the shot from his palms and straight for the oncoming energy blasts headed for the house. The impact exploded with a violent blast in mid air, shaking the very ground violently, while within the house, Jayda scrambled to reach her family. Now stumbling into the living room, she found Irvine swiftly loading his battle rifles and her mother throwing the lid of a storage chest open to reach in for her legendary Nunchaku. "Those aren't going to work!! We have to get out of here! There's no fighting them!!" Jayda's cry naturally got their attention. Selphie looked absolutely shocked by the stranger in her house, where Irvine looked more annoyed than anything as he slammed the bullets into his rifle while snapping at the strange woman who barged into home at the most inconvenient time. "An' jus' what do you expect us to do, missy? Sit all happy like singing Koom-By-Ya and just let them blow up our home?"


Swallowing down her rising panic, Jayda rushed up to her father, not caring if anything gave away the truth of who she was. Whatever it took, she HAD to get her family out of there! Her hands gripped into his arm like a vice as she cried in desperation with tears swelling in her eyes. "PLEASE!! Yew gotta believe me!! There's no tyme fer arguin'!!" Irvine was just about to snap at the woman again when a sudden shout came from outside. "JAYDA, HURRY UP!! I CAN'T HOLD THEM BACK MUCH LONGER!!" Another blast exploded wildly through the sky,much closer to the house this time, shaking it to its very foundation as various objects crashed to the floor. There were screams coming from somewhere else in the house, which Jayda recognized as her own and her brother's. When everyone regained their balance, Irvine was now staring at her in total shock, but it was Selphie who came around Jayda with such a startled expression, it was as if she had seen a ghost.


Neither of her parents could utter a word through their disbelief. Their minds were stuck in turmoil over the impossible standing right before them. Once again, Jayda tried, but more calmly in hopes to get through to them.... this was their one and only chance! "Please.... This enemy will destroy an' kill ev'rythin'.... Ah've seen it with mah own eyes... I saw the both o' yew die... with mah own eyes.... Jus' please! believe me.... we gotta geyt outta here!!"


Yet another blast sent a violent earthquake through the ground, and Vex's body came crashing through the wide front window, only to slam into the adjacent wall and land on the floor with a hard jolt. Jayda rushed for him as he sruggled to roll over with a painful groan. "Awww damn....Gonna feel that in the morning...."


Jayda helped him to his feet, and then reached over her shoulder to yank her own weapon from her back. "Yer turn tew talk sum sense intah them, Vex.... My turn tah give these bastards a taste o' mah lead!" As Jayda stomped out of the house fit to be tied and madder than a hornet's nest, Vex was still rubbing the back of his head where he struck the wall while sparing his parents a nervous glance. "Well! You heard the little lady! We need to uhhh, mosey on out of here before our hides get blown sky high..."


Now standing on the top step of the porch, Jayda was face to face with a stream of ground troops and vehicles speeding closer as the airship began charging its weapons again. Without even looking at her rifle, her finger slipped to the side to press a certain lever...."Wuddn't it nayce that Fury 'membered mah birthday..." Suddenly, the weapon jerked, but she held tight as several compartments opened up and even more larger pieces appeared to maneuver into position and lock into place. The process continued over and over at lightning speed until Jayda now held one massive bazooka gun. During that short time, she summoned her Glacier, but not for the mighty armored polar bear to attack the oncoming enemy. Instead, the massive beast positioned the side of his bulk against Jayda's back.


"Thaaaass right, yew bastards..." She sneered as her other hand tipped back the rim of her tattered cowboy hat. With her hazel eyes slowly narrowed, she hoisted the enormous weapon up on her shoulder. "Com'an geyt ya sum...." She aimed for ground troops, vehicles and all, remembering how they were the first to reach the house, slaughtering her parents.... how the screams still echoed through her mind.... how she heard them nearly every night in her nightmares.... how this day completely ripped her life apart... and now, she centered all that bitterness and pain into that one shot. The moment the trigger was pulled back, the intense kickback slammed her against Glacier as Jayda screamed into the wake of the soaring missle. "YIPEE-KIYAY-MUTHER-FUKKERS!!!!!"

Caroline hadn't needed to be sent anywhere. The moment the Detachment's instrumentation picked up the spatial anomalies associated with interdomensional travel, she was off and running. ...The few extra seconds it bought her were nice, though.

The Fringe's capital ship was like a small moon in more ways that one. Besides the sheer size, the ship itself actually had a landscape. Especially important, when you consider exactly WHAT the Fringe's core capital ship is.

The concept of the "all big gun" dreadnoughts of old naval tradition, while popular in science fiction, are not exactly realistic. While the Fringe's example does have a fairly large amount of armaments, including its terrifically huge main guns, it, like most all capital ships, was, in fact, a Carrier. While its on-board armaments were mighty, indeed, its true power is in the hundreds and hundreds of fighters it stored on-board. And Caroline knew this. Taking off at a breakneck speed, she found herself staring down the gullet of the beastly ship's main bay. The bay doors opened wide, so as to deply the fighters. At least 1200 of the demonic little machines. Without hesitation, she unloaded the Detachment's main gun into the hold. A lucky shot, smashing through one of the ammo dumps, causing a cascade reaction. The gravitational barrier protected her ship from the chain reaction blast, which tore a massive hole in the ship. Her voice came in loud and clear over the comm, for anyone who would hear.

"Oh, HELL YES! That oughta take care of 'em, 'til the main fleet gets around this bloated monster! Hey, how much you guys wanna bet I can jump into the ship, and disable the thing from the inside?"

===========================================================

"THE HELL YOU ARE! Stick to the exterior approach; this doesn't need to be any more of a suicide mission than it already is!"

Simon had been similarly flung across the world. He was within minutes of Galbadia, where he knew his and Caroline's families were. He had gained awareness, again, in the Trunade, after Shade's teleportation stunt, minutes out from Esthar City proper.

...He remembered, now. His father had been insisitent about... Something. And, they'd gone to Esthar, because the Galbadian government wasn't listening. He'd always wondered what that was about. ...Of course, now that he'd gotten thinking, how did Shade know to send him here?

"Think about it later." He mentally chastised himself. "Probably more Sorceress Power Shenanigans you'll never understand."

There wasn't any time for him to be pondering such things. The Fringe were upon them, now. Turning the key, the Trunade roared to life, and he took off down the strangely well-maintained wasteland road, perhaps only five miles out from the city. Oddly, however, there didn't seem to be any real tumult. Tapping into the various satellite networks the city maintained, Simon couldn't pick up any military chatter. At least, none relating to threats within the city. A lucky break. He must have beaten this branch of the Fringe's invasion force by mere minutes. No surprise; Interdimensional travel is unpredictable. Two ships can leave the same world, at the same time, and arrive on the same world up to an hour apart.

Simon kept his eyes on the city, glancing at the spedometer out of habit. 75. 80. 85. And the needle only kept climbing. With their luck, the Fringe would be upon Esthar in seconds.

The whole world, at this point, was living on borrowed time.

Trabia Garden sat peacefully at the base of the northern mountains, with renovations from the Sorceress War nearly at completion. It was a particularly chilly spring day, which was the norm for this territory of the planet, with an overcast of clouds that blocked the warming rays of the sun. Just as Brix remembered.... Upon her arrival at the gates, she staggered for a moment or two to catch her breath. ...at least I didn't come flailing down from the sky like I usually do Now looking around, she caught sight of a group of SeeD cadets playing in what little snow remained, absolutely oblivious that they're lives were about to come to a disaterous end in a matter of moments. Brix didn't have time to warn every single body within the Garden. There was only one she had to get to in order to put things to right, as well as to her own life. She tore into the entrance like a bat out of hell, leaving curious and shocked expressions from others in her wake, and did the only thing she knew to do to get immidiate results. Brix pulled every alarm she could find along the walls, and as the ear piercing sirens screamed from the speakers throughout the Garden, panic and mayhem set in.


As for Brix.... she simply grabbed the closest chair and plopped her ass down, rested her shin on her knee, crossed her arms, and waited.... There was little else she could do, and this was the fastest way to find Zell. She remembered... at the time of the attack, she was placed in the daycare facility while her father wrapped up last minute buisness before they were to head off to Balamb for a brief vacation with friends. So there was no telling where Zell Dincht was when the initial attack struck, until he reached his daughter to get her to safety before taking the enemy head on.


"Mind telling me what the hell your point was pulling all the damn alarms in the Garden!?"


Brix's eyes widened by the all too familiar voice of her father behind her. Her heart nearly slammed straight through her chest... get a grip, Brix.... get a grip! There's no time for freaking out! With a long deep breath, she concentrated on regrouping her nerves and restraining the instincts to simply grab him and hold him in her arms, never letting go... Instead, Brix shot up on her feet and whipped around, giving Zell the same blue eyed glare he was giving her. "Mind telling me why the hell you're slower than a Caterchipiller!?"


Next thing she knew, Zell had her by the arm and was dragging her off, madder than a Ruby Dragon shedding its scales. "Alright wiseass, I don't have time for your childish bullshit, nor do I care! I got enough crap to...." He stopped abruptly, and in startled surprise when Brix yanked her arm from his grip. Not a single cadet was ever able to do that, but then again, this girl didn't look like she came from any Garden in her wild attire. Did she even brush her damn hair....ever?? Yet before Zell could snap at the audacious girl again, her fist soared through the air and landed square into his left cheek. "AND I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR DISCIPLINARY PROTOCOL WHEN THIS PLACE, AND YOU!! ARE ABOUT TO BLOWN TO SMITHERINES IN A MATTER OF MOMENTS!!" Hyne!! That was the hardest thing Brix ever had to do in her whole damn life! But it was the only way she knew it would grasp his full attention and to be sure he would give chase as she tore out of the Garden again. Sure enough, Zell was hot on her heels.


By the time they reached beyond the gates, the rift in the sky was already beginning to tear wide open. The ripping and shredding sound echoed painfully throughout the air, and sent shockwaves of quakes through the ground. The scene was as phenomenal, as it was terrifying, which was the mix over Zell's face as he stared at the incoming ship prying it's way through the portal. Brix immediately grabbed him with a hard shake of his shoulders to grasp his attention again. "See that!? That's the apocalypse! And all hell's about to break loose in mere minutes!! We gotta get out of here!!" Zell whipped right out of her grip, and with a glare that literally broke her heart. His finger shot out and pointed at the invaders tearing through the sky as their surroundings continued to shake and the winds began to pick up. "For all I know, you led this shit here!! For all I know, you're one of them sent down here to stall us!! I have a responsibility to this place, and I'll be DAMNED if I see this Garden blown up AGAIN!!"


Zell was running back into the facility, shouting orders left and right while doing so, unaware he was being followed. When Brix reached him, she grabbed his arm again and spun him about, while her other hand tore off a chain from around her neck and slammed the locket into his palm while screaming in his face. "NOW tell me you don't know who I am!!!" It worked..... Zell took a triple take at the locket in his hand, and even opened it, already knowing what lied within. He just gave the very same locket to his little girl last week for her birthday. A silver oval locket with exquisite, ornate engravings of roses, and within were tiny pictures of little Brix with her mother. Yet the one in his palm, as identical as it was in every way, including the pictures, was aged with tarnish, and even the pictures were discolored with time. As he stared down at it dumbfounded, Brix tried again, yet more calmly this time. "Look... you know damn well how Ultimecia's time compression screwed up this planet... the time pockets, the rift activity, how dimensions are splitting.... You have to believe me when I tell you that's what made it all possible for me to be here... here and now... to warn you of what's to come by these things. They're invading Blamb, Galbadia, Esthar, and every other strong point on this planet to gain the powers here. Especially Rinoa's... we don't have much time!"


As impossible as it was to believe, Zell Dincht slowly nodded as his hand carefully closed the locket before handing it to the young woman who he now knew was his daughter. Without a word, he ran for a control panel on the wall and slammed the intercom button. "This is Head Director of Security, Zell Dincht! Everyone get their asses to the lower levels of the Garden NOW! EVERYONE!! This is NOT a drill!! We have incoming about to strike at any minute! Get your asses down there and the Headmaster is to seal the ground level doors immediately!! Engineering activate the cloaking system and raise all defensive shields at 100%!! I don't care where you have to drain power from the Garden, JUST DO IT!!" Now turning back to Brix, his eyes bore the same fierce determination as her own, and before he uttered another word, Brix already predicted his next order was going to be something daring. I can't leave just yet, kiddo. We at least gotta lure these pricks away form the citizens and students.... We have to disengage the Garden from the ruin levels below and slap this baby on auto pilot so they'll follow it away and everyone will be safe..."


Just as the last word left his lips, the first shot was fired upon the Garden....


#############################################################################




She nodded.

It was all she could do.

Simply agree with her brother's plea, because it's what he needed to hear, to see, to believe, so he could carry out his part of the mission without the needless distraction of worry over his sister's condition.

Deep down.... Fury had to know the truth. No matter how much either of them would try to lie to themselves about the other, they both knew each other way to well.

And as she spared a brief moment watching him tear off toward their mother, Shade released her powers and soared into the sky directly for the first ship preparing to fire. After launching her Griever amulet into the sky, she summoned both of her swords into each hand while conjuring her energy into the weapons in preparation for her own first attack. Her speed increased through the sky, like a fiery bolt of lightning that matched the blazing hues of her eyes. The swords were aglow with disastrous power the closer she came to the enemy just as the massive roar erupted throughout the sky.


She had to time this right....


The sky itself turned into a turmoil of swirling chaos of tornado winds and fire. Lightning ripped through the atmosphere sending violent tremors through the air as the churning of clouds continued to explode and expand as another ear shattering roar echoed with such force, the Fringe ship actually shook from it. Shade knew their sensors would be distracted by Griever's dramatic entrance. Far too distracted to notice her coming up at them from the underbelly of the vessel. By her summons last roar, Shade drove her blades into the ship and continued soaring across it, ripping and tearing through the airship, driving deeper into what mechanics her weapons could reach. The metal screamed in defiance, but the added powers she put forth into the blades cut through like a knife through butter. When she came to end of the ship, her wings shifted to bring her soaring up high, only to twist her body completely in mid flight, then crack her wings to soar straight down and wipe out the tail end of the Fringe ship.


Their weapons continued to charge regardless, and when the canons finally fired, Shade screamed and snapped her wings again in attempts to stop the deathly blows in any way she could. As the destructive energy bombs soured straight for the Garden and her memories replayed the explosions over and over through her mind, they suddenly erupted in the air with a massive implosion that sent her form hurling through the air. What the Fringe never faced before stood before them now. Griever now planted his massive, fiery lion form right before the Garden.... and he was royally pissed. Seeing the energy missiles about to hit their mark, he didn't need Shade to tell him what to do. His own powers came from his summoner, and now that Shade had grown in strength as a Sorceress, his own were enough to ward off their proton canons. But for how long, neither foe knew.


Seeing the sight from the cockpit of the Garden, Squall had no time to question it. After dishing out the orders to get the facility off of the ground and to safety, he tore out of the cockpit and to the lower level to get to any vehicle in order to search for his family. He knew they were out there somewhere.... Rinoa had told him she was taking Shade out for a picnic and maybe see the Lighthouse. But knowing the general area they may be in still wasn't enough to find them right away. He refused to let panic sink in as he tore the all terrain vehicle through the chaos just as the Fringe's main ship was now delivering their ground troops onto the terrain to greet him and destroy Balamb Garden all together.

A bead of sweat rolled down Fury’s face and gathered on his chin before dropping to the ground to be forgotten. A minor annoyance compared to all that was going on around him. The world was on fire; a mere ten minutes since the fighting had started and both armies have set the once beautiful world blazing with hell-fire. In the distance, Fury could see the massive Fringe ship lowering slowly towards Balamb Garden. Ships from both stations twisted and danced through the air in a deadly dance of fire in lead. To anyone else, the sight might have even seemed beautiful, but the sight was completely ignored in Fury’ eyes. He was set on one goal.

Two Fringe transport ships flew overhead of him and began to head for something not too far in front of him. Fury swore and swung the CHIMERA off of his back and brought it up to aim at one of the ships. He charged the mass accelerator and fired a single shot at one of the ships’ engines. The force of the shot sent Fury flat on his back and when he looked up he saw the ship he was shooting at going down towards the ground. It wouldn’t explode when it crashed so it was still a threat, but it definitely wasn’t going to reach its target. He glanced down at the CHIMERA and noticed it was still recharging. He swore and dropped it to the ground before taking off at a sprint again.

He came up over the hill to see that the ship had crashed, but it had not slowed the people inside. The soldiers were already unloaded and filing out towards their objective. The other ship had landed as well, unpacking its load of soldiers and a large, tank-looking weapon. In between all of them was a single woman dressed in blue. The woman raised her weapon mounted on her wrist to fire when the tank fired a single shot at the woman. The claw grabbed the woman and dragged her to its main cannon before charging up. The cannon fired, shocking the woman and making her scream in pain. The men around the tank weren’t worried about her anymore, though. They were facing the hill Fury was on.

Fury was already halfway down the hill when he heard his mother’s screams. He dove forwards and two large black wings whose tips were burning and fiery red burst from his back and propelled him forward, sending flowers up into the wind from the force. As he flew through the air, time around him stopped. The soldiers slowed to a halt and the sounds of terror and pain ceased. Fury struck the one closest to him with his full force. As soon as he crashed into the man, time leapt forward, allowing everyone to move again. They both went flying through the air until Fury brought his legs up and kicked the man away.

The second he stopped touching the man, time stopped again. He flipped backwards and landed between two soldiers. He drew his gunblade and slashed one’s head clean off in a spinning motion. Once again, just as his sword touched flesh, time speed back up. He ducked under the second man’s attack and stabbed upwards, striking the man with the tip of his sword under the man’s helmet. Before the man even hit the ground time had stopped again.

Fury continued this dance several times over, bouncing from soldier to soldier while they were all trapped in time. Each time his blade touched one of them, time would speed back up and once he was done with that soldier time would stop again. It made it look like he was teleporting to the Fringe troops, who were all helpless to his powers. Within minutes, the last of the soldiers fell to the ground dead.

Fury’s now fully golden eyes moved to the machine that held his mother. She screamed no more and lay limp in its claw. Fury leaped up onto the tank and grabbed a hold of the main cannon that had shocked his mother. He pulled with all his might, focusing all of his powers into his arms and legs to pull the cannon off of its mount. Finally, he heard the screech of metal being torn from metal. He ripped the top of the tank clean off and tossed it aside. Two Fringe tank operators still sat exposed in the cockpit with shocked looks on their faces. Fury reached down and grabbed one by the neck and lifted him out of his seat. He squeezed the man’s neck until he stopped kicking and he felt the bones and muscles smash. He then turned to the other operator and delivered a bone-shattering kick directly to the man’s face, killing him.

Fury pried his mother from the claw and placed her gently on the ground in the flowers. He cupped her face in his hands and searched for a pulse. Nothing. Fury punched the ground near him. ”No, nononononononono, NO! Damnit, I didn’t go through all of this for you to die on me,” he said as he began performing CPR. His vision began to blur and he became confused for a second before he realized his vision was blurring because of tears in his eyes. He bit them back and said, ”Come on, I’m freaking tearing up for you. You better wake up.” He sat there for the longest time, pounding against her chest, trying to get her heart beating again. Finally, he just fell forward onto her, giving up. He cupped her face once more to say goodbye when he felt his powers rising again. He could feel them boiling over, higher than they had ever gone before, but as fast as they were rising, they fell too. The energy was being pulled from his body and transferred into his mother.

His mother jerked once and then her eyes fluttered open. Fury felt completely sapped, his powers gone from him for good, but at the same time renewed. He had the burden the powers placed on him lifted from his shoulders. Once again, his mother had found a way to inadvertently help him. He pulled her up into his arms and activated the communicator. ”Shade, I have our mother. Proceeding to the rendezvous point.”

Griever's summoning affected more than just the Fringe's vessel. The Detachment's gravity well was enough to protect it from the violent turbulence caused by the summoning of so mighty a Guardian Force. ...If only just. Caroline could feel the ship hum from the extreme strain the gravity well generator device edged near to redlining. Though this was not the time to express it, Caroline was highly impressed by Shade. The Fringe were running scared, in the face of power like this. ...Of course, what came next was more than a little surprising. Even with her power, she'd never expected her swords to be able to slice through combat-grade starship armor plate as easily as flesh. ...Deciding not to question it, she took advantage of the fact that they were distracted with Shade.

Flying beneath the massive ship, Caroline activated the grappling claws. Digging the metal implements into the shredded hull, the damaged section came away like wrapping paper, Adding insult to injury, by wadding the metal up, and using the gravity well to fling it at the ground troops, she knew that it was high time to end the life of this behemoth. Since the hull was gone, the inner layers of the ship, none of which were properly hardened for combat, were exposed. She began methodicaly firing all the Detachment's weapons into the gaping hole, using the field to redirect the shots of the side-mounted weapons to the front. The white-hot metal slag shredded through the guts of the dreadnought, the inner workings offering no resistance to the highly destructive rounds. ...And, then, she hit what she was aiming for. A shot from one of the Detatchment's capital guns tore into the dreadnought's reactor core. Quickly disengaging, and getting clear of the wound in the ship's belly, she couldn't help but grin as thermonuclear fire blasted forth from any open space possible on the ships, the proton cannons and engines exploding in a violent, brilliant display of pyrotechnics. The corpse of the steel monster immediately fell from the sky, slamming into the islands below.

...Of course, all this did was something similar to smashing a hornet's nest. From the now-empty gate, hundreds upon hundreds of troop transports, and smaller attack ships poured out, to avenge their fallen brothers.

"Ah-ha-haaaaalright! NOW, it's a party!" She said, her com-link picking it up, for all who would listen.

===========================================================

Simon, on the other side of the world, couldn't help but smile, hearing this. He wasn't quite sure what'd happened, but, he had to know that there'd probably been some sort of decisive blow struck.

Which meant, for him, as he pulled onto the superhighways of the city-state, heading for where he thought their parents were, that there wasn't any time. If Esthar was going to survive, it was not gonna be from their own efforts. As he drove, Simon divided his focus, using his Psycommu to enter into the city network. Having taken down and entered the network of Esthar once before, their security protocols were as naught before him. He took the actions that would save this city. Locking out the Senate from command, he immediately instituted martial law in Esthar, giving full power to the military commanders. To these individuals, he sent along full dossiers of what was to happen.

Closing out his network connection, Simon could only wait. And, he smiled as the alarm was raised across the city-state of Esthar. The whole country was now on red alert. At that moment, Esthar's military assets went to work. Soldiers, Terminators, and Elastoids poured out of various installations, covering and protecting the most vital areas. Mobile Type Eights and Ragnaroks immediately scrambled, in anticipation of the Fringe's arrival. Sending along data that identified him as a high-ranking SeeD, the military let him through the various checkpoints which had been set up with typical Estharian lightning-quickness. All the while, headed closer and closer to the Senate Chambers.

"Esthar's defenses are up. At the least, the world's got a safe haven, since they're ready for it. Maybe even backup."

The missile from Jayda's weapon soared through air with deadly accuracy at the main ship still emerging from the portal. She had aimed for what she knew was the cockpit area, and before it struck its mark, she was preparing yet another shot towards the ground troops dispersed over the rolling hills like swarms of ants. The first missile wasn't just an ordinary explosive. It used a complex program of Vex's technology combined with Jayda's lightning magic installed, with an anti shield chip that deactivated any form of protection around it's target, as well as thwarting off any counter attack that tried to strike the missile down before impact. If they had such weapons with the technology before hand.... there may have been a chance the first encounter would have been thwarted... none of the deaths would have transpired... no pain, no nightmares....


But the past was now, and Jayda would make damn sure it would not succeed in repeating itself...


The futile attempts to take out the initial missile naturally failed as the impact to the cockpit area exploded with such force, the entire ship trembled within the air and shifted dramatically to the left, veering away from the Kinneas home. The ground troops were going be a bit tricky though since they could scatter with their ground mobility at a much faster rate when seeing the second missile coming straight at them. It too, erupted with a ground quaking explosion spreading out nearly a hundred yards, but what survived and skillfully avoided damage regrouped and were reinforced from behind with even more troops. What charged in on foot bore remarkable armor made of a foreign skin like jet black material, yet almost virtually impenetrable and enforced with their protective magic. The various terrain vehicles and smaller aerial ships were made of the same material, yet of a thicker metal substance also infused with supporting magics of protection and enhancement technology. Stolen knowledge and powers from other planets this race invaded in order to fuel and empower their own with each and every world they consumed for themselves.


What the Fringe never expected or encountered though was facing a prey who was prepared for their intellect and technology, and with the know how to breach through it so quickly.


Now reloading her weapon again and bracing herself against the weight and strength of her summons, Jayda took aim as the mechanisms whined up with a piercing turbo sound and she finally fired upon the ground troops once more while shouting for her brother to get his ass in gear. "We're runnin' outta tyme 'ere, Vex!! We gotta move out NOW!!"


The retaliating fire shook the house violently, knocking Irvine back against a wall just he reached the front door in attempts to add some back up fire with the young woman outside. His mind refused to wrap around who these two strangers really were with his instincts screaming that the intent of survival was first and foremost right now. After helping Selphie back on her feet, Vex knew there was only one way to get his parents out of danger when they refused to listen to his words alone.


"Alrighty then.... time to be an asshole...." He gave his shoulders a shrug and his arms a casual swing about, seemingly unaffected by the panic of the situation while rushing off to where he knew his younger self and his sister were hiding. Knowing their younger selves were outright terrified, they weren't about to just latch on to some random stranger no matter how scared they were. He was perceptive to expect this, among other possibilities that ran through his mind weeks before taking this mission on, and now activated his hologram device that was strapped to his wrist while running down the hallway to the back of the house where the kitchen was. Throwing the table and chairs across the room, he kicked the rug aside to reveal a single cut out within the floor that was a hidden door to the cellar. Yanking it open, two young faces full of fear and covered in tears now looked up at him, but they didn't see a stranger reaching down for them. Vex now appeared identically as Irvine Kinneas himself and mimicking his father's voice. "Time to scoot! Let's go! Move, move, move!!"


Now with the younger twins in his arms, they clung to him tightly as he tore back down the hallway with a brief pause to the living room doorway just long enough for the parents to take notice as Irvine was firing off his guns through the bay windows and Sephie was blasting her spells. "I'd say its time to mosey on out of here, don't you think?" Vex gave a wink and grin to the stark shocked expressions on their faces and was rushing for the back door just as Irvine and Selphie were screaming and tearing off after the stranger who was running off with their children. Vex didn't dare pause or slow down as he ran full force out of the house, hoping like hell Jayda could still hear him through the com device strapped to his ear. "Get your ass out of there, sis!! I got them all out!"


Jayda had just sent off another missile as the perspiration trailed down her brow, already soaking the strands of her auburn hair all along her forehead. "Stubborn sunso'bitches...." she sneered at the oncoming Fringe closing in on the ranch home before tearing away from the scene to follow her brother and parents. The armored bear followed from behind, but the following blast reached them before they could escape the house with the others. Yet another massive airship had crept through the portal behind the first that took on the initial damage of Jayda's weapon, and now pin pointed and fired on her precise location. What was once their grand two level ranch home was now blown apart sky high, engulfed within a volcanic eruption that sent Vex hurling across the ground with his charges still in his arms to crash upon the ground; his back taking the brunt of the blow so the children wouldn't be harmed.


After a few retching breaths of panic, he managed to lift his head and turn back to see the explosion had also thrown Irvine and Sephie a good distance away, but the were moving again, so they were alive. But his own eyes widened in fear and despair when seeing nothing left of the shambled home, save for the steel foundation that had miraculously saved himself and sister from death so many years ago. With the twins still clinging to his legs as he staggered to stand back up, exhausted and whimpering from their own shock, Vex's hologram began to twitch erratically until it fizzled out, revealing his true appearance.

But that didn't matter anymore.

Nothing did.

His sibling link to his sister frantically reached out to feel nothing at all in return from their bond as Vex screamed out his sister's name to the top of his lungs above all the chaotic hysteria around him. The ground troops were still closing in.... the first airship Jayda had penetrated now plummeted to the ground, adding yet another wave of explosions to soar through the air and rip through the ground with a violent force that even shook the nearby ocean as the following ship continued to rip through the portal. It was if Vex never heard or saw a thing as he stood completely still, simply staring into a void of space and unable to move.... ...come on Jayda.... you're tougher than that.... come on.... show me a sign... anything....


But his concentration and desperate connection to his sibling was abruptly snapped by a sudden and unexpected blow across his jaw that came from Irvine's fist and screaming threat. "Yew ev'r touch mah kids again, yew sunnuvabitch, an' I'll snap yer damn neck apart, boy!!"

Fury ran towards the rendezvous point with his mother clutched tightly to his chest. After the initial moment of her being awake she had fallen unconscious again. Her heart-rate was so dangerously low that Fury had to stop his sprint to check and see if it was even still beating. Each time he did he noticed it was getting a little stronger until he didn’t even have to stop anymore. The power transfer had worked. He didn’t know how he did it, but it worked and that was all that mattered. The transfer left him weaker than he’d like, though, and he kept stumbling and nearly falling on his sprint to safety.

As he ran, he kept an open comm. He heard everything the others were going through. It would seem Shade and Simon were both pulling off their part of the mission. Esthar should be online by now and on the counter attack, sending fleets of cybernetic airships and ragnaroks to help get the pressure off some of the Gardens. Meanwhile, Caroline must have been making advances in the air near the technologically advanced city because he could hear her whooping and hollering over the comm system. By now, Jayda and Vex should have gotten themselves and their parents out of the ranch and should have been on their way back to the rendezvous point.

But what he heard over the comms was all wrong. He could hear Jayda and Vex yelling back and forth amongst one another about what was going on around them as explosions cut them off from the background. They were struggling and Fury couldn’t let them slip. He wouldn’t let anyone who came here not come back with him. He couldn’t lose them. But there was no way for him to make it to them in time. With his bike and his powers gone, he was stranded where he was unless he walked.

Then it hit him.

He gently placed Rinoa on the ground under a tree and pulled the golden cross from around his neck. He tossed the cross on the ground out in front of him and the familiar bright flash appeared before George galloped out of the portal and stood at attention before him. Fury nodded to him and said, ”I got a job for you, friend,” he grabbed Rinoa from the ground and walked her over to George, ”You have to take her the rest of the way. Protect her with your life. I have something else I need to do.”

C.R.A.I.G. noticed what he was thinking and decided he needed to interfere. He appeared in his flickering light-blue form and raised his hand in front of Fury. ”I can’t let you do this. The probability of you succeeding in this maneuver is 8,923 to 1.”

Fury walked right through the hologram and placed Rinoa on the back of George’s horse. ”That’s it? Come on, we’ve beaten worse odds just having fun.”

C.R.A.I.G. reformed in front of Fury again. ”A maneuver like this is a little more complicated than a trick shot in a drinking game with Miss Kinneas.”

Fury looked back at him and said, ”I bet it’s less fun too.” He secured his mother in George’s saddle and nodded to his old friend before he slapped the horse’s rear end and watched them take off. He turned around to face C.R.A.I.G. again and sighed, ”Activate Operation: Thunderbolt.”

C.R.A.I.G. lowered his head in defeat before forming into the mechanized knight before Fury. ”Please don’t do this.” He reached his hand out to Fury.

Fury sighed again and reached up to grab ahold of the guardian’s hand. ”Don’t you want to be the first Artificial Intelligence in space?” He gave the mech an uneasy smirk before nodding to him, letting him know he was ready.

”I hope you know what you are doing,” he said as he sling-shot Fury up into the sky and dematerializing to return to the onboard computer in Fury’s suit.

Fury sky-rocketed up through the sky. He broke through the hanging smoke and fighter jets. He broke through the clouds hanging above everything. He even broke through the atmosphere, causing him to hang above everything, looking down on the scarred world beneath him. He could see the massive Fringe ships closing in on the world all over, looking like boils upon the surface. The world was on fire and thousands of people were dying. It made what Fury knew he had to do seem insignificant. How could they stop this?

By fighting.

Fury leaned forward and aimed himself towards the ground. ”Alright, Craig. Let’s go save a world… again.” C.R.A.I.G. activated the thrusters in the boots of the suit, pushing him back into the atmosphere and starting his descent.

Fury fell at an alarming speed towards the surface. He fell faster than he had ascended, causing his armor to shake and pull at him in painful ways. He was heading straight where he needed to be, though, and that was all that mattered. He was four thousand feet up from the ground when a massive Fringe ship hovered between him and the ground. ”Shit, can we get around it?”

C.R.A.I.G. started to perform multiple calculations before saying, ”No, and we’re moving too fast to slow down enough to land on it. Brace for impact. This is it.” C.R.A.I.G. pushed all power into the armor’s protection capabilities and hoped it was enough.

Fury gritted his teeth and pulled his new gun from his back. ”Then I guess we’ll have to go through.” He aimed the gun ahead of him and waited. He fell until he was within the ship’s over-shields and then fired. The 12 gauge fragmentation slugs flew from the barrel of the gun, tearing the metal walls of the ship mere feet in front of him. He blew through the walls as he fell, creating a man-sized holed clean through the ship. He reached the center of the ship and saw the reactor keeping the ship afloat. As he passed it in its massive chamber, he pulled a grenade from his suit and tossed it into the core. He then turned and continued to blast his way through the ship. A few seconds later the air around his heated up as the core exploded, tearing the ship apart.

Fury just reached the other side of the ship when it exploded in the air, sending him tumbling even faster at the ground. ”Craig! Level us out! NOW!” He struggled against the g-forces to get level so he could use his AMP system to slow himself down.

C.R.A.I.G. came online and shot back with, ”I can’t if I take power away from your armor then we’ll burn up at the speed we’re moving at.” He struggled to even keep the power on the armor. If they didn’t slow down soon, they might even burn up before they hit the ground. Things were not looking good.

”JUST DO IT!” Fury shouted as he continued to tumble. C.R.A.I.G. complied and pulled just enough power away from the armor to use the thrusters to level them out. As the thrusters began to kick in, Fury’s heads up display flashed angrily at him as the over-shields drained rapidly. He was jerked back and forth as pieces of his armor was torn from his suit, exposing his skin to the intense heat and g-forces. He could feel his skin boiling and bubbling under the armor. Luckily, he stopped spinning, and C.R.A.I.G. returned the power to the shields which struggled to stay up and protect him.

He looked at his altimeter on his HUD. It said he had less than a thousand feet before he really was a part of this world for good. He quickly pulled his AMP anit-grav units from his suit and tossed a handful of them ahead of him. As he passed each one it activated, creating a sphere of about ten feet of anit-gravity, making everything within it weightless. Fury would hit these pockets and slow down some, but he was still moving too fast. He was just about to strike the ground when C.R.A.I.G. cut off his ability to move in the suit and took every last bit of power to put into the forward shields. Fury struck the ground moving at speeds that would make a fighter jet jealous.

Fury’s eyes flickered open to nothing but black. I’m dead he thought. I died and this is where we go when we die. I failed he tried to move through the dark, but found himself locked in his place. ”If you’re dead, does that mean I don’t have to deal with your idiocy anymore?” C.R.A.I.G. said to him inside his head. The words reboot flashed across the darkness in the usual bright blue lettering. The systems came back online, revealing that he was actually in a crater that he must have made with his impact. He looked at his life support system and just about every part of his body was flashing red in some way or another. ”Fuck you, Craig, you’re stuck with me, you tin can. Make me think I died again and I’ll make you the new simulator for first years when we get back to the Garden.”

”A job I will eternally envy over working with you, Sir,” C.R.A.I.G. said as he unlocked the armor and allowed Fury to move. He checked over the systems, or at least what was left of the systems. They were running out of power fast and the battle wasn’t even half over. They were going to have to find and alternative power source soon, but there wasn’t going to be any talk about taking a break to recharge until Fury wouldn’t be able to move.

Fury started to stand up and quickly realized the reason why his life-support system was flashing at him. He had to have broken every bone in his body, but at least he wasn’t paralyzed. He could move with help. ”Alright, Craig, transfer power to help me move. We have to get out of here.” C.R.A.I.G. complied grudgingly and Fury pulled himself out of the hole. He looked around to see Vex, Irvine, Selphie, the younger forms of Vex and Jayda, and a hole army of angry Fringe coming at them. Fury moved over to Vex and asked, ”Where’s Jayda?” He didn’t have to wait for an answer from Vex to know. He could see it in the blank look on his face.

Fury angrily ripped his helmet off his head; the crack in the screen was bugging the hell out of him. He threw the helmet across the field to crash into a Fringe soldier who was advancing. ”Get them out of here, Vex. Get them to the rendezvous point, Rinoa is there with George. Take care of them; I’ll be there soon with your sister.”

Fury turned to face the on-coming soldiers. A third massive ship was coming out of the portal to land and let off troops; the other two ships were crashed and destroyed on the ground behind the troops. Fury ran up to the blown up ranch house and took cover behind a destroyed wall. He summoned a machine gun using the bracelet that Vex had given him and loaded it up. The Gatling machine gun fired 7.62 millimeter incendiary rounds at 800 rounds per minute a true force of nature. The black armored soldiers advanced further, they were now within range and had started to fire at him. ”Craig, route power to forward armor, targeting system, and tracker. I don’t need help moving anymore, I just need you to locate Jayda. We have to get her and get out of here because I don’t think I’m going to be able to hold them for very long.” He leaned out from behind his cover and set the machine gun’s bipod up on the wall before unleashing a wall of fire at the advancing soldiers. He quickly realized that the bullets were hardly hurting the more advanced soldiers that he was now facing. C.R.A.I.G. had better hurry…

After her swords shredded violently at the bottom hull of the ship, Shade expected it would effect the massive vessel no more than mere annoying scratches, which played into her plan well enough. The Fringe would believe that's all she could do, shrugging her feeble attack off as no more than some pesky insect while diving their attention solely on Griever, thinking the "larger" threat was far more dangerous....


Now purposely placing herself close to the ground, far, far below the enemy ship, Shade cracked her wings through the sky with a shrill scream, igniting the depths of her powers to ignite as she soared straight up through the air with both of her blades erupting with a blinding light. There was no holding back when so many, as well as her own future, depended on their success. She would do what it took to succeed, even if it meant putting herself in dire jeopardy. This was what she meant to do all of her life. It was what she was trained to do... expected to do... what everyone depended on the very moment this mission was merely a newborn idea since Shade was a child.


She was expendable, so long as everyone else survived...


As she was just about to reach the massive ship, Shade brought her swords up to slam straight through the jagged opening she previously ripped through into the vessel to continue forcing herself and her powers within the gut of the invading vessel. Before slicing completely through, Shade erupted a blowing force through the blades to explode within the airship, heaving the massive air structure in half with such force, the vessel lurched in mid flight before slowly separating in half with a fierce groan of ripping steel thundering through the sky.


Wavering from her sudden expense of power, Shade staggered in flight while desperately trying to regain her composure when she heard Fury's voice shouting through the earcom device. ”No, nononononononono, NO! Damnit, I didn’t go through all of this for you to die on me,”..... Her heart came to a sudden halt as a chilling death blow shot through her gut... ”Come on, I’m freaking tearing up for you. You better wake up!” Leaving Griever to finish off the remaining threat of what was left of the airship, Shade soared directly for Fury's position with the same death gripping dread she knew her brother was feeling at that very moment. Yet by the time she reached him, coming to a stumbling slide across the ground and rushing up to Fury and their mother from behind, ....something had happened.... Shade could feel it before her eyes ever met Fury's. Now breathless, Shade raced towards them with her wings collapsed against the ground behind her as her steel hues frantically shot back and forth from Fury to Rinoa. Perhaps due to his own exhaustion, he didn't realize Shade had arrived when he announced he was heading for the rendezvous point, nor did he realize his communicator was on the entire time. Now seeing that their mother was indeed alive and safely in Fury's arms, it was then she realized... no, felt.... something was terribly different with her brother....


Just as her lips were about to mutter the question of his actions, Shade clamped them tightly shut. She already knew the answer. Just like herself, Fury beheld the same frame of mind as she did. One must do what needs to be done.... no matter what it took. There was no time to argue over what was already played out... not that Shade would anyway. She respected her brother and whatever decisions he made far too much. With her mind back to the deadly mission at hand, she gave Fury a quick curt nod as she began to step back and her wings slowly rose up once more from behind her. She already knew what his next decision would be without him speaking a single word.


With a slow, deep intake of breath, her eyes revealed their own truth to him before she spoke. "Take care of them...." She didn't need to specify... she knew Fury would know.... And as her form shot right back into the sky, just in time to see even more of the Fringe airships pouring through the portal rift, Shade screamed for Griever to stay with Fury's Summons and their mother to aid in the protection as she soared in the direction of the old Lighthouse where she knew her younger self would find Squall. Even more of the vessels were pouring through the portal, but the initial one already released the remaining ground troops before coming to a drastic explosion upon the ground. What hideous fiends they possessed were now released on their own accord to aid in the devastation, and Shade flew at a heart racing pace to reach her destination before the enemy could. Yet by the time the Lighthouse came into view, Squall was already running out of the dilapidated structure after hiding his daughter within, with his Gunblade already prepared to ward off the charging foe.


There were far too many....


He didn't have a chance....


She wouldn't reach him in time....


And just as Shade's powers were about to release in raging panic, the horde of fiends had already reached him, piling over one another to take down one of the planet's strongest warriors and hurling Squall over the cliff, plummeting into the ocean below.


Time had come to sudden halt. Shade crashed upon her knees just beside the crumbling stone of the Lighthouse... staring in complete shock of total defeat. This wasn't supposed to happen.... she was supposed to have stopped this.... her entire life was reared for this day to succeed and save them all.... she failed yet again... she failed him.... As much as her anguish demanded to be released, Shade found nothing within herself save for that choking constriction mangling her lungs and shattering the last heartbeats within her chest.


What came next must have been a delusional dream brought alive from her stricken state when the conscious mind outright refuses to believe the truth of things, even when seen with your own eyes. "You better get back up.... there's more of them heading this way..."

Shade began to shake head slowly, not even able to lift her head when hearing her father's voice speak. He wouldn't really be there... she knew that now... Hurry up! I'm going to need all the damn help I can get! You're not bleeding, damnit, so get up and fight!"

She choked on her next breath, feeling her strength and will abandon her until an unexpected grip into her arm yanked her up onto her staggering feet to give a sharp shake back to reality. "SNAP OUT OF IT!!"

Her eyes widened with disbelief.... It was Squall shaking her, shouting at her... and as her mind frantically tore through the confusion, Shade jerked her head to look over the cliff again. She knew what she saw! Squall was taken over these very cliffs to his death.... But how was a mere dream pulling her to feet and shouting through her grief as if he were so real?


As if in tune with her frantic thoughts, an explosion came through the crashing waves below... a solitary form so small, one would normally miss it unless they had the trained eye to see such an unbelievable sight soaring straight back up into the air with a joyful screech as the multi colored little rodent sprouted wings on his back in order to reach out to her when closing the distance between them. When the sudden realization of what truly happened just moments ago played out through Shade's mind, she screamed a single name.


"SKITTLES!!"



================================================================================



Seeing the countless beams of attacks soaring toward Trabia, Brix's heart came to a slamming halt as Zell screamed into the Garden intercom for everyone to brace themselves. She didn't remember moving at all, but when Zell turned his head to shout at her, Brix was already tearing back out of the Garden with an ear shattering scream and her own magic already ignited. The very moment her feet reached the soil, Brix's hands soared into the ground with her palms slamming so hard into the surface, they crumbled straight through the dirt and rock like like a knife through butter. Upon impact, Brix's own magic penetrated through the ground with such a violent force, even the Garden itself shook and lurched against its foundation before sheets of thick rock and boulders began jutting up from the very soil, and at such a rate that a single blink would find a mountain thick wall of stone and rock appear out of nowhere, where the Garden once stood. The barrier took in the explosions of attacks, sending boulders of debris hurling into the air, yet Brix didn't relent. She continued pouring what magic she had into the ground where her skills were the most strong, refusing to wane by the draining effects such a strain of power consumed on her strength.


Zell recognized that reckless stubbornness... he was renown for it himself. He knew the girl was only buying the Garden precious time, and there was very little of it. As much it tore at his gut to leave her, Zell tore off down the hallway to reach the elevator in order to get to the Garden bridge. Every thunderous blast against the endless layers of Brix's stone rippled and shook with violent quakes through the structure, even with her consistent walls rebuilding themselves throughout each attack. Once within the bridge, he took over the controls from the current pilot who was already about to crumble from the panic, and with the Garden finally detached from the Ruins' foundation, Trabia was finally hovering from the ground and shifting back in order to find more clearance to take flight. This gave Brix even more hope.... as her memories reflected with a lightning flash through her mind where Trabia Garden never even made it off the ground during the initial attack when she was just a child.


But in changing such delicate events, no matter how trivial or severe, left new consequences to follow. She should have predicted her own actions, no matter her age. Brix remembered how several of the Garden faculty had to tear her away from her father that day; screaming bloody murder and kicking and punching with all her five year old might to get to him when they were charged to get her to safety. The last image scorched into her mind was the drastic explosion overhead the closing bay doors to the Ruins foundation basement, and the knowing within her youthful mind that her father was already dead before ever being told.


It seemed fate was attempting to reverse the roles...


It was the faint cries of a child that caught Brix's attention. When she spared just a brief glimpse through her gripping concentration, her very heart nearly slammed straight out of her rib cage. It couldn't be! But there she was! Her younger self running across the steel foundation where the Garden previously sat, desperately trying to chase the now floating structure, reaching out and screaming for her father as the enemy continued with its ruthless attacks barreling through the mountain barriers Brix struggled to uphold. Without scant moment's thought, Brix tore off from her position and ran full speed toward the lone child, forcing her body beyond the extremes of exhaustion. The hurling engines from the Garden blasted through her ears with a deafening roar and piercing gusts of wind that actually knocked her younger self off her feet to tumble across the ground. By the time Brix reached her, the little girl was delirious with panic and fatigue, yet still sobbing when watching the Garden drift further and further away....


Within the cockpit, Zell was frantically trying to transfer the Garden's energy to shields, enough to sustain damage, yet still get the facility as far away as possible for the enemy to abandon all suspicions as to where the survivors were actually hidden. The last thing he ever expected to fall upon his ears was a frantic call from the sealed off ruins below that his daughter had slipped away and couldn't be found. As the frantic voice continued to repeat the dreaded announcement through the intercom, Zell shouted for the previous pilot to pull it together and control the Garden before tearing off for the outside balcony. The consistent attacks continued to pummel through the mountain wall barriers, sending waves of boulder debris soaring through the air and even crashing into the Garden itself, making it literally impossible for Zell to see much below, but when the dust settled enough at one point, his own panic screamed out his daughter's name when he saw her running below. Just as he was about to jump over the railing, with no particular plan in mind, save to reach his child as fast as he could, his body froze up by the actions below.


Brix scooped up her younger self and bolted after the soaring Garden while cursing through her clenched teeth. Her other hand went to her hip and snatched what appeared to be simple neon green rope, unleashing it to unravel swiftly to it's full length to reveal a grapling hook of sorts at the very end. ”Knew this would come in handy someday.... just not like this.... Hold on kid!!” With a hard swing of her arm, the rope swung out and the steel claw like hooks ensnared the bottom of the flying facility, right along the outer edge of the structure, but Brix stopped dead in her tracks instead of continuing her pursuit. The rope then proved itself to be elastic and rapidly tightened from the growing distance between Brix and the departing Garden, naturally pulling against her hold hard and causing her boots to skid across the ground until she managed to plant them both against a huge fallen boulder to strain her muscles as hard as she could for the bungee ropes to grow even more tight. Her wrist frantically wrapped around the end she held onto, and once the elastic rubber was nearly close to snapping apart, Brix leaped over the boulder to now soar up into the air. The forward motion of the flight sent Brix and her charge hurling toward the Garden, and with a sudden swoop of her legs, their bodies rounded over the edge of the flying Trabia where the hook strained to keep its hold. Once she breached over the under belly of the ship, Brix twisted her body in mid flight, releasing the bungee rope for her free hand to now reach out and snatch any portion of the structure for a hand hold. Her younger self was so struck with terror, she simply clung tight with her eyes squeezed shut, letting out an occasional scream of fright, but still holding tight none the less.


Through the blasting winds, the roar of the hovering engines, and the explosions erupting through the final stone barriers left remaining, Brix's wild determined glare was desperately looking up against the Garden for any means to get inside as Zell was trying to shout down to her through the all the noise. When she dared to spare a glance at the enemy ships now closing in and charging their energy canons for another round of attacks, it was one of those moments where her cynical humor faced the odds. "This is REALLLYYYY turning into a shitty day!"

The visions shifted far too swiftly to grasp.... They came in painful flashes and none were in order the way she remembered them. Perhaps she was dreaming? But they didn't feel like a dream.... there was far too much pain. These memories shouldn't be painful... ”Excuse Miss... do you know where I can find Shade?” That first day she met Raven.... even through the weary eyes and the obvious weight of tremendous responsibilities across his brooding scowl, Jayda immediately knew she found a friend in him.... ”I think my brain is complete mush...” Jayda stood at her brother's bedside and chuckled at him being hooked up to every monitor imaginable after finally being rescued from 3 years of imprisonent. ”Yew've always been a mushy brain, Vex...” Once again, she tried thanking Raven, who had then turned to the name Fury for his initial help in locating and rescuing her brother, but his usual laid back demeanor met her gratitude with a shrug and lit cigar. Next, Jayda found herself in the flower fields beside the crumbling lighthouse. There was a fierce storm closing in from the ocean horizon. “There's no such thing as happy endings, Jayda... such a thing is only a lie by those who refuse to face reality...” Jayda was about to open her mouth and scream at Shade when the scene fell into a chaotic shift once again. When the haze began to clarify once more, Brix was now assuring her that Fury would live, even though it looked as if he were at death's door when Fury and Shade collapsed at the Garden after their time rift episode. "I don't even think my own lousy singing would kill HIM off!! Brix's laughter followed, but it suddenly changed to children's laughter, and when Jayda turned around, she now found herself within a SeeD classroom where Serenity was playing with a group of girls. There was a tug at her arm... when Jayda looked down, Alivia was now beside her with a solemn expression on her face. ”You promised, Jayda... you promised to bring him back!”





There came a deep groan of pain, but as Jayda shifted, her conscious mind slowly began to focus enough to realize the sound didn't come from her, even though every muscle within her body was screaming in pain and defiance. After a few more moments, her eyes managed to flutter open, yet found everything dark. Her lungs were choking for air, but not because of the thick clouds of dust and smoke. It felt as if her lungs were being crushed, and after another minute or two, she came to realize that her body actually was weighed down by enormous force behind her. Finally, a rasping moan escaped her, and quite possibly what led the bulk against her body to finally let up. It was then she realized it was the girth of her summons as the mighty bear struggled to rise with another groan of pain. His bulk took the brunt of exploding debris in order to protect her, and landing over her kept Jayda from further harm as debris then fell down on top of them. There were several beams against him, but with a bout of remaining strength, the armored bear hoisted the weight up and over his back to be free of the burden, but immediately began to stagger from weakness again.



Jayda's mind went into a flurry of panic, trying to get her body to move! Move! Move! Forcing her limbs to cooperate through the pain and exhaustion until finally, she managed back on her feet with trembling legs. There was still that horrible roar in the air from engines of the airships flowing through the sky, not that she could even see them through the burning sting of smoke jabbing her eyes. Still, she managed to catch a glimpse of her rifles a few feet away and tried shuffling carefully through the debris to reach them. Just as she bent down, a rain of firing energy ammunition went soaring just above her, sending her shrieking in alarm and taking to the ground again. Glacial's roar could be heard, and the round of fire continued, until a crash followed, silencing the abrupt attack. When Jayda managed to look over her shoulder, her summons was horribly wounded, but his massive claws managed to strike the Fringe soldier down dead. ”Jus' go, Glacial! Hurry! I can't loose yew tew!!”


Even though the loyal creature groaned in defiance, her dismissal led his body to slowly fade away to safety just as the stream of ground troops came upon the destruction, closing in on Jayda fast. With a deep breath and her determination aflame again, the gunner staggered back up on her feet, only for her eyes to widen as the dust and smoke began to clear. It was then she saw Fury off in the distance with Vex now grabbing their parents and rushing them off, leaving Fury behind. Stubborn dolt! He wasn't supposed to be here! He was supposed to stick with Shade! His sister was by far more powerful and strong enough to see Fury safe through this cursed mission, yet he somehow wound up in Balamb, and Shade was nowhere in sight!


So caught up in her sudden bout of panic, Jayda was struck behind in the head, the blow sending her crashing forward to the ground. It didn't matter there was new pain now mounted upon the old. It didn't matter that Jayda was alone against the army charging in. It didn't matter that she once believed herself the weakest of the group. ”....you promised, Jayda!”


With a sneer growing on her lips, Jayda got back up on her feet again, hunched over from the pain in her side as she glared at the visor of her enemy. ”...damn right I did, darlin'” Her arms came out swinging, gripping the barrel of her rifle to bring the butt end of the gun crashing right through the visor of the helmet, sending the glass like shield and her weapon to strike the Fringe square in the eyes and send his body hurling back to crash into the debris of shambled house. ”Ain't no way tah treat ah lady, yew sun-of-ah-bitch!” She twirled the rifle around in her hand to now grip it firmly in her hands, aiming at her next of many targets closing in. Each blast echoed violently through the air, and not one missed it's mark through what weak links she knew their armor had. But Jayda knew there wasn't enough ammo to take down an entire charging army, especially with their destructive vehicles now charging their own weapons to add into the fray. She felt the rising panic again... she knew damn well Fury wasn't going to flee, predicting he was already running into the chaos right about now, ready to strangle her for being stubborn herself.


”Tayme fer yew bastards tew see what a real lady can dew...”


Her threat followed the last round she had to fire. She tossed the rifle to the ground and began to channel all of energy she could muster, finding strength in everything that relied on their success to this mission. She fueled the rising power with every memory she held dear, then set the magic aflame with every hope she had for the future. The very ground beneath her began to tremble, sending the quakes to ripple towards the oncoming army until her body suddenly dropped to one knee with her pistols in each hand, plummeting her ammo directly into the ground. Within moments, the ground exploded with a violent force just a few yards ahead of her. Massive cylinder towers of steel erupted through the surface, climbing higher to the sky at an exponential rate before an even wider steel foundation of mechanisms followed suit, connected to the towers and shifting into a locking series of motions as the massive object continued to soar out the ground. Unknowing to such a force, the army gave pause, but not in thought of escape. They were assessing the new challenge, recalculating their procedures for advancement, assimilating a new means of attack, then began their trek of advancement once more.


By this time... Jayda's own advancement was complete. Now before her was a round of multiple canons that outsized even the SeeD Gardens, and were now charging with energy drained from the planet itself. Heaving from such strength and energy spent, Jayda still managed to smirk while resting her hands upon her knees. “Come an' geyt ya sum, mutherfu....”
The volcanic eruptions from her summoned weapon finished off her words, blasting unmercifully into the army, as the other canons directed their aim to the airships overhead.

Fury kept his finger down on the trigger the entire time the Fringe forces advanced on him. The recoil from the machine gun was immense and it felt like daggers in his broken collar bone, but he kept the pressure on. Streams of light could be seen as the incendiary rounds tore from the barrels and sped off to crash with the obsidian armor of the advancing troops. The bullets exploded as they struck their targets, bathing the soldiers in fire. The fire did little to slow their advance, though, and did little to throw off their aim.

One of them got a lucky shot off and completely obliterated the scope of Fury’s gun. The force of the shock sent Fury rocking back on his heels and right over onto his ass. Fury looked at the machine gun and swore before tossing the broken piece of junk across the room. C.R.A.I.G.’s heads-up display flashed in a mirage of colors across Fury’s eyes, sending him information like distance to targets, how much ammo his broken gun still had in its clip, and how much damned pain he was in. None of the information was the information he wanted. He needed to know where Jayda was. ”Craig, what the fuck is taking you so long? Just pick up her IFF tag and mark it on the HUD. Hyne, do you want us to die here?”

C.R.A.I.G. was moving as fast as his processor would allow him. He moved from system to system within Fury’s suit and body to try and keep the idiot moving. Fury had been through a lot before, but he never knew how much C.R.A.I.G. really did to keep him alive. The artificial intelligence kept the nanites running through his body in order and ran every system in the man’s suit. On top of the fact that they were rapidly losing power, which meant that he had to make a choice between the need for the nanites to repair the damage in Fury’s body or sacrificing them to keep the suit moving. He really didn’t need Fury’s temper on top of everything else he was dealing with at the time. ”I’m moving as fast at the moment, but my scans are coming up with nothing,” he lied as he rerouted power from a few nanites to increase power to the shields. Fury didn’t need to know all that now.

Fury swore again and said, ”Ok. It’s ok, we’ll find her and get out of here. Just hurry, I don’t know how filled that armory is so we might be burning through ammo faster than we’re receiving it.” He leaned up against a blown-out wall and peeked around the corner to inspect the troops. The black-clad armor denoting the Fringe elite was even closer now. Luckily, they had ceased firing. They must have thought that they killed him when they shot his scope off. But now they were within fifty yards of his position. Even if he were to grab another gun there would be no way he could fight them all off, not with them as close as they were.

Suddenly, the ground seemed to shake beneath him. The soldier’s stopped their advance in confusion. C.R.A.I.G. chimed in, ”Fury, seismic activity is reaching chart breaking levels from an unknown source. Suggest we bug out and come back for Miss Kinneas.” Fury ignored him and moved towards the back of the house while the Fringe soldiers were distracted. Upon reaching the back of the house, he looked out to see a row of massive guns aimed in his direction and into the sky. Again, C.R.A.I.G.’s voice could be heard in his ear, ”I’ve found Miss Kinneas.”

”No shit, Sherlock,” Fury said as his eyes found Jayda. His eyes couldn’t leave the site of a very pissed of Jayda behind the large canons. He had never known that she had power like that. In fact, he wasn’t sure she even knew she had power like that. He could see the anger and frustration in her body language and it must have culminated in her unleashing… well… whatever the hell that thing was. Fury could see the canons charging to be fired, the massive chamber charging up a shot to obliterate whatever was in front of it. Fury heard one word.

”Duck?”

”Yup,” was all he said in response to the smart-assed computer as his face bit the dirt. The canons fired their salvo, causing immense heat to torch Fury’s back as they flew right over his head. Luckily, C.R.A.I.G. had pushed all the power into the shields so there was hardly any damage even taken to Fury’s body. The rounds tore the advancing Fringe to pieces.

When the firing ceased, everything was covered in a layer of dirt and charred earth. Smoke rose from everything and small fires sprouted up like daisies. Fury could hardly hear out of both ears and when he put a hand up to his ears his fingers came back bloody. But he was alive and that’s all that mattered. He pulled himself out of the rubble and slowly walked over to where Jayda was still firing her canons into the air. Thank Hyne he was partially deaf because those canons looked loud as they fired. He waited until the canons stopped firing and said, ”I CAME TO RESCUE A PARTICULAR PRINCESS THAT WAS IN DISTRESS. HAVE YOU SEEN A SHORT GOOD LOOKING COWGIRL WITH AUBURN HAIR NEARBY?” he didn’t even realize he was shouting. To him, his voice sounded normal.

Jayda was already well past her limit. Her strength was waning to the point that every muscle was trembling and ready to collapse by the force of concentration she put into the massive summons. Thankfully, the towering canons drew the planet's own energy to fuel its ammunition, but it still required Jayda's strength and energy to continue firing. She no longer knew if the weapon proved to be effective at hitting anything. All Jayda knew was to keep it firing as much and for as long as possible.


Her hands were gripping against the foundation of the enormous weapon to support herself as the canons took a pause to recharge when Fury's shouting words came directly behind her. How her body mustered the energy to leap three feet was beyond her as she screamed out in alarm from him startling her. She was just about to scream back at him for scaring her when his obvious broken appearance choked back anything scolding she would have had to say. He looked as if he were about to collapse at any given moment, and even through his untimely humor, Jayda knew damn well he was in a lot of pain. Had it been any other mission at any other time, and any other place, she may have very well taken the time to accuse him for his stubbornness and foolishly risking his life. She wasn't about to admit she was secretly relieved that he did....


After the initial shock wore off, Jayda blinked away her stupefied expression and was about to take Fury by the arm, but thought better of it in fear of causing him more pain as she took a staggered step backwards while catching her breath and wiping the perspiration from her brow. That's when a thunderous crash exploded several yards away, sending waves upon waves of quakes to ripple through the ground by one of the enemy ships taking a nose dive into an eruption of flames. Although incredibly weakened by the strenuous summoning, Jayda still let out a cheerful "WHOOT!" with a victorious wave of her hat in the air before turning her dirt smudged face back at Fury with a beaming smile that immediately turned into a confused expression. "Did'ja jus call me good lookin'!?"


Before either of them could say another word, another series of explosions erupted that sent Jayda lurching forward to crash against Fury with a startling yelp, sending them both falling to the ground. Before she could move again, she found herself snatched right back on her feet again by a strong hand on her arm while watching Vex come up from behind Fury to assist him back up as well while shouting at the both of them. "You two are seriously going to carry on idle chatter at a moment like this!? Get your asses moving already!" While keeping close to Fury in case he needed further assistance, Vex turned about and shot out several bursts of energy through his gloves to send random holograms into the air to distract the oncoming enemy that remained in order for the team to escape.


When Jayda regained her senses, she was stunned into silence to find that it was Irvine who had a hold of her arm and was leading her off with a determined pace and a stern brow over his sharp eyes. He was muttering under his breath as the four of them rushed across the smokey meadow, yet through the thundering sounds slamming through her eardrums, Jayda could have sworn she heard him grumbling about her flirting even during the most dangerous of times just as her mother did....

Fury let a smirk split his already cracked face when Jayda jumped into the air. The fighting was evident on her dirt smudged face to him. She had gone through as much hell as he had. She was breathing heavy and perspiration was running down her face. She was covered from head to toe in dirt and minor cuts. But through it all she still kept that simple charm underneath it all. He could tell she was about to say something to him, but held it back. He must have really looked like he felt. She looked like she was going to grab him but retracted instead. He was just glad she was safe.

An explosion rippled the earth beneath his feet and he could feel the heat of the explosion from the ship impacting into the ground. He was too tired and too out of it to even react to the jarring explosion. He simply just turned to face the impressive display of pyrotechnics with a blank look on his face. No matter how cheerful Jayda sounded about the small victory, they were still losing. Just a quick look around could tell Fury that the only hope for this mission was retreating. They completed their main objective of saving their parents, now they needed to get out. Now that their parents were alive the world had a chance. The resistance would have a real chance and their younger selves would grow up with their parents. Well, most of them.

Before Fury knew it, he was knocked on his back. Pain shot through his body as it collided with the ground. He felt every little thing that was wrong with his body. Every ache and pain could be felt through his body. He tried to move, but found that he just couldn't. Something was holding him down. He looked down to see Jayda was the debris that had collided with him and had knocked him to the ground. He let out a short grunt of exhaustion and quickly looked her over to make sure she was okay.

Luckily, the weight wasn't there much longer. Fury recognized Vex's smart ass voice as someone pulled Jayda off of him. "You gotta do something to keep this boring ass war interesting, Vex," he said as Vex helped him to his feet. He mentally told Craig to drop all the armor that wasn't keeping him moving off. He looked to Vex as they limped along and said, "Besides, these Fringe troops are like pussy cats compared to the PSI-COM soldiers I had to fight. When we get back remind me to tell you about the time I snuck through a base and blew it to kingdom come using only a can of gasoline and a zippo." He smirked to Vex as they limped along.

The world was spinning around him. He reached up and felt warm blood gushing out of a wound on his forehead. Blood was everywhere, though. He didn't think he had a single place on his body that wasn't bleeding. He had to continue on, though. They had to make it back to the portal and get out. That was all that mattered now.

They ran for a while, Fury could hear the others fighting and firing from time to time. Eventually they made it to the rendezvous point. Fury removed himself from Vex's help and moved over to George. He checked on his mother. She was still unconscious and limp, but she was alive. He looked around to the others and the sight was not good. Each had their own wounds and damages done to them, but they were all alive. He looked up to the sky and saw even more massive ships coming through the portals. They had to leave soon. He activated his comm system and said, "Shade, Brix, we have to move. Now. Get here as soon as possible. We'll hold until you arrive."

(Okay, so, I done fucked up. I'mma try and get all the content I'd intended for in one shot, here. ...Here's lookin' at ya, kids.)

Fury, Vex, and Jayda would have something of an... Unexpected guest.

A small, raised platform of what looked like cloudy glass had seemingly generated on its own from the ground. Atop this pedestal was a bed of sand, and, from that rose a second, smaller pedestal, like unto a table. Seated at this table was a strange gentleman.

While his hair and skin, (respectively frost white and mocha) were exotic on their own, they especially clashed with his facial features, which gave him away as a native of the far east. Clad in garb of dark blue, matching up to the style of ancient shinobi, he looked out of place, to be sure. A facet of his existence only exascerbated by the accoutrements of his right arm. While the organic limb could be seen underneath, it was encased in a dazzling crystal carapace, the structure thereof more akin to the various Demons which populated the worlds. Set into the "pauldron" of this armor was a simple Seal, bearing the image of a red diamond, in a teardrop cut. A clan symbol, perhaps? Still more curiosities hung from a necklace. A single, gold pocketwatch, clearly not of the same era as his appearance would suggest.

"...Hm? ...Ah. We didn't expect you until later. We were hoping not to involve you in these matters."

The shinobi stood as the sand and crystal trasformed into dust, collecting itself in a jar tied to his waist. He smiled, running a hand through his short-cut hair.

"I suppose it can't be helped, though. For all the power we have, we're no Sorcerors. Time is sensitive business to be meddling with."

==========================================================================================

Some few minutes ago, Simon, too, was having difficulties. Nearly flipping over the Trunade, he barely stopped in time to avoid htting a strange figure who had suddenly appeared in the road. He knew the distortions, however, when he saw them. Time Manipulation. Leaping out of the car, brandishing his blade, he confronted the odd figure. Before he could even get a word off, though, the figure snapped into action.

The man wore a full-body cloak, which extended to the heels of his boots. All visible attire was black, save for the areas near the hems and cuffs, which were consumed by strange blue tribal patterns. A gloved hand was wreathed by magic, which summoned a strange longsword. A steel blade bore a core of blue crystal. Within this, were four smaller red stones; three near the cross-guard, one near the tip. The crossguard and hilt are, unlike the blade, a strange sort of red metal. The crystal core of the sword continued down into this, even as the red formed a jagged space which ascended the blade's flat. The pommel seemed to contain a diamond.

"It's ALWAYS swordfish."

...Simon wasn't sure what was going on, but, he knew that phrase. ...Back when he'd first started working on the project that sent him here, he knew how badly it could screw up. And, that he may end up encountering versions of himself from different points on the timeline. To that end, he memorized a short, yet nonsensical line of nonsequiturs to use, to be certain he was not being decieved by the Fringe.

"...Swear to me on something that matters."

"...Fishsticks and pudding."

...Well, that was it, then. This white-robed figure was, without a doubt, him, from another time.

"...So, if you're here, I've done something wrong. Or, one of us has."

"...It's no so much what you've DONE, as it is what you ARE."

================================================================================

Meanwhile, Caroline herself had fled the field of battle. It didn't take a master general to realize that she wasn't going to win fighting this unending tide. Either the gates had to be closed, or the Source destroyed. In a low orbit, she surveyed the world. ...Until sensors picked up on a temporal anomaly. On a hunch, she linked the computer core to Esthar's satellite network, and saw both things. The white-haired Ninja. Simon, with the paradox man. ...And, sitting back in her chair, she smiled.

"So, then... We're finally doing this, old man. We're making this happen."

Her flesh began to smoke, lightly, the smell of burning plastics beginning to fill the command center of the Detachment. Environemtnal controls immediately began venting the toxic fumes, but, it hadn't seemed to bother Caroline. She wore the same soft smile throughout.

"About time you got your act together... Simon.