A/N: This was my second attempt at creating a story for Resbang 2014 but I dropped out before I could finish it. I've decided to keep writing it and to update it when possible. I couldn't have pulled off this piece without my wonderful betas and I'm sorry for my fickle nature. This is going to be a long story with an end rather than just a collection of drabbles because I'm really happy with the plot that I've created.
Thanks for your support and I'd love to hear your feedback!
Prologue
The Grigori pushed her way through the green thicket, swatting away the monsters and demons that leapt at her from the leaves and vines that surrounded them. They tore at her flesh with their sharp fangs, but she was too powerful to be deterred by weaklings and pests. The Grigori was the guardian angel of the tower, protecting both princesses and princes alike.
Her sole goal was to find the wicked assassin of the desert, the infamous Black Star, who had been targeting Princess Starshine Doodlebug, the beautiful and just ruler of the Ladybug Kingdom. The Grigori let her body shiver with anticipation. Her mortal enemy was a tough guy to face. He was an even tougher one to destroy, but she knew that justice would prevail.
She found a clearing, an exit that led her away from the jungle, and she ran towards it. Upon leaving the foliage, she was shocked when a mountain seemed to materialize out of thin air. The Grigori frowned and looked to the top of the new terrain. It seemed to be the only path she could take in order to find Black Star. No matter what, she had to reach him. She would climb the steepest, most treacherous mountain. She would dash through the deepest valley and swim across limitless oceans if it meant that she was getting closer to her goal. She had to protect her people from danger at all costs.
The Grigori dragged one foot after another and scaled the rocky cliffs. She could feel the snow and cold pricking through her thin clothes. Her eyes were blinded momentarily when the wind flicked a pigtail into her face. She wondered if she was being chased at all by her enemies. Black Star's minions must have been tracking her every move, setting up booby traps and base camps all around her; at least that's what should've been happening. It was quiet, too quiet. She kept climbing towards the sky because she was not weak and held no fear, but she stopped once around the middle of her ascent to give a quick wave to the goats below her, for she was as kind as she was brave. A guardian angel didn't limit herself to just princesses and princes. She extended her kindness to every living thing on the earth, except for Black Star.
When she finally reached the peak, she closed her eyes, focusing her heart and soul in her mind. She inhaled fresh air and exhaled the old from her lungs. Power surged all around her body, from her toes to her fingertips. She opened her eyes, urging them to reveal every detail of the world. She saw the grass beneath her in exquisite detail; vivid colors from the entire spectrum popped and gleamed. The blades held secret worlds full of wonder and adventure. Tiny dewdrops clung to the sides of each bright green sprout. She saw long legged bugs crawling through their own jungle. She pushed even harder and saw the individual beads of soil, hiding stringy roots and traveling earthworms. She left the underground world after her eyes started to sting and her vision traveled above ground, seeing the rough bark of trees around her and the movement of the wind as they brushed through the leaves. Her eyes grew tired after a short time and a slight headache began to form. She blinked away the focus.
The Grigori concluded that Black Star was nowhere to be seen. She slid down the rocky side of the mountain onto the other side and jumped before reaching the bottom, spreading her wings out and coasting in the wind current that guided her towards the desert.
She looked down at the sand and decided that now would be the perfect time to create defenses against Black Star and his army. In the midst of her adventure, she didn't notice that a boy had followed her in the shadows.
He watched her enter the bushes in search of him, emerging when her arms grew itchy with bug bites. He watched her climb the playground structure and go down the slide when she still couldn't find him. She deposited herself in the sandbox where she began to meticulously construct a castle.
"Assassin's rule number one, dissolve in the darkness, and erase your breath. Wait for an opening to attack your opponent…" he whispered to himself. His eyes followed the girl as she kicked down her creation, deeming it unworthy and too crooked.
The girl paused and swung around, placing both hands on her hips and leaned forward onto her toes. She yelled, "Blake! I can hear you from behind the tree! You suck at being the bad guy."
Blake slammed his body against the trunk, caught and cornered like a mouse. The evil and dangerous Black Star debated his next move. The most rational decision was to apologize, continue their game, let good triumph over evil, and make her happy. Of course, he wasn't a rational kind of guy. "The mighty Black Star doesn't suck! He is the best ninja assassin ever! Prepare yourself, Maka!" Propelled by her insult, he ran out into the open and tackled her onto the sand where they landed with a loud oomph.
"How's that for a bad guy?" Blake rolled off Maka and helped her up, brushing off the sand in her pigtails. She let him dust her off for a while, but grew impatient, shaking the rest of the grains out of her head.
"You win," she pouted, "but that was the worst game ever. Promise me we'll go back to playing spies tomorrow? I wanna be like Papa and Uncle Sid when I grow up." She tugged Blake up and continued to pull him towards a nearby tree. She grabbed the trunk with her little hands and started to shuffle up into the branches.
Blake climbed up the tree after her and plopped himself next to Maka on the lowest branch. "Spies? You know that's exactly what we're going to be when we grow up, right? Because Sid is my hero. A hero to a God is the highest honor there is." He swung his legs back and forth, unable to keep still as he spoke, "I might even become a bigger hero than you! I'll save the day and protect you and 'Baki." He paused at a newly formed thought, "Can you invite 'Baki? She wanted to play with us but-"
"Ask her yourself," Maka looked into the grass intently, "She's your friend too."
Blake turned away and focused on the ants that crawled through the twigs; he could smell the sap on the bark under their legs and the sugar in the trunk. He searched for excuses like he always did. "She's twelve and we're only seven. Also she's a girl and I can't talk to girls first because they have cooties. I can't taint this bod- ouch." His head whipped around to look at the girl and he rubbed the arm that endured Maka's punch.
"You talk to me all the time."
"But you're not a girl, you're Maka," he reasoned. "Quit interrupting me all the time; you need to have more respect for someone as powerful as me. Normal girls don't have eyes that change color either. They are green like the leaves today."
Maka curled her hands into fists and rubbed them against her eyelids, "I'll see what I can do." When she opened them, she felt like she could see an alternate universe. She could bend her vision and see through objects with what Blake called "X-ray vision". Maka knew it wasn't like that. It felt much deeper than that. She could see clear images of objects through walls and when she really focused, she felt like she could see soft, glowing orbs the size of tennis balls in every person. Each time she did, she learned something about the owner's personality, but she hated how this ability invaded their privacy. She blinked away the world from her eyes and asked in return, "What about you, though? Your hair is starting to turn blue, extremely blue at the tips, and you can smell people from far away. Normal boys don't do that."
A slight breeze rustled the leaves and Blake gripped the branch, "I think I'm an airbender now too."
Maka snorted, "That's dumb, you aren't in a cartoon. You can't be like Aang either. Air benders don't exist."
"Aang is so cool though! He can control all the elements, like God! He's the last airbender but maybe I'm the avatar." Blake was getting pumped with the thought of having control of the elements.
"But you aren't. Even if they existed, they are all probably dead, just like the cartoons." Maka softly whispered.
Blake's legs froze in place. Just last week, they made a discovery that brought misery into Maka's heart. He started, "Maka, your mama is probably ok. She's probably still out on a mission like-"
"I know what Papa said. I know he told me that she's just travelling, that her mission is just taking longer than normal and that she'll be back in no time. But how do you explain the tombstone we found in the cemetery last week when you dared me to run with you across it? Why was her name on a stone? Why isn't she home yet?"
The air grew silent and still. Dread began to wash over her once again and wetness pricked her eyes. She knew what the discovery meant. Her mama was six feet under that block of marble. Maka would never feel her mother's touch or her love again, just as her mother would never see Maka grow up to be just like her. To be fair to her father, Maka never asked what had happened to her mother directly, only cryptically questioned when she would be back. Papa must have known and was protecting her from the truth, even if she didn't need protecting.
She took a deep breath and turned to her best friend, "I'm sorry."
He shrugged, "I'll still be here for you, even when we become spies. We'll go on missions together and be partners, like your papa and mine." He made a bet with himself: if he jumped off the branch and didn't get hurt, then Maka will be happier in the future. He landed on all fours onto the grass and lay down on his back. Maka slid down the trunk and copied his landing, too used to Blake's spontaneous actions to be worried.
"Don't tell me you want your code name to be Black Star, though. It's already a nickname that you call yourself. Even our teacher calls you that on a normal day."
He stretched his arms and folded them under his head, "But that's the only code name that suits a god like me."
"Yah know, I was reading about planets yesterday with Papa. He said some stars blew up and became supernovas. They're really pretty and the one in the book was the same color as your hair."
Blake examined the tip of one of the longer strands on his head, "Nova?"
She nodded, "Your secret spy name should be that: Nova."
"I'll think about it, alright?" He couldn't let her know that he took all of her requests seriously, adopting each one as his own.
Maka let him believe that she didn't notice him smiling at his new code name. Instead, she looked into the sky with her enhanced vision. She felt like there was something there, forming just behind a cloud, pulling her in, and when she finally reached it, another realm appeared.
She felt her conscious lift into the soft expanse, grasping something that showered her in knowledge. She felt suffocated, like it was forcing itself into her. Then, it all stopped and it was like she was opening her eyes for the first time.
She saw wisps of color swirl until they became solid. Her feet touched soft carpet, and Maka glanced around her. She saw what looked like a living room. It had three couches aligned next to each other, facing two TVs and a large window. She tried to walk towards the window, but her feet didn't budge from their position. Instead, she glided on air and hovered over everything similar to how Wonder Woman would fly. When she reached the window, there was no view of the outside, just wisps of indigo smoke. She turned and saw a shadow in the middle of the room. It bent and twisted, splitting to make four writhing phantoms that took on human shapes. The black silhouettes slowly morphed into human forms with vibrant color.
One of them had beautiful blonde hair cut in a messy bob style. Her face was bright and her light blue eyes twinkled merrily. She animatedly waved her arms as if she was telling a story that Maka couldn't hear. When she opened her mouth to chatter away, only silence came out.
Maka tilted her head in confusion. She looked at the next character in the room, the one with long chestnut brown hair who was much taller than the other girl. She had an air of maturity around her, but laughed heartily and slapped the blonde one on the back. Maka noticed that they both were extremely familiar with each other, but they didn't look anything alike to be called family. Her darker blue eyes were sharper than the other girl's and she had a different body type. Maka couldn't help but feel a connection between the two girls though, an inseparable one. She thought they could have been at least cousins.
The two girls looked at the other two people. A boy in monochrome clothing was half sobbing and half desperate to stop the other two girls from laughing too hard. He pointed at them and seemed to yell about something. His clothes looked very chic and classy, like the kind of clothes a movie star might have worn.
The two girls looked at each other and smiled widely. They ran their hands through their clothes, skewing the brunette's skirt and tee shirt while wrinkling the blonde's shorts and tank top. The boy in black dropped and began to beat the carpet with his fists.
Maka gawked at him. He seemed to have an air of authority and wisdom, but he gave no hint of the seriousness in his actions. It was almost degrading to the rich clothes he was wearing. The other girls continued to double over in laughter.
Maka didn't have a clue of what to do. She drifted closer to them out of curiosity and a dim glow started to radiate off the strange people. The boy on the ground was surrounded in a beautiful green with various speckles of color and words came to her mind bathed in that specific green. Balance. Hope. Harmony. Promotes self esteem. Maka blinked as the words ran through her mind, matching her initial impression. She then saw a layer of black and white around him, pulsing and mixing together like a marble cake. Perfect balance. Life and death.
The gears started to click in her head. These were their auras. Maka usually couldn't see auras easily, needing to squint and tilt her head a certain way while she activated her powers. Since she could see the colors clearly, it could have meant two things: one, she was growing stronger and two, she was currently using her powers to see what she was witnessing now.
She turned her eyes to the shorter one of the girls. She had a vibrant orange curtain of light around her mixed with some red and little dots of gray. Energy. Strength. Easily led. Jubilant. Depression? Maka's little heart hurt for the girl. She clearly had a very brave front, but had a tragic life weighing down her shoulders. The elder girl had a similar aura to the previous, but had the addition of pink. Love. Friendship. Ambition. Maka knew they were both on the path to healing from their difficult past through their auras.
Maka noticed the final silhouette had become a girl about the same age as the brunette but she had a shocking resemblance to Tsubaki. This version was much more voluptuous than the one she'd known in her own universe. The girl covered her mouth politely, a very Tsubaki-like motion, and giggled along with the others. She had an indigo and violet tint to her skin. Spiritual. Wisdom. Patience. Calm. Peace. She held both of her hands up in attempts to pacify the two troublemakers but she eventually broke down and guffawed alongside them.
The mature-looking girl suddenly sobered up, reached into her pocket, and drew out a small box-like device. She tapped the surface and pressed it against her ear. The others hushed and quieted down, looking at the girl expectantly. She motioned to them and they picked up the boy from the ground, and walked towards a door on the side that lead to another room.
They entered what seemed like a professional office, completely different than the living room right next to it. There were ten tables organized around the room. Four lined each of the two walls while six of them were decorated by various personality types: a makeup kit on one, junk food on another, and one littered with random papers. File cabinets lined the walls behind those desks and framed the many windows that lit the room. The other two desks at the end of the rows closest to the people held a coffee maker and various snack bags. A large round table sat in the middle and at the back of the room facing that very table, there was a single desk in front of a white screen.
The girl with the strange device held up her hand with a knowing smile on her face and closed each finger slowly around her palm as if counting down. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
The window next to the third desk on the right side slammed open and two figures shot through. All four heads turned at the sound and the new arrivals. Maka couldn't see who it was. She drifted closer, staying a safe distance behind the group and peeked at the gadget in the tall girl's hand. She caught the name right before the screen blinked off and it was… Maka Albarn?
The monochrome boy shifted a little and Maka immediately noticed a shock of electric blue hair. It was gelled up into a star-like shape around the sides. The color looked familiar, but Maka couldn't tell where she'd seen that blue before. The person next to him pulled off a platinum blonde wig and let ash hair tumble down. They slowly unwound the scarf that covered the area of the face from the tip of the nose to their neck. When the last of it unwound, Maka gasped. It was her mama.
It couldn't be. There was no rational way of seeing it; it was Maka's mama in front of her eyes, young and alive. Mama dropped her bag at the side of the desk closest to her and jumped onto the surface, crossing her legs and leaning back casually.
Maka gulped and felt tears pricking at her eyes. Tunnel vision took over and she felt like her heart was going to burst. What cruel piece of the universe decided to show this scene to her, when her mother was alive and well? Was this a moment in the past? What was real and what was a lie? She had no answers. She was alone with only the sharp pains in her chest and tingling eyes. She looked at her mother with sorrow, but then squinted at the vision in front of her.
She realized that her mama didn't have green eyes, one that changed colors with each passing second. She didn't have a lithe figure and large hands. She didn't have a long slender neck or a heart shaped face. She didn't carry herself in the manner that the girl did, stress free and happy.
It wasn't mama. This must have been the Maka Albarn on the other girl's phone. It was herself. Maka looked around the room, really seeing it for the first time. The electronics seemed to be in another highly advanced timeline, so much more advanced than her own Gameboy and big screen TV. There was a small box on the ceiling, blinking away, that said 'Projector' on the side. The brunette must have been talking on a modernized version of a phone or at least a walkie talkie. There were small rectangles on a few of the desks that resembled Papa's desktop computer. However, these were much thinner and only had a single cord coming from it instead of the dozens of wires that came from the one back home.
Maka felt her eyes drooping with exhaustion. This was the future. This was Maka's future.
As if to answer her suspicions, the boy who came through the window with her finally worked the black scarf from his own neck, pulling it away from himself in triumph. It was—
"Blake?" She was yanked away from that odd sight when she spoke. Clouds reformed into her vision and she felt the cool wind once again.
"Yeah?" Blake looked over at Maka, still playing with the tips of his hair, "What's up?"
Maka sighed contently for the first time in what felt like forever, replaying the images in her mind and eyes shining with excitement, "I think I just saw the future."