Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.

A/N: Been a while since we've seen a TBY ONE-SHOT. Expect the rest of the saga within the coming future, so we can pave the way for its last multi-chaptered installment, Inner Feelings From the Unfathomable Deep (sorry Fate, but multi-chaptered Eternal Phoenix is no show :P).

This particular piece was inspired by Super Smash Brothers BRAWL, particularly its All-Star Mode's music. It's lovely :3.

Groove Buster: BORN to DREAM is THIRD in the TBY timeline, set seven years before StrikerS and eight years prior to the Magical Lyrical RANdom! Magus Class G fanfic.

Groove Buster: BORN to DREAM

"Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul . . . ."
---- Plato

This is a dream; that much Fate knows.

This is a dream, but at the same time she doesn't want it to be.

She stares unto twin blazing suns, unbearably red like the cascade of poured wine or the subtle rocking of blood when its jar of crystalline ambience is shook. She stares, and for a moment of infinity she believes she is beholding her very image -- a comprehensive trial in front of the fabled looking glass.

Except it is not her image, but that of someone else. From her the sample of DNA. From her the formation of Life. From her the unity of Thought, Purpose, and Will.

In a way, she is her mother, her sister. The original, to be exact.

To the untrained eye, they are one and whole and impressionable. To the keen observer, they are more. They are beyond. Warm and cool. Young and forever young. Limit and limitless.

They are--

"Cogito, ergo sum."

She blinks. "Alicia?"

The other girl (younger in flesh, older in spirit) places a hand on the wall -- reflective, visionary, all-consuming. "I think, therefore I am. Do you not agree?"

"I must, but I can't," Fate says slowly. "I think, and I am, but I am not me. I am you, are I not?" She nodded. "Yes. Yes; I must be you, or else I wouldn't be here."

Alicia levels her a glare. "You are you, Fate, whether you came from my flesh or from Mother's womb. Yes, you are me -- an extension of me, but you are yourself, now and until the end."

The younger stiffens, the dawn of a new-found world rising in crimson orbs. "An . . . an extension? What do you mean?"

"You have a chance," says the elder solemnly. Here she points her free hand to her breast. "I may be beyond you, but that doesn't mean I'm gone. I'm here with you -- in you -- and nothing will change that."

Slow steps forward. Irises adopt a glazed sheen. "Alicia."

"Live. Live for me, for us. Live the life you were meant to have."

Reach out, shakily at first, then brace the mirror of souls as if it were a fragile manifestation of lost loves and ancient history; the dividend to past lives and unpaved roads.

"Alicia," Fate repeats, a sob lodged in her throat. "Please . . . pl-please d-don't--"

"Don't worry," Alicia assures her tenderly. The wall liquifies and ripples as her hand dryly slips forth and clinches fingers with fingers, palm bracing against palm. "I'm not going anywhere."

Her voice trembles, but neither girl hears it.

They touch, and there is an explosion of vibrant colors. As the void fades, an oboe plays.

And as Fate awakens to the light of the morn, she feels still a presence by her side, the breeze from an open window billowing coolly. She knows it is her, her Alicia, because she resides from within; because the music plays in whispering, silvery fragments.

It leaves her with a sense that, for the first time since the aftermath of those dark, bitter days when there was no music and no life, she is finally whole.