Characters you recognise aren't mine. Characters you don't recognise are
mine.
This story may take some time to unfold so please be patient.
~*~
Edward Williams leaned against the frame of the large picture window and stared out across the city, not seeing the brilliant sunset for the myriad of images in his mind. Visions of troubled times to come, sights he'd hoped to never see again.
"What's wrong?"
Edward gave a long sigh as he returned to the here and now with a rush. Slowly he turned to face the speaker. "I don't know."
"But?" she prompted.
He sighed again. "Something is about to happen. I can feel it." When she started to raise a query, he held up his hand to stop her. "I know, and I don't have any powers, but I've always been a seer. The Golden Wave could only destroy what wasn't native."
She nodded. "That wasn't what I meant."
Edward turned back to the window, seeing the cityscape for the first time in several hours. "It's not going to be good, and a champion will be called to defend the innocent and protect the weak."
"You say that like you're certain."
Edward smiled wryly, even though he knew she couldn't see the expression. "That's because I am."
"But no seer can be that," she objected. "I know I don't know a lot about that kind of thing but I didn't think the future was that set in stone."
Again, Edward turned to face her. "You're right, the future isn't set in stone. But, the only time my visions have ever failed is when I've tried to profit from them. When they come as they will... I've not been wrong in fifteen thousand years."
He watched as her jaw dropped open wide in shocked horror. "That's not a gift!"
"No," he agreed. He turned back to see the last remnants of the sunset. "No it's not."
~*~
The sun had just finished setting as Adam Park pulled into the driveway of his home. For a couple of moments, he admired the building. While he had been away, he had been staying in the lap of luxury in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, but there was most definitely no place like home. He wasn't sure if it was the worn porch steps, or the pair of tricycles parked haphazardly on the square of lawn in front of the house, or the sound of his neighbour's dog barking at someone else's cat, but this was far more welcoming than any luxury hotel. Adam smiled to himself. Of course, it could be the two faces pressed up against the glass of the living room windows, eagerly awaiting his return.
The twins would be celebrating their third birthday in a month's time, and would be starting pre-school soon after. Hard to imagine -- they seemed to be growing up so fast. As twins went they weren't terribly alike. Maria (named for Rocky's grandma) was the older of the pair by ten minutes and had all of her mother's looks, while Ashley (named for Tanya's mother) looked much like Adam. They were both, however, undeniably sisters and totally inseparable.
Adam smiled. Can't let them wait any longer, he decided, and finally climbed out of the black SUV. He briefly stretched to relieve muscles cramped from the two-hour drive home, then claimed his bags from the trunk, locked the car and headed up the porch steps.
Before he could so much as select his door key from the bunch in his hand, the front door was flung open, and out rushed the twin bundles of energy that were his children. It was as well that Adam had been expecting a welcome along these lines otherwise he -- and the twins -- would have gone flying backwards down the steps.
"Daddy!" squealed the two little girls.
Adam's smile was about as wide as it could get. "Hey there. How're my two favourite little ladies?"
"We missed 'ou," commented Maria, who had firmly attached herself to his left leg.
"Yeth we did," lisped Ashley, who had followed her sister's example, but with Adam's right leg.
"And I missed you guys too," Adam answered.
"C'mon, let daddy come into the house," Tanya interjected.
Reluctantly, both girls released their holds and trailed back into the house. Adam followed, dropping a kiss on Tanya's lips as he passed.
"Good journey?" she asked.
"Could have been worse -- although I did get stuck on the freeway leaving LA," Adam answered.
"You must have just caught rush hour."
Adam nodded. "Couldn't be helped." Setting his bags on the floor at the foot of the stairs, Adam crouched down and held his hands out to the twins to draw them into a proper hug. "So -- have you been good for Mommy while I've been away?"
Both dark heads started to nod vigorously, although Maria was moved to add, "Mommy, please say we've been good!"
"Pleathe!" begged Ashley.
Glancing up at Tanya, Adam could see her bite back a smile to answer seriously, "And should I have any reason to say anything else?"
Adam grinned as both girls shook their heads. "I guess that must mean you've been good, and seeing as you have..." He released his hold on the twins and reached for one of the bags he'd set down. "I think you deserve a little present each."
"Yay!"
From the bag, Adam produced two small 'beanie' bears -- one clearly labelled Ashley and one clearly named Maria to avoid later squabbles -- and handed them over.
"Thank you!" the twins chorused before tearing off to go and play with their new toys. Adam chuckled as they went.
"You'll spoil them, you know," Tanya observed, as Adam got back to his feet.
"Well I have to do something to make up for having been away for a month," he replied, drawing Tanya into a hug. He kissed her again, a little more thoroughly now that the twins were occupied again. "And what a month it's been."
Tanya smiled. "Glad to be home?"
"Definitely."
"So how did it go?" she asked, gently starting to lead him in the direction of the kitchen.
"OK, I guess -- I think Mona has finally 'got it' where martial arts are concerned, and the rest of the cast have progressed well enough that I shouldn't be called back on set now."
Tanya smiled. "I guess all the years of teaching me and Kat finally paid off, then."
Adam smiled wryly. "You and Kat wanted to learn. Mona... I swear I have no idea how or why she got cast!"
Tanya laughed. "The only reason either Kat or I wanted to learn was because we had to."
"I guess..."
Cutting Adam off mid-sentence was a pained howl from the living room: "Mommy!"
Tanya looked at Adam and grimaced. "Why do I always get called to the scene of attempted murder?"
"Mommy!" The yell was louder and more pained.
"There's coffee ready -- and dinner will be..."
"MOMMY!"
Adam smiled. "You go and prevent murder, I'll see to dinner."
As Tanya hurried off to find out which twin was killing which, Adam turned his attention to cooking dinner. Yeah -- there really was no place like home.
~*~
The silence which had followed his last reply might have made Edward think she had left the room, but he knew she hadn't. She was standing there, behind him, wondering about what he'd said.
"Do you know who'll be called?"
Edward shook his head, his eyes firmly trained on the cityscape, trying almost to distract himself from the images he had seen. "Not for sure, but I have a suspicion."
"Oh?"
"I recognised the powers that the champion will use and I know that they can only be used by a handful of people on this planet." He could almost hear her making the connections and intuitive leaps. "You'd be one of them," he continued, knowing he was confirming her theory, "but I know it's not to be you."
"Why?"
Edward glanced over his shoulder, took in her petite, but undeniably feminine form and cracked the first genuine smile in several hours. "It's definitely a male ex-ranger."
"Tommy then."
She had named the obvious one, the one who had been the subject of a great many prophesies during his tenure as a ranger and the centre of far more than his fair share of trouble. But Edward knew it would not be him. "No -- from what I saw in the vision, the fighting style is wrong." He sighed again. "I spent many hours studying your respective fighting styles and at one time, I know I could have told you apart just by the way you moved...I guess that knowledge has atrophied since the Golden Wave. I know the style is one I recognise...and fought against...but more than that I can't say."
He sensed her nodding. "I guess it would have done."
There was another lengthy pause. Edward weighed up whether to tell her more of what he knew about the powers.
"There's something else, isn't there."
Damn, but she was perceptive. "Yes." He slowly turned to face her. In the gloom of dusk, he could just make out her face, and he could see the fear and worry. "Are you sure you want to know this?"
"Yes."
Edward nodded, not surprised. "The nature of the powers means that whoever is called to them will have survived a personal tragedy." She gasped. "Most likely, he will lose everything."
"Everything?" she echoed. "But...we've all settled...married...have children..."
"Everything," Edward confirmed, hastily turning back to the view before she saw the tears in his eyes. He swallowed hard; forcing the emotion back, knowing now was not the time. "I hope to goodness I'm wrong, since I didn't directly see it, but I do know that it happened to the only previous wielder of these powers."
He could feel her eyes boring into his back and didn't dare turn to meet the piercing gaze. "How could you know something like that?"
Edward considered his response carefully. "Experience."
~*~
There were three. A boy, barely out of his teens; a man, hardened by a long and harsh life; but who or what the third being was, was a matter for debate. He -- if it was a he -- was wearing a heavy overcoat with the collar turned up, a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, gloves, dark glasses and a fedora hat pulled down low. He looked like every cliché of the invisible man; he should have looked comical. Neither the man nor the boy felt like laughing. Whoever their boss was, he was not someone either of them wished to argue with.
"Mikey, report," growled the thing within the coat, in a voice that sounded as if its owner had suffered a very bad throat injury, raspy and rough.
The boy swallowed briefly and then said, "It's just like you said it would be, boss." In spite of the obvious fear, Mikey's words came out with a mixture of awe and surprise, proving that his age was far closer to his looks than might have otherwise been guessed.
"Why so surprised?" drawled the man.
"But this is...was..." Mikey stammered.
"Key word," rasped the boss, "was. Murphy?"
The man allowed a faint smile to grace his face. "Like the kid says. It's just as you said it would be. Rich...make that very rich. There is an underground network but..." Murphy gave a casual shrug. "It wouldn't take much to...bring it into line."
There was a raspy laugh. "Good. Good -- I intend this to be the start." In the silence that followed the declaration, more, unspoken, words echoed: I shall have my revenge.
Mikey and Murphy both shuddered.
~*~
It was dark now. The sun was gone and the moon was yet to rise, leaving the only illumination of the cityscape as what could be generated by the street lighting. It was, Edward reflected, apro-pro of the mood.
"How long do we have before this thing -- whatever it is -- hits?"
He studied what could be seen of the city. "Hours, possibly. Weeks, maybe. Days, probably... I don't know."
"Is there anything we can do to stop it?"
She didn't sound optimistic -- a question born of habit rather than hope. "No."
"What about to help the champion?"
Edward turned his back on the city for the last time, and crossed the room to hold her close. "All we can do is be there for him when he needs us." He pressed a light kiss to the top of her head. "And he will need us."
This story may take some time to unfold so please be patient.
~*~
Edward Williams leaned against the frame of the large picture window and stared out across the city, not seeing the brilliant sunset for the myriad of images in his mind. Visions of troubled times to come, sights he'd hoped to never see again.
"What's wrong?"
Edward gave a long sigh as he returned to the here and now with a rush. Slowly he turned to face the speaker. "I don't know."
"But?" she prompted.
He sighed again. "Something is about to happen. I can feel it." When she started to raise a query, he held up his hand to stop her. "I know, and I don't have any powers, but I've always been a seer. The Golden Wave could only destroy what wasn't native."
She nodded. "That wasn't what I meant."
Edward turned back to the window, seeing the cityscape for the first time in several hours. "It's not going to be good, and a champion will be called to defend the innocent and protect the weak."
"You say that like you're certain."
Edward smiled wryly, even though he knew she couldn't see the expression. "That's because I am."
"But no seer can be that," she objected. "I know I don't know a lot about that kind of thing but I didn't think the future was that set in stone."
Again, Edward turned to face her. "You're right, the future isn't set in stone. But, the only time my visions have ever failed is when I've tried to profit from them. When they come as they will... I've not been wrong in fifteen thousand years."
He watched as her jaw dropped open wide in shocked horror. "That's not a gift!"
"No," he agreed. He turned back to see the last remnants of the sunset. "No it's not."
~*~
The sun had just finished setting as Adam Park pulled into the driveway of his home. For a couple of moments, he admired the building. While he had been away, he had been staying in the lap of luxury in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, but there was most definitely no place like home. He wasn't sure if it was the worn porch steps, or the pair of tricycles parked haphazardly on the square of lawn in front of the house, or the sound of his neighbour's dog barking at someone else's cat, but this was far more welcoming than any luxury hotel. Adam smiled to himself. Of course, it could be the two faces pressed up against the glass of the living room windows, eagerly awaiting his return.
The twins would be celebrating their third birthday in a month's time, and would be starting pre-school soon after. Hard to imagine -- they seemed to be growing up so fast. As twins went they weren't terribly alike. Maria (named for Rocky's grandma) was the older of the pair by ten minutes and had all of her mother's looks, while Ashley (named for Tanya's mother) looked much like Adam. They were both, however, undeniably sisters and totally inseparable.
Adam smiled. Can't let them wait any longer, he decided, and finally climbed out of the black SUV. He briefly stretched to relieve muscles cramped from the two-hour drive home, then claimed his bags from the trunk, locked the car and headed up the porch steps.
Before he could so much as select his door key from the bunch in his hand, the front door was flung open, and out rushed the twin bundles of energy that were his children. It was as well that Adam had been expecting a welcome along these lines otherwise he -- and the twins -- would have gone flying backwards down the steps.
"Daddy!" squealed the two little girls.
Adam's smile was about as wide as it could get. "Hey there. How're my two favourite little ladies?"
"We missed 'ou," commented Maria, who had firmly attached herself to his left leg.
"Yeth we did," lisped Ashley, who had followed her sister's example, but with Adam's right leg.
"And I missed you guys too," Adam answered.
"C'mon, let daddy come into the house," Tanya interjected.
Reluctantly, both girls released their holds and trailed back into the house. Adam followed, dropping a kiss on Tanya's lips as he passed.
"Good journey?" she asked.
"Could have been worse -- although I did get stuck on the freeway leaving LA," Adam answered.
"You must have just caught rush hour."
Adam nodded. "Couldn't be helped." Setting his bags on the floor at the foot of the stairs, Adam crouched down and held his hands out to the twins to draw them into a proper hug. "So -- have you been good for Mommy while I've been away?"
Both dark heads started to nod vigorously, although Maria was moved to add, "Mommy, please say we've been good!"
"Pleathe!" begged Ashley.
Glancing up at Tanya, Adam could see her bite back a smile to answer seriously, "And should I have any reason to say anything else?"
Adam grinned as both girls shook their heads. "I guess that must mean you've been good, and seeing as you have..." He released his hold on the twins and reached for one of the bags he'd set down. "I think you deserve a little present each."
"Yay!"
From the bag, Adam produced two small 'beanie' bears -- one clearly labelled Ashley and one clearly named Maria to avoid later squabbles -- and handed them over.
"Thank you!" the twins chorused before tearing off to go and play with their new toys. Adam chuckled as they went.
"You'll spoil them, you know," Tanya observed, as Adam got back to his feet.
"Well I have to do something to make up for having been away for a month," he replied, drawing Tanya into a hug. He kissed her again, a little more thoroughly now that the twins were occupied again. "And what a month it's been."
Tanya smiled. "Glad to be home?"
"Definitely."
"So how did it go?" she asked, gently starting to lead him in the direction of the kitchen.
"OK, I guess -- I think Mona has finally 'got it' where martial arts are concerned, and the rest of the cast have progressed well enough that I shouldn't be called back on set now."
Tanya smiled. "I guess all the years of teaching me and Kat finally paid off, then."
Adam smiled wryly. "You and Kat wanted to learn. Mona... I swear I have no idea how or why she got cast!"
Tanya laughed. "The only reason either Kat or I wanted to learn was because we had to."
"I guess..."
Cutting Adam off mid-sentence was a pained howl from the living room: "Mommy!"
Tanya looked at Adam and grimaced. "Why do I always get called to the scene of attempted murder?"
"Mommy!" The yell was louder and more pained.
"There's coffee ready -- and dinner will be..."
"MOMMY!"
Adam smiled. "You go and prevent murder, I'll see to dinner."
As Tanya hurried off to find out which twin was killing which, Adam turned his attention to cooking dinner. Yeah -- there really was no place like home.
~*~
The silence which had followed his last reply might have made Edward think she had left the room, but he knew she hadn't. She was standing there, behind him, wondering about what he'd said.
"Do you know who'll be called?"
Edward shook his head, his eyes firmly trained on the cityscape, trying almost to distract himself from the images he had seen. "Not for sure, but I have a suspicion."
"Oh?"
"I recognised the powers that the champion will use and I know that they can only be used by a handful of people on this planet." He could almost hear her making the connections and intuitive leaps. "You'd be one of them," he continued, knowing he was confirming her theory, "but I know it's not to be you."
"Why?"
Edward glanced over his shoulder, took in her petite, but undeniably feminine form and cracked the first genuine smile in several hours. "It's definitely a male ex-ranger."
"Tommy then."
She had named the obvious one, the one who had been the subject of a great many prophesies during his tenure as a ranger and the centre of far more than his fair share of trouble. But Edward knew it would not be him. "No -- from what I saw in the vision, the fighting style is wrong." He sighed again. "I spent many hours studying your respective fighting styles and at one time, I know I could have told you apart just by the way you moved...I guess that knowledge has atrophied since the Golden Wave. I know the style is one I recognise...and fought against...but more than that I can't say."
He sensed her nodding. "I guess it would have done."
There was another lengthy pause. Edward weighed up whether to tell her more of what he knew about the powers.
"There's something else, isn't there."
Damn, but she was perceptive. "Yes." He slowly turned to face her. In the gloom of dusk, he could just make out her face, and he could see the fear and worry. "Are you sure you want to know this?"
"Yes."
Edward nodded, not surprised. "The nature of the powers means that whoever is called to them will have survived a personal tragedy." She gasped. "Most likely, he will lose everything."
"Everything?" she echoed. "But...we've all settled...married...have children..."
"Everything," Edward confirmed, hastily turning back to the view before she saw the tears in his eyes. He swallowed hard; forcing the emotion back, knowing now was not the time. "I hope to goodness I'm wrong, since I didn't directly see it, but I do know that it happened to the only previous wielder of these powers."
He could feel her eyes boring into his back and didn't dare turn to meet the piercing gaze. "How could you know something like that?"
Edward considered his response carefully. "Experience."
~*~
There were three. A boy, barely out of his teens; a man, hardened by a long and harsh life; but who or what the third being was, was a matter for debate. He -- if it was a he -- was wearing a heavy overcoat with the collar turned up, a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, gloves, dark glasses and a fedora hat pulled down low. He looked like every cliché of the invisible man; he should have looked comical. Neither the man nor the boy felt like laughing. Whoever their boss was, he was not someone either of them wished to argue with.
"Mikey, report," growled the thing within the coat, in a voice that sounded as if its owner had suffered a very bad throat injury, raspy and rough.
The boy swallowed briefly and then said, "It's just like you said it would be, boss." In spite of the obvious fear, Mikey's words came out with a mixture of awe and surprise, proving that his age was far closer to his looks than might have otherwise been guessed.
"Why so surprised?" drawled the man.
"But this is...was..." Mikey stammered.
"Key word," rasped the boss, "was. Murphy?"
The man allowed a faint smile to grace his face. "Like the kid says. It's just as you said it would be. Rich...make that very rich. There is an underground network but..." Murphy gave a casual shrug. "It wouldn't take much to...bring it into line."
There was a raspy laugh. "Good. Good -- I intend this to be the start." In the silence that followed the declaration, more, unspoken, words echoed: I shall have my revenge.
Mikey and Murphy both shuddered.
~*~
It was dark now. The sun was gone and the moon was yet to rise, leaving the only illumination of the cityscape as what could be generated by the street lighting. It was, Edward reflected, apro-pro of the mood.
"How long do we have before this thing -- whatever it is -- hits?"
He studied what could be seen of the city. "Hours, possibly. Weeks, maybe. Days, probably... I don't know."
"Is there anything we can do to stop it?"
She didn't sound optimistic -- a question born of habit rather than hope. "No."
"What about to help the champion?"
Edward turned his back on the city for the last time, and crossed the room to hold her close. "All we can do is be there for him when he needs us." He pressed a light kiss to the top of her head. "And he will need us."