Paris 2200

Residence of Methos

It was a nice spring day, sunny and warm but not hot. Jesse already finished all the work he needed and he decided to take a shower. While his body was relaxing under the hot water, his mind was working. In 5 days he and his sister will celebrate their 1000th anniversary of becoming immortal. With this thought he was taken by his memories back to ancient China.

China 1179 AD

It was a nice day. Everyone was relaxed even the hard work was pleasant. Ming Chu was just thinking how happy he was. He had a charming and hardworking wife Ying Long and two beautiful children. An eight years old daughter named Mi Lao and his pride, his one-year-old son Yao Li. Ming and his wife were certainly the happiest people on earth. He didn't know that this day would change everything.

An hour later he returned home with a smile on his lips and a greeting to his family. It was lunchtime. They lived in a peaceful village, if peaceful was possible in those times. But now the village was even quieter then normally because the families were enjoying the time together. But peace was not meant to last. Not so far from the village was a group of robbers. They were just preparing to attack the poor people.

With a scream they were getting near by each moment. The whole village was in a hell of a mess at once. Ying had just enough time to hide her children.

"Mi take your brother and quickly hide in the place I showed you so many times and don't leave it no matter what you will hear!"

Mi heard just people screaming and crying. She was scared and also curious but she had her little brother in her arms, so she stayed hid. The baby was the whole time calm, he knew nothing about what was happening and he was in the arms of his sister so he was not crying. After an hour everything became silent. Mi was fighting inside. A half of her was very curious and wanted to find out what happened, the other one being deliberate told her to stay with her brother hid. But she was just a kid and so curiosity won.

What she saw was so terrible and brutal she will never forget it. All the blood, dead bodies once her good friends and family. Most buildings were just burning ruins. She was afraid to find her parents but she had to. The moment she saw their bodies or better said what was left of them she collapsed to the ground.

She started to cry so passionately that Yao, her brother joined her immediately. So many thoughts were crossing her mind.

"Nobody except me and Yao survived this massacre! I have to take care of my brother! But how can I do that? I can't even take care of myself! How am I supposed to take care of him?"

Meanwhile two riders a man and a woman were nearing the once beautiful and peaceful village. They knew that robbers were in this place and they wanted to warn the people and if needed to fight for them. But when they saw all the smoke they realised that they were late. But still they decided to search for survivors. When they got near they felt an all too familiar buzz but just a weak one to be it an immortal. That meant that a pre-immortal was near. They were prepared for a long search probably even in the ruins but then they heard a baby crying. Shortly after that they found a little girl with a baby in her hands crying.

Mi was just crying. For her the whole world died. She paid no attention to the screams of her brother. She didn't notice the two persons nearing. She was just helplessly looking at the corpses of her parents. She didn't hear the voice asking her something.

The immortal women asked the little girl with a very sympathetic voice

"Are you alright?"

When the girl was not responding she asked her once more. Still the girl paid no attention to her. The other immortal jumped off his horse and went to the girl. He stood before her but in a safe distance, so she would not become too afraid. When she looked at him and realised that a living person was standing in front of her he asked her gently

"Are you and the baby alright?"

Only then Mi heard that Yao was crying and she tried to calm down and do the same with the baby. She was certain that these two were not the robbers that attacked the village because they were not Chinese. In this moment she would believe and trust everyone that would find her. She was alone and she had to take care of her and her brother and these people looked like they wanted to help her.

"Is there anyone that survived except you two?" The women asked warily.

Mi had tears in her eyes but she was able to respond

"No. There is no one alive here but we two. I lost my family and home! I have no one left!"

With this said Mi started to cry again. Of course Yao joined her immediately. The woman knew that it is important to take the kids out of there to calm them down. So she took her in her arms and slowly began to take her gently away.

"Shhh, try to calm down at least for this moment so the baby won't cry. My name is Amanda. What is your name?"

With this Mi was able to calm down a little so Yao stopped crying.

"My name is Mi Lao and this is my little brother Yao Li."

"Nice to meet you Mi Lao. I suppose you would like to come with us right? The man you are looking at is Methos. You have to be tired and Yao is probably too heavy for you. If you don't mind Methos will take him. We will ride you to a safe place where you can stay."

"You would do it for us? But you just met us." Mi was a bit sceptical.

"Of course we will. You would do the same in our place" Methos tried to assure her.

Mi was not fully thrusting the two but she had no other chance then to say yes. They gave her and her brother a chance to survive and that was more than they would have alone.

Methos and Amanda were raising Mi and Yao as their own children. They taught them how to write and scribe Chinese as well as Latin. Also they were teaching them how to fight with a sword. The children loved them. Yao never knew his real parents so it was really easy for him. Mi needed a bit more time to look at them as parents but after a while also she did. But Methos and Amanda were worried. How should they tell the two that one day they would become immortal? But bad luck solved their problem.

One nice day 14 years after they found the siblings Methos and Amanda were practising. Rebecca agreed that Methos would take Amanda and show her the world but he will have to practise fighting with her as much as possible. Of course Methos won every time but he could tell she was becoming better.

They were so concentrated into the fight they didn't realise that the siblings were watching them. The kids were always around so even the buzz didn't warn them. Yao liked much to watch his parents fight. He learned a lot out of it. Every time he wanted his dad to win. This time he just couldn't hold himself and shouted

"Go dad! You can beat her!"

But this distracted Methoses concentration and he made a deadly mistake. Amanda was just attacking and due to his distraction Methos ended with her sword in his stomach to the shock of all four of them. Mi just started screaming and Yao joined her with words

"Mom you killed dad! Why have you done this? Now we will lose him!"

Amanda realised this was a bad situation. She was not worried about Methos because he will heal in few moments, but the kids were a problem. Methos had just an expression of surprise on his face. Before he died, he was able to pull the sword out of his body and to say a terrible course, but in a language lost long ago so no one understood him. When he fell dead to the ground, the siblings were by his site. Amanda tried to calm them down, but she was failing terribly.

"Don't worry Mi, Yao it will be okay. He will be okay. Just wait a moment."

"You have to be crazy! You just killed him!" was Yaos respond.

The shock on his face was so clear when Methos gasped and slowly started to get up. Mi just said: "That can't be true. I saw you dying! It is impossible!

"Please you two sit down. Methos and I have to tell you something. We will explain."

The kids were excited, but they wanted to hear it so they sat down.

"I know it will be hard for you but believe us we will tell you the truth. Amanda and me aren't what you think. We are immortals."

This earned him only a sceptical look from Mi and a gasp from Yao. Amanda continued.

"You can hurt us even kill us but it is only temporary. We heal much faster then normal people. We are able to heal even if we get killed. There is only one way how to kill us without healing and that is to cut off our head."

With this told Methos raised his left hand with a knife in it and cut his palm on the right hand. But the cut healed just a moment after he did so. Now even Mi was able to agree with them.

Amanda continued, "No one knows where we came from. We became immortal when we die by a cruel death. After it we don't age. We look the same age we were when we first died but inside we are hundreds even thousands of years old. During our life we have to find other immortals and challenge them to a fight that only one will survive. We call this the Game. The winner must cut off his/hers opponents head. Then he/she will absorb his living energy by something we call the quickening. So our lives are full of cruelty and death."

Now Methos started explaining.

"When an immortal gets near we can fell him. We call this the buzz. We fell it even when a pre-immortal gets near but his/hers buzz is weaker. The reason why we are telling you all this is that the day we found you we felt the buzz and we realised you were pre-immortal. Both of you."

He let it sank.

"We wanted to tell you all this but we had no idea how. But bad luck helped us. We will train you as good as we can so you would be able to survive as long as possible in the game. But one day you will leave us to fight for yourself."

Then they explained the rules like one on one, no fighting on holy ground and everything else the kids wanted to know. And they had many questions. They asked about the game and then about their parents like their real age and so.

1200 AD

As Methos and Amanda suggested Mi and Yao left them. She was 28 years old and he was 21. They decided to visit different countries and far lands. They were still mortal but that was about to change. The worst barrier they had to cross was the Big Chinese wall. It was not easy to cross it and leave China but they wanted to see more than just this land. They decided to cross it at night so it would be easier to escape without the guards noticing them. But unfortunately the guards saw them and started to shoot. That night Mi and Yao became immortal.

Paris 2200

Residence of Methos

Jesse walked out of the shower. His body was feeling so much better but his mind was still working hard.

"God how I miss those times. Me and my sister riding or walking across the lands with nothing in hands except each other. Fighting for your life as many times as possible. Changing your name without someone noticing it. Now it is so much harder to get a new name without any problems."

With this he thought about the chaos in the last few days.

Planet Mavio 2200

Once again Nemesis planed a new action with Jesse. This time they should attack an oxygen station. Of course the Star sheriffs will know about it and they will try to beat Nemesis again. Although it was pretty entertaining in the beginning, now it was really boring. But there was another reason to do all this then just for entertainment. A couple of years ago he and his sister decided to join the Star sheriffs. They wanted to help them as much as possible and so they made Jesse a secret agent. Only a few people knew that he was on the site of SS. They arranged it perfectly so that everyone thought he really joined Nemesis. Every time he gets to know something new he tells it to Mi and she tells it to the proper persons so that the SS can come here and save the day.

This time he had to meet the SS and fight against them to prove his "loyalty" to Nemesis. Probably he will pick Colt. He won't harm him much but still it will be some fun to fight him.

Again the SS went in Ramrod into action against Nemesis and the outriders. Again they had the co-ordinates and were on their way.

"I've heard that Jesse will be there as well." April broke the silence.

"He will be mine." was Colt's only response.

"Calm down cowboy! The order is to take him back alive."

"He will be alive if I only shoot him in his arm."

"No you won't. We have been told to bring him alive and all right. Not bleeding or even dying!" Saber came in.

"We will be right there so get ready for action!" Fireball interrupted them.

"OK guys I will take care of Ramrod. You can go now." April said in such a voice you knew it was routine.

A few moments after it, the boys were fighting on ground with the help of Ramrod. Jesse tried to find the cowboy but he found only Saber fighting against some Outriders. Jesse smiled for himself.

"Would it be this time the master swordsman? Why not." were his thoughts.

But he was interrupted. Saber was fighting well as always but there was an outrider hidden behind his back and he shot him. Saber fell to the ground unconscious.

"Oh crap. Why must everything get much worse when it starts to be fun?"

Whit this he shot the Outrider into his back and send him back home. Now he had to take care of Saber. There was no other SS near and that was good. He had enough time to pull him into his spaceship and to fly away as fast as possible.

Jesse's spaceship couple of hours later

Saber woke up in terrible pain. When his vision became clear the first thing he saw was his enemy Jesse. He wanted to attack him or at least move but just then he realised the binds on his hands and legs. Without turning around Jesse greeted him.

"Ow our little sleeping beauty finally awoke?"

"Why am I bind here? And where actually is here?"

"You are in my ship and it is better if I have you like this due to what I will tell you."

Whit this said he landed the ship and came closer to Saber.

"I know you won't believe me but if you remember you got shot."

"Why would I believe YOU? I can't feel any pain. You have to be more inventive if you want to scary me."

"I don't want to scary you but what I will tell you most certainly will scary you. To be honest you died."

"Yeah and now I'm a ghost that will scare little children at night."

Jesse paid no attention to Sabers words and continued.

"You have a certain gift to say so. You are immortal so as I am and many others."

"Me and you immortal? That is the silliest thing I ever heard."

"You can hurt us even kill us but we will heal."

Then Jesse raised his right hand and cut it with a knife.

"You are insane!"

But the only response Saber got was the healing of Jesse's wound. And to make it even more impressive Jesse cut also Saber´s hand.

"Ouch! That hurt you…"

Then he saw his palm healing and lost his words.

"What have you done to me? How this all happened?

"You were a pre-immortal since your birth. We became immortal after a cruel death for example when we get shot like you. Once immortal we don't age. Even if you kill us we will heal ourselves. But there is one way how to kill us forever, to cut off our head. You have a little advantage Saber. We fight one other to cut off the opponents head and receive their living energy. We use weapons like swords, knives, and axes, which is actually hard to get used to for new immortals. But this won't be your problem right? We kill other immortals because in the end there can be only one."

Saber was able to believe Jesse although all he said sounded silly. But to see his own healing was let say convincing. He had many questions and Jesse answered them all. Also he told Saber all about the rules and buzz and things like that.

Residence of Methos

Jesse walked out of the residence to his meeting. Amanda decided that Saber needs new clothes because he can't return home now, so she, Saber, Mi and Jesse are going to buy some for him.

"Poor Saber. Like if he wouldn't have enough problems dealing with his immortality Amanda has to make his life even worse. Well, it will be fun to watch Saber in anything picked by Amanda. What he needs now more than new clothes are some friends to get thru all of this. The Star Sheriffs can't be used in this case. He starts to think about me as about a friend but this isn't enough. Methos, Amanda and Mi are nice to him, but they are complete strangers and he has nearly nothing common with them. But there are two people that have more than a little common with him. The MacLeods. They arrived just yesterday and hopefully they brought what I asked them for. 3 highlanders in one room, looks like I will have more than just enough entertainment in the coming days."

By this thought a small smile appeared on Jesse's face.