Series: Oban: Star-Racers
Fanfiction: The Great Race
Chapter One: With You
Disclaimer: I do not own Oban. If I did, it would have been longer. XD And, I would have died and gone to heaven because I'd then be Savin-sama.
Summary: Ten thousand years since he became Avatar, and now he has to organise the race again- but, can he do it, when one of the promising young pilot's is the daughter of the one he loves?
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Apparently, Nourasians aged gracefully indeed, as did anyone connected to them by a bonding tradition Jordan wasn't entirely familiar with. And by 'aged gracefully', the Avatar ment that Princey Boy Aikka, coincidentally the King of Nourasia, was still around even as his reign was coming to a close.
Thousands of years had passed, to be honest Jordan was suprised he had survived with his sanity all this time. But now, standing before the transport that had brought the Nourasian racing to the Alwas once again, he felt indefinately saddenned.
Aikka had grown older.
His hair had grown out, forming a horses mane that trailed down his back and finally rested about his hips- as Aikka had grown taller since the last time Jordan had seen him, he'd barely recognised him, but upon closer observation he did.
Aikka obviously recognised him as well, if the telltale smile and curt bow were anything to show for it.
Jordan didn't think he had changed much, himself, his duel hair was graying from the stress of protecting a entire string of planets and all it's occupants. He had grown a few inches taller by comparison, but he had already been leaving his growth spirt before he became the Avatar, so it was no suprise he now had to look up to the Nourasian.
Jordan felt short.
"Av-"
Jordan cut the king off, raising his hand to signify not to speak just yet as he bowed slightly. Aikka didn't seem perticularly glad with the intrusion of his greeting, but silenced regardless, turning slightly to look beside him as a familiar woman with hair of two colors stepped out, her hands curled around a small bundle.
Said bundle made a giggling sound and tugged on her locks, but it went unnoticed as Jordan stared wide-eyed at her.
He nearly dropped his staff in shock, he had not intended to stare but there was -Molly-. His Molly... at his race.
But...it's been ten thousand years.
Molly's eyes lit up at the site of him, but she was careful to stride up to him and plant a kiss on his cheek without jarring the baby. In so many years, Jordan hadn't blushed as much as he did now, but yet, he felt even more saddenned.
"Jordan... I've missed you."
She looked as if she might cry, and he carefully brushed his thumb over her cheek to sooth her, drawing her close to him in a hug.
Molly was human. Human lifespans were so short compared to everything else, and the Avatar feared she was a ghost. But she was physical, solid and as real as he was... alive and breathing and he had really lost his chance, hadn't he...?
The giggling of the small baby in her arms brought this fact back into view, and Jordan forced himself to pull away from the red-eyed woman, his friend, his partner...his love.
"Hay there, Partner..." He wondered if he should bother asking how she was alive, ten thousand years after their race... He decided not to, he didn't want to know, if she was dead and she said it, he'd loose himself there. Either way, he was contented she was there. "Been a long time.."
"Jordan..."
He gave her a lopsided smile. "I'm not sad I did it, Molly. It's the first thing I've ever done with my own strength, and look at all the occomplishments I've managed to make in these years."
Even older, Molly still hadn't changed in his eyes. Still young and carefree, if abit wiser then before. She had a motherly air she hadn't carried before, and the star and strip remained on her beautiful cheeks, her skin tone had changed, undoubtably tanning under the Nourasian sunshine Jordan had only seen once.
When he'd given Aikka permission to have her, when he said he wasn't mad, he was positively furious that he couldn't have the one thing he wanted the most as an Avatar, he couldn't grant his own wish...
But, what was funny is his threat to Aikka at the time. He really hadn't seemed to care, but Jordan had said he'd feed him his own beetle if the crazy redheaded Nourasian hurt his precious Molly in any form.
Molly hadn't been there at the time, she'd been on Earth still, it had only been a Earthian Year that had passed.
Aikka had chuckled, told him he was not intending to eat G'dar anytime soon, and the moment he hurt sweet Molly, the Avatar had his permission to rip out his still beating heart.
Jordan playfully said that if he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut, he might do it then and there, and bring Molly back to Oban for himself.
Jordan was presently glad he hadn't. He could definately not have made Molly as happy as Aikka could, apparently- he could give her everything she ever wanted, and as long as Aikka had Molly, Jordan wasn't seething at the thought of loosing her.
She would have died a long time ago if she had stayed on Oban with him and his blue rabbit-like blob of goo.
Molly's espression shifted at the mention of her name, and the mood lightened considerably around them as Molly gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. "I told you, my real name's Eva."
A expression of mock-hurt passed across his face, and just as he was about to speak, a voice he knew was not Aikka's or Molly's cut through the silence.
"Mother?"
They all turned to look at a pair of Nourasian youths standing next to Aikka, looking so similar and yet so diffrent that Jordan knew them to be the twins.
Perhaps the biggest perk of living ten thousand years with ones spouse was that you could have any number of children you wished. Jordan had wanted to have that experience with Molly, he really had...before they knew what the Ultimate Prize really was...
When they had thought they could go home to Earth, all of them... and Pretty Boy hadn't married the one he loved, and the Creators hadn't gotten their grummy little hands on the leaverage that -Molly had loved space.-
Jordan would do anything for Molly, even if it had ment saving the Crogs.
Even though Jordan would have rather killed himself than saved the Crogs.
Molly gave the twins a smile, a maternal one, while Jordan tried to picture what the pair would look like if they were human. "Yes, Canaan?"
Canaan. Jordan gave a twisted smile of painful memories. Canaan had been Aikka's teacher, and the man had spent more time with Aikka then the other's own father. When the man had died, Aikka had become next to broken without the words of his mentor there with him.
Jordan should know. Being moreless God now, he could hardly sleep when prayers were sent to him, wordlessly asking him what he should do, and even if, at first, Jordan had wanted to strangle Aikka, he replied, and he tried to help and offer advice but the truth was, he really couldn't.
So he'd become an outlet instead, for things Aikka didn't wish to concern Molly with.
Thats how Jordan knew the pair of them had seven kids. All daughters except this one..
It had probably been Molly's idea to name the boy Canaan. Jordan didn't know for sure, not exactly... but Aikka had been too broken by the death of the man to ever say his name again until it came to his lips as the name of his son, as if the wise man was there again.
The boy was wise. Aikka bragged about the young prince's amazing skills, as modestly as he could as a proud father to a ageing uncle, as if Jordan had become his brother by some unforseen set of events.
Canaan looked every bit like his father did when he was younger; that standing mane of hair of fire, the strong, royal posture, crisp white clothes and golden armor. The only diffrence is that Canaan doesn't have his father's sapphire eyes- his has his mother's crimson blood.
It maked Jordan's heart break to see the one he loved grinning at her child and knowing that neither belonged to him. Aikka had had it easy, consoling Molly through Jordan's transension.
Jordan had been left -alone-.
The only thought able to consoul the fact that he'd been left alone was that he was the Avatar, not Molly. If it had been Molly...
Jordan let himself have a bemused grin which had not seen light of day in ages. If Molly had become the Avatar, Aikka and himself would have refused to leave at all.
Canaan didn't reply to his mother, instead, the slight rise of a single eyebrow alerted Jordan to his curiosity. Obviously, he was wondering who he was.
"I am your Guide while here on Alwas- my name is Jordan, I am the humble servent of the Avatar." Molly whirled at him, eyes wide- even Princey had a look of shock on his face.
Ehh...King. Aikka was King. Canaan was Princey now.
Unfortunately, Kingy sounded weird. Jordan opted to find Aikka a new nickname now that he had met the Prince.
"You are the fifty seventh teem to arrive on Alwas. I welcome you all, noble family of Nourasia." With a family of five nobles on Alwas, one he especially cared for, no less, he's glad Nourasia always had a big pit, and he nearly cries when he relises he has to be on the same planet as Molly as she's cradled in the arms of his rival.
Kanaletto was still on the loose... he had obviously not forgotten when Jordan had stolen his chance to become the next Avatar. He had not forgotten that Molly had won the race, that Aikka and Jordan had protected her against him, that he still wasn't the Avatar, that he had his chances once again.
No one knew but Jordan.
He didn't want to worry Molly or Aikka or anyone else for that matter, so Kanaletto's exsistance was left out of everything he ever did. Still, his silent worry alarmed his friends.
Instead of giving a tired sigh, Jordan gave them a grin. "Let's get you all settled in... I'm sure you must be tired."
Molly gave him a look that insisted he was insane. His grin returned to that bemused smile. "This way, if you please."
Jordan deftly found them a caravan. He'd spent his spare time in the past teen thousand years reading, of all things. The Creators insisted he make some use of all the silence and learn some languages, less he be unable to speak more then the common tounge when the Great Race rolled around.
At first, he had promptly threw out Nourasian, Scrub, and Crog, among others. And then Aikka had asked him for permission with Molly, and suddenly Jordan wanted to know all the meanings of those incantations the Prince used with G'dar. It had helped to have a tutor.
Life had then persistantly fell into a rut. Jordan rarely left Oban for any reason at all... Aikka's call had been a special case he needed to complete in person. Ten thousand years ago, Aikka had been shorter.
The twins were about fifteen, Jordan mused as he helped Molly and the baby up onto a creature he had yet to identify, even after all this time- ten thousand years ago, their parents had been the same. Scrubs bundled about, loading the Nourasian things, though few, aboard the creatures, and the caravan began, taking them to the pit.
Jordan sat with Aikka and Molly and the baby there in the first one, his back facing their direction, he himself watching the twins, behind them. If either of them could pilot like their mother...
"Has the Earth team arrived yet?"
Jordan frowned, shaking his head. Molly look saddenned, and he couldn't understand why. Their entire team had undoubtably died ages ago- only he and Molly remained, to his knowledge.
"It would be most unusual if they won this race as well, do you not agree, Avatar?" Dark eyes watched the King unusurely, as if the man was crazy. But Aikka had not become the Avatar, Jordan had.
"I hope they don't. I wouldn't wish this on a Crog." Aikka looked startled at this accusation.
"Is it really so difficult?" The air of nobility never left Aikka. Jordan briefly wondered if it remained during the couple's nightlife, but that thought was quickly dismissed as Jordan became digusted with his own mind.
He apsolutely did NOT want to know what they did in their own time. It was none of his business anyway.
Jordan permitted himself to sigh. Most of his functions no longer exsisted, he didn't really need the air around them, or need the food he ate out of habit, or lay awake for hours after a perticularly naughty dream concerning the duel-colored haired woman before him.
He didn't even need sleep. For a while, Jordan stopped sleeping altogether, trying to get his mind off her. It hadn't helped much- the dreams were usually twisted into nightmares, anyway, where he and Molly were watching the stars of Oban and then -stupid pretty boy- had to come on his flying beetle like Aladdin and ask the princess to come flying with him.
They had no idea how many times Jordan had just sat there, watching the stars outside his temple and think he'd see Molly sitting there beside him, but when he'd go to reach out to her, she'd fade into dust and drift away.
She wasn't his. She wasn't. He just had to stop thinking this way!
Jordan closed his eyes in an attempt to stop watching her, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. Too little too late, he thought with a frown, feeling the tears slide down his cheek.
He was breaking, damnit!
Molly had noticed, he thought sadly as he felt the wind shift around him, and he turned his head before he openned his eyes again, only to find Aikka staring at him unsurely.
He tried not to look at Molly out of the corner of his eye, but he knew her head to be bowed in shame. He wasn't entirely sure why, it wasn't her falt... "Ten thousand years is too long when you've no one to talk to but voices in your head, Pretty Boy."
At least his voice wasn't broken, he managed to smile at the thought.
"Perhaps when this is over, you should return with us to Nourasia, then?"
Ass. Aikka was baiting him, Jordan knew it. Though Jordan had spent ten thousand years without Molly, love was something the rest of the Avatars were bloody lucky to have gone without. Spending one's nights in longing wasn't the healthiest thing for anybody- especially if you did it every night for -ten thousand years-.
Aikka was teasing him, cruelly in fact. Regardless of the fact that she belonged to Aikka, that she cared for Aikka so deeply, Jordan still wanted to crush her to him and never, ever let go.
"I don't think Boo would permit me to leave Oban before I die."
That's when the silence began, tense and fickle and he could -taste- the uneasiness in the air. Jordan wondered if they had thought at all about what happenned once a Avatar's posistion expired. Half of him wanted to smack them upside the heads for it.
Regardless of the fact neither of them knew who the hell Boo was.
He wondered if Satis felt like this, and then he remembered that Satis had joined the last race, under the unusual guise of Super Racer. It was likely in an attempt to prolong his life- Jordan had learned that every race feared death, they feared what they did not understand. Even the Nourasians feared what leaving the world of the living would mean- they had so long to get attached to the world of the living that it was undoubtably hard to leave.
They were nearing the Nourasian pit, he could feel it and it saddend him to no end. Soon, he would have to leave Molly again... but he couldn't permit himself to stay. He didn't want to do something he would regret later on.
Jordan let his gaze finally turn from Aikka, but as it drifted to Molly he made himself watch their son and daughter instead.
"So whos racing?"
"Canaan and Maya fly together."
Maya. Jordan's heart twisted- Molly's mother...
He let himself examin the girl, sitting regally besides her brother, trying to hide her curiosity at it all behind a mask of stiff indiffrence. Prince Canaan didn't seem to care, taking the ride as time to polish his sword.
Princess Maya obviously was not next in line for the thrown, as the crown worn by her brother clearly ment that it was his place, but she wore a tiara that insignified her own place. Her hair had obviously come from Molly's side, brilliant scarlet was pulled up into a high ponytail, unlike the auburn of her father and brother, though sapphire eyes match Aikka's perfectly. Jordan suspected the other sisters likewise had blue eyes, though undoubtably they didn't have that hair.
Her brozen skin had a almost golden hue, and her clothes seemed to match her brother's own, with slight modifications to the armor, a exposed back, and slits in the pantlegs that let toned frame be exposed to sunlight, and thus, the entity of the world.
Jordan didn't know why parental instincts roused in him until he caught himself glaring at the Crog racer who was watching the caravan. More importantly, the young Princess.
Aikka had likewise noticed the Crog, and his attention on his daughter, his hand itching for the bow on his shoulder.
"Canaan doesn't want to race, so Maya is running it alone." Molly spoke, stroking her baby's face but avoiding looking at Jordan. His dark eyes danced back to her, previously he had been attempting to make the Crog burst into flames from simply boring holes through him.
"I wish her luck..." Jordan stood, and climbed down from their ride, striding up to lay a hand on the openning which bore the Nourasian insignia. "This is where you will call home until the end of the preliminaries." He annouced to them all as they followed him down, Scrubs beginning to unload their things from the caravan.
His gaze flickered to the dark-haired Maya, and he bowed in typical Nourasian fasion. Disregard the robes, of course. The teen looked flabbergastic. "Goodluck on the race track, Princess Maya. I'm sure you'll do grand." He moved to walk away, but he didn't get very far before he heard Molly calling to him.
He didn't stop because of his own free will, mearly because his body had learned to react on order to the memory of her voice...and now that it was her voice...
He turned to look back at her, but nearly fell to the ground when she tackled him. Aikka had ushered the children inside and begun to haul things, leaving the two to their own devices.
Jordan damned Aikka again. He really did. But...it was Molly...
"Jordan..."
...and she sounded heartbroken.
He knew what she was going to say, or, at least, had a distinct inkling to it before she even openned her mouth. He wanted to stop her from saying it, he really did, but he couldn't. She drew away from him, looking at his chest, eyeing the robes that he wore and he wished his Earth uniform hadn't worn away years ago.
"I...what..I had been going to say...back then.."
Oh God, Jordan begged silently, please don't. But God decided not to listen. "Molly-"
"Let me finish!" She all but shouted, startling Maya's mount who was being led into the building, and Aikka as well, who was leading the large beetle. "Let me finish," She repeated again, quieter this time as she drew a breath, closing her eyes. "Or I wont be able to at all."
Jordan said nothing this time, closing his eyes in preperation for what he knew would come.
"I..I wanted to say...I love you, too."
His spirit broke. Aikka looked at them both in shock, sharp ears permitting him to hear them as he remained frozen in place.
The Creators had never had a heartbroken Human Avatar before, one who was still in love with the one thing that had broken his entire world and shattered it into a million peices. Jordan almost lost his grip on his human form, almost slipping back into the form of the Avatar he was.
What could Jordan say to this? What could he do? He gripped his staff tighter, feeling angry at himself.
"I know. That's why I've never let you say it until now." Jordan brushed his fingers over her chin, cupping it and making her look at more then just his chest. Aikka, for once in his life, Jordan thought, could go to hell. For a brief moment, Molly was his. "But there are many definitions of Love, Molly. I've learned that now. Aikka has been good to you, and has loved you with all his heart and you him..and every moment you cling to your memories of what I said, you hurt me."
Her eyes widenned considerably at this, and Jordan knew this was hurting her. She had undoubtably been so confused back then...it had eaten at her, he knew it had, he should have kept his mouth shut...
"I could hear your every thought while you were on Oban after I became the Avatar. You love him, Molly... you love Aikka, not me- I'm sorry I never gave you consolation, but this... this can never be. You belong to another man... a man of whom I hold fond respects for, for he has done you and I no wrong." He hesitated for just a moment before continuing, placing a short, sweet kiss on her lips exactly as they had done on Oban.
"I'm not about to lie to you, Molly; I never stopped loving you. For ten thousand years. But I'm dying now, and there's no stopping it, and you've still got more time to live. Don't go making false promises and hurting yourself by trying to convince youself that you loved me in return. You cared, yes..but not love. Never love."
He decided to leave then, turning his back on her was the best thing to do, he reasoned. But the right thing to do always hurt so bloody much, and he had to move away from her quickly or he'd cry again.
"It was a good race, partner- but I'm not able to fly anymore." He intoned with a wave over his shoulder, unable to look back. He heard her crumble to the floor, and heard Aikka rushing to her side, and he was killing himself inside.
He never wanted to hurt her...
He hated it.
Stop thinking, Jordan, he ordered himself, wishing dearly he could do so. It wasn't working, though. "Damnit, Aikka, you should have never have left me alone with her." He mumbled, angry more at himself then anyone else.