Now is when the story really starts :3 If you can figure out what Terra's tatto means, I'll give you the invisible cookie. Boy, language is fun to write... R&R appreciated. Thank you.

The collapse began on February 12.

Aqua had just left her job as a waiter in some slutty restaurant, and she was fuming silently as she counted the tips and dollar bills the drunk horny men had stuck beneath her waistband. It was decided. She would quit that job tomorrow.

She threw open the door of her hand-me-down Audi Quattro and sat down on the worn-out seats. "Dammit, I'm not suffering through that again!" She was in college, and there were probably a lot of open restaurants who might need some young hands. She cursed the men and their mothers as she pulled out and drove down the dark road. She cursed their ancestry and their children's children's children, and the very ground they walked on, and hoped that their angry wives or fed-up mothers would have the mind to stick some cyanide, botulinum, and ricin in their food and dump their bodies in a landfill.

Aqua knew that anger like this wasn't healthy, but she didn't care. Yeah, sure, her family had a history of cancer, but Aqua knew her best friends were most likely dead. One was shot along with his family on a vacation to Arizona. The other had been missing for a year and a half.

A driver beeped at another driver. Aqua growled and rolled down the window. "Goddamnit, you wanker! MOVE!" As expected, that got him moving, and traffic flowed as normal again. She would have been in deep shit if Ven were there, because he was an avid hater of potty-mouths. But Ven wasn't there.

Aqua, Elvis is dead.

Yeah. He didn't try to force his way into another body.

Aqua, listen to me. Terra's uncle, he's dying.

What gives him the right to do this?

Everyone's really worried about him-

That doesn't give him the right to destroy another life! Death is part of life! He should accept it!

Aqua shook it out of her head and sang along to the upbeat tune. There was no traffic on the dark, backwater road outside of the city. Aqua's high headlights were the only illumination.

And then something life-changing happened.

Something large ran out in front of her car.

Aqua screamed and slammed on her brakes. The old car screeched and spun around the thing, careening longways down the road and finally crashing into a tree. The airbags went off, violently slamming into her sides. Terrified, Aqua took some deep breaths and forced her way out of the car to see what had made her wreck.

It was a young man dressed in various black leather straps that were woven around his arms and legs and waist. Scars were visible on his otherwise perfect upper neck, scars that were crudely sewn shut with thick black thread. Black bandages were wrapped tightly around his abdomen, and there was a large sutured wound in his left pectoral. His right arm had a chained metal cuff on it. His feet were bare. But something about his familiar face and silver hair made him seem even more unusual than he already was.

"...Terra?" Aqua asked with incredulous surprise.

The man rose to bent knees, balancing on the balls of his feet. "Aaaaaah..." he moaned, slowly approaching her. His back was feathered with tranquilizer darts. "Aaah...kaaaaaaaaaaa..." His breathing remained surprisingly normal, not slowing or speeding up with the effects of sedatives. "Koowaaaa...?"

Aqua ran forward and, acting on an impulse, began yanking the darts from the person's back. This close to him, she could hear a strange sound emanating from his chest. Hiss-pump, hiss-pump, hiss-pump... It sounded mechanical. The man's flesh was cold as death.

"Come with me," she told him, then ran down the road towards her home. The man just stood in the road where she left him. Aqua couldn't avoid the strange feeling she was getting from him. "Terra, c'mon."

The man cocked his head, but still responded, running down the road to catch up with her. Sedative didn't affect him at all. He was full of energy, eyes alert and interested.

Could this be Terra? The Terra who had disappeared from the face of the earth with no explanation? Aqua wished she knew as the two ran through the biting cold and falling snow. Even after Aqua was panting and her legs burned with exertion, the stranger's breathing remained oddly even and his body like ice.

They soon reached Aqua's home, a house her great great grandfather built that had been passed down for generations. Aqua fumbled her keys and unlocked the door, pushing the man in and then going in herself. She felt for the light-switch and turned it on.

In the light, she could see the man better. He had tanned skin and vivid golden eyes. His hair, which was messy on top, flowed long and silky to just below his shoulder blades. On his left temple was a long sutured scar, and along his neck were various smaller scars. His face, his unmarred face, was identical to Terra's.

Aqua slowly approached him. "Hello?"

He looked up. "Aaaaaaah..." Apparently, he was mute.

Aqua smiled kindly and pointed at herself. "I am Aqua."

The man crept towards her, feet flat on the ground. "Aaah...wa..." He looked into her eyes.

"What's your name?" Aqua asked.

The stranger blinked and cocked his head, silent.

"You don't know?" Aqua was worried. She approached him and put a hand on his bare shoulder. "You don't have a name?"

The silvernette blinked unknowingly at her.

Aqua shrugged, knowing what to do. "I think your name is Terra."

"Terrrrrrll..." Terra, as Aqua had dubbed him, attempted to speak the name, tongue stumbling gracelessly over the r.

"Ter-a," Aqua repeated, emphasizing the movements of her mouth. "Say it like me."

"Terrr..aah..." the silvernette imitated. He lifted a strapped arm and placed it on her left shoulder. On it was a black series of numbers and letters tattooed into his flesh in a machine-like font. Aqua read through the code.

"X1NM3S1AE?" she said to herself. "Why do you have that tattoo?"

Terra shifted his stance and gently squeezed her shoulder. "...haaaa...aaaaaaaaah..." He looked down and saw the keys in her hand. "Aaaaaaaaah..." He backed away from her and the moans turned into howls and shouts.

"I won't hurt you!" Aqua said, shoving the keys in her pocket. She raised her arms, palms out. "It's okay. I'll never hurt you." I'll never hurt anyone again.

Terra whimpered and came back over, obviously satisfied that the keys were hidden. As Aqua put her arms down, he glanced around the periwinkle blue hallway.

"Terra, c'mon." Aqua led Terra to the family room, away from her most-likely sleeping mom, and turned on the television. Terra jumped in surprise when the anchorwoman talked about a missing little girl and a pit bull mauling. Sometimes Radiant Garden didn't feel as happy as people made it out to be.

Something interesting happened.

The anchorwoman shook her stack of paper. "Today a catastrophic disaster happened in the Radiant Garden Laboratory," she said with an unnervingly cheerful disposition. "Three men were seriously injured when a test animal escaped into the woods. Two are currently hospitalized; the third is missing as of now."

"Escaped test animal?" Aqua would have to be on the lookout for that.

A knock came from the door.

"Terra, stay." Aqua ran upstairs to the door and flung it open. "Wha-"

Braig!

The one-eyed man was leaning against the doorframe, a long slash on his face dripping thick, dark blood. He was holding a long rifle with a sniper scope on it. "Hello, Aqua," he said breathlessly.

Aqua couldn't speak if she had words to say. Braig, the tormentor from her childhood, was at her door again!

Braig sighed and shifted his gaze. "Have you seen anything...unusual recently?" he asked, guilt evident in his remaining eye.

Aqua took a deep breath. "...get away, you fucker!" She slammed the door in his face, panting and close to sobs. "DON'T COME BACK!"

She looked out the peephole and remained there until she was certain he was gone. Anything unusual... Was he looking for Terra? Why was he injured?

There was definitely something more to Terra, and Aqua knew it with certainty.

xxx

It didn't take Braig long to find Dilan's waiting car, because it was black against a plethora of white snow.

He limped up to it and pulled the door open, quickly sliding in, gun on lap, then slammed it behind him and yelled in pain. "Please! To the hospital!" He was getting dizzy from the loss of blood.

Dilan nodded and pushed down the pedal. They were soon cruising down the road at a steady speed. "I'll assume you didn't find XEMNAS."

Braig groaned and reclined his seat, buckle still undone. "Vanished after he tore up my face," he explained, cringing as sticky warm blood dripped onto the upholstery. "Sorry about you car..."

Dilan shrugged as best as someone who's driving can. "That's what insurance is for."

Braig sighed, blinking his drooping eyelid. "I got him about twenty times with darts, but he didn't go down." He wasn't just a scientist. Science was more of a hobby.

Dilan growled, "Are you a bigger idiot than Even? He has no blood. Poisons designed to be administered to the bloodstream have no effect!"

"Oh. That didn't occur to me." Braig's vision clouded with a dark tunnel as blood loss became critical. "I'm tired, Dilan..."

"Don't fall into a coma, nincompoop."

"I'll try..." Braig closed his eyes and allowed consciousness to slip away.