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I know that the war really started earlier, at least officially it did. But we all have a day when the war really started for us. For most of us it's different, usually the day that the fight became personal. For me, it's that day. The day it all began.

The day I first shed blood…

I find it highly ironic that I started out the day trying to save a life, specifically my youngest brother's. My other brother, my twin and I were just putting the finishing touches on the series of locks, bindings, and traps that would keep the kid in place long enough that he would miss the event. Our parents had already left, by the time they found out what we had done, it wouldn't matter anymore, the kid would be safe.

They could do whatever they wanted to us. Whoever "they" happened to be. We had decided this together, we would be the ones to take any punishment that our parents, social group, or the government decided to dish out. I even went so far as to steal his medallion. Once that was done we started out the door. Or at least I did, my brother stopped me in the hallway.

"Um… I'm not really sure how to put this…" he started, obviously nervous, even…embarrassed? That couldn't be right, my brother never got embarrassed. Ever. I mean come on, we weren't exactly the richest family growing up, and we were twins, and well… hot water was expensive… let's just leave it at 'we were both very familiar with the physical anatomy and psychology of the opposite gender.' Besides, he was a scientist, or at least a science student. Something was definitely up.

"What is it?"

"Well, it seems that there was a slight error on your application form as well, they just notified me… it seems a rather important question didn't get answered…"

"Spit it out, what is this 'rather important question?'"

He turned bright red. Okay, hold up, something's definitely wrong with this picture. My brother, the one guy at school who the girls had trusted to guard the locker room when there was a rapist targeting schoolgirls, and who had therefore gotten drafted to temporarily be let out of classes and required to stay in said locker room for the majority of the day – particularly when the girls were in there and quote "vulnerable" – and not even batted an eye, merely requesting that he be allowed to take in a small table so that he could continue studying and that he be given verification that not one of the girls felt uncomfortable with his presence, was blushing. BLUSHING! The only time I had ever seen him blush was when he actually caught the rapist in question and had to request that the girl he had just saved cover up. He had made the papers for that. Actually, I think that that incident is what first brought him to the attention of the lab he worked at…but that's beside the point.

One thing I knew and knew well, if my twin brother was blushing, then there was a very serious reason. And I would probably wind up at least as red as he was before this discussion was over.

"Is it…" He stopped, looked down, took a breath, and looked up, having regained his composure. "Is it that time of month?"

…

Oh. Well. Yup. Hmm. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I was at least two shades redder than he had been. I can honestly say that having to be asked that question by my twin brother was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to me since I was twelve and our parents had decided that the morning of my first period was a good time to give us both the talk. Together.

That was the only other time in my life I had seen my brother embarrassed. It took us a week before we were able to look at each other straight. It was also somehow the first hint we had that our parents might not actually have the best idea of what they're doing. They quickly acted to firmly cement that impression in our minds, and a week later had made a rather large show of "subtly" providing the both of us with inordinate amounts of…various contraceptives. I did the math once, and it turned out that we would have taken a year to work through them only if we were active at a rate of eight to nine times a day.

I think that that was when we sort of took over the raising of our younger sibling from our parents. When they were actually surprised six months later by the fact that we hadn't gone through our…supply…umm…I mean…

…

Let me make one thing abundantly clear, neither of us ever did anything like that.

Six months after receiving our respective ten-year supplies we hadn't even opened them, except for me going on the pill just in case I was… attacked. The fact that they were still unopened didn't even register with our folks, they were surprised that there were any left.

That was the point where we became the official contacts for our little brother on his school records and for any of his extracurricular activities. It was also the point where we officially decided that we were raising the kids, and not the folks. About a week later everyone else we knew seemed to catch on. To be perfectly honest I think they were actually somewhat relieved.

But I'm getting off topic again. Returning to the moment at hand:

"Oh. Well. Yup. Hmm. Yeah. Awkward." At this point it struck me just how intelligent I was sounding. I gulped. I think I might have giggled. I tried to remember for the life of me when my last time was, I swear, even my memories were blushing. Then…got it, about a week and a half ago. "Umm… No… No, no, I had my period about a week and a half ago."

He looked relieved, "Alright, I'll just send this paperwork off with the Pidgey then." He made a note, checked a box, signed his name on another page, and handed it to the messenger Pidgey on our way out.

As we were walking away from the house, his step was noticeably lighter than usual, and I amended my earlier opinion, he was definitely relieved not to have to tell his twin sister that she was ineligible for the immortelle program because she was… sexually capable at the time.

About halfway to the event he suddenly stopped. He patted his pockets. He muttered a light curse, and turned around to run back to the house only to find me holding his medallion out to him, the number six prominently displayed, with what he later described as an amused smirk on my face. He took his ID Medallion from me almost sheepishly, "Thanks Sis, you're a lifesaver."

"No problem, even if I hadn't brought that one I snagged the kid's just in case he woke up too soon."

He laughed at that, "Always the overachiever."

I remember the feeling of waking up. My brother was standing over me, talking to me. Oh, that's right I can hear things. I turned the sound back on. Then blinked and yawned, and then decided to pay attention to said sound.

"Sis, you okay?" my brother, worrying as he always did. My twin.

"Well, most things seem to work right, although I do wish I weren't so short at the moment."

One of the technicians interrupted, "Uh-Oh, disorientation, we'd better get the docs to check her out."

This set my brother laughing, which got him some strange looks. In answer he pointed to a screen. Watch her brain activity, she fell asleep. She's always like this in the morning." He reached down to help me up and out of the evolution chamber.

"So should we mark subject number five down as a success then?"

My brother smiled, "She survived. Whether she evolved or not that's a success in my book."

"Alright, who's next, bring in number six."

"No need," my brother tossed his medallion down on the table. "You're on your own for this one guys."

The lab seemed to be divided between those who were surprised that my brother was one of the subjects and those who seemed surprised that he was as far down the line as number six.

"…Wait, you're Subject Six? Why?"

"Because the HMICs wouldn't let me go any earlier and even I'm not cocky enough to try this thing out on myself with nobody at the controls." As if that explained everything, which, many were surprised to find, it did.

I on the other hand had snorted at his comment. Head Morons In Charge, one of my brother's favorite acronyms. How he ever managed to get any influence anywhere – or keep his job at the labs for that matter – was a mystery far beyond me.

My reaction seemed to remind the other people present of my existence, and I was quickly bundled out of the room, there was a full medical examination, plenty of tests, and then they declared me healthy and that was that. I was now one of the Immortelle, the supersoldiers who were going to save the world.

Yeah right.

I was a 17-year-old girl who had absolutely no idea what she had just gotten herself into.

There were about nine of us in the room. My brother had final managed to shout down a team of seven doctors to get clearance to return to the EI Chamber. That was when we heard the first shots fired, the first explosion. All of us were on guard instantly, knowing that this meant that the enemy had shown up to stop that project. That they were here for us.

But they weren't. The weapons that were discharging weren't directed at us, but at the crowd in the courtyard outside. And a man in a white uniform stood atop what we would later discover was termed a Rhyperion-VI Battle Tank. And he was monologue-ing. Then I heard what he was saying. It's not really important anymore, and all that I really remember is that he was talking about the slaughter and blaming us while firing into the crowd.

And then a little girl stepped forward. I recognized her, she lived not far from us. She called him on the carpet, talked about how we were going to save everybody and help people and why did he have to be such a big meany. She called him a bully.

He just smiled that sickening smile of his. That was when I decided that he was my personal enemy. What clinched it was when she mentioned me, said that if people like me were going to become Immortelle, then we couldn't possibly be bad. She used her special nickname for me of course, so nobody knew quite who she was referring to.

After she finished, he committed what I consider to be one of his most unforgivable acts. He had the main cannon brought to bear on the little girl and asked her if she thought her "precious heroes" could really save her. There was no way we could. We were on the sixth floor, we simply just couldn't get down there in time. He was toying with her, taunting us, all the while turning us into villains. And then he gave the order to fire.

I saw red.

My war began.

I threw everything I knew about what exactly would happen out the window. If I couldn't even save one little girl, then there was no point in my ever evolving in the first place.

I jumped.

I was told later that this was a rallying point, the signal that was needed for us to start fighting back. I couldn't really care less.

I managed to save her, the one person in the world who truly believed in me at that moment. Not just in us, but in me. Personally. That was all that mattered.

When the smoke cleared, the image that was there must have been truly terrifying. I was standing there, in front of the girl, most of my clothing in tatters except for what essentially amounts to a slip, loose blonde hair blowing in the wind, and a look in my eyes that was apparently enough to make more than one of my enemies soil themselves. The man on top of the tank took one look at me and jumped down, slamming the hatch on the roof behind him. Approximately two seconds later the rear of the tank burst open and a Pigeot flew out and took to the skies screaming.

I was later told that the attack I used is called Draco Meteor. I didn't really care at the time, or even know that I was using an attack, I was just doing to the tanks what they had done to the crowd.

The people were cheering, the enemy had been defeated, their commander was running, and all it had taken was a single Immortelle.

Then the real attack hit.

Turns out that man in the white uniform, Karkroiv, hadn't been running. He'd been delivering the shocking news to his reinforcements that he actually did need them.

I did many things on that day that I am not proud of. But the one thing that I am proud of, the one thing that kept me going, is that I did manage to achieve something. Not repelling the enemy, because frankly we still lost. There's a reason that it was named the "Zero Massacre."

No the one thing that kept me from going home that day and slitting my own throat was that I managed to return a favor. I returned a favor to a little girl who had stood by me, and I stood by her. I never left her. She had a piece of my shirt tied over her eyes, and cotton from the hem of my skirt stuffed in her ears, and her arms were tight around my neck. She asked begged me, "Don't let me go. Don't leave me." I told her I wouldn't. And I didn't.

That was my victory, at the end of the day I had managed to protect the little girl who now meant so much to me. I found out she had been orphaned when the tanks fired into the crowd. The adoption papers were signed and filed by the end of the next day. So that I could keep protecting her.

I will not speak for the others, we are all different, and few of us can actually be called noble at this point.

I am immortal, unchanging, Immortelle. But I am also a protector, a guardian, and the things I watch over are not. And so in the end all I am left with are the people I care about, for the all-too-short time I have them. And they move on while I do not. And more come. And my heart breaks with every death that I cannot prevent.

But there are those deaths I can prevent. The endings I can avoid. And so though they may change, all I have is my family. All I am left with are the people who are important to me. And I will protect them.

I am Immortelle.

I am the fifth.

I am –

But if you look for me, you will find me by only one name

– The Girl in the Ivory Dress

A/N: Yes, I used a completely different character for the narration and POV in this chapter. Get used to it, I'm going to be doing it a lot. Another thing you should probably watch out for is the timeline. So far there has been some semblance of linear progression in this story. I cannot guarantee that this will continue. As the story progresses I may wind up doing entire chapters that cover already established events from a different POV. This is because this is not a book, but rather a legend. A Chronicle if you must. It involves a lot of characters, doing a lot of things at the same time. They would each have their own stories, and their own version of the same events. Anyway, if you've gotten this far then thank you for reading.

- NPP6