I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter, but I couldn't stall anymore. Still expect an update on the weekend. Dialogue heavy chapter.

Author's Warning: This chapter will have religious undertones. Please keep in mind that this is fan fiction and not to be taken seriously and do not reflect my beliefs.

Chapter 9: Explanations and Revelations

Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
- Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Kendra Morris


Aaron's on thin ice. He knows it. He's not going to deny it and he's absolutely scared shitless, because right now, Chris is quiet. Aaron arrived at the house via taxi. He didn't want to leave a trail with a rental car. So he was sitting in the seat beside Chris, she was driving. He's also half expecting her to ram them into a tree.

If it was anyone else, Aaron wouldn't be worried. He's seen gone-off-the-reservation angry; he's even seen nuclear reactor meltdown pissed. No this was Chris, who doesn't get enraged. Mad, upset, sure he's seen that side of her. What he hasn't seen until now was dying-star-about-to-go-supernova-run-fast-run-far.

Aaron doesn't want to look up and see her expression. He knows that she's extremely enraged and debating whether to kill him or not. He didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did and that's just his best friend. He can't imagine what he's going to tell Sean.

And fuck he really shouldn't have gone there, because now he can imagine all the worst case scenarios going on through his mind at the thought of facing the fiery blond.

"Did Sean know?" Chris says out of nowhere.

"No, he didn't know anything." Aaron said in a desperate tone. Sean knew nothing of this and he won't allow him to suffer from Chris' wrath.

They didn't speak until they arrived back at a house.

"Where are we?"

"Richie's home."

"The one that works for the drug cartel," he asks and Chris only nods, "how do you meet people like these?" She gave him a quick glance before responding.

"I'm beginning to suspect poor life choices."


"You asshole!" Sean screamed when Aaron stepped through the door, before he went to knock him with a clean left hook. That prick Richie wouldn't even give him a knife.

Aaron didn't move to defend himself. He just stood there, his hands in his pocket and fought his instinct to defend himself. Sean wanted to hate him even more. Wanted being the operative word.

It was Chris who caught his fleeing left hook with her right hand and twirled him. His back was plastered to her front with his left arm held across his chest with one arm and her left arm wrapped around his waist and pinning his right arm to his side.

"As much as I would love to see you kick his ass, he still has a lot of explaining to do." Chris tried to calm him down, but Sean is kind of beyond reason right now. He doesn't have an iron grip on his emotions like Chris. Sue him.

"Alright! Alright! Let me go already." Sean tried struggling out of Chris' grip. She didn't let go until he stopped struggling.

"Now that you're calm, how do you know what happened over there." Chris inquired.

"The cameras were still streaming live. We saw everything." The blond said.

"Everything as in…" Chris trailed off.

"Everything." He said simply. They walked into the living room and saw the rest of the fellowship each with varying degrees of emotions etched on their faces. Some was respect (Galadriel and Celeborn) to betrayal and sadness (mainly Legolas). Chris noticed Legolas first.

"Fuck." Chris pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay, Aaron I'm going to start asking some questions please answer them truthfully. And keep in mind I know when you're lying. Why don't you sit over there, m'kay?" Chris pointed to a chair in front of small decorative table in the middle of the room. Aaron went to the chair and Chris sat in front of him in the table.

"Let's start this off easy. What's your name?"

"Aaron Byrne."

"That's the name you were born with?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"I was born November 4, 1898." Sean and Richie were the only ones who seemed shocked by the answer. The others didn't know what that information meant and Marisol was apathetic to the answer. If Chris was surprised, she didn't show it. Damn her iron control.

"If you're really 105 years old, how come you look like you're still in your 20s?"

"People with magic don't age after 25. We're not entirely immortal; our lives are determined by the amount of magic we have stored in us."

"Do you have the same mark as me?" Chris asked showing her right wrist with the dragon's head on it. Aaron only showed his wrist. His was different, instead of a dragon; there was a raven with the leaf in the bottom left corner of the raven.

"Why is it different?"

"The Byrne family worship ravens not dragons. The more powerful families still have a patron animal that represents them, for the Byrne it's the raven. For the Cortez, the dragon."

"Did you know that Sean is like us?"

"I knew. I could sense the magic in others. Everyone has a little of it, but people like us have higher amounts than normal. I know Sean is like us but he never went through the process to release it. The patron animal for the Olcan family is the wolf."

"How do you, uh, release it, I guess?"

"Death." Aaron said simply. The room went quieter than usual.

"What do you mean death?" Chris asked carefully neutral.

"I mean you literally have to die. Your heart needs to stop. No blood pumping. No breathing. No signs of life. You have to die, cross over into the In-Between, a kind of land where the dead are not quite dead, but you're not alive either. You need to go there and come back. It is not an experience you're likely to forget."

"I can't really remember that time." Chris says confused.

"I wouldn't expect you to. For most castors, they willing chose to go through the process, but there are some who were forcibly put through it and violent cases such as yours are extremely rare and dangerous. You're lucky to be alive."

The others want to ask what happened, but know better, even Pippin who's the hobbit with the least tact. Sean knows but that was because he hacked her and Danny's files. Chris hasn't told them about it and Sean wonders how Aaron knows.

"How do you know what happened?" Chris asked.

"I hacked your files." Aaron shrugs, "I was curious why you didn't use your magic on missions and I figured you didn't know what happened to you since you where orphaned at a young age."

Chris nodded at the answer and drops it. She knows that Aaron won't say anything about her past and he never treated her any differently with the information, but her eyes promises retribution for this offense.

"What about JJ and Nina? Do you know what happened to them?" Sean asked this time. He suspected that Aaron knew something, but he has to know for sure.

"I know that they were attacked by castors like us. I don't know where they went after that."

"Castors?"

"There are different names for people with magical abilities: witch, wizard, magician, spell castors, castors, magi, warlock. I just prefer to call them castors."

"Do you know who?"

"No, there are a lot of people who want to attack us. Especially our group, because we all come from different families."

"Why did you join Omega? It seemed like you were doing fine on your own. Why join a government organization of highly trained assassins?" And wasn't that the million dollar question.

"I knew that I was supposed to meet you and Danny. We were all supposed to meet."

"Who told you that?" Sean asked again.

"In our family fire wielders are a rarity and highly valued. The one we have made a prediction. He said that I was supposed to meet with five others from different families, all broken and cast out of their homes. He said that I would know I met them when the leader of the group killed me. He said that in the end we would leave this world and start a new life in another."

"What do you mean when the leader killed you?" Aaron cocked an eyebrow, in a how-can-you-seriously-not-remember. Then Chris remembered.

"Oh. Oh! Oh! Come on! That, that… that doesn't count! You were only dead for about a minute!"

"Dead is still dead, Chris."

"So I'm the leader of this little band of broken toys."

"In my perspective yes."

"What about Nina and JJ? What about Sean? How do they fit in this?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm supposed to meet you and the others. I was hoping you could elaborate more on this issue."

"You're seriously asking me?" Chris asked in a bored tone.

"You're a Cortez and a seer. I figured you'd know more." It was quite after that. Chris was focused on something else.

"What do you know about the Cortez?" Chris asked.

"Shouldn't you be asking her? She is one of them after all."

"Magical gag order." Aaron looked at her in sympathy.

"They're the first magical family. The lineage can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia and the Sumerians. They've had different names and different homes over time, but you know a Cortez because of the mark on their wrist. Dragons were the closest and most trusted servants of the Creator."

"Creator?" Aragorn asked and Sean's surprised that he or anyone else talked, but Aaron takes the question in stride.

"God."

"That's one way to call him," Chris commented.

"That's because that is all He is. He created the universes…worlds, uh, parallel dimensions…whatever. The point is that is all He does, create. The ones charged with balancing and bringing order to his creations fall on the immortals. It's not just dragons. It's also the wolves, ravens, lions, dolphins. Immortal animal spirits that still roam the world. What makes dragons unique is that they are not only charged with the order of this world, but of also all the other ones."

"How does the Cortez come into this?" Sean asked. Aaron starts scratching his head trying to figure out how to put this.

"Just so we're all clear, this is all legend. No one knows the truth or the real history behind our magical ancestry. Anyways, at the time, the dragons were abundant, but it was still too much work to keep order in the infinite…uh, worlds there were out there. So the dragons decided to give some of their power to humans of the world, not just our world, but we all assume the others worlds out there.

"Here, the Cortez were the first to be granted the dragon's mark. And it worked out quite well for the dragons got a lot of helpers and their work load lessened. The other animal spirits saw the success and decided to do the same. And for a time, while everything was not perfect it was a lot closer to it."

"I hear a 'but' coming on." Chris commented.

"However," Aaron said instead.

"Close enough."

"The humans were corrupted by the power they received."

"By humans you mean, the Cortez ancestors." Chris added.

"They started seeing themselves as gods and well…" Aaron was trying to be tact, but Chris was having none of it.

"They developed god complexes and went into evil overlord mode and started enslaving man-kind, along with the other magical families."

"Well…," Chris raises an eyebrow daring him to put it kindly, "yeah that was pretty much what happened. Only, the other magical families were also in on it. The Cortez started it, but the other families had no problem joining in. They started going after everyone, including the immortal spirits that gave them their magic."

"I thought immortals couldn't be killed, hence the name 'immortal.'" Sean asked.

"They can be killed, it was just really difficult, but the ones they went after the most were dragons. They were close to being brought to extinction."

"How were they stopped?"

"The Creator, legend says this was the only time He openly stepped into a conflict that concerned the balance of a world and that he was not pleased."

"What he do?" Sean asked.

"He punished everyone. Dragons were not allowed to return to this world unless summoned by a castor and the number they lost they could not regain. The Cortez, well, they were punished to be forever separated from their home that they planned to enslave. Once an immortal gives something to a mortal, it cannot be taken back. Because of this, he decreed that the only way to use the gift of the immortals, one would have to suffer a mortal death. This was the entire magical community's punishment for their actions."

"You said that the Cortez would be forever separated from their home. What do you mean by that?" Chris asked.

"I mean, that many of the Cortez children that are born are going to eventually jump into another universe and once that happens. They can never come back. There's a way to tell who's jumping and who's not, or so I'm told."

"Never met a Cortez before?" Chris asks, curiously.

"Cortez don't leave their sanctuary. These are legends, but many take it as the truth. And the Cortez are pretty much the black sheep family. No one likes them and almost all wouldn't mind killing them."

"How can you tell who's jumping and who's not?"

"Their heart… it's on the right side. Not the left."

"Then how am I still here?" Chris asked and she's right. If she cannot come back, then how could she.

"I don't know. These are legends. I don't know what happens if you're here. I haven't actually been able to test these theories you know."

Chris lied back against the table with a groan; arm moving to cover her eyes. These were world shattering revelations that Aaron was speaking about. Sean himself was not a religious man and he was having trouble speaking about dragons and creators as if it were actually real. He trusts Aaron and Chris, most of the time now, but this is just ludicrous.

"So what do you wanna do now?" Aaron asked. Chris looked at Marisol.

"Can you lead us to their sanctuary?" Chris asked. Marisol looked ready to run away screaming.

"You can't be serious? After all you heard, you still want to go to there!?" Marisol screeched.

"Yes." Chris said calmly, eyes burning with determination.

"Why?" The empath demanded.

"Because it was the Cortez that took JJ and Nina. If it was Saruman's cronies then they wouldn't come here to take Hiro and Eric. Someone else took them and Nina and JJ's disappearance was the exactly the same as mine and Danny's departure. It was a Cortez that did it and I want to know why. Aaron knows this too. He just wanted me come to the conclusion myself."

"They're family." Aaron defended.

"They're not my family." Chris shot back.

The two females continued to stare at each other. Then Chris closed her eyes and breathed deeply before opening them and looking at Marisol once again. Marisol gazed at her, but her eyes were watering up.

"Fascinating," Galadriel breathed, "I've never encountered a mind like yours."

"Alright, alright. I'll help you." Marisol finally caved. "I won't take you there myself, but I can give you something that can guide you there."

Marisol brought her palms together and muttered in a language no one but maybe Aaron has heard and understand. Her hands started to glow and when she opened her hands palms facing the ceiling the light blinded everyone but the empath for a few seconds.

When the light was gone, everyone looked to her hands and saw a black compass on her palms.

"Take this gift, the one who told me to meet you also said that you would need this. It'll take you where you want to go." Chris was already standing and moving closer to Marisol. When she grabbed the compass and inspected it she couldn't help it. She just started laughing.

"What?" Marisol asked getting irritated.

"A compass that doesn't point north, but I'm not trying to find north. Please tell me someone else gets the reference." Chris kept laughing; it took a second before the others got the reference.

Everyone started laughing, except the visitors from Middle Earth.


A/N: Next chapter. The definition of a Jiminy Cricket assignment, Legolas acts like a douche and Chris really needs a drink, which Richie is all too happy to provide in abundance.