"Hey driver, where we goin'?"

- a-ha

"Come in Corneria."

"This is Corneria. Pepper speaking. Congratulations on a job well done."

"Roger. I'm heading back to Corneria."

- Star Fox

"Oh, please, James. Spare me the Freud. I might as well ask if all the vodka martinis ever silence the screams of the men you've killed. Or if you find forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women… for all the dead ones you failed to protect."

- Sean Bean

"EXTERMINATE."

- The Daleks

"Kowareau kara ugokenai. Sabishii hane kasanete."

- T. M. Revolution

"I must have fallen asleep. I had a dream where everyone went to Heaven."

- Ayashi no Ceres

"I don't quite know how to say this, but Mr. Astor is also Mr. Payton."

"What?"

"The only explanation is he's made a conscious choice to be Joe Astor, and become the man he was always meant to be."

- Viper

"This is such good shit!"

- a Vince McMahon puppet in a weird alternate universe where John Cena was an active wrestler in 1997 and a member of the NWO.

"This never happened to the other fellow."

- George Lazenby

"Hey daddy-o."

- D. Va

They'd been on the run for close to a year. After completing all of their quests, Seiya and Ristarte raced from world to world staying one step ahead of the agents of the Divine Realm. The long and winding trip ended on a lush green planet so far removed at the edge of the universe it was completely uncharted on any of Ristarte's maps.

They both were committed to hiding in this remote margin of space-time for as long as they could, living as refugees in a wild Garden of Eden. The sun was shining brightly over the forest canopy. Unidentifiable birds and insects chirped all around them. Seiya and Ristarte were the only sapient forms of life on the entire planet… Almost.

Seiya was propped under a tree with Ristarte curled on her side and tucked against his chest like he was her big armored pillow. The ethereal angel had her wings stretched over both of them like a warm white blanket. Sleeping happily in his arms, she was so tranquil. So beautiful. And so heavily pregnant.

A shadow loomed over the resting couple. Aria was standing over Seiya with a look of regret and sorrow on her face. Seiya was bowing his head in submission. He was tired of fighting, he was tired of running, and he was pinned down by all the precious extra weight in his arms. Ristarte was too lost in her dreams to know she was even in trouble.

The Goddess of Sealing hesitantly stretched out her hand so her flat palm was pointing toward her target.

"Goddess Ristarte," she delivered the official verdict as she choked back her tears, "You are guilty of violating the most sacred tenets of your sisters. You will now be punished for your crimes."

Aria's palm began to glow. Seiya kept Ristarte supported in his arms as a dark aura swept over her sleeping body. Her heart lost its immortality and became a slowing ticking biological clock. Her body lost its ethereal weightlessness and became fully subject to the forces of gravity. Her wings dissolved into feathers. The feathers dissolved into air. Her hair shortened to shoulder length and changed to a deep reddish-brown color. The only trace of divinity she had left was her white gossamer dress.

"Mmh…" Ristarte murmured in cheerful discomfort in Seiya's arms. It was the first time in a century her body truly remembered what it was like to be a delicate living structure resting on top of another more muscular living structure. She grunted quietly and briefly tried to adjust her position to make herself feel less like a sea lion with a belly stuffed with fish kicking their little flippers, but she gave up after a couple seconds. Such was her punishment: Forced to live as an immortal soul trapped in a mortal body.

Seiya held Ristarte closer in his arms. He tucked his nose against her auburn bangs as he gently spoke toward Aria.

"What will happen to the baby?"

"I only erased the divine genes she would have inherited from her mother's blood. She'll still be born as a perfectly healthy mortal," Aria answered in a respectful tone. "We gods can be strict and vengeful, but we're not demons."

Sighing, she turned and slowly waved her hand in a horizontal motion. A ring of at least a dozen portals appeared behind her.

"I'll leave these open so you can choose which world you want live in," the goddess explained. "It's a mixed bag. Some have developed societies with millions of people around. Some are primitive jungle worlds like this one, just easier for me and Ishtar to track. You'd be the first sentient beings to live there. One portal will return you to your own world, but Rista can't come with you if you decide to go that route. All the portals will close once you choose where to go, so make sure you've made up your minds before you leave."

Aria's eyes glanced away with lingering anxiety.

"You're not going to leave her, are you?"

Seiya shook his head and smiled as his chin brushed Ristarte's forehead.

"You've practically been her big sister for the past century. I'm glad you were always there for her while I was getting my own life back together. Let me be the one who looks after her from now on."

He leaned forward to kiss the top of her head.

"Is Ixphoria an option?" he asked Aria. "We were thinking about helping repopulate the royal family."

"Repopulate…" Ristarte giggled weakly in her sleep.

Aria closed her eyes and gave a solemn nod.

"That's one of your choices since it's a cleared world. You've earned that much."

A separate portal opened beside Aria. Out walked Clotho, the God of Alchemy. He took the appearance of a gentle-faced man in extravagant jade robes. Despite sporting a full blonde beard and a large emerald-studded hood that cast almost his whole face in shadow, Seiya noticed the striking familiarity about him.

"Still working on this assignment, Aria? You shouldn't make everything so personal," Clotho said in a friendly chuckle.

"Easy for you to say," Aria scoffed back. "I feel like I'm killing Rista by taking away her divinity. I spent the last hundred years telling myself she'd always be safe as a goddess. Sometimes I hate carrying out these duties."

"Aria, it's for the better. You can't keep letting this chew you up. We've both had enough of that," Clotho said with a small wink.

"Do you think she'll be alright on her own?" Aria asked in doubt.

"She's not on her own. She still has her hero." The sage god nodded his head in Seiya's direction.

"I guess you're right," Aria sighed. "Thank you, Clotho. You always give the best advice when I need it."

Clotho's playful smile slowly changed to a weasely smirk.

"You know, love might be forbidden between a god and a mortal, but there's nothing wrong with two gods shacking up," he suggested in a low voice.

"Don't push it, science boy," Aria muttered back.

Grumbling and shaking his head, Clotho walked back through his portal. Aria turned toward the couple still resting under the tree.

"Farewell, Hero Seiya. Your good deeds will be remembered by the divines."

With her last bittersweet words, Aria disappeared back into her portal.

Seiya closed his eyes and relaxed as he cradled his love. His mind drifted at peace as he listened to sounds of the wildlife, the dull hum of the portals surrounding him, and the soft waving rhythm of Ristarte's breathing.

She started to wake up in his arms.

"Seiya…?" Ristarte said weakly. Her drowsy eyes struggled to open in the bright sunlight spilling through the trees.

"What is it, Tiana?" Seiya brushed his fingers over her belly as he smiled. Ristarte turned her head against his chest and sighed. The ribbon in the back of her hair twitched almost like blue cat ears.

"I had this awful nightmare. I was in Hell and I lost the baby. Then I was in Heaven. Then I met you, but you couldn't recognize me. There were all these weird people telling me what I could and couldn't do. Aria was the only friend I had. I tried as hard as I could to make it work, even though I ended up messing up a lot. It felt like it went on for decades."

"Well, it's all over now," Seiya said in a soft and reassuring voice. "Now we're just back to being a couple of simple mortals living out our lives together."

Author's note: Did you dudes know the original title for License to Kill was License Revoked, but it was changed at the last minute because British people were afraid American people wouldn't understand the vocabulary?

Author's note 2: This is another example where I couldn't make up my mind which epigraph quote I should use, so I ended up using all the quotes. If you think that's a mess, you should check out the plot summaries for the Final Fantasy VII remake.