Tuesday 24 January 2014

Piercing sirens wailed and children screamed in terror. The smell of something metallic drifted on the air—it was a mixture of the spilt blood and crumbling structures—and all ambient sounds had blurred together into a cacophony of noise. Hundreds of tiny feet thundered against the dusty ground, sending clouds of red flying into the air and the rustling of their oversized colour-coded jumpsuits as they made their grand escape. At 10 years old, Kiran was one of the many children to escape from the clutches of the Ragnor-Ra Mogadorians. Panic and fear settled in the air like a thick fog, choking at everyone with twisting tendrils that reached deep into their souls.

Sunlight—true and proper light—bared down on the children, blinding several as they stepped out of the dark and dim halls of the penitentiary that was the School. This blasted, horrifying, terrible place in which they had been kept captive for most of his brief childhood. Blinking rapidly at the sudden change in light, Kiran was only able to start moving again when a delicate hand wrapped itself around his wrist, tugging him forward. His gaze jerked from the infinite expanse of red in front of him to the girl in front of him; her dreadlocks falling out of their hastily tied ponytail and green jumpsuit crackled as she moved, sounding like the crack of whip breaking though the blood rushing through his ears.

He knew that she was trying to tell him something—he can see her lips moving, can feel her tugging him along over his stumbling feet towards the boundary line, but nothing seems to compute. It's just not filtering through. It's not until his feet are suddenly lifted from the ground as he's tossed over someone's shoulder like a sack of grain and bodily moved towards the boundary line. The ginger curls brushing at his nose and the blue material rustling beneath his fingers let him know that it was Yugi who had picked him up. He could hear the ginger talking—could hear him commanding the Theron girl to get them out of there…or at least that's what Kiran thought his friend was saying, it was hard to tell with the blood ringing in his ears. Could they really do this? Could they really get out of School?

And then the gunfire began to rain down. Red bolts of light fired in every direction, downing children without care or mercy. The chips in their napes song in symphony with the encompassing electric fence that ran the length of the boundary line. Kiran wasn't sure who it was that had been able to hack into the chips in their necks, turning them off long enough for the children to fight back against the captors and escape. He kind of remembered one of the Ordin kids mentioning something about a blonde woman in a vintage dress with pistol and pipe in hand; but the kid had just returned from the Headmaster's office and had been rocking back and forth singing his ramblings. Kiran wasn't sure why that note had remained in his memory.

The electric fence that they raced towards buzzed like a thousand horse flies, standing tall and towering over them just as it had done all their captivity. But it was no match for the Helwyn kid at the front of the pack who ripped through buzzing barbed wire like it was tissue paper; their rage-fuelled telekinetic Legacy easily overpowered the boundary line, almost blowing it away.

The crowd soon pushed the trio forward as they spilt out onto the hot red sand. The few who can, raced out into the harsh landscape that surrounded the School, uncaring for logic or sensibility, only caring about their own survival. Kiran felt panic clog at his throat when the whirring sounds of a chopper sounded above them and the gunfire increased from a different angle as the Mogadorians sounded their counter-attack. He could only watch as bolts of red rained down on the fleeing children—on his friends—with a sense of mind-boggling fear and helplessness, even as Yugi and the Theron girl pounded over the loose sand as fast they possibly could.

Kiran could only watch as the School grew further and further distant on the horizon as the trio journeyed further away, their once traumatising jail almost a mirage and still they continued on. It wasn't until the feeling of something tugging at a point just beyond this navel, until an unidentified feeling of nausea roiled through him and Yugi leapt from the dusty outcropping, that Kiran knew at least they would be okay. That is if the Theron girl could get them out of there in one piece.

Kiran and Yugi seemed to spend their whole lives walking up and down the grubby cobblestone road, hauling satchels and rucksacks of pilfered food and clothes after them as despairing adults watched on with loathsome glares. They were only ever able to tell time by the number of tallies carved into the wall of their little apartment (some abandoned building they'd been squatting in that most of the locals swore up and down was haunted) and the ever-changing fashion trends that flowed around them. From the open-toed sandals of leather Birkenstocks to the many layers of denim.

"Do you, uh, think that 6493 would like the daisies or the buttercups?" Kiran peered up at Yugi from beneath long lashes as he knelt before the pile of stones that acted as the tombstone for the Theron girl's grave. In his hands the straggly bunches of flowers in questions had begun to winter slightly.

"It doesn't matter, Kira" Yugi scowled, narrowed eyes searching the misty moors for any signs of life, least the Mogadorian hunting party showed up again. "She's dead"

"That doesn't mean we can just forget her!" Kiran retorted, resolutely turning back to the grave before deciding to nestle both the handpicked daisies and the buttercups between the cracks in the stone pile, as if they had been growing there the whole time.

The sound of mud squelching underfoot and the following hissed curse as the person's shoes dirtied with each step was what caught their attention; the noise easily breaking through the quiet morning that enveloped the old Church cemetery where the pair had secretly buried their friend some months previous. Reacting quickly, Yugi spun around and pointed his open palms towards the approaching person, intent on using his Legacies if deemed necessary even as the person came into view.

Peering around the legs of his friend, Kiran locked gazes with an elegantly dressed woman who seemed to melt from the fog like a ghost. The tween wasn't sure if he was more scared of the woman or the ghostly spirit she appeared to be despite the earthen attire she wore. Mossy green rockabilly dress, black gloves, black heels, black fascinator hat with poofy emerald feather and black briefcase. She looked more like the Old Ladies Society that brunched together at the local bistro and bitched about 'todays youths' and other such nonsense.

The woman tipped her hat towards the pair as their own gazes roved over her as she calmly perched herself on a nearby tombstone. "Who are the hell are you?!" Yugi demanded, narrowed eyes following her every move.

"I'm here to help" The woman replied as she plucked a pipe from the depths of her pockets and calmly lit the end, a trail of smoke falling from her lips and melting into the landscape around them.

"Tell me, why shouldn't I tear you apart?" Yugi threatened, palms still splayed towards her.

"Be~cause if you did, you wouldn't hear about the offer I'm about to make you" She sang as Kiran rocked to his feet and came to stand behind Yugi, curiosity burning in his eyes. "Which would be rather tragic given your current…situation"

The woman was close enough that she didn't have to shout, but still a comfortable enough distance away that the two Garde wouldn't feel threatened despite the cunning gleam in her eyes. Yugi lowered his hands slightly, interested piqued at what the strange smoking woman offered them. "I work for an organisation called the Temps Commission" The woman began, "We are tasked with the preservation of the time continuum through manipulation and removals"

Kiran watched as the woman's eyes trailed over the pair of them garbed in raggedy oversized clothes, over Kiran's curious eyes and settled on 6493's grave for a moment longer before returning to Yugi, whom she looked dead in the eyes.

"I don't understand…" Yugi trailed off.

"Sometimes certain people…make choices that alter time—free will, don't get me started" She brushed off with a roll of her eyes. "When that happens we dispatch one of our agents to…eliminate the threat"

At that, Yugi immediately retrained his hands on the woman languishing in front of them without a care in the world. "Oh! No, no, no!" The woman chuckled as if Yugi had done something funny. "You misunderstand me! You're not targets, you're recruits. I've come to offer you jobs, Kiran & Yugi. We've had our eye on you for quite some time and we think the both of you have a lot of potential. You're story's become quite the tale back at headquarters—that and your special abilities that allow you to struggle through such hardships"

"…You're—you're saying we—we could actually leave here?" Yugi stammered, eyes snapping quickly over to Kiran who stood just beyond his shoulder. "We could go somewhere without the Mogs?"

"in return for five years of service, of course. Once your contract ist done, you can retire to any time and place of your choosing—with a pension plan to boot!"

"Any place? Any time" Kiran piped up for the first time since the conversation had began. "Yu, we could go back to Lorien! We could go home!"

"Home…" Yugi trailed off as his hands finally dropped back to hang limply at his sides; eyes glazing over as memories of their fallen motherland came to mind.

"So…" The woman blew out a ring of smoke, "Do we have an agreement?"

21 November 1963

Several years had passed since their first induction into the Temps Commission and many hours of missions and training had passed since then. Gone were the two weak children floundering through fields and squirrelling away stolen items they'd plucked from store shelves. Instead, they proudly sat on the edges of the Destiny's Children property, staring despondently at the aqua embroidered bohemian-styled clothes that they bore instead of the uniform suits that they were used to. From their perch on the towering garden fence, the pair could see the edges of the multicoloured party bus from where it was parked in the driveway—a major juxtaposition against the elegance of the stone mansion claimed by one Klaus Hargreeves and his cult.

Destiny's Children had returned to Dallas some days previous, just in time for the seconding coming of the Apocalypse. The cult, headed by Hargreeves necromancer was just air headed enough that the pair of teens had been able to slip into the throngs of cult members without much hassle—although most of them were off their tits on whatever they could get their hands on anyway. Rumblings of The Swedes' battle with the Hargreeves had become a sensational story back at headquarters, but that wasn't why they were here.

Kiran spared a glance towards Yugi who sat next to him staring up at the mansion with a scowl permanently planted on his face and arms crossed tight across his chest as their latest mission whirled around in their brains. Never in a million years would Kiran have ever expected to off one of their own—maybe if they had been a traitor or something of the same calibre, but nothing like this, never like this. Unfortunately it seemed that Theodore J. Hargreeves had more than fiddled with the timeline; something for which the Commission was greatly displeased with and so he had to go. Nevermind the pair of Loric Garde were likely in the same situation; the only difference being their training and backing of the Handler. She sure did love her toys.

Turning his attention back to the small speaker that sat between the two, Kiran listened in as Klaus Hargreeves spoke with Theodore and presumably a (deceased) Ben Hargreeves (if the conversation was anything to go by). For the most part, the conversations hadn't really revealed much—nothing about the coming Apocalypse nor about Theodore's plans. Most of it was just drunken ramblings about possession, buzzing ghosts and some chick named Jill.

Yugi slapped away his hands as they fiddled with the dials on the speaker, just wanting to ease the boredom more than anything else. Kiran wrapped his hands around his legs and turned away with a pout as his thoughts turned once again to where they had stashed their briefcase. In a house full of drug-loving hippies, they'd have better luck just leaving it out in broad daylight that tucking it into some dusty air vent for the time being. With that in mind, they had disguised it as some kind gaudy piece of artwork; of course it was easily outclassed by the other ghoulish pieces of artwork scattered about the mansion—most of them sexual in some weird way. "There he goes" Yugi muttered, his voice breaking through Kiran's thoughts and pulled his attention over to the retreating brunette currently making his way through the gardens.

"Well, then" Kiran hopped to his feet after scooping up and pocketing the speaker. "Let's go"