Thank you all for your patience, and perhaps frustration. This is The Quest of One renewed, for the last time. I promise you, this is the beginning of the end, and I'm 100% on this one. I give you, at long last, Travels of the Keystone Garde.

Prologue
Part I

The woman is stuck in a traffic jam when the ground starts shaking. The cars in front of her try to pull off to the shoulder of Pico Boulevard, but the intensity of the quake increases from a subtle tremor to a full-blown, tumultuous maelstrom of seismic activity. White-knuckling the steering wheel, the woman tries to stay calm inside her juddering station wagon. She is sixty-two years old, and while she and the fourteen-year-old girl she calls her granddaughter have grown accustomed to the turbulence of Los Angeles streets, earthquakes are still alien to her. Where she grew up, the tectonic plates had stagnated millennia ago, and though their legacies lived on in the wraith, the descendants of that ancient race favored the Outer Territories, far removed from fragile urban infrastructure. Here—and, perhaps back home—earthquakes are about as common as wars. All it takes is one really bad one to send everything downhill.

The land seems to drop—the station wagon bounces across the pavement, the front bumper scraping the side of the nearest car, which has spun in from the next lane. It's a jarring impact, and the woman's knees crack against the underside of the dashboard. She grunts in pain but pushes past it an instant later. There's an opening in the road ahead, and the woman risks driving forward until she can pull off and wait for the earthquake to pass. Across the street is the Santa Monica College campus, and ahead, ten blocks away is the precinct.

Ahead.

Ahead, a growing cloud of dust follows a loud, distant crash. The debris absorbs the subsequent buildings, and the woman sees motorists opening their car doors to flee, but most barely step out onto the viciously undulating earth before the dust swallows Pico Boulevard whole.

The woman turns off the AC and waits. Her heart thumps loud in her ears, and aside from the rattling metal and low roar of the asphalt, the world outside is dull and gray. Quiet, for most of the screams have stopped; through her windshield, the woman can make out humanoid shadows staggering about, blind, choking. She sits absolutely still in the driver's seat, but her mind and viscera thrashes inside her as dark memories attempt to crawl out of the dust cloud and into the station wagon.

No, do not think that, she tells herself. Not right now. Please, Loridas, not right now.

But the seed has already been planted, and it grows voraciously, invading her mind and dragging it into the depths of a memory.

The woman was on the Alwon Kabarak when the Spires of Elkin were hit. She remembers a bright golden light that washed away the navy blue of the quartermoon, and not too far away, the tallest structures on Lorien sinking into the surrounding city. Sinking. She couldn't imagine the last horrific moments of the thousands of unlucky souls inside the spires—let alone all the people on Crescent Ave when the buildings collapsed—until now, and now she knows.

Nothing could be worse than what her people had faced that day, not even this, this earthquake in LA.

Because the debris from the Spires of Elkin consisted of tempered glass and wood mostly and even though the air didn't catch fire, the razor-sharp dust particles were molten hot. She could feel the heat of it from Alwon. The death throes of the city reached the Kabarak simultaneously, each succession of stimulus receding from the senses' reach.

The shockwave.

The heat.

The smell.

The screams.

The woman was trained to recognize them all. Behind her, Kabarakians celebrated the quartermoon, indifferent to the destruction just a few hundred kilenneads away, oblivious to the ground shaking beneath their cavorting bodies.

The woman's girl celebrated with them, dancing with children and chimærae around a massive bonfire manifest by an older Garde nearby. She watched the festivities, watched the girl laugh and cheer with other kids her age. The girl had a sparkler in each hand, her blue formfitting suit making her stand out in the crowd of red scarves and silk robes.

This will be the last night of joyous reverie for the girl, until several hundred lightyears later when she grows homesick enough to seek out pale imitations of such ecstasy.

The last night she will breathe the air of her homeworld.

The last night she'll be known as anything other than Number One.

The last night on Lorien, a time of great celebration recurrent over the past score millennia, endarkened forever by the way the ground shook as the whole world came crashing down, the infernos of its demise lighting up the sky.

Lorien's legacy leveled in one night.

This brings the woman to attention, and suddenly she's tearing off her seatbelt and stepping out into the murky street. The air is thick with pulverized concrete; her clothes and skin are caked in it and her lungs are on fire in the time it takes for her to walk from the driver's side door to the trunk of the car.

With shaky hands, she opens the trunk, retrieves an emergency pack and a gas mask.

Then she leaves the station wagon behind and runs.

Fast.

Faster than safe for someone her age, or for anyone who just went through a high-magnitude quake. No one sees her. The dust provides her perfect cover from shell-shocked eyes. She accelerates through Woodlawn Cemetery, and in the five seconds it takes to clear the grounds to Santa Monica Freeway she sees uprooted trees, cracked headstones, graves peeking out of shredded earth. Passing what's left of the Church of Christ, she sees that the bridge on Fourteenth is down.

No.

The woman skips the bridge and sprints alongside the freeway, just within the tree line, at eighty miles per hour. This brings her to the next bridge in under a minute. Eleventh Street is more obstructed than Fourteenth was. She doesn't slow in scaling the rubble—doesn't stop to look at the half-buried cars and broken bodies inside—but the street is getting more uneven and the dust thickens the closer she gets to the police station.

No, no, no, no! Lincoln Boulevard's bridge comes into view, collapsed like all the rest.

The woman picks up momentum, damns the pain in her knees and launches herself over the rubble. She's in the air for three or four seconds, arcing over the devastation and landing on top of a still-standing hotel. Not stopping, she sprints along the roof, leaping again at the edge. What used to be a construction site behind the hotel is now a heap of metal and building material, and beyond that a few high school sports fields.

Concrete and compact dirt.

She braces herself, hits the ground and tumbles on her side, stopping just past the bleachers of a baseball field.

Bruised knees, ribs, maybe a few fractures. The woman tastes blood in her mouth. Her body aches when she stands. She checks her gas mask. It isn't damaged, and while she can't say the same about the extra one in her pack, she'll give hers to the girl if she has to.

The woman starts to take a step forward, but the sudden awareness of the ledge shoves her backward. She clings to the edge of the bleachers, steeling herself. A massive sinkhole gapes where Colorado Avenue and Main Street should be. The woman sees the jagged remains of Tongva Park inside, and past it, the Santa Monica Pier still standing, the Pacific Ocean receding from the beach.

To her horror, the precinct sits at the bottom of the crater, a pile of flattened concrete illuminated by electrical sparks. She wouldn't know what it was if it weren't for the blue spire reading SANTA MONICA POLICE sticking up out of the wreckage.

She's seen this before. Not this exact scene, and not on the night of the invasion. But on a handful of occasions in her life, when children just growing into their talents were instead overwhelmed and, in some cases, killed by them. Children she'd mentored. Her heart tightens in her chest, and she fears the weight of all these premature deaths will compress it into a black hole and devour her. The sun and sky are completely blotted out by the dust cloud, a somber overtone to a grim landscape.

The woman wants to scream, but she knows better than to give herself away, even in the event that her girl, her charge, has been apprehended, injured, or executed.

Part II

It's not the quake that wakes the boy from his sleep, but the loud pounding on the side window of his van. He wipes the sleep from his eyes, throws musty covers off his body, and sits up on his elbows. The violently shaking earth doesn't faze him, and neither does whoever's banging on his door. It's probably the meter maid coming to collect another bribe. The boy has been sleeping at Lot 5 since September, the longest he's stayed in one place since first embarking on this extended summer vacation. He intended to travel to San Diego after Halloween, but—

"Wade!" a voice shouts over the rumbling earth. Her voice. "Hey, Wade! Wake up!"

That prompts him fully into wakefulness.

The boy sniffs his armpits, looks around for a clean shirt and pulls back his messy braids into a bun. He swings open both the side doors. She stands a door's length away, backpack slung over her shoulder and a wide, devilish smile on her face that seems unable to get as big as it is. Those lips, hips, and eyes are what kept him here for an additional two months. He's had his fun with other girls on his travels, but the young surfer from Clarkdale has done more than simply pique his interest. He can't explain it, but the boy is almost always… Always awestruck by her.

"Morning," he purrs. "It is morning, right?"

"Almost twelve thirty," she answers, breathless. "You got any water?"

He nods, sits down on the edge of the open door. "Did you run here?"

"Yes," she sighs, approaching him. "God, I need to smoke."

The boy chuckles. "Yeah, I think I can help with that."

In a fluid motion, the girl drops her backpack in the van and grabs the boy's face in her hands. Her lips are dry, but soft and salty, and her breath is sour in his mouth. The boy feels her hips press into his. He lifts her into his lap, into the van, and she all but pounces onto him, lunging them both onto his mattress. Her legs wrap around his waist, her tongue runs along his teeth and gums, and she moves the whole of her body against his. He breaks away when the van doors slam shut.

"What?" she asks, gasping for air.

"The door…," he starts. "It just—"

"Earthquake." The girl replies simply. "Too choppy to surf today?"

"We'll see," the boy says. "It should die down in a few minutes."

"What if it doesn't? Can't we just stay right here, all day?"

The boy makes a sound in his throat like he's considering the suggestion, even though his mind's already made up; he'd like nothing more than to rock this old Volkswagen with her until the New Year. "We'll see."

She smiles again, then returns her lips to his where they rightfully belong. He thought it was just the trembling earth, but the boy realizes that the girl herself is shaking as the quake dies down outside. Vibrating, the way she has after catching a really big or bad wave, with this raw energy that the boy cannot get enough of. Leaning forward, the boy holds her in his arms and kisses her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. The girl's pulse pounds harder, her breath catches in her throat, her hips aligning perfectly with his when she feels him indurate beneath her.

"I got something for you," she whispers in his ear. "Want to see?"

"Sure," he answers.

The girl shoves her hands down onto his chest and pins him to the floor. Keeping him in place with her wide hips, she reaches over and unzips her backpack. She retrieves one, and then another, and finally a third vinyl record with agonizing slowness for dramatic effect.

"No," he says.

"Yes."

"You didn't."

"I did." She climbs off of him and kisses his cheek as he examines the records in his hands. "Merry Christmas. Well, merry everything, really. I figured three records would cover Christmas, New Years', and your birthday."

"Where did you get these?"

"Oh, you know," she replies slyly, "downtown, from that shop on Fourth Street."

"Which one?"

"Can't remember. Does it matter?"

He shakes his head. "Thank you, so much."

"Of course."

"No, seriously," the boy argues. "I don't know if I can accept this."

"Why not?" she asks, kissing his hand. "You don't have a gift for me?"

Hearing her say this instantly makes him feel shitty, and yet the boy doesn't know why. Their relationship, in actuality, isn't as serious as he acts like—and sometimes even wishes—it is. They surf, smoke, and have sex. And yet she thought enough of him to get the boy his favorite records from his mom's collection back home.

It's almost as if she senses his dour thoughts. "Want to make it up to me?"

"Yeah," he answers, and in response, she climbs back on top of him and kisses his neck. "Fuck, yeah I do."

"Ask," she whispers.

"Ask what?"

She's kissing his collarbone now, running her hands under his shirt. The girl kisses down his bare chest and stomach as she says, "Ask. Me. How."

"How?" he gulps, her lips lingering just above his waistband. "Shit, Hope. How?"

"Let's go."

"Huh?"

"Let's go."

He laughs.

"That's funny?"

"You're serious?"

"Did it sound like a joke?"

"I just…," he struggles to find the right words, his mind is racing. "Where are you trying to go?"

"San Diego. San Juan. Anywhere, everywhere. I don't care, I just want to go."

"But, what about your grandma?"

"She'll be fine. Shit, she'll have less to worry about without me around." The girl reaches her hand into the boy's pants and grasps. "Is my grandma really who you want on your mind right now?"

His blood accelerates through the highways of his arteries. "No, ma'am."

She says, "I didn't think so," and pulls off his trunks and boxers.

Kisses him right there. A frigid shock travels all the way up his spine.

"When do you want to leave?" he stutters.

Her dark eyes meet his. "After I'm done."

Part III

Blood and saliva trickle out from the corner of the agent's mouth. It's the first sensation she's felt since coming to in this dark, mute place. For a while, she was pretty sure she was dead. Then the pain came. Rubble shifts around her and her red hair is coated with yet another sheet of dust. The earth stopped shaking long before she awoke, but she's heard the debris shifting above her for some time now.

Good.

They've started the recovery op, they've brought people with the right skills and equipment to extract her from the collapsed building without crushing her in the process. She wishes she had the strength to scream or dig her way out, but she also knows she'd end up burying herself more than she already is. Better to sit, wait, and gather her thoughts. She'll probably be asked to write a statement, after all.

I, Junior Agent Karen Walker, FBI, the agent compiles in her head, was stationed under Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge William Murphy, FBI, at the Santa Monica Police Precinct on Fourth and Olympic for urban intensive analysis training, when SA Murphy showed interest in a juvenile detainee brought in by Police Officer Juanita Moore. Detainee was identified as one Hope Santos, black female, five three, roughly one hundred ten pounds.

PO Moore arrested Santos in response to a call from Angel Records at 11:08 a.m. in regard to a shoplifting. Santos, matching the description given by the shopkeeper, was received by the precinct at 11:15 a.m. Her legal guardian (a Hilde Santos, grandmother) was called to collect the adolescent at 11:21 a.m. at which point SA Murphy had identified a large circular scar that appeared to have been branded onto Santos' left ankle.

Believing this would assist me in my intensive, SA Murphy collected Santos for further processing. In spite of her guardian's impending arrival, Murphy insisted that photographing the brand would aid in certain criminal activity he was investigating.

Santos, refusing to cooperate, was restrained—I handcuffed her to the desk while Murphy took his photos. Then the ground shook, and the detainee screamed and—

The agent hears footsteps above her.

Muffled voices, yells.

Then large concrete pebbles fall around her, and the ceiling of debris gives way to gray sky.

"Oh, thank you, Jesus," a man says, standing over her, silhouetted in the hole. "Come here, Walker."

Hands gently carry her broken body and lie her on something soft and flat. Then, slowly, she feels herself hoisted upward, out of the underworld. Once on land, she feels beached, spent, like some aquatic thing wrenched from the comfort of the depths, only to die after being tossed unceremoniously on the surface.

What with the pain she's suffering right now, dying doesn't sound so bad.

"Walker. Karen, can you hear me?"

The detective.

He grasps her hand too hard, and a paramedic orders him to get back. They fasten an oxygen mask over the agent's face and strap her to the gurney with almost velvet Velcro. This is done with haste, rescue groups shouting orders to hurry up. She doesn't even notice the helicopter bobbing over her until it's reeling her into its underbelly.

An eternity later, she's staring at the chopper's ceiling. She's been given something for the pain, but the agent really only as the strength to move her eyes. The detective is strapped into a seat above her. He's wearing headphones, and there are bandages peeking out through his button-down. Blood stains his hair. His eyes are bloodshot and distant, and the agent follows them across the hull to the open door, where Los Angeles lay in inundated ruin.

"Bill…," she strains. The detective reacts immediately, grimaces as he unlatches his seatbelt and staggers onto the floor. A paramedic manning the open door almost grabs him, but Murphy is careful not to touch his trainee. He listens intently as she says, "tell me…this wasn't us."

He shakes his head.

"The girl," the agent coughs, "you were questioning…."

"Karen, there was an earthquake," he implores. "Please just forget about her right now, and let me—"

That flares up something inside her that causes her to lunge. But strapped down to the gurney, all she can do is jerk uncomfortably and point a weak finger at the window, past the paramedic.

"This was no earthquake," she hisses, mustering more force into her voice. "I've been in an earthquake before. They don't just stop. What… What the fuck is this?"

"We can't talk about it."

"Yes, we can."

"No, we can't!" Detective Murphy almost growls, before lowering his voice when he notices the paramedic paying too much attention. "Not here."

"Where are we going?"

"Well, right now, back to the bureau," he says. "After that, Dulce."

"Where the hell is Dulce?"

"New Mexico, a little ways west of Santa Fe."

She thinks about this. "Navajo Nation?"

"Bingo."

"Why would we go out there? We don't even have jurisdiction…"

"Walker, do you want to know what's going on?"

She stares at the special agent. Bill Murphy is only a few years older than her, but his experience puts him lightyears ahead. He's in on some next level shit, and even though she's angry he didn't fully brief her on his investigation, the junior agent understands it was probably confidential. She's been allowed closer than most people, and now, she's being given an in.

"Here's how I see it," continues Bill. "When we land on the helipad, in about thirty seconds, your life can go one of two ways. You can tell me to fuck off, and the paramedics will take you to the nearest overcrowded hospital that's still standing, where you'll just be another number in the total of injured statistics about a year from now. You'll go home, work some office job until you retire and maybe work up in the ranks to become some glorified director's assistant, because with your injuries, nobody's going to put you back out in the field. You'll spend the rest of your life as the victim of the tip of the deepest of the deep state icebergs.

"Or, you can stay on this helicopter, you can fly out to Dulce with me and see for yourself how deep this motherfucker goes. If Bud Sanderson asked for my personal recommendation, I'd say you were ready for MogPro."

They land. Everyone has evacuated to the roof in lieu of the tsunami. The team of paramedics is switched out, the new crew a pale sort of people in suits and sleek dresses. They aren't wearing oxygen masks, but then again, neither is Bill. A woman kneels down beside Karen, her long, alabaster legs curled beneath her as she clips a small briefcase. More of these strange, dark-haired women begin to work as a unit on Karen, giving her bandages, stitches, injections that reduce her pain and even boost her energy, bringing her senses back to one hundred percent. They smile at her with bruised-looking lips and straight, white, almost sharp teeth.

"What did it look like?" asks a huge man seated next to Murphy. He's pale, black of hair, and tight with muscle like the women, only they're lithe and slender and the man is more of a boulder.

"A circular brand with a ring around it," Bill replies, "kind of like Saturn."

"And the girl?"

"Tan, almost brown skin, blond hair kind of braided like your women here, and—"

The larger man barks loudly over the chopping wind as we lift off. It's rough and abrasive at first, and Karen can't help but think about all the homeless people in LA she's heard talking gibberish. But then the women tending to her begin to chitter, like chipmunks (or hyenas) and one or another of them reply in the same guttural sounds.

They're speaking to one another, but in a language like nothing Karen has ever heard before.

And she knows a plethora of languages.

Bill waits, uncomfortably, for the new crew of…Karen doesn't even know how to describe the lively giants. Anyway, they settle, and he continues briefing the larger man on Hope Santos and the earthquake that it seems she'd set off. The huge man's face turns grim as he takes in the information, and Karen wonders for the first time if she's actually safe on this helicopter.

One of the female attendants seems to take notice, because she says something to the others, which prompts them to unstrap Karen from the gurney. The pain from being buried alive has all but subsided, and maybe it was the brush with death, but now the colors and sounds and smells are so vibrant.

The women's faces so white, their eyes and hair so dark.

The nearest one smiles at her with those carnivorous teeth and says in a cheery voice, "Welcome to the hunt."

Thank you for reading the prologue! If you've made it this far, then you know this is real. I'm back! I hope you guys enjoyed; for those who have read the original TQO1 drafts, you'll either see improvements or expansions on other themes. I wanted to really honor the atmosphere of the original Lorien Legacies series and not just reinvent it from scratch as I'd tried when I was younger. Please know this will not be the only chapter published, more is on the way. I'll go back and edit this accordingly, but nothing major, as the plot line you read is the plot line I have deemed just. I would like to ask my older readers (whose OCs will make a reappearance) what should this story be rated? There's slightly more profanity and perhaps suggestive content, so Teen or Mature? Decide in the reviews, and please let me know what you think. Again, thank you for your patience, and look forward to more.