"Welcome." Said the butler, leading Rouge and Richard into the hall. It wasn't an excessively large house, but it was lavishly decorated with dark wood and gilding. A man with gray hair came into the room and smiled, beckoning for his guests to follow him. They went down a long dimly lit hall to a back closet that held an elevator. The three took the elevator to the basement floor, where a large circular platform took up about half of the room. The platform was covered in white painted titles, and in the center was a large stainless steel cylinder. Several arms jutted out from the cylinder and each arm had several fingers. There were rectangular slits in the floor of the platform behind each area under the arms. An opening in the cylinder walls had a joystick shaped handle fitted into a slide on it.

"This is the home of my Gaia Machine. The inspiration and building guidelines came from several ancient texts; very old religious texts many of them. I have a special room for the texts that led me to build the Gaia Machine. But I see, Richard, that you have brought me the conduit. What is your name?" the man took Rouge's chin in his hand and looked her face over.

"I'm Rachel Miu." She said blankly.

"Well you are going to be our medium to contact holy Gaia. We are going to purge the universe of our sinful Earth and all the sinful creatures on it."

"I am honored you have selected me." Rouge said slowly. "When will we begin the purification?"

"Right now. But first, we must ensure that there will be no interruptions. You need a blood transfusion."

"A…blood transfusion?"

"We must protect you from dieing during the channeling procedure. There is but one thing that can kill me, and that is this sword." The man pulled back his trench coat to reveal the Sword of Damocles. Rouge gasped, something was spinning in her head.

"Yes. It is a very powerful blade. I spent over thirty years searching for this sword. I finally found it; to bad I had to kill that worthless old drunkard to get it."

Suddenly there was a sound of the door hitting the wall heavily and a loud gunshot. "NO YOU IDIOT!" yelled Key, as Eric fired another shot at Asachi.

"Who on Earth are you?" asked Asachi calmly pulling the one bullet that had hit his arm out before the skin closed over.

"You killed my father." Said Eric softly.

"Oh, so you are that little boy that stabbed me after killing your worthless old father. I'm so glad to meet you again."

Rouge's head was spinning with confusion. The face of the man that had just entered was very familiar, and the sight of the sword felt like a hot poker was being pressed on her brain. She fell to the ground in a faint and Asachi shouted to get her into the Gaia Machine immediately.

"Key, you are the Giver. You brought me my Gaia Medium and now it all falls into place. I, the presenter of the apocalypse, will end this game. There is one more piece yet to fall into place and the hour in which it will is drawing near." Rouge was fully attached into the Gaia Machine and Evan Asachi snapped his fingers. An armed guard came through the door and escorted Key out of the room with him and Richard, leaving Eric alone in the room with Rouge.

"Who are you?" asked Rouge. She sounded as if she were sleep talking.

"I'm Eric. I'm not going to go on about how you have to remember me Rouge, because it's clear you're beyond that. But I want to know what Richard Asachi did to you to make you leave, and forget and why we are here now. The machine's fingers were holding Rouge and the manacles holding her legs had come out of a steel sheet that rose from the slit in the floor. Her back was to Eric, but he did place his hands on the sheet. Rouge shook her head slightly and moaned. "Tell me goddamnit. Tell me or I swear I will rip you from limb to limb." Tears stung Eric's eyes.

"I see now…you're a man like Richard." Rouge was awake fully now. "Will you beat me too? And drug me? Convince me I'm a sinner who will burn for my dreams of a happy life with you? I do know who you are. The drugs are wearing off for some reason."

"I can get you off the machine Rouge. We can try to escape. If we die trying, we die together at least."

"No. No, Eric, there isn't any reason. This is my fate, and if I don't stay here paying for my sins then the whole world will die."

"We weren't sinful Rouge." Said Eric quietly, his head bent to hide his tears though a steel sheet separated him from Rouge.

"You think I believe that bastard Richard? No. The only time in this life I was ever happy was that time with you. How would you like to grow up with no father, a mother who never wanted you or your twin sister? Do you know what it's like to be completely In love at the age of 15 and then be utterly betrayed, sold as a whore to a brothel? Go from innocence to sin in one night. There were over twenty men that night. The night my life ended and my soul died. Then I met Key. He showed me you. He lied but I don't hate him anymore. I don't hate anyone. Not even Richard. Key showed me you and you made my soul rise from the grave. I broke my heart for the last time when I went to seduce Richard. I'm done now. I have no more reason to live. I'm going to die here and I know that the world will live because of my death."

"Rouge… Evan Asachi isn't trying to save the world. He's out to destroy it."

"I know. It won't end in tears." Said Rouge calmly. "And please, don't call me Rouge. I'm Gaia now. I was reborn today, I'm Gaia now. I can hear the melodies of billions of life songs in my head. I was slowly recreated when Richard cleansed my soul. You aren't real to me Eric. You are a phantasm of a past life."

"Rouge-" Eric was at a loss of words. And it was then that Key and the Asachis came back in. "Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we actually had a genuine Gaia Link here. You know, I tried this five years back and it failed because our Gaia wasn't pure enough. But now, let's just see what the machine has to say." The Gaia machine pulled Rouge's arm up painfully (it was connected to her via a spike in her arm) and fitted her hand around the handle in the panel. A LCD screen above the panel flickered and read 100%. "She wouldn't be 100% if she weren't ready to die." Said Evan coldly. Eric bit his lip and tasted blood. Key pulled against the guard. Evan walked over to the Gaia machine and caressed Rouge's face and throat. "You really are quite beautiful." He said in a low voice. "Richard, what does the radio say?"

"There are natural disasters occurring all over the world. Tidal waves in Hawaii, tornados across North America, the glaciers are moving into Russia. Freak hurricanes are hitting all over Asia and Europe is suffering several earthquakes of high magnitude."

The Earth is suffering because Rouge is suffering, thought Eric bitterly. Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He had to end it. He didn't care about dieing in any way. He just had to end it. Eric ran forward in a moment that felt like a year and pulled the Sword of Damocles from Evan's sheath. In an instant a spurt of blood sprayed from Rouge's mouth and Eric kissed her bloody lips. "I loved you as Rouge. I honor you as Gaia."

"eric…" whispered Rouge as she drooled a little more dark blood. Two more great showers of blood flew into the air as she ripped her arms free of the Gaia Machine. The shackles on her legs shot back into the steel backing and Rouge fell onto Eric. He felt her sticky, warm blood soak his shirt and he fell under her sudden weight. "save me." She whispered one more time before her eyes rolled back in her head and she lay limp.

Eric lay back against the metal sheet and felt his legs jerked against the backing. He cried out as the metal fingers of the Gaia Machine pierced his arms and he grabbed the handle in the cubby. The LCD screen flickered and read 93%.

"You can't do anything boy, you're only 93%. 93% can't beat 100% power destruction." Mocked Evan right before Key broke free of the guard and shot Evan through the head. The guard pulled his automatic out and shot Key several times. Key fell into a pool of his own blood on top of Evan. Richard ran to Rouge and tried to pull her back from the machine as Eric strained to reached her hand to get more power. As soon as Richard brushed Rouge's skin a white ghost rose from Rouge and blew him against the wall. It looked like no human or animal or plant or any known living thing. Eric felt it a cold press against his body and drain him of his strength. The meter on the Gaia machine started dropping dramatically. Then Rouge's corpse got up. The eyes were dead and void, the limbs unanimated. But the body was moving. Eric felt stiff with terror and shock but Rouge's dead hands went over his own on the stick and the meter slowly rose up and up until it hung at 99%.

Free us please
Don't leave us like this
Soaked with sinful blood
We are all covered in it
But let us take it all on
And die together
Even hell is bearable
If one could stay with the other
Because all we need is each other
Gaia take us back
Forgive us for our 2000-year faults
Give us to our mother.

100%