Chapter 12. Please, go read it and review later. That's really are there is to say at this point.

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**Three days later**

Holly groaned as she rolled over, the pups and young jell she had been protecting shivering at the sudden loss of heat. She got up slowly and rubbed her eyes, her stomach grumbling for some food and throat parched from lack of water. Spying the pool near by, she dragged herself over there and stuck her head it, slurping up the water noisily.

When she had had her fill, Holly got up and looked around, wondering what had happened since the battle. She could remember fighting some jell hybrid, and hearing someone scream, then those waves of power and she had protected the pups...

"Lilianne!!" Scanning around herself quickly, she saw the familiar two-toned head and battered clothes, lying the farthest away with her arms around a crumbling lost disk, the memories flying back into her head... "Zephyr..." She bit back the tears that threatened to cloud her vision and checked on the others. The pups were fine, she had seen to that personally. Golem and Big Blue were still alive and well, as were the others as she walked along and checked for a pulse, only Allen giving her a scare for a second.

He had been the closest to Lili when it had happened. She took a bowl of water out to him and poured some down his throat, doing the same for the others as she went back. Finally, she gathered the nerve and walked out to check on Lili.

The entire ground was littered with lost disks and corpses as the halfsies left.  She picked her way over and through them, ignoring the fact that some of these she had killed and weren't one of those who had been decimated by the blast. She put a hand to Lili's forehead, finding her to be warm and alive. Leaving a gourd of water by the halfsie, she went back to the others, seeing the pups start to wake up.

"What happened, Miss Holly?" asked Temi, choking back tears as she saw her parents lying there on the ground. "Why aren't they moving...?"

"Shh," she whispered, picking them all up in her arms as tears began to form in her eyes again. "They will all wake up soon, I promise."

"And Uncle Z? What happened to him??" Holly turned her head away and carried them to the cliff that had been at their backs the whole time, the only thing for miles around that had gone untouched by the powerful waves. Sitting with her back to it, she cradled the pups to her and sung softly, letting the tears run down her cheeks.

Safe passage may you be granted

As you go your way

We'll no longer see each other

Until that blessed day

We love you and will miss you

You cared about one and all

No matter what time brings out way

We'll keep you in our hearts

As the sun share rise above each morn'

We shall remember your face

You're charming smile, your handsome looks

The hole you left in your place

Some may try to fill you shoes

But all will forever fail

The place you left with us

Remains as it should

Genki woke up to the sound of Holly's voice, getting up and getting a drink before going and wrapping his arms around her. "We're alive," he whispered when she had finished, patting each of the pup's heads and squeezing Slip's shoulder.

"But others aren't," replied Slip as Holly just buried her head into Genki's shoulder, sobbing freely. "Why must so many die? We did nothing wrong, and neither did they. This senseless slaughter..."

"If this world were fair," said Tiger wearily, coming and standing beside them. "Then there would be no need for heroes like Genki and Lili....and Zephyr."

"I wish there weren't," added Stormy, coming to sit beside her mate. "Are you alright, pups? Slip?"

"We're fine," the three chorused together.

"Miss Holly protected us," said Ice, licking Holly's cheek gently. "She's a hero too."

"No," whispered Holly, shaking her head. "I'm not a hero. I never was, I never will be. All I want is for the fighting to be over, to go home, to live at peace..."

"We all do," said a dead-looking Pixie, gulping down water she dipped from the spring. "But if life were that simple, we'd know nothing of war and would just live in harmony from now until the end of time. Unfortunately, things don't work that way."

"I know..."

"Grace..." whispered Hare, lying near by.

"Get him some water," said Holly, getting up slowly. "We need to eat and keep moving."

"What about Lili?" asked Genki, casting a worried glance in her direction. "Is she...?"

"She's alive," replied Holly, quickly making a fire from the one they had had before. "I checked on her earlier." She put a pot of water onto boil over the flames, understanding their survival was the most important thing at this point. Everyone went about silently, waking those who hadn't woken yet on their own and getting their things together to leave.

Lili woke up at the noise. It wasn't much, but it was enough to reach her delicate senses, which were still fine tuned to what was going on around her. She silently picked up the broken pieces of Zephyr's lost disk and tied them in the bundle of cloth that used to be her jacket. Walking past the others without a word, she gathered her things together and improvised a shovel of her sword, quickly burying Zephyr's disk under the only tree that had survived the ordeal, a cherry tree shielded from the blow by a niche in the cliff face.

She finished packing her things and began to walk slowly to the north, still saying nothing to the others as time went by. They packed up and followed after her, keeping a good distance the whole time as they went.

They reached a small cliff just after sundown and opted to wait until morning to go over it, seeing Lili sit on a small outcropping by herself and put her things down. She still said nothing, tears streaming down her face as the moon rose into the sky.

The others built a fire and mourned Zephyr's death as well in their own way. Hare stayed silent and stared into the flames as Genki comforted the still sobbing Holly. Golem and Big Blue talked quietly with Pixie just outside the ring of light and Slip sat with them, taking what he was hearing in quietly as he sat in Pixie's lap. Tiger sat with a sleeping Ice as his mate and other pup approached the grieving halfsie.

Temi slipped into Lili's lap and licked her hand as Stormy came up beside her. The three exchanged looks, and Lili nodded, Temi touching her nose with Lili's before they turned and together, howled at the moon...

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Lili was far from herself for the next several days as they pushed northwards, going by Holly's pendent as a guide. She rarely ate or sat with the group, what time she willingly spent with others was with Slip and the pups, and even those times were rare. She didn't sleep at night, either, and when she did they would wake to see dried tear tracks on her face in the morning. She never showed her grief on the outside, she kept it all in, and it was eating her alive.

She refused to shrink her wings and claws anymore, using her new attacks to devastate anyone who was stupid enough to get in their path a this point and generally remaining in kill mode for as much of the time as she could.

The others weren't coping much better than she, though. Temi had grown thin over time, being one of those closest to Zephyr, as well as Holly who would have nightmares of what had happened sometimes several times a night. Genki was trying to comfort both his cousin and friend at the same time, leaving him stressed out and exhausted most days. Slip had lost the majority of his earlier cheeriness and now went around moping, Ice doing the same as he too missed his Uncle Z. Pixie was just angry. He had been the first hybrid to show her that not all of them were bad, he didn't deserve to die. If anything, that sister of his who had tried to kill her was worthier of death than he was and should've died in his place. Big Blue had the same idea she did, but didn't display it nearly as much. Golem and Hare just kept quiet and withdrew inside of themselves, not saying much and doing what they had to do to stay alive.

There had been some injuries within the group at the time of the attack, and Lili healed them one by one without them realizing it, doing it in their sleep or during the day from a distance. Physical contact was something she shunned at the moment, and the only three she wouldn't push away when they tried to console her were the youngest three in the group.

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::Lili's P.O.V.::

It has now been two weeks since Zephyr....left us. And sometimes I wonder....was there something I could've done to stop it? Is it my fault? Or did he know....? Did Zephyr know he was going....to....die...?

The others, they try to help me, I know they do, but I can't accept their pity. Their sadness. Their hope for the future. Zephyr was my future. Ever since I found out his mother was apart of me....we were closer than ever. I loved him like a son before, now I could technically claim his as such. No one, not my cousin, not anyone in my Valley, not any of Allen's family or Allen himself were closer to me than him. He knew everything about me, my past, my present, my hopes, my dreams, my very thoughts...we were connected in a way that few can experience because of our circumstances.

They're holding a service of sorts for him now, one for all of us to say goodbye to him. They're lying things in a small cave with an inscription Allen carved above the door. It's something like this:

~Zephyr~

May your winds forever blow over this land

May your wings shield us from harm

May your strength be with us as we fight

May you stay forever in our hearts and minds

A nice bit of work, yeah, but there was so much more to him than his fighting ability and the impressions he laid on others. He had a bigger heart than I could ever hope to have. You know what I wanted to do after he had recovered and grown a bit? To go and kill every single one of those morons who thought they could mess with nature like this without consequences. But it was Zephyr who made me stop and think about all the other lives that needed to be saved. Others like him who had been tested upon and needed someone to show them that they weren't mistakes, that they were even more special than that bastard could ever hope to realize. They just needed to see it for themselves. Someone to show them that.

That's where me and my valley came into play. We set it up together, just the two of us with the occasional helping hand from Allen and supplies from his family. With the group of monsters Allen saved over time and brought to us, our family began to grow and expand even more than I thought was possible.

So, we were two forces that, in general, balanced each other out. Seriously, think about it. I could fight with an intense ferocity that he rarely showed unless provoked. He had this great calm about him, a generous peace that reached to any who knew him. I was rarely merciful and forgiving unless he persuaded me to. Do you remember that incident with Pixie way back in the beginning? She would've been dead had it been a couple years ago. I didn't mess around with saving people's lives, I ended the problem and moved on.

Yet, I didn't have any attacks and had tons more healing power than he did. Zephyr was the one with the attacks and had some healing power too. But it was raw and unusable unless he was healing through me. Me, a fighter. Him, a peace maker. Me, the healing one. Him, the fighting one. Makes you wonder...

Zephyr, if you can hear me, here's all that I have left to say. You were the best friend a cold-hearted beast like me could've asked for. I was the true monster, you deserved better than what you got. But somehow, fate doesn't work that way, doest it? And if you were here with me now, talking back to me, you would say that what is done is done and I should stop worrying about it. That you're here with me regardless of what happened back there, and you always will be.

I love you, son. I said it then and I still mean it now. And I know you loved me too. I just have one question, Zephyr...why was it you....why wasn't it me...

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There's really nothing left to say.

~crosseyedbutterfly~