Was it all just a game?

Nagi listened to Crawford come and go. He closed his eyes and played dead while Schuldig drug himself off the floor and followed. The door creaked and shut softly. The knob was broken off, so it couldn't close all the way, and thus didn't make a sound when it was handled. Now he was alone, alone with Farfarello.

The child rolled over to stare, blue eyes wide, at the unmoving form of the Irish psychopath. The dusty wooden floor pressed painfully into his hips and ribs, but Nagi didn't mind. He had slept in places worse than this.

Farfarello's chest rose up, down. Up. Down.

When Crawford first contacted him, his mind altered between thinking: this is it, and, I am completely insane. But mostly, this is it.

He should have known better than to trust some American who claimed he could see the future. Some beaten child who was so terrified of his surroundings that he would risk it all to escape. If all Crawford intended to do was lay low in the ghetto like any other squatter, than he was a fool. At least in Rosenkreuzt he had a bed, a meal, a future.

Was Rosenkreuzt a future? Was Rosenkreuzt the future?

Nagi shook his head and turned his back from Farfarello's accursed breathing. Maybe he was the fool. America. Crawford. What a joke. The older boy had given him the impression that everything was planned out. And it seemed like it, from the moment Nagi stepped from the shadows and crushed the circle of Sweepers. He, Crawford, and the other one, the annoying telepath, would get on a plane and hide in America.

Rosenkreuzt would stay in Europe and never find them.

Crawford would have family in America, or maybe, friends. Nagi would even have settled for a foster family, an orphanage. Anything. Anything besides the streets and sewers he had been fearfully hiding in ever since the Parliament incident, not wanting to be taken by those men in black armor.

How pathetic the Sweepers seemed now, against the might of Crawford, Schuldig, and Farfarello. Even Nagi, less afraid to use his 'powers', thought less and less of them. Mere bugs to swipe and bat from his face and hand as he chose.

Insects.

Just like everyone else.

Nagi pulled the sleeve of his coat and sweatshirt back to scratch at his wrist. Something was wrong. His fingers tingled, he hadn't expelled any energy today and it hurt. He shouldn't have that much ki after last nights attack. It was coming back too fast. If he wasn't careful, a telekinetic wave might flare out and level the entire shack.

The little boy trembled and picked himself up, looking for something to float. The room, save Farfarello, was empty. Nagi stared at the other boy for a moment, wondering. No. His hands, they tingled too much. He might loose control and just rip Farfarello in half.

He had to...

He had to get out of there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Everything in this world is connected by thin strands of red thread. Silk, microscopic, breakable. The threads twisted and turned, stretched and slacked as time progressed. Just the smallest thing could change the whole direction the thread was pulling. One event, one moment, one breath, one word, one action could tangle the thread, wind it around others, or slice it in half all together.

Being able to see this thread, being able to take it in your finger tips and manipulate it like strings on a marionette...

This was the power of the true oracle.

It was in Rosenkreuzt that Bradley Crawford began to see this thread.

Everything around him was a clouded matrix of scarlet lines. His visions weakened, became less intense, less painful. The instructors thought his powers were ebbing, that he would never reach any worth while potential. They doubted his abilities. His usefulness.

That's how he tricked them.

While the other pre-cogs were seeing only distorted images of the future, clouded and incomplete, Crawford was seeing the path, the line, that lead to this future or that future. He was very powerful. Very powerful. And yet, as much as he tried, reaching forth, quivering for the crimson webs, he couldn't grasp them.

All he could do was watch, follow, and dodge.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


Schuldig couldn't figure Crawford out. He really couldn't.

Damn stuck up pre-cogs with their damn stuck up mental barriers.

If Crawford were any weaker of a psychic, Schuldig could have shattered his mind by now. 'But noooo, I had to get stuck with the one jackass that's a complete blank to me, and probably a... I don't know, spy or something.'

The emerald haired German shoved his fists into his pockets and slunk after Crawford. He wasn't very stealthy. Schuldig kicked dejectedly at passing pebbles, he scraped his legs against the pavement, he sighed in large breaths watching the air in front of his mist into a mushroom cloud and dissolve. He sulked.

'Hey! What if that damn fuck-ass is really an agent for another psychic organization.' Schuldig's over-active imagination suddenly light bulb-ed. He frowned. 'And he's been leading us to them all along. Hey! What if Nagi's also a part of this organization, what if he's a spy too? Holy fuck, I've been bamboozled by a uber-American and a the mini-Carrie!'

Schuldig was very tired.

And paranoid.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------



"Why are you so powerful?"

The voice, so quiet and deadly calm, was a great contrast to the clawed hand that flew out from the darkness and wrapped around his throat.

With his power discharge, Nagi was helpless to the vice. The child gurgled a choking sound then sank to his knees. His blue eyes were round with disbelief. He was taken so suddenly to the floor that he didn't have time to wonder if he was going to die.

Or fear Farfarello.

The Irish demon stared down at him in the shadows, one golden eye gleaming. A light cast from the musky living room window, from a street lamp outside or maybe even a still working porch light, and struck a silver gleam across the silver boy's fang-like teeth.

He looked like a vampire.

A very hungry vampire.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


A snide, nasal hiss cut his concentration, "What do you see, Oracle?"

Crawford lowered his hands and turned to regard the younger psychic. Schuldig stood a safe distance away, uniform flapping in the wind, silken smirk apparent on his face even from the distance, even in the dark. Crawford returned the crooked grin, he didn't stand up or turn to face his partner. Schuldig wasn't worth the courtesy.

And he knew it.

"Bradley," the German purred, daring a step forward. "what are you thinking? What do you see? Victory or betrayal? Our untimely destruction?"

"It won't be untimely," Crawford replied in the amused tone of someone who knew to much and was being driven insane by it, "but yes, I have seen it."

He sat on a power generator, the kind stationed outside a large factory or school building that fed lines down through the basement. Ironic that Crawford would be throned upon that, as if he needed the ugly green box of metal to feed him the energy he needed to 'see'. Crawford had traveled a long way to be alone, forever weaving the thin lines of action and reaction. He was in the heart of the ghetto. On the edge of darkness.

Schuldig placed his hands on the generator lid and sneered up at the brunette, "How sad it must be to be you. Always knowing the future, never one for surprises. But I guess the pay off's good." He piveted and leaned his back against the cold metal, "You get to manipulate the strings of people's lives as if it were nothing. How honey sweet."

"You have no idea..."

Schuldig regarded him, trying to decode the meaning in that placid tone. Did Crawford's powers thrill him or did they destroy him? Perhaps he was like Schuldig, perhaps they did a little of both.

Cold fingers brushed without warning over Schuldig's cheek. The fourteen-year-old hissed and jumped away, growling at the other's mocking chuckle.

Crawford hushed him before he could protest. "In less than a week the medication Rosenkreuzt has fed you will fade to nothing. Your 'voices' which have been kept at bay until now will overrun your mind."

A shadow darkened Schuldig's jade eyes, then passed away. The voices... Overrunning... He remembered what the voices were like before Rosenkreutz rescued... captured? him. Screaming, shattering...

The youth bucked his head, shoulder length hair tossing from one shoulder to the next, in dismissal. He aimed his Cheshire cat grin towards Crawford like a loaded gun. "What else do you see, Oracle?"

Crawford was undaunted. His lips parted to answer, but he was interrupted.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


Valentine and Talbot knew Sazha intimately. In a way neither thirteen-year-old boy would like to talk about or admit to their instructors, their parents, or a court of law.

Sazha had lived in their wing of the dorm the year they both arrived on the packing wagon. It was their first year and Sazha's last in training. The fairy-man already had a reputation of being... indecent to the other younger boys (he never bothered the girls) and was feared by all, mostly because he was a favorite of the councilmen who could do no wrong in their eyes.

Only the Empath's knew - and Sazha left them alone - how everyone secretly loathed the pervert, even council members hated him. But the Empaths feared their own virginity too much to speak up. That's just how Rosenkreuzt was.

Valentine D'arther had recently mastered German and wasn't planning on extending his studies to English, French, or Japanese. His grasp on the school's official language was still limited. He was prone to launching into random fits of Italian and being punished for it. He was tall for his age, graceful in a mystical sense, and charming in a gothic way.

Valentine was a Stream-Slipper, another Talent like Nigel, he could move at bullet speeds, leap incredible heights, and react to everything around him on a super human level. The ultimate goal of a Stream Slipper was to be able to cut through time and space, to teleport. Valentine had yet to master that, he wasn't even close. But he was a worthy fighter and on the good side of all of his instructors.

His only flaw was his passion for vampire novels, more specifically Anne Rice. Valentine had been over the text one too many times, sucked in the concept of vampire's inhuman abilities (speed and such) and declared himself to be one of their kind. The announcement amused, irked, or annoyed the other students, depending on their personality and tolerance levels.

Valentine never crossed the line, he never did anything that might be called 'creepy.' He had somehow managed to convince the facilities doctor to give him fang implants and, when he was in one of his better, more giddy moods, talked with a 'Transylvanian accent' - which was impressive, when you remember that he had to translate the speech patterns from what he heard in old American films into German - a language he was already heavily accented in.

Valentine had cranberry red hair that was spiked and swept back. His skin was alabaster, probably because he wore make-up, and, his eyes were red. When he slipped from place to place at blinding speeds his irises left a crimson trail of light where his body last had been.

Talbot Cézanne was Valentine's short, slightly insane boyfriend. He was an Absorber, and what the other boys described as 'twitchy.' He was also considered more Talent than Psychic, mainly because his power depended wholly on a short gapped slit that ran across his palm. The slit had teeth, and some of the dorm mates swore it could talk.

Or maybe that was just Talbot mumbling in the middle of the night.

The Absorber struck fear and awe in the minds of the other children. Fear from those that had yet to been exhausted and tormented from living in Rosenkreutz; fear for those who liked their powers. Awe from those that wanted to die, from those that no longer wanted to be 'special.'

One touch from the monstrous hand and not only was the flesh consumed, but the ability, personality, memories of the person he victimized. The affects were temporary, for Talbot. Talbot would become a temporary telepath, a temporary pyrokentic. The affects on the victim... were permanent.

The more wishful children who knew Talbot thought that one sucking would rob them of their gift, make them normal. Those who had seen Talbot in action, small demonstrations... practice... with used up, inadequate psychics - failures -, showed what happened to Talbot's victims after he used them up. Mumbling, lifeless husks. Permanent invalids.

No one wanted to touch Talbot, no one except Valentine, who found the Romanian's powers...kinky. The two were a demented pair. The red Valentine, the small, menacing Talbot. The Absorber had black hair, so dark it was almost blue, it had been recently sliced down into a crew cut. When Talbot became nervous he had a habit of grabbing onto his navy locks and pulling until something ripped. It was Valentine who finally took the scissors to him, when he was asleep.

They were a cute team.

Or at least, Sazha thought so.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


"It's always been like this... when I got mad something broke, or fell, or begun to spin around." Nagi mumbled into the darkness. "My mother was terrified of it. She used to... scream, 'calm down', and rush forward, grabbing my by the shoulders, hugging me, crying. She tried to stop it."

Farfarello listened silently. The Irish boy sat prompt against the caved-in kitchen wall. His Bowie knife spun slowly between his fingers.

"Then one day, I got really anger... And when she tried to calm me... Her heart, I would assume, it was her heart, exploded, because a... geyser of blood just started running from her lips. She didn't gag, she went still, very still, and fell on top of me, bleeding." Nagi paused and took a breath. "Strange things happen to the body after it dies. I couldn't get her off me. I had to wait... hours... until my father came home."

"Did he punish you?" Farfarello asked in such a light, innocent manner that Nagi shivered.

"No, he wasn't like that. He was a kind man." He replied.

"He's dead."

Another shiver ran down Nagi's spine. "Yes."

"Yes." Farfarello echoed.

Nagi was struck with impression that Farfarello wanted to talk to him about something, something other than their 'powers.' But the other boy was silent.

The door swung open and Schuldig stormed in. "Fucking cold." Curses in German flowed from the telepath, he stomped his feet and rubbed his sides, gazing around the house in dismay. "Not much damn warmer in here, either."

Nagi raised an eyebrow, "Where's Crawford?"

The kid might as well have announced the winning answer on Who Wants to be A Millionaire because Schuldig's face lit up like a Christmas tree. Of course, he was melodramatic in his answer, smiling like an idiot as he tried to warm himself up, snickering in the fact that he knew something that Nagi and Farfarello didn't.

Schuldig circled the room, his hands slapped his sides, his fingers came up to his mouth to breath upon them and warm them. He made his third trip around the living room before he felt a small, pathetic rift of telekinetic energy trying to trip him. Like a light breeze on his ankles.

"Do that again, it's warm."

"Schuldig."

"Tch. You're no fun."

Farfarello tilted his head to the side. "Crawford?"

"We were jumped, actually. Jumped, would you believe it? I mean, we go from high tech security guys in batman costumes with brain-shield implants to a couple of ghetto thugs." Schuldig grinned. "Oh how the mighty have fallen. You know, this plot just keeps getting stupider and stupider."

Nagi stood up, "What happened to Crawford?"

Pausing in his pacing, hand slapping, smirking, Schuldig shrugged. "Oh don't worry, baby." He purred, "You're ticket to America..." The German paused to chuckle, "is fine. Under the puckered ass and Cambridge vocabulary is a pretty powerful... what fighting style was that? kick boxer, I suppose. He glided like a butterfly, stung like a bee, you've heard the story. Gave them the one-two, teeth everywhere."

Farfarello and Nagi stared.

"...then this pimp with a peacock feather in his hat pulled up in a stretch limo..."

Farfarello and Nagi glared.

"Okay, that part I made up."

The door opened and closed. Crawford trudged in, looking annoyed. Unbruised, uncut, a little ruffled, and very annoyed.

"Oh, look, there's our fearless leader now."

"Are you okay?" Nagi asked.

"Fine."

"We're you really jumped?"

Farfarello asked, "Did you glide like a butterfly?"

The annoyed look darkened. "What *the hell* are you two babbling about?"

The youngest psychics paused, then turned back to Schuldig.

"Okay, I lied about the whole thing. A couple of crack addicts stumbled by, almost fell on top of me, then we headed home."

That didn't explain Crawford's disheveled condition.

"Schuldig decided he wanted to be cute and pushed me into a garbage can." The oracle explained. He moved off towards the bathroom. "Luckily, I'm a bigger man than he and won't exact revenge. Schuldig will suffer soon enough."

"Schuldig," Nagi sighed, "why do you have to lie?"

Farfarello asked, "how do you glide like a butterfly?"

"I don't know, God just made me that way." Schuldig cheerfully replied. Then he stopped, and paled.

"YIYIYIYIYI."

In the bathroom, Crawford straightened his clothes in front of the smashed mirror. He listened to the sound of two bodies slamming into each other and sliding across the floor with a satisfied smirk. Nagi cried out something along the lines of being careful, any sudden movement could take down the whole building, but didn't run forward to stop anything.

They were a good team. Not ready to take on Rosenkreutz yet, but they had potential.

Hiding in Vienna, under Rosenkreutz noses, waiting for the dark unnamed elven man to come and capture them. Crawford had foreseen everything. In his mind he saw a great battle, death, and two possible outcomes. If he kept weaving the red strands of fate, would he be able to swing the future into his favor?

"MY RIBCAGE! NAGI HELP."

Or was he just leading them to their deaths?

Rosenkreuzt would fall.

"RENOUNCE YOUR GOD, HERETIC."

"...Crawford, should I do something? He's turning purple."

He just had to teach them to play the game.



======================================================================


Author Notes -

The plot lags, I know, the next chapter should pick things up.

If anyone would like to extend their opinion, I'd like to know if I'm overusing the original characters (Sazha, Nigel, etc) to the point where they're annoying or nobody cares. Just a concern. Thanks for reading.