Double Helix, a zoids fanfic

Dude, happy Tanabata. I can't believe this took me so long--but a lot happened, including the biggest and most miserable writing block of my short career. I apologize. So...

Ahem. Welcome to Double Helix. This is the sequel-thing to The Second Renaissance, and the former is, unfortunately, a required prerequisite. See, this is more of a long (really long) lost (really, really lost) last chapter than a sequel, per se. So go read that first, chickies.

Yes, this is long. I didn't want to have to deal with new format or naming chapters. Deal with it.

Double Helix

Swathed in the cloak of night, the Rare Hertz desert was cold and serene. The moons' light shone eerily silver on the sand, and threw even the slightest ripples into soft relief. Peaceful silence lay upon the desert, the night crystal-clear. As a breeze cut across the dunes, though, it brought the faint clink of metallic steps to echo softly against the sand.

A glint of metal crested the rise, and an organoid stepped into the moonlight, her hide tinted a dusky azure by the night. With a soft hiss, she stared at the jagged outcropping of rosy stone across the desert, where the Valley of the Rare Hertz resided. Her eyes gleamed suddenly gold, the color a warm surprise against the starlight. Trudging footsteps approached, and a hooded figure joined the organoid in silence. They both felt it–the whispering undercurrents of slightly stale power that pulsed relentlessly through the desert...but it was faint, so faint.

Finally, slender hands crept up to shed the hood, and the heavy canvas fell back to reveal pale skin and cerulean hair, shot through with jagged streaks of silver. Reese narrowed her striking eyes and a sigh whistled from between her clenched teeth. "I was afraid of this," she murmured, her hand reaching to Specular's warm metal for comfort. The organoid swiveled her head to consider her mistress, and hissed a sharp question.

Reese gave another sigh. "Yes, it is. I didn't realize...the consequences..." She shook her head and cast her eyes to the ground, her gaze sliding out of focus as she concentrated on the hidden lines of energy beneath her. She had, of course, known they would be there. The unimaginably powerful force was what gave life to everything she held dear–including herself–and she had never known its absence. What troubled her, though, was the precise feel of the energy. It felt wrong, somehow. There–a faint throbbing rhythm, drawing in from the desert, pulling almost magnetically. Pulling...in? She bit her lip, so hard that she tasted blood, and felt her neck prickle with cold realization.

"S-specular..." She lurched to the side, her balance gone, and caught her organoid's mandible for support. The night was suddenly suffocating, the moonlight sliding icy hands down her neck. "Specular," she gasped, "she's collecting herself."

The organoid roughly shoved Reese's shoulder with her snout, a growl growing in the back of her throat. Reese pushed herself up with a jerk. "Yes, I know. We need to go to...to her. Come on, now. Let's go." She flipped her hood back up and darted a look to Specular. "To Guygalos."

As she turned, a sudden breeze whipped the hem of her cloak into the air and ruffled her bangs. Specular twitched her slender tail and followed her mistress, her taloned feet sinking easily into the silvery sand. And then the frozen desert night swallowed them into darkness, leaving not a trace to be found come morning.

She was still alone, in her empty void. They had never returned, not with one singsong note of comfort, or a thrashing demand for attention. They were gone, abandoning her in a breathless and wrenching instant. All that was left was the void–her void.

Her darkness was absolute, quiet and comforting, in its own way; the velvety black wrapped her in a silent lullaby of midnight. The emptiness always greeted her with autonomous loyalty, and felt as impenetrable as she could ever wish. And she did wish for it, sometimes: the times when memories threatened to drown her, the times when she saw the blood on her hands all too well. The times when she wanted to die. It was, unfortunately, deceptive in its fragility...a jarring ring sliced through its merciful solace with little regard for manners. It roused her from sleep with rude insistence, and sleepy scarlet eyes greeted the world.

The phone rang again, and Fiona sighed, pushing away the light cover of her bed. Van was a heavy sleeper; there was little chance a mere phone would wake him. She hurried to the kitchen, holding her hair from her face with one hand. She swung around the doorframe and snatched the cordless phone from its cradle.

"Hello?" she said, rather breathlessly.

"Oh, Miss Fiona! I'm so sorry, did I wake you?"

She smiled ruefully and leaned against the counter. "Good morning, Major O'Connell. It was time for me to get up, anyway." She eyed the clock–8:15 a.m.–and made a face.

"Would Lieutenant Flyheight happen to be awake?"

She sighed. Of course the call would be for Van. That was what answering machines were for, wasn't it? "Sorry, but I'm afraid not. Could I give him a message?" She frowned at the empty coffee pot, and immediately prepared to remedy the situation. She heard papers shuffling on the other end of the line, followed by a short pause.

"Uh. Well, actually, Doctor D left him a note before he left this morning." He paused again. "I think it's important."

"Okay. We'll be down shortly."

"Take your time; it'll be here all day."

She gave a little shrug. "Sure. Bye."

The phone clicked into its cradle loudly in the kitchenette's sudden silence, punctuated only by the muted traffic sounds of early morning Guygalos and the steady drip of the coffee maker. Fiona pushed herself up and went to the balcony's doors, throwing them wide to let in the slight morning breeze, already hot, with no trace of coolness from the last touches of night. Staring out at the glittering capital, she absently ran her fingers through her short hair, and the tangles relaxed under her touch.

It was almost as if the citizens of Guygalos, perhaps even all of Zi, had forgotten the zoids' revolt. The city had lapsed back into mundane routine, if a bit cautiously–but it was almost normal, nonetheless. The brevity of the campaign meant that only the military knew of the costs of the sudden fluctuations in the zoids' static existence. Frantic conferences still buzzed, even after almost two months since the initial incident. The military magnates that congregated at Inea base did not, however, request Fiona's presence, despite her undeniably prominent hand in the revolt.

She took a deep breath of the warm air and shook her head, then made her way back inside and to Van's closed door, stopping only to click on the air conditioning. He always insisted that his door had to be closed because he wouldn't be able to sleep, otherwise–but she strongly suspected that Zeke had a bad habit of trying to climb in bed with him. It had something to do with the unbelievable heat that made Guygalos summers infamous. The organoid in question had somehow managed to clamber atop the couch and perched there precariously, snoring.

She eased the door open and peered inside. With an exasperated smile, she absorbed the sight of Van, dead to the world. He had thrown off the covers at some point, and sunlight bathed his bare back in golden radiance. He had his face buried his arms, ensuring that the sun wouldn't wake him–or at least, not any time soon. The window was cracked, but nothing served to dilute the harsh light; his shoulders would be sunburned, at the very least.

With a little sigh, Fiona sank to sit beside him, deciding to wait a few minutes. O'Connell said there was no rush, anyway. Van had pulled a very late night, and needed all the sleep he could get. Those nights at Inea were a mystery to her–she'd been curious as to what suddenly occupied Van's time for a few nights, but had yet to discover its cause. He had begun coming home so late that she often fell asleep waiting for him. She drew her knees to her chest and rested her head on them, watching him with a considering eye. Whatever he was doing last night was probably tied to Doctor D's message...which meant that she would finally hear the whole truth about it.

She studied his sleeping form, forcing away a rising heat in her pale cheeks. His skin was richly bronze in the morning's light, and it seemed to glow. The curve of his shoulders hid softly defined muscle and an undeniably boyish stature. The dark mop of his mussed hair splayed on the pillow, his face turned away from her. She suppressed a shiver in the warm light, and the heat seemed to flow up her limbs. He was young and sweet and oh, so undeniably hers. The knowledge was like a small sun cupped in her palms, and she inhaled deeply. The sensation stirred some unnamable memory, but fell silent before she could grasp it. She felt charged with an energy that came from the scorching light.

On an impulse that came from nowhere, she bent and brushed her lips across his skin, where his wings might have been. She smiled at the thought. Where his wings might have been. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, savoring the moment and the sweet warmth it brought. And then he started to stir.

She jerked back, the strange heat fleeing from her body. Rocking back on her cold hands, she gave a sharp gasp–so cold! With a chilled shiver, she chafed at her ankles. She felt suddenly drained and freezing, the golden light ice on her skin. She sagged weakly against her knees.

"Fiona? You 'kay?" She glanced up, to see one sleepy grey eye staring at her.

She managed a small smile, wrapping her arms around her knees, and remained carefully in the sunlight. "Yes, I'm fine. Sorry for waking you." Van gave a little shrug, and seemed determined to go back to sleep. She poked his shoulder. "Major O'Connell called, Van. He wants you to–"

He interrupted her with a groan. "Not again..." With that, he pulled a pillow firmly over his head, muttering, "No, no, no, no..."

Fiona rolled her eyes and slid to the floor. "I'll get your coffee ready." As she stepped back into the cooler solace of the living room, she smiled again. Even at 8:15 in the morning, the day seemed perfect.

But it was as she pulled the coffee pot from its home that something razed across her senses. She froze, and listened for five breathless seconds. Then, three things happened at once. She shrugged, and started to dismiss the foreboding; Van's door swung open, and he staggered forth; and something large crashed deafeningly onto the apartment's balcony.

They both stopped dead and stared, wide-eyed, at each other. Finally, Fiona blinked and mouthed, "Go see," at him. Van held out his empty hands helplessly, but rolled his eyes and crept forward.

As he reached the edge of the open door, though, a clawed foot crashed onto the threshold. A narrow snout followed, and golden optic lenses glinted in the morning light. Zeke raised his head, and gave a little roar; he was answered by a high-pitched hiss.

Van stared. "Specular? But...oh, no."

The organoid's mistress peered around the small zoid at him, her eyebrows raised. "And a lovely day to you, too, Flyheight."

Fiona gave a small smile and finally started to pour the coffee. "Good morning, Reese."

Van groaned, and turned back to his door. "Sweet mother of Zi, I knew I shouldn't have gotten up." His door clicked shut loudly in the morning's sudden silence. When he emerged again five minutes later, fully dressed and very cagey, nothing had changed.

Fiona still regarded the girl before her with that same tight smile on her lips. They had, after all, parted on less-than-amiable terms at that cursed valley. But Reese's eyes were not hostile, and met her gaze with an uncharacteristic reservation.

Fiona took a deep breath and gestured with the coffee pot. "Can I get you something?" Van threw a startled glance at her, but she ignored it.

Something visibly relaxed in Reese, and she nodded, coming forward to sit at the counter in a swish of her skirt; the fabric gleamed sapphire in the sunlight. "Tea, please, if you have it. As black as possible. And with ice–lots of ice."

Fiona raised her eyes to include Van in her nod. He made a grimace, but came to sit a seat over from Reese. He regarded the girl with a quiet combination of distaste and reproach. Silently, Fiona put his coffee before him. The ice in the mug clicked loudly–no one in the capital was crazy enough to drink hot coffee in the midst of summer.

From his place on the couch, Zeke rose to meet Specular. The two touched noses and traded small sounds of greeting. After a moment, they relaxed and moved on, Zeke back to his cool napping-place, and Specular to explore the remainder of the apartment.

And then it was absolutely quiet. Reese stared at her clasped hands, the very picture of stoic patience. Van watched her from the corner of his eye, looking her very opposite. Fiona darted glances at them both, simultaneously monitoring the tea water.

Finally, the kettle whistled harshly, too loud in the suffocating silence. Fiona poured the water, and dark liquid bloomed from the tea bag, suffocating steam ghosting up in insubstantial twists. The soft plops of ice cubes dropping into the cup seemed to break Reese's trance. She glanced up sharply to meet Fiona's mild gaze.

"Reese," she started softly, and hesitated. "What's wrong? Has something happened?"

The other girl held her gaze a moment longer before speaking. When she did, her voice held none of its characteristic causticity or arrogance. "You haven't had any dreams lately, or...felt anything, have you?" Her pale hands found the mug, and curled around its rapidly cooling surface.

Fiona frowned. "Felt something?" She thought of the strange iciness that had so suddenly replaced the sun's warmth earlier. That didn't count, though, did it? That wasn't a sending, a dream, or the sensation of something looming behind her. It wasn't that sort of feeling that Reese meant, and she hadn't had a real dream in months. She shook her head.

Reese frowned back at her, and looked away. After a long moment, she spoke again, her words even quieter. "Did you...ever regain your memory? Totally, I mean."

Fiona recoiled involuntarily. "My memory?" She swallowed the lump in her throat. "No. I've never...gotten all of it." Alisi Lynette. The name still meant next to nothing to her mind, even after so many years. The memories connected to it were locked firmly away, and numb to the touch. After the ordeal at the Valley of the Rare Hertz, though, she almost didn't want them; the price was too high, and was always paid in blood. With a cold pang, she was suddenly afraid of what Reese had to say.

Reese blinked at her reaction, and then lowered her eyebrows. "Oh. Sorry. That's not what I meant to do. There's just...something of a long story attached, and I was hoping you knew some of it." She cast a sidelong glance at Van. "Flyheight, is there something you could be doing?"

He scowled at Reese, and started to protest, but Fiona cut him off. "No, Van. She's right. Why don't you go see what Major O'Connell needs?"

He stared at her, but shrugged and stood. "If you're sure." His tone was curt, but his eyes locked with hers for a moment, and she knew he understood. She gave him a smile.

As he turned to leave, Reese spoke up again. "Flyheight." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Don't tell them I'm here."

His brow knit, and he turned to face her again. "Is there a reason why? You were pardoned, you know."

"Yes, I know. But still." She glared at him. "Don't."

Van sighed. "Sure, whatever."

When he was gone, Reese gave Fiona an odd look. "What have you done to him?"

Fiona's eyes widened. What have I... "What do you mean? I haven't...done anything."

An unreadable expression crossed the other girl's features, but it was gone with a narrowing of her eyes. "Never mind. As I was saying: the long story."

She took a deep breath. "In the beginning, before the whole mess with Hiltz, before Prozen, even before the humans were here at all, the Zoidians managed to destroy themselves. As a last resort, four children and their organoids were put to sleep in capsules."

Fiona jerked in surprise. "Four? Four Ancient Zoidians?"

Reese nodded slowly. "We were the new hope for a devastated race, designed to bring the Zoidians about anew. There was me, the–the–well, I don't think there's a word in existence for it now, but call it a Grae–of the Past. There was Hiltz, the Grae of the Future. There was another girl." She closed her eyes for a breath. "Her name...was Cassa, I think. She was the Grae of the Present. And then...then there was you." She opened her eyes to meet Fiona's startled gaze. "The Eve-Child."

Her knees buckled. The Eve-Child. She clenched her fists on the counter until they turned white, and felt the blood slowly drain from her face. "W-what does that mean, exactly?"

Reese sighed. "What it means...it means that you, out of all of us, were the most attuned to the zoids and their needs. You held the most power out of all of us, even though it was raw. You were chosen to revive the Zoid Eve."

Fighting tightness in her throat, Fiona forced out, "So...what happened...back at the Valley..."

"Was unavoidable." Reese finally raised her face, and her eyes held some unfamiliar emotion. "What you did, with all the zoids..." she shook her head roughly, "it had to happen–it wasn't your fault. I'm...I'm sorry I blamed you."

Fiona abruptly turned around, a hand halfway raised to her mouth. Her breathing was ragged, each inhalation an effort. She swallowed hard once, twice, and then her weak knees gave out. It wasn't my fault. She slid down the counter until she sat on the floor, and drew her legs in, her hands tightly wrapped around her shins. Resting her head against her knees, she was suddenly aware of her trembling shoulders–it wasn't my fault–and didn't care.

After a very long silence, she whispered, "How do you know?"

Reese sighed loudly. "I apologize, and you question my reasoning? I would have thought you would be happy with just that." No answer rose from behind the counter, and she gave in grudgingly, tucking her hands under her knees. "I...I went to New Helic. Consulted its famous libraries. Pieced it together from my own fragmented memory." She gave a bitter laugh. "I don't remember as much as I thought, after all. There are surprising gaps, in here." She took a sip of her tea, and smiled. Perfectly steeped.

There was a muffled comment from the other side of the counter, and she frowned. "Pardon?"

After a moment, Fiona's hand appeared on the tile, pulling up the rest of her. "I said, what happened to Cassa?" Her flushed cheeks were the only indications of her distressed thoughts.

"Well, you know how it goes." Reese rolled her eyes. "The humans come along and tinker, as they have such a miserable habit of doing. From what I understand, she awoke early, separated from her organoid, and simply lived as a human." She locked eyes with Fiona. "She lived her whole life without knowing a thing of her past–and died oblivious."

As the same thought hit both of them, they focused on their respective organoids. Reese felt a glow of pride as she turned to study Specular, the zoid examining some trinket glinting in the sunlight. She was beautiful, all graceful curves and cold intelligence. The bond between them was warm and strong, strengthening in its certainty. The mere notion of the organoid's absence, even for a day or a week, was enough to bring tears to her eyes. But...a lifetime? Reese shuddered.

Sensing her distress, Specular swung her head around, narrowly missing the breakable baubles that held her attention. The organoid whined in the back of her throat, and came forward to nudge at Reese's hands. The girl wrapped her arms around the little zoid's head, sharp edges and all, and took heart from the warm metal.

"Don't ever leave," she whispered.

She faintly heard a crooning growl from behind her, and knew without looking that the silver organoid was looking to his Zoidian for reassurance, as well. And then she stopped paying attention to the other inhabitants in the room and slid from her chair to the cold linoleum floor in a rustle of fabric, lost in her zoid and the life-bonding they shared.

And that was how Van found them when he walked in, ten minutes later. He froze, the papers in his hands fluttering to the floor. "What the–"

At the sound of his voice, Fiona jerked up, her hands slapping the floor. From where he lay at her side, Zeke gave a soft purring sound and shook his head, then got to his feet. With a happy growl, the organoid bounced up to Van, giving him a rough head-butt. He staggered under the weight of the organoid. "Whoa, hey, Zeke." He raised his gaze to Fiona. "What was that about?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she didn't meet his eyes, instead reaching for the fallen papers. "Nothing, it was...nothing." She gathered the sheets of paper together and stacked them neatly. Running nervous fingers over the top of them to line them up, Fiona swallowed and started to hand the pile back. She froze when a word on the front page caught her eye. Eve.

She suddenly jerked the papers back, her eyes darting over the top page. "What's this?" When she received no immediate answer, she glanced up again, her eyes narrowing. "Van?"

He pulled back from where he had started to reach for the fallen papers, and sighed. "Doctor D said that lately, there've been...readings." He rubbed at his neck awkwardly. "From the, uh...Valley of the Rare Hertz." Under Fiona's hardened gaze, he stammered on, "He just left a summary of the data. I don't know what he wants me to do with it."

Fiona bent her head again and flipped to the next page–just numbers, nothing she cared to take time to understand. The same was on the third page. On the fourth, though, what was she had been looking for: a graph. Over a span of about a month, the readings had spiked higher and higher, the pin pricks of data climbing to the very top of the page. It was chillingly reminiscent of the heat signature exuded by the Death Stinger; the mere memory sent chills down her back.

It only took a second of comprehension, and she suddenly felt weak. "I don't understand. Why haven't I noticed something like this? It should've been..." She trailed off and turned a glare over her shoulder. "You. You knew."

Reese still sat on the floor, leaning her back against Specular. She shrugged and folded her arms. "I did ask if you'd felt anything, if you'll be so kind as to remember. I also didn't get to finish my story." She flicked irritably at her streaked bangs.

Fiona turned to fully face her. "Tell me what this is about. Please."

Reese straightened, tucking her bangs back again. "My point was," she glared at her, "right now, you and I are supposed to hold all of Eve's residual power–psi, if that's what you want to call it." She cocked her head thoughtfully to the side. "Unless you want to count the zoids, since they have that little bit of Eve inside them, now...but I don't." She shrugged. "It's unstable, is what I mean. There's a reason why there were three of us, in the beginning. Two Zoidians just can't handle it–we can't handle it, and the power is leaking away."

Fiona stared at her, eyes wide. After a long moment of silence, she brought her gaze back to the charts clenched in her hands. "So...the readings..."

"It means that she's collecting herself. It's an automatic sort of thing, I guess." They locked eyes, and Reese went on, "If it isn't stopped, we'll have a new Zoid Eve on our hands, and she will destroy us all."

A soft moan escaped Fiona's lips, and she promptly buried her face in her hands. With a noisy clatter, Zeke lowered himself to the floor behind her, and protectively curled his tail around her legs. He gave a soft growl, nudging her thigh with his snout. She took no notice. Not again, I can't deal with this again...

"Can you stop it?" Van's voice tugged her back to reality, though she kept her face hidden.

"Stop it? Probably. As far as I know, anyway. But we have to hurry."

His reply was doubtful. "I don't know if Hermann will authorize an impromptu Special Ops after what, uh, happened last time."

"Then don't tell him."

At that, Fiona raised her head to stare at the other girl. Don't tell Hermann? The very idea went against every sort of militaristic ideal that had been instilled in her over the years. It was strange, and simply felt wrong. But still

Van's words mirrored her thoughts. "No way! I can't just leave on an errand that directly pertains to an ongoing investigation! We could all be in some serious trouble. We should ask for an escort, just to be safe."

"The Republican and Imperial armies are useless," Reese spat. "By the time they decide to do something, it'll be too late."

"We still can't just leave!"

"Who said you had to come, anyway?"

"You can't stop me!"

Fiona blinked and slowly got to her feet. She hadn't heard Van use that particular tone of voice with anyone in quite a long time. Reese seemed to bring out his short temper. It never lasted long, though–no one's energy could stand up to such stressful anger. She went to the counter and took a sip of lukewarm coffee, with a grimace. They would squabble each other into exhaustion soon enough. She took another sip and settled back to watch. It was only a matter of time.

An hour later, they were screaming at each other.

Fiona rubbed a hand over her burning eyes and sighed. Both Zeke and Specular huddled behind their people, watching silently. They looked reluctant to get involved.

"You don't even have a zoid anymore! How do you expect to get anywhere?"

"Specular is zoid enough! As is Zeke!" Fiona idly wondered when Reese had taken the time to learn her organoid's name.

Van glared at her for two beats, then shot back, "Not if you get attacked, they aren't. Organoids hardly have any defenses."

Reese threw up her hands. "So now we're going to be attacked? Give us some credit, Flyheight!"

Fiona held the mug to her forehead, hoping to sap some of the ceramic's inherent coolness. Suddenly I'm taking sides? Not fair, not fair. She exhaled gustily and put the mug down. Cold coffee sloshed over her hand. Neither Van nor Reese noticed, carrying on with their clash. They also didn't notice when she plucked the phone from its cradle and retreated to her bedroom, closing the door firmly against their loud voices.

She leaned against the door and dialed the number she knew by heart. It rang, and beeped–forwarded. Over the course of four more redirections, she slid to the floor and rested her head against her knees. At last, with a final beep, the line connected.

"Yes?"

"Thomas?"

"Speaking." Then, after a second's silence, "Oh, hey, Fiona. What's up?"

She closed her eyes and raised her head to lean against the door. "Are you busy?"

"Not really. I just finished the initial reformatting the operating systems of Haven's computers. They must have been a decade out of date. Why? Is something–" He paused. Then, "Who's yelling?"

Fiona put her hand to her forehead, and wondered if her spectacular headache was the cause of the heat there. "Van and Reese."

"Oh. Gods." He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like another curse. "Why is she there?"

"It's complicated, I think. Something that can't really be explained over the telephone." She gave a weak laugh. "Sorry. I need damage control, though. Now."

Thomas sighed. "Yeah, I understand. It's just...I'm sorry, but I can't be there in less than a couple of hours. These computers need to finish reformatting."

She gave an answering sigh, running her free hand through her bangs. "I see. Please–if you can–hurry. They haven't started throwing things yet, but it's only a matter of time."

"Gotcha. I'll do my best. Hang in there." With that, he hung up.

Fiona clicked off the phone, and let it drop to the floor. She leaned her head against the door and let her hands fall. Her headache suddenly intensified as Van and Reese's argument became slightly more audible, though broken. Unwilling to listen to their harsh words, she shuddered and moved away from the door, getting to her feet and going to the closet.

It was as she tied her skirt's crimson sash around her waist that it really hit her. She glanced to the mirror and stared at herself. "A new Eve," she murmured, searching her reflection's eyes. Why can't she just sleep? All this destruction can't be worth it.

A sharp thud against the door made her jump. It swung open to reveal Zeke, glaring reproachfully at her. She smiled sadly at him and finished tying the sash. "You know, Zeke, I think I've really grown to despise adventure." He gave a gruff snort and pushed his muzzle into her hand.

She smiled and led the way out of the room, and he trailed noisily behind. Van and Reese sat on opposite sides of the room, glaring. Though the words had stopped, the silence was, once again, deafening. Fiona made a sound in the back of her throat and rolled her eyes, going to rinse out her coffee mug.

"So?" Both Van and Reese shot her surprised looks, and she gave an exasperated sigh. "So are we going, or what? The mere fact that you've stopped yelling means that you've reached some conclusion."

Reese shrugged. "The question never was whether we were going or not. The question was if he–" she glowered at Van, "was going to tattle on us."

He glared back at her. "Personally, Reese, I don't want to be court-martialed. It would be a direct violation of the agreements between Helic and Guylos, to impinge upon a military investigation like this–and I'm not sure anyone would be willing to bail us out."

Fiona set to drying the mug, giving it her own glare. "So we're going."

"I guess."

"Obviously." Reese examined her nails. "We will, of course, have to make a few stops on the way."

Fiona stopped, and wearily met the other girl's eyes. "On the way to where, again?"

She grinned wickedly. "Guess."

Fiona's mind leapt back to what Van had said, when he'd first returned with the menacing data from Doctor D. Lately, there've been...readings. From the, uh...Valley of the Rare Hertz. She groaned, and suddenly her hands found her face, for what felt like the sixth time that morning.

Thomas tapped idly at the keyboard before him, and stifled a yawn. The hangar was mostly quiet, but for the muted clinking of a few mechanics doing an inventory check at the supply room. While Inea wasn't a particularly busy base, its silence was almost unnerving...especially considering the phone call he had received only a few hours before.

He gave the okay for Beke to run another full system check, and settled back on his feet. Fiona hadn't exactly been specific, but if Reese was in town, trouble was sure to follow. He grimaced. The girl simply never brought good news, was all. Her presence undoubtedly meant that Fiona would undergo more hysterical stress and Van would be moody and irate until she left.

And never mind what she expected them to do–because there surely was something. There always was, in the case of Reese. She wanted something, and she expected to get it. Thomas sighed. The things the Guardian Force put up with. It was, obviously, only a matter of time until both New Helic and Guylos insisted on expanding it to include fresh military prodigies. Said members would have to be taught in the ways of the Force's technology–namely Beke–and trained by the best–namely Van. He shook his head and turned back to the screen, watching the slow progress of the scan. If there was anything Van would hate more than the GF's current figurehead status, it would be teaching younglings that were just like him.

The sound of pounding footsteps was the only warning Thomas had, and it barely gave him enough time to turn around before their owner threw herself at him. He staggered backwards under the sudden weight, and almost sat down on the console.

Fiona whispered, "You're an angel, Thomas."

He smiled against her hair. "You're welcome."

As she released him and stood back, Thomas was saddened to see that she looked exhausted, even through her smile. It was too early in the game for her to be exhausted–surely, the fun was just beginning. He smiled and ruffled her hair. "Things get any better?"

Her expression darkened a little. "You must be joking."

He looked up to see Van approaching, and Reese a reasonable distance behind him. It was painfully predictable–Van looked tense, but gave him a nod by way of greeting. Reese looked indifferent to Thomas's existence, and her gaze passed right over him. The organoids brought up the rear, but halted at the entrance to the hangar.

After a long moment, he was suddenly aware of just how tired Fiona was of them, and why. The dangerous electricity that crackled between Van and Reese was palpable in how they refused to look at one another, if nothing else. He felt the beginnings of a headache that hadn't visited since the last time Van and Reese had been in close quarters.

"So," he said, breaking gracelessly through the awkward silence.

There were two breaths of silence, and then Van was the first to lock eyes with him. "Reese wants us to go back to the Valley."

"The what?" Thomas felt something inside him sink. Of all the demands, Reese had to pick the Valley of the Rare Hertz? He darted a look at Fiona; her eyes met only the floor, and she made no move to affirm or deny Van's blunt statement. He paused for a breath. How can she bear it? How can she bear to go, after what happened back there? He swallowed hard, and turned to the one with the information. "Why?"

Reese gave him a cool stare, the scorn on her face clear as daylight. "I don't see how it concerns you."

He raised his eyebrows. "Does it not?"

She had an even more frigid glare ready for him, and her words were like acid. "No, it doesn't. It shouldn't involve anyone but myself and Fiona. We require no–"

"I called him."

Reese turned to stare at Fiona, her face dangerously unreadable. The other girl kept her gaze on her shoes for another heartbeat, and then raised her eyes to meet Reese's. They were surprisingly hard. "I called him, Reese. I think we need him. We need Van, too."

Reese's lips pursed in irritation. "Mere humans–"

"–Are usually underestimated." Fiona drew herself a little taller and swallowed. "I'm not going without them." Reese's eyes widened in what seemed to be outrage, but Fiona beat her to it. "Either they go with us, or I don't go at all."

Reese finally found her voice. "But Eve–she will destroy–"

"Then so be it."

Thomas darted his gaze between the two girls. Reese was frozen, her eyes unreadable. Fiona still stood as tall as she was able, but he could see that her knees trembled, ever so slightly. I'm lost, he thought helplessly. Way too lost for this. He glanced at Van, who only gave him an uninformative, wide-eyed look.

Finally, Reese took a deep breath and relaxed. Her eyes, however, still burned. "Perhaps I overestimated you," she said quietly. With that, she turned and stormed away, her skirt flaring behind her.

Fiona gave an explosive exhalation, and ran a hand through her hair. Without a word, she turned and walked in the opposite direction, her cheeks flushed. Zeke clanked after her, with an almost apologetic glance at Specular.

Thomas stared after her for a few seconds, chewing his lip, and then narrowed his eyes. "Something just happened, didn't it?"

Van nodded. "I would say so, yeah." Behind them, Specular eyed her surroundings, and then wandered off to amuse herself.

Fiona did not consciously plan to go anywhere in Inea. She only wanted to get away from anyone who would ask questions and expect answers–Van could fill Thomas in. Maybe she wanted to go to Colonel Hermann himself and plead for answers to her own questions, or maybe she wanted to get to Dr. D's temporary laboratory, to look at his findings herself. Whichever it was, her feet disregarded both and carried her to the place where her troubled thoughts had been, however unconsciously, since that morning. Her footsteps slowed and finally faltered to a stop. Behind her, Zeke stopped as well, and followed her gaze.

The Blade Liger had its own special corner of the western-most hangar, and it shone with the care bestowed upon it. The zoids of the Guardian Force elicited the best treatment and the best technology, whether they were actively on duty or not. Fiona took a deep breath and let her eyes travel over the Liger, taking in the familiar sight of its gleaming finish, its deadly blades. It was like déjà vu, or seeing an old friend for the first time in years. The zoid had been partially her creation, after all–she knew none better, except for Zeke.

And yet...it seemed alien, as if its visage had dropped for one instant, and she had seen its true self. While Van had been taking it out for routine patrols every few days, she made an excuse not to go, every time. In fact, she had not set foot inside a zoid since that awful journey back from Elemia two months before. She was terrified of what would happen, as if the core would recognize what she had become in those few weeks, and suddenly remember itself. As if it would destroy its pilot and go on to finish its revenge on humanity–as if she would suddenly have more blood on her hands. In the back of her mind, Fiona thought that it was obviously herself she was afraid of, that she was the one who had dropped the visage to show what she was truly capable of.

And now Reese wanted them to go back to that cursed valley where everything, all the grief, seemed to come to a head.

Fiona swallowed hard, and Zeke cocked his head toward her. Carefully, she brought her hand up and stretched it out to the orange glass of the Liger's canopy. Her fingers trembled, and she lost heart halfway–but she bit her lip and thrust her hand forward. Her fingers met the cool glass, sliding up to press her palm against the distorted sight of the pilot's seat. Her gaze found her reflection's, and she met her own eyes.

"Eyes the color of blood," she murmured, her voice thick with self-mocking. Zeke made a worried question-sound, and she spared a glance for him. His optic lenses, the color mirroring her own, stared back at her, and she gave a half-smile. She pulled her hand away to pat him on the head. He didn't look satisfied, though, still tense and perplexed. After a moment, she wrapped her arms around his head in an awkward embrace, though no tears escaped her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Zeke patiently endured the treatment for another minute and a half, then grunted and pulled away. Fiona swallowed and wiped her dry eyes, then opened them to the unexpected sight of Reese. She inhaled sharply.

The other girl stared at her critically, and then said, "Why are you so human?"

Fiona blinked. "Why am I what?"

"Sentimentality should have nothing to do with it. We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. Humans...they are nothing–they are pawns. They have nothing to do with...with her, with Eve. They should not be involved." Reese's face was dark with anger, but she seemed content to seethe.

Fiona sighed, and her head finally began to clear. First the first time since very early that morning, she felt a precision to her thoughts. "Van and Thomas aren't pawns, Reese."

"They believe in manipulative gods, and Eve isn't one of them. According to the gods of Zi, in fact, there is no such thing as free will. Their gods created them, their behavioral genes, and effectively made them into puppets whose actions can't be credited to themselves. They, as individuals, are the result of an external cause."

Fiona stared at her. "Reese?"

Reese scowled and looked as if she wanted to stamp her foot. "My point is, this is not their problem. This has nothing to do with keeping the peace, it has nothing to do with humans at all,and the Guardian Force shouldn't be involved." Her tone was almost pleading.

"I think it would qualify as disturbing the peace if we fail."

Reese gave her an exasperated look. "It'll disturb more than the peace." It was then that Fiona decided that the other Zoidian wasn't angry at her; she had accepted Fiona's choice, somehow, and would go along with it, however reluctantly.

"Reese, I'm sorry. I know you despise everything the Republic and Empire stand for, and I know you don't want either Van or Thomas being a part of Eve and her problems." Fiona gave her a little half-smile. "But I need them. I need them both."

"And so you're back to being too human." Reese shook her head in irritation. "There's another complication, though." Fiona sighed, and she continued, "When we go to contain Eve, it can't just be us."

"Which is why Van and Thomas–"

"No, no, that's not it." Reese met her eyes. "I mean, it can't just be two Ancient Zoidians. I said that, earlier. Just two of us can't manage the power, and that's why we're in this situation in the first place. We need three to forge the trio of Graeae."

Fiona's face drained. "But there aren't any others. We're the last–Hiltz, Cassa..."

"I know. But..." Reese lowered her gaze. "Cassa had children," she said quietly. "And her children had children. And her granddaughter had one child. A son." She took a deep breath, and brought her eyes up to meet Fiona's again. "And he grew up to be the one called Raven."

Fiona couldn't breathe. Raven. She brought a hand up to her forehead and stared at the floor. Raven. How utterly impossible, how utterly paradoxical: Raven, the murdering maverick, held the future of the world in his bloodied hands. As bloodied as yours? asked a small, scathing voice. After a long, long moment, she swallowed and looked up again. "Are you sure?" she said weakly.

"Yes." Reese's lips twisted wryly. "And therein lies the complication with bringing your two lieutenants."

"And we're supposed to go with them?" Thomas peered into the almost-bare cupboard, and his searching hand emerged with a plastic jar.

Van stared at him. "What are you talking about? 'Supposed to'? We don't have a choice! We can't leave Fiona with...her." He gave an exaggerated little shudder, and Thomas laughed.

"I personally think that Fiona would be just fine with Reese–it's us that shouldn't be left alone with her. She doesn't really appreciate our company." He opened another cupboard and glared inside. "Don't you people keep these things stocked?"

"Depends. What do you want?"

"I just want food," he complained. "A plain peanut butter sandwich would be fine, but you don't seem to have any bread. Do you realize how sad that is? No bread."

"It's just a lounge, what do you expect?" Van halfheartedly attacked the cabinets beneath the sink. "If you're really that hungry, just go to the cafeteria. Mess hall. Whatever."

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were supposed to be incognito about all this. The Di-Bison is obvious enough, but wouldn't people think something is going on if I casually show up downstairs?"

"That's true." Van sat back on the floor. "You should have eaten before you left Haven."

"I couldn't," Thomas said acidly. "Fiona's call suggested that I hurry. I didn't even wait for those computers to finish formatting. I hope that private knew what he was doing, or else I'm in big trouble."

Van made a "hm" sound, and didn't answer. Thomas just rolled his eyes and kept pawing through the cupboards' scarce contents, cursing the current situation as he went. It was as he sat down to dig through the jar of peanut butter with a large spoon that a thought occurred to him. "What will we do once we get there?" He stuck the spoon in his mouth.

Van stared at him, and then shook his head. "First of all, that is disgusting. And I don't know." He shrugged. "I guess we let Reese and Fiona do their thing, or whatever. We're just transportation."

Thomas nodded, rolling the texture of the peanut butter around in his mouth for a moment. "And do we know what 'their thing' is?"

Van shook his head again. "I don't think Fiona does, either, and I doubt Reese will tell us. Again, we're just transportation."

Thomas took another bite. We're just transportation. Suddenly, he coughed, and almost choked. "Wait...you don't mean..."

Van shrugged and looked away, but a grin tugged at his lips. "You've been getting rid of extraneous Beke equipment, right? For efficiency?" At Thomas's weak nod, he went on, "Then you can probably free up a lot of cockpit space, yeah? Enough to put in a passenger seat?"

Thomas felt distinctly sick, even though the argument made sense. Obviously, the Liger only seated two, and no one wanted Reese and Van occupying the same zoid, anyway. Unless he wanted an entirely different zoid, one that he wasn't accustomed to, one that didn't have a Beke component, then the Di-Bison was the only choice. And he couldn't just leave the Bison at Inea–an abandoned zoid that belonged to a member of the GF would be even more obvious.

He groaned. "Did you mean to trap me?"

Van held up his hands in surrender. "Don't blame me," he laughed. "I didn't call you."

"I know," Thomas muttered darkly. "That would be Fiona."

"Yes?"

Both their heads shot up, to be greeted with Fiona's bright face. She blinked at them and smiled, looking as if her composure had recovered fully from its earlier ordeal. "What? I heard my name." Thomas, his mouth full again, shook his head and shrugged. She focused on him, and her eyebrows rose. "Thomas? Are you eating...peanut butter?" He nodded, and she acted as if she were controlling her laughter. "Oh. Tasty."

Van rolled his eyes at them both. "So? Do we have some semblance of a schedule?"

"That depends. Are you ready?"

"What? Really? Nice, let's go."

Thomas waved at them, and fought to swallow. "Wait...the Bison needs that seat." He glared at Van and continued, "If she must ride with me, then I want it done right."

Van shrugged. "Fine, I'll go tell them." He turned to go, but Fiona touched his arm.

"I think Reese is taking care of it."

"She's what?" Thomas said indignantly, from his seat on the floor. "With my zoid? I don't think so." He threw the jar back into a cabinet, and tossed the spoon in the sink. "Come on, let's go." With that, he blew out of the room.

Van raised his eyebrows at Fiona. "She's already done it, hasn't she?" Fiona winced and nodded. Van shook his head, and they trailed slowly after their friend.

Van gave Fiona a sideways glance. "So...did you two make up, or something?"

She gave a half-shrug. "Or something."

"But everything's okay?" he persisted.

She smiled. "Yes, everything's okay." Van evaluated the validity of that smile, and was about to comment when Fiona suddenly slowed, her head cocked to the side. He gave her a questioning look, and she frowned and said, "Is that...Thomas?"

Van listened for a moment. "He's yelling, isn't he?" Fiona sighed, and they walked a little faster.

When they got to the main hangar, however, whatever conflict there may have been seemed to be over. Thomas once again stood at his computer console, seething, and Reese leaned nonchalantly against Specular. When she saw them approaching, she straightened.

"Are you ready to go?"

Fiona glanced at Van. "I'm ready."

He shrugged. "I guess I'm ready–but don't we need supplies? How long is this going to take?"

Reese considered for a moment. "You'll be back tomorrow, I think. We won't need long." She shot a quick look at Specular. "But we need to leave now."

Fiona blinked. "Why?"

"Because," came a growl from Thomas, "the penultimate summit conference for the zoids' revolt is here. That's why the main hangars are so empty, and that's why it's so quiet. All of the representatives were flown in via Hammerhead, which are parked on the other side of the base–the one that overlooks the river." He glared at Van, who was surprisingly pale. "We need to get out now, and we need to get out unnoticed."

Fiona shifted uncomfortably. "Well..." Suddenly, her eyes went wide. She gave a panicky laugh and grabbed Van's wrist. "Come on, the Liger's on the wrong side! The river side!" Van swore under his breath and let her drag him away.

Reese watched them go, and then turned to Thomas, smiling sweetly. "I suppose that means we should go, too?"

Thomas switched off the console and sighed bitterly. "Yeah, I guess." He grabbed the Beke mobile unit as it ejected from the computer and started walking to the Di-Bison. The clicking of Reese's heels told him that she followed. He gave another sigh as he settled back into the familiar cockpit, where he had spent so many hours. The canopy hissed shut behind them, and he pushed the mobile unit into its port. Beke's system had seen some major changes since that last battle. The generators had brought up some serious concerns about efficient energy use–now, the helmet was superfluous, since everything could be displayed on-screen, and most commands given by speech.

"Where am I supposed to wait for them?" he muttered. It wasn't as if the Bison could blend in outside, but just being in the hangar, where anyone could come in and ask questions, made him jumpy. He edged the zoid out the door, and peered around the corner.

The Blade Liger streaked by in a blur of blue and gold, and hung a sharp right to get across the huge Inea Bridge. Van's voice crackled over the comm. link, "Thomas? Run."

"What?" Thomas started to look back, but decided against it. It would only cost time. He gunned the thrusters, and the Di-Bison struggled to match the Liger's careening pace. It was because he was concentrating on dodging the obstacles of a civilian city that he didn't notice the Beke mobile link eject itself with a blue spark.

Reese, however, did. She rolled her eyes upward and smiled. Specular was never one to be a passenger. If she was really good about it, the lieutenant wouldn't even notice the difference between his artificial organoid and her real one.

It didn't take long for them to get out of Guygalos; soon, it was only the Noloben Plains that stretched before them in a wash of golden grasses and hard-packed earth. In the distance, the Central Range was a faint rocky outline against the sky. Both zoids paused for a moment to lock in the coordinates of their destination.

The wrong coordinates. Reese narrowed her eyes. Both pilots, of course, assumed they were going straight to the Valley of the Rare Hertz. Fiona was wise enough not to mention Raven in that equation, evidently. She felt another twinge as Specular automatically went to adjust the coordinates, and hoped that Zeke would do the same. She was so absorbed in her organoid that it took a few long seconds to realize that her companion was talking to her.

"You're quiet," he'd said.

She pressed her lips together in annoyance. Then, "Have you ever wondered who would win?"

"What?" he twisted around to stare at her.

She blinked innocently. "You and Flyheight. Who would win?"

His jade eyes went wide, and then narrowed. Without a word, he turned back around. Reese smiled to herself, and nestled back into the seat. The golden landscape passed beneath her like water.

The plains' grass eventually flowed into equally yellow earth, and then finally to golden stone. The two zoids pushed a tireless pace, and countless miles of Zi passed under their crashing feet. The sun burned away the last of the morning's haze, and even the highest peaks of the Central Range were starkly visible against the sapphire sky before, like all the rest of the landscape, they melted into the background.

It was mid-afternoon when Van finally decided that something was wrong. He pulled up a map and squinted at it, trying not to focus on the ground passing by beyond the canopy. They had passed through the last of the Central Range about half an hour ago, and supposedly only had a few hours left before they arrived at the Valley. Supposedly. Something didn't add up, but it was hard to tell just from the map. He blinked. "Wait. Thomas. Thomas, stop." He eased the Liger to a stop.

"What? Something wrong?"

He rolled his lips together. "Check your map. I think we're off. Like, way too far north." Behind him, Fiona gave a soft gasp. Thomas, however, cut off his move to give her a suspicious look.

"You're right, we're way off course. The Valley is southwest of us." He paused. "What happened?"

Van unbuckled his seat beat and turned fully around to face Fiona, his arms propped up on the top of his seat. "What's going on?"

She couldn't quite meet his gaze, and swallowed. "We, uh..."

"We just need to pick something up." The sound of Reese's voice dropped through the awkward moment like a blade.

Van didn't take his eyes from the girl before him and replied, "Pick up what?"

There was a beat of silence. Then, "Look, I said we would have to make a few stops. This shouldn't be a surprise."

"That's not what I asked, Reese."

"I don't care. That's your answer."

"Then maybe we can skip it. All we have to do is reset the coordinates." His hand strayed to the nearest array of switches.

Fiona reached forward. "Van, please," she began. Just as her fingers brushed his skin, she gave him a colossal static shock that made him yelp. They both jumped, and a swath of goose bumps peppered her skin. She shivered. "S-sorry."

He stared at her, and opened his mouth, and then the Liger lurched forward. He fell back onto the main console, and she was jerked violently against the seat belt. The zoid gave a sharp growl. Van picked himself up and turned back around, pulling the seat belt back on with a wince. "Okay. Then I guess I won't change the coordinates." He shook his head bitterly. "I can't exactly argue with Zeke. He'd just change them back, I guess."

"So...we keep going?" Thomas sounded uneasy.

"Yeah." The Liger started forward again, and Van made a mental note to ask Fiona some questions later. She hadn't quite been the same since they'd left, and had sat in almost total nervous silence for the past couple of hours. Maybe it was the Liger itself–she had hesitated in climbing in at Inea, and acted as if she was afraid to touch more of it than she had to. Maybe she was just nervous about going back to the Valley, but it was more likely that she knew something she wasn't telling anyone. Lying by omission was still lying–transportation or otherwise, he and Thomas had something of a right to know what they were leaping into.

They hit the forest less than an hour later. The thick canopy of trees blocked most of the sun's light, and made traveling on the lush forest floor something like fumbling through an endless dark room. Where Van failed at navigating the undergrowth, though, Zeke took over and gently maneuvered around fallen trees and shallow trenches.

When they finally broke back into sunlight, the contrast was dazzling. Everything was glazed in copper or gold, and nothing could disturb the quiet peace that was protected by a thick ring of trees. In that ring sat a towering building, its battered walls tinted a blue-green by time. The side facing the lowering sun thinned to become immense sheets of thick glass that glittered in the afternoon light.

Reese keyed the Di-Bison's canopy open, amid Thomas's cries of indignant dismay, and leapt to the ground. Van didn't wait for Fiona to ask, but lowered the Liger's head to the grass and unlocked the canopy.

As he started to follow her out, Reese turned to him, her eyes flashing. "No, not you."

"Say what?"

"Stay. We'll be right back."

He gave an exasperated sigh and sat back. "Fine. What about Zeke?"

She smiled, and he knew, with grim certainty, that it was only from self-satisfaction. "He'll stay to make sure you do, too." With that, she turned and started walking toward the observatory. Fiona trailed behind, turning only once to mouth, "Sorry." Van sighed again and let Zeke close the canopy and straighten the Liger. He could hear the locking mechanism click. Sorry. Right.

The comm.'s visual link opened to show Thomas, his face pensive. "Hey, Van? I think I have a problem."

"Yeah, well, I think we have two–and they're walking that way."

"No, really." He swallowed. "I think Specular's fused with the Bison's core."

"She's what?" Van frowned and looked back after the girls; they had just disappeared into the shadow of the encroaching trees on the building's far right. "They really want to keep us here. We can't follow, and we can't leave."

"And they didn't want us to know we were coming here," Thomas added. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Van kept staring after Reese and Fiona, thinking hard. His eyes slid out of focus as he struggled to remember Reese's words. "'A few stops,' she said. We're about a hundred miles northeast of the Valley–in the Republic. What could possibly be here, out in the middle of nowhere?" Trees, obviously. And an all-but-forgotten observatory. The colors of the clearing swirled–blue stone, violet shadows, green foliage, red...red...red? He blinked. Red.

His breath quickened, and he brought up a magnifying lens. It scanned around until he found his target again, just beyond the spot where Fiona and Reese had entered, and partially hidden by the building's corner. There it was, dappled shadows playing across its crimson metal: the Genobreaker. Suddenly, it was very difficult to breathe altogether. "Oh...gods," he choked.

"What? What happened?"

"Thomas." Van gripped the locked accelerator until his knuckles flushed white. "Reese and Fiona just went in there alone–to meet Raven."

Compared to the bright sunlight outside, the observatory may as well have been underground. Fiona blinked, letting her eyes adjust. The huge windows in the forefront of the building were encrusted with the grime of years, and they only allowed patches of sunlight to shine through in shafts of gold. When she could distinguish Reese's shape beside her, she whispered, "Are you sure about this?"

"No. But we need the third Grae." She started to move away, her clothes rustling loudly in the darkness. As she passed through one of the beams of sun, her skirt flashed cerulean.

Fiona squinted and stumbled after her, up what revealed itself to be a long, winding staircase. It went up and up, doubling over itself as it climbed up the core of the building, out of sight of the windows. Fiona kept one hand on the wall, two when possible, and kept her distance from the unguarded lip of the stairs. Every corner held a menacing dark shape, and every noise was someone–organoid or otherwise–stalking them. Reese, on the other hand, confidently climbed step after step, unconcerned.

The fifth landing was the last, marked as such by the backlit outline of a door. Fiona unconsciously dropped behind Reese, kneading her aching thighs with tired fists, and Reese pushed the door inward. At first, there was nothing. It was silent, and both girls simply stood for a moment, absorbing the room. It wasn't bare, not really–there was a table, a chair, a pile of books on the floor. The items themselves were innocent enough...or, they would be, if they were all that was there. Empty handgun magazines also littered the floor, ripped pages fluttering around them, and a knife glittered in the sunlight that streamed from a door to the left.

Reese took a step in, aiming for the door that led outside. In that same instant, Fiona heard an impossibly low, purring growl from just over her shoulder. Her eyes grew wide, and she promptly forgot to breathe. Less than a second later, two shots cracked deafeningly into the room's silence, just as she ducked into a corner. Suddenly, there was an enormous presence before her, black as a nightmare, with ice-blue optic lenses that burned into her eyes.

Fiona thought faintly that she had never been so close to Shadow before–the organoid shoved his snout inches from her face, and proceeded to examine her hair, her cheeks, and her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, and then swallowed hard and moved her eyes to watch her companion beyond the smoking holes in the wall that smelled chokingly of gunpowder.

Reese had moved no further from her two steps into the room, and seemed to be staring straight ahead–even though Raven was to the right, sitting in the window directly across from the sunlit door. Had he been there all along, motionless? Or were they unobservant enough to let Shadow move behind them and serve as a distraction? The way he sat begged for the former explanation–he didn't even look at either of them, preferring to point his revolver unwaveringly.

"That wasn't very nice." Fiona could almost hear the smirk in Reese's voice–except that she knew it was fake. Getting to know people always ruined their bravado. The sound of her voice made Shadow relax, though, and he drew back from her face.

"Get out, Reese." Raven was chillingly calm. He sounded as if he could shoot either of them and not care about anything but the mess it made. Shards of ice struck themselves into Fiona's stomach, and she decided that this was one of Reese's worst plans to date.

"Sorry, darling. But I can't do that. You have to come with us."

The revolver barked again, and the bullet dug into the floor at Reese's feet. Fiona made a small sound, but immediately regretted it. She now had Shadow's full attention again. He pushed his snout into her cheek, and turned her head forcibly. She didn't resist, but watched the organoid with wide, terrified eyes.

"Raven, stop it," Reese snapped. "You're being childish."

"Am I, Reese?" He got to his feet in one lithe movement, and approached her, the gun still separating them. "Am I? The last time I went along with one of your so-called 'plans,' I nearly lost my eyes. I nearly lost my organoid." He gestured to where Shadow held Fiona trapped against the wall.

Reese didn't look. "Raven, this is something much bigger than any of us. Eve is trying to resurface, and all of Zi will suffer–"

"So what?" He finally pulled his arm back, and looked at her sardonically. "So what? Why should I care if this miserable planet suffers because of something I do or do not do?"

"You'll die." Her voice was scornful.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Death is meaningless, if the life I lead holds no purpose."

"And what of your heritage, your family?" Reese reached a hand to him.

Suddenly, the revolver was aimed at her face. She let her hand drop. "Don't touch me," Raven hissed. "I don't care what you say, now or back then. I am not one of you. And I have no family–can't you tell?"

"R-Raven," came Fiona's strangled voice. She glared past Reese to focus on him, and struggled against Shadow's force to speak. "Y-your heritage binds you...t-to us, and us...to you." She swallowed, with difficulty. "If y-you must have a family...we're it–nng." This last came as Shadow slid his snout under her chin, forcing her head up and her mouth shut.

"You have something of a legacy to fulfill, Raven." Reese picked up her chin and continued, "You're also the only one that can do it, I'm sorry to admit." She spread her hands. "No tricks, Raven. No tricks and no catches."

His eyes narrowed, and his mouth twisted. "Then what do you call her?"

"What?"

"I know she's with Flyheight–bringing her here is as sure a sign of a trap I've ever seen." Fiona's eyes widened in outrage, but her breath quickened in fear. It had never, foolishly enough, occurred to her that her association with Van would count toward her demise.

Reese sighed. "Yes, both members of the Guardian Force are out there. You can even go look, I don't care. But they won't shoot you, and they won't arrest you. Neither of our organoids will let them."

"Why?" He asked suspiciously.

"Because they know we need you. They trust us. Or, at least, they trust her." She inclined her head toward Fiona.

"I don't trust either of you."

"Fine. You don't have to. I'm not asking you to trust us, if you'll notice. I'm asking you to come accept your little inheritance."

He stared at her for a long moment, his face an unreadable mask. Then, "You are asking me to trust you, however little that may be–I'm still putting some part of myself in your hands." Reese didn't answer him, and he gave a small, grim smile. "I will go, but not for you. I will go for myself...and for my dead family. But..." He sighted down the revolver at her. "If I find out that you've lied to me about any aspect of this–such as declining to mention the Force out there–then I will kill you." He pointed the gun over her shoulder at Fiona. "And you. I will kill you both and throw your bodies at the feet of the Guardian Force."

Satisfied with the girls' silence, Raven pulled back and turned away to rifle through one of the amorphous piles on the floor, only pausing to say, "Shadow, let her go," over his shoulder. The organoid relaxed with a growl, and Fiona slumped to the floor, coughing. After a moment, he stood. With a cool glance at the two Zoidians, he slung a haversack over his shoulder and walked out the sunlit door. Shadow followed silently.

Reese was motionless for a moment more, then she stepped forward to glance out the door. "Oh," she sighed shakily, and pulled back in. "They already went down." She offered an impatient hand to Fiona, who took it and stood unsteadily. "Come on, everyone will have the wrong idea if we don't show up with him. Hurry." She dragged Fiona to the dark doorway.

It took a moment for Reese's words to sink in. As they did, though, a crash echoed up from below, and Fiona gasped. "Oh, no. Faster!" As they hurtled down the dark stairway, she ran the scenarios through her mind: Raven, arriving alone. Van and Thomas, convinced that the maverick had killed them both. Bloodshed. She gritted her teeth and ran faster, skipping two and three steps at a time.

"Whoa, slow down." Reese grabbed at her arm. "You'll get us killed."

"Didn't you just give permission for Raven to do that, anyway?" Fiona snapped. "You did leave out the part about making him into an Ancient Zoidian, I noticed. That probably counts as lying."

"Hopefully...it won't matter."

"Hopefully?"

Reese slid around the third landing's railing and panted, "If this all...works out, he won't...be able to kill us, because it...would kill him, too."

Adrenaline spurred Fiona on to more speed. "He didn't seem too concerned with dying."

"He was lying. I don't think...he's quite that nihilistic."

A bright rectangle of light rounded the corner, and Fiona jumped the last three steps, barely landing on her feet. Reese came more slowly, and stumbled at the foot of the steps, holding her forehead in one hand. At Fiona's glance, she waved her other hand. "It's just a...a headache. Go, stop them. Go."

As Fiona burst into the dazzling sunshine, the Liger roared deafeningly. The nearly tangible sound shook her to her bones, and instilled another impossible wave of energy in her. She ran faster.

Her view was filled with violent crimson. The Genobreaker's twin shield generators snapped the air, and the zoid gave a low hiss that was every bit as terrifying as the Liger's roar. Underneath its huge clawed feet, crushed undergrowth exuded the scent of rot. Fiona gagged and skirted a safe distance around it.

The Blade Liger and Di-Bison stood exactly as she had last seen them, but both zoids were locked in a struggle between organoid and pilot. Van had managed to deploy the Liger's golden blades, but Zeke allowed nothing more. The zoid shuddered and kept up a continuous, pained roar. Close by, the Di-Bison fell to its massive knees with a bellow, even as the Megalomax cannons hummed and struggled to warm. And over it all were Van's screams of, "I'll kill you, Raven! I'll kill you!"

Her breath stolen, Fiona could only stare in horror, unnoticed. The Liger thrashed violently, churning the meadow into a mass of shredded turf. The Di-Bison's heating coils glowed a dangerous orange with suppressed pressure. And, standing above it all, the Genobreaker was garish and macabre. A shrill ringing sang through her ears until her stomach lurched with nausea. It was only as she drew a steadying breath that she realized she recognized the sound–the zoids. It was the zoids and their screams of pain.

She staggered backward from the raw emotion, her breathing ragged. Stop it. The Liger collapsed onto its side and jerked sporadically in the filth. Stop...stop it. An acrid plume of smoke erupted from the Bison's neck, and it roared in pain. Please, make it stop. Make it...

"Stop!" she shrieked, tears streaming down her burning cheeks. Her voice wrenched itself into a sob that tore her throat to shreds. It was only as she sucked in a gasping breath, and again, that she realized her voice had been joined by another. She turned in shaky surprise, and there was Reese–the girl was on her knees in the grass, her jaw clenched and her palm still cupping her forehead. A single tear traced its way down her somewhat grimy cheek.

There was an interminable moment of silence, and then all three zoids crashed to the earth. Their optic lenses went dark, and in a gentle shimmer of light, the three organoids melted from their respective zoids. Shadow shook his head in perplexity, but Specular and Zeke trotted to their mistresses–Zeke nuzzled Fiona's neck, crooning softly, and Specular lowered to curl herself around Reese just as the girl fell into unconsciousness.

Fiona absently stroked Zeke's eye ridge, then swallowed and blinked tears from her eyes. She drew a shuddering breath, and then looked up. There–there were her guiding lights limping toward her, the only two flickering flames in the terrifying darkness Eve had so solidly created in her life. She swallowed another sob and threw herself around both their necks, pulling them as close as she dared. Burning tears crept from her eyes again, soaking their skin in her salty misery.

The three of them sank to the ground, and Fiona huddled closer to their warmth, her body trembling. "Don't do it," she cried softly into their ears. "Don't ever kill for me. Never–promise me."

And, kneeling in the clearing with their arms tightly around her, Thomas and Van promised.

Reese awoke to the steady, lurching movement that could only mean traveling by zoid. She smiled tiredly. That meant that they had managed to revive the zoids and their frozen command systems. The Valley of the Rare Hertz couldn't be that far away. She stretched and weakly levered herself up far enough to see out the canopy.

The rock that towered over the zoid was glazed in crimson, and the shadows were a deep violet, almost black against the indigo sky. Reese blinked and threw her gaze around; the sun was closer to the horizon than she could ever have imagined. How much time was there until Eve accumulated enough of herself to lash out? Had the whole miserable journey been a waste? A familiar pounding began again between her eyes, and she slumped back with a soft moan.

"Do you feel any better?" Thomas's voice was soft, but she heard it well enough.

"Not really," she murmured, a hand over her eyes. "How much further?"

There was a brief silence. Then, "I don't know. Five minutes, maybe. Too close."

She peeked between her fingers. "Why?"

He gave a mirthless bark of laughter. "Fiona's going to give herself a full-fledged panic attack before we even reach the desert. Can't you hear?"

Reese frowned, and tuned out the Di-Bison's crashing footfalls. She could barely hear the comm. link, as low as the volume was, but what there was consisted of quiet sobs and equally soft comforts. She idly wondered how much of the current situation Flyheight knew, then. Obviously enough of it to keep going. Maybe he didn't get enough credit.

And then there was Fiona. Reese sighed. Of course, she had been wrong. Her words that very morning were a very contradiction of it–sentimentality had everything to do with it. How could she have possibly thought otherwise? Being so close to the Valley was too much for the other girl–it held too much grief, too much potential for retribution, too much guilt.

"And...Raven?"

He paused again. "He's there. To your left." His voice was expressionless, but Reese remembered all too well the Di-Bison's bellows of pain as he fought Specular's hold on the zoid. Neither he nor Flyheight could ever forgive Raven for even seeming to have killed Fiona. And her, too? Would they have cared if Raven had killed her? Maybe they would, out of a sense of honor and duty, or maybe in outrage at the idea of him taking another life, innocent or otherwise. They might have regretted it once they realized Eve couldn't be stopped without her, and at the knowledge that everything they knew was about to be destroyed because of it. But they would never grieve for her out of love. Never out of love.

She shook her head and pushed herself up again to glance out, pressing one hand to the orange glass. The Genobreaker was as scarlet as the rock beside it as it lumbered down the trail, its optic lenses orange. The entire zoid seemed afire with the sunset's flames licking at its metal. A streak of red flew past, and then Shadow alighted on the huge zoid's shoulder. Even from that distance, Reese could see his eyes flash; as she watched, the sable organoid gave a roar, and soared up, impossibly high...and fused with the Genobreaker. It was time.

Reese let her eyes drift closed. She didn't need them to see the rocky vista that floated upon a sea of sand. She drew in a breath, her fingers suddenly spreading to grip the seat's cushion. Her skull was humming with a very familiar power, and she knew exactly what it meant–indeed, the only thing it could mean. It's...it's stronger, this time. We're not too late. As the embrace of her organoid's cables tightened around her shoulders, she sighed in relief.

Thomas glanced up wearily. Something was wrong...but the Di-Bison was fine, or so the screens told him. Surely, the Rare Hertz pulse wasn't still existent. Eve couldn't be strong enough to generate it now. So why did it feel like ice had just slipped down his neck? On a ridiculous impulse meant to reassure himself, he twisted around–and stopped breathing.

"Van!" he yelled hoarsely into the comm. link. "She's gone! Reese is gone." Silence answered him for approximately three seconds, and then Van muttered a curse. There was a technicolor flash of lightning, and Thomas caught a glimpse of the Genobreaker to his left, collapsing to the side. Its optic lens was dark. Three streaks of light twined together as they raced to the mountains ahead.

"Zeke just left...and he took Fiona with him." Van let out a growl of frustration.

Thomas stared sadly after them. "After all that...and we still get left behind." Van only had a terse silence in reply, and Thomas snorted bitterly. "Oh, yeah, I forgot–we're just transportation."

"So now what?"

Thomas sighed and turned the Di-Bison off to the side. "Let's just set up camp."

"And?"

"And wait. What else?"

The scarlet sun set on the Rare Hertz Desert.

Reese awoke with a piercing headache that threatened to blind her. She reluctantly pushed herself up, a hand cradling her forehead. The rock was cool and merciful to her sweating hands, but nothing could help the pain. She kept her eyes tightly shut, and a small moan escaped her lips. She felt as though the migraine would kill her.

But then it was suddenly gone, like haze burned off by the sun. She held her breath for a moment, waiting for it to return with renewed vigor, but it didn't. And so, she cautiously raised her head and became aware of her surroundings.

It was dark, surprisingly so, and the thought struck her that it was night; not even the ruined city was so dark in the daytime. But which night? There was no way of knowing. Reese pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, and swayed, her balance gone. A sudden support from behind made her gasp, but a soft hiss betrayed Specular's presence.

She smiled and reached for her organoid's snout. As her eyes finally began to adjust to the darkness, she scanned the surrounding area for her conspicuously absent companions. Time was running out, and they couldn't spare losing each other. They were too close to be put off now...

Specular shook off her hand and shoved at her a little harder. Reese frowned at her. The normally placid organoid was almost...anxious. A sudden pang of fear struck her, and she put a hand on Specular's nearest mandible. "What is it?" she whispered. The organoid eyed her for a second, then turned and started off at a sharp trot. With a prickly sense of foreboding weighing heavily in her stomach, she followed.

It was not a long walk, but every step felt like five, the darkness stealing away all sense of time. When Reese finally saw Zeke, though, the aimless walk faded in her thoughts. The silver organoid lay on the floor, curled around his precious cargo, and made the most unusual sounds–a chilling cross between a quiet keening and a howl. Reese broke into a run.

Fiona was huddled in the curve of her organoid's body, her face streaked with tears and her body trembling as she rocked back and forth. Her hands were clasped over her mouth and nose, and her breathing was harsh and fast. She did not open her eyes, nor did she act aware of Reese's presence in the least.

Reese grabbed the girl's shoulders, and made her stop rocking; her hyperventilation, however, became more gasping and desperate. "Fiona." There was no response. "Fiona, stop, you'll faint–look at me."

Surprisingly, she did–and Reese gasped. Fiona's crimson eyes were devoid of emotion or feeling, devoid of anything remotely human. They were chillingly empty, and, as she watched, wisps of pale blue skated across them. Oh, Eve, she's reverting... Reese clenched her jaw, and unconsciously dug her fingernails into Fiona's upper arms.

"Listen to me, Fiona. Stop this, now. I know you're strong enough, because I know you don't want this." There was no response, and Reese felt stirrings of desperation. Suddenly, her headache washed over her again–the pain was intermittent, but staggering in its power. Reese almost swooned. How can she still cause this? She's trying to absorb– Another wave of pain made her reel back, but she fought to bring sense back into the girl before her. "If you let this continue, we will all die–" Pain. "–You will destroy everything. It really will be your fault this time, because you can stop it, now." Unimaginable agony. "S-stop."

Still nothing. Zeke's howls grew to a deafening crescendo, and Specular began trying to nose her way between the two girls, trying to get her Zoidian away from peril. A hum of power started to grow, and with it came the hot smell of electricity. Reese felt the blood drain from her face, and lashed out with her last vestiges of terrified energy.

"Fiona!" The crack of Reese's palm against the other's cheek rang against the dank stone. "Do not lose control, do you understand me? Do you want those two idiots out there the die because of you?"

The hum of energy suddenly died, cut off at its source. All that remained was the sickening scent of burnt stone and the remnants of a throbbing headache. Fiona didn't answer, her hand frozen halfway up to her slowly reddening cheek. Reese shook her gently, strength sapped. "Do you?"

Finally, the other girl whispered, "No." She relaxed and blinked, lowering her shaky hand, and suddenly her eyes held self and clarity again. "No."

Reese slowly let out her breath and released the other's arms. "Good." In a flash of insight, she was suddenly grateful that Fiona had made sure the two lieutenants came–they were, apparently, what kept her sane. Somehow, Van Flyheight and Thomas Shubaltz had just obliviously rescued humanity from destruction at the hands of the Zoid Eve. How strange, how human it was, that the Eve-Child would need them.

She sank to sit beside Fiona, and the two organoids relaxed. The lowered themselves noisily to the ground beside their mistresses, content to think that the crisis had, for the time being, been averted. Soon, the only sound was Fiona's deep, calming breaths.

Reese took a deep breath of her own and spoke. "I...didn't know that you still had so much of Eve inside you. I should have realized. I'm..." She swallowed, and continued quietly, "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Fiona whispered. She stared at the rock directly in front of her, her head resting on her knees. "You can't predict everything, and you're not responsible for me."

There was a moment of silence. In that moment, Reese weighed a few consequences, and made a decision. Then, "Do you want to know what you've been doing to Flyheight?" Fiona raised her head from her knees to look at Reese. She hesitantly continued, "After you...died, back here, you didn't burn off as much of that power as I'd thought. As a normal Zoidian, your system couldn't–can't–handle that raw stress." She paused for a moment, and could feel the other girl's eyes on her. "I think that for the past two months, you've been, ah...depositing that excess power, every time it builds to a certain level. And because he was, I don't know, adapted to you, he unconsciously accepted it, like a battery of some sort."

Fiona said nothing, and Reese turned to face her. "Fiona, I say this only because I consider you to be the closest thing I have to an ally in all that happens here, and even then, I say it only as advice: if you care for him the way I think you do, stop. He is only human, and it will kill him. His body will not be able to handle such strain, and it will rip him apart."

Fiona was motionless, her face blank and her eyes fixed on some point on the ground. Just as it struck Reese that maybe Eve was swooping down upon her old vessel again, the other girl just said, "I see." And that was all.

"Hey. Reese."

She sighed, and stood. Without turning around, she answered, "Raven?"

"Now what? We came all this way, didn't we? Don't we have business to attend to?"

Reese turned and smiled at him. "Funny you should mention that." Shadow gave a warning growl.

Raven's expression was typical, for him, and he didn't look any less sullen under her gaze. "Why?"

"Because." She smiled again, unnervingly, and took three steps closer to him. "Before we go about the business of silencing Eve...we're starting with you."

She reached up and pressed her palm against his chest. She pushed him, gently, and he took a step back. She met his eyes and pushed more insistently. Raven glared, but stepped back again, until cold metal met his shoulders. He blinked and started to turn, but Shadow growled and flung his chest plates open in a burst of neon crimson. Cables snaked around his arms and crisscrossed his chest, but the organoid didn't pull him fully in, and didn't take off. He forced himself to relax against Shadow's absolute trust of the girl before him. "Start how?"

"I have to...uh, open you up. Metaphysically speaking." Reese wetted her lips, and her brow furrowed. Specular rose and edged behind her Zoidian.

Raven smirked. "What, nervous?"

She blinked and glared at him. "Give me a break. It's not like I've ever done this before." She turned and said, "Fiona, could you help?" The other girl stood and stumbled toward them, her eyes downcast, and her organoid got to his feet and followed. Reese extended her other hand to her. "Here." Fiona hesitated, but took Reese's hand in both of hers. "Just...reach out, okay? It should follow our chain of contact."

"I can't..." She cleared her throat softly. "I can't control it. I don't think I'll be a help."

"I don't have the necessary power. You have to initiate it."

"But I can't," she murmured.

Reese sighed in exasperation. "Yes, you can, you just have to get to the power. Surely there's some strong emotion you could use?" Out of old habit, she infused as much sarcasm into her words as she could.

Fiona looked up, and her eyes flashed. Reese suddenly felt an acute sensation of dread dawning over her. Fiona's small frame held more strong emotion than she had realized, until of late. There was love, and anger, and there was guilt–guilt that was dangerously close to self-hatred.

There was a silent flash of white-hot light from between Fiona's small hands. Suddenly, the air was alive with the feeling of electricity–vitalizing, but dangerous, saturated with the panic of imminent pain. Reese had the numb thought her hands were on fire, and suddenly found that she couldn't breathe.

And then the world ripped apart at the seams.

"How will we know if they fail?"

Thomas glanced up at his companion in surprise. Van sat on the silvery sand, his hands wrapped around his coffee mug, watching the twin moons rise. He didn't return the gaze, and even acted as if his quiet words had never passed his lips. Thomas shifted uncomfortably and poked at the small fire. The coffee pot whistled weakly.

"I guess we won't, until we're dead. And then it won't matter." He tried to make his voice sound lighthearted, but a strain of despair worked its way through.

"Maybe we'll be first," Van murmured, tearing his gaze from the stars and to their reflection in the dark liquid before him. "Maybe then it won't hurt."

Thomas frowned at him, and then looked up. The dark shapes of the Di-Bison and Blade Liger guarded the little camp, their canopies glimmering in the fire's light. The black shape of the Genobreaker was collapsed before the heavens, and no light could breach its dark contours. Yes, if Eve could not be calmed, they could very well be the first to be destroyed by their machines. But would there be pain? Probably, in the physical sense. But what if they weren't the first? What if death didn't come? What if death...never came? That, surely, would be the most painful fate of them all.

He took a deep breath of the clean desert air, and lifted his face to the gentle stars. It was as he exhaled that he realized the sky was lightening. He blinked. "What? But it's..." It's just past midnightHe turned...and gasped.

The jagged outline of the Valley of the Rare Hertz was silhouetted against a blaze of white. The light simmered, like liquid flame, threatening to spill over the rocky edges and onto the desert sands below. There were no explosions, no forbidding shrieks of corrugated rock, but Thomas felt the sand beneath his feet trembling. That, more than anything, terrified him. He sank to his knees, unable to look away from the painful light.

"That's it, then?" Van stood slightly behind him, motionless. "Did they fail? Are we going to die?"

Thomas swallowed. "I don't know. I don't..."

Before he could even finish, the light roiled violently and exploded straight up in a blinding pillar of white. It roared up to the stars, challenging their gentle light with sheer power. Just as it seemed the very core of Zi would be ravaged clean by the radiance, it thinned and winked out, plunging the desert into darkness.

Silver spots danced lazily, just out of reach, on a background of hazy white. Raven blinked, slowly, and fought to focus his eyes. Sound swirled back in a hum that resounded through his ears, and he was suddenly aware of cold metal digging into his cheek. With a groan, he pushed himself up from the tangle of thick cables that pulled from Shadow's open chest cavity. Before panic could root itself in his stomach, though, the organoid stirred softly.

Raven took a deep breath and looked up. The white haze began to dissipate from his vision, and revealed the other two organoids nearby, bathed in a soft white glow that came from nowhere. Both of them were sprawled on the floor, and both cradled a girl in its countless cables. Raven couldn't remember either of the zoids half-fusing like that, but who knew how time had passed? Was it even done? Was the Zoid Eve gone, for good?

A streak of scarlet caught his eye, and he focused on Reese. The girl had her hands tucked into the curve of her body, but they were crimson with blood. A moment's examination proved that Flyheight's girl's hands were bleeding as well. It was only then that his own pain became evident: his chest stung fiercely, and his fingers found his shirt and skin to be sticky with blood. There was a diagonal slash through his skin–right where Reese had laid her fingers.

Raven disentangled himself from Shadow and shakily walked over to Reese and Specular. He knelt and nudged the girl's shoulder, leaving streaks of blood on her pale skin. After a surprisingly long time, her eyes blinked open, and she took a slow moment to recognize him.

Finally, she whispered, "Did it work?"

His eyebrows lowered. "I was hoping you could tell me that." Then, "You're bleeding."

She uncurled with a groan, and then sat back on her knees, staring at her hands. Her right was just lacerated on the palm, where it had lain on Raven's chest. Her left, however, was shredded on both sides, and still sluggishly pumped out blood. Her skin didn't look as if it were cut–it was as if she had been holding a small bomb. She sighed and absently pressed her left hand into her skirt, then looked back at him. "Blood is powerful. I guess it did work, if we all traded like that."

Traded?Raven glanced at his fingers warily. Blood is powerful. He remembered, all too well, other words of hers: the strain of Zoidian in your blood...you are of the Ancient Race...you are one of us. His blood...and her blood...and the other girl's...they were all the same. Their blood ran through his veins, and his through theirs. He shook his head and looked up, to find Reese watching him.

He frowned. "What?"

She averted her eyes with a small smile. "Nothing." She paused, and then said, "You know, Raven...this means that you're not alone anymore. Whether you like it or not, you're kind of...stuck with us."

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

She leaned wearily against Specular. "We have a-a...triumvirate of power, now. We each hold a third of the Zoid Eve's power. That means that we each hold a part of each other, too."

Raven blinked. A part...of each other? He jerked unconsciously, and his face went dark with anger. "Reese," he growled. "You didn't mention that I would be–be sharing my life. I said I would kill you."

She smiled again and shook her head. "That's the beauty of it, do you see? You can't."

He stopped dead. "I can't?"

She gave a little laugh. "No, you can't. Because it would kill you, and Fiona, and all of the organoids. We have to coexist and put up with each other." She shook her head. "I don't know what we'll do once we move into old age." At his silence, she met his eyes again. "Don't you understand, Raven? We are the Zoid Eve. The Past," she touched her bloody hand to her chest, "the Present," she gestured toward him, "and the Future," she indicated Fiona.

She looked after the other girl for a moment. "She gave more than any of us...and now she has to take Hiltz's place, poor thing." As if the effort had taken the last of her energy, she slumped back against Specular, smiling. "It all works out, though. It's all so...perfect." Her eyes moved back to him, even as they began to cloud with sleep.

Raven glared at her. "Would you stop looking at me like that?"

She gave a weak half-shrug, and her eyes shut. "Sorry, it's just that...your eyes. You look so much like her."

"Like who?"

She sighed, "Like Cassa." And then she was asleep.

The three organoids burst from the dark valley just as the last stars of morning died. Both Thomas and Van blinked blearily at them, unwilling to believe the beams of light streaking toward them. Shadow's crimson jets flashed as he fused with the Genobreaker, and in a swirling of sand, hued violet by the morning, Zeke and Specular alighted. They threw open their chest panels and surrendered their battered Ancient Zoidians.

With a soft gasp, Van went forward to catch Fiona, and he tensed at the sight of her hands. He pulled gently her from the last of Zeke's cables, and reached down to brush the twin slashes on each of her palms. In her sleep, she flinched, and he drew back, his brow knit in concern. "Thomas, her hands."

Thomas scooped up Reese from her organoid's embrace, and he faltered at the dried blood that coated her forearms. "Yeah, Reese, too." Delicately pulling her left hand up by the wrist, he frowned. "It looks like she tried to blow her hand off." He met Van's eyes. "She needs a hospital."

His companion nodded. "What's the closest city? Airet?"

"Yeah, something like that. Not far, anyway."

As Thomas turned back to the Di-Bison, he caught sight of the Genobreaker. The huge zoid arched its back, claws glittering in the dawn's early light–stretching, it seemed–and gunned its thrusters. As it roared overhead, its optic lenses looked very blue against its crimson hide. Shadow streaked after it, and Thomas blinked. "Wait...but he–"

"Better not get in any more zoid battles," came the grumble from his arms. He looked down in surprise and met turquoise eyes. "Idiot," Reese finished clearly.

Thomas rolled his eyes, but couldn't suppress a little smile. "I see you've experienced a full recovery."

She sighed gustily and closed her eyes. "More or less, more or less." She relaxed back into what was, to all appearances, an exhausted sleep. Thomas smiled again and started walking toward his zoid.

After only a couple of steps, though, Reese stirred again, raising her right arm and extending her less-injured hand over her shoulder. His eyes followed the pale line of her skin, bemused, and watched as an equally pale and blood-streaked hand searched and found her fingers. They locked tightly together, with an impossible vestige of strength.

Thomas glanced up to see Van walking beside him. They traded a look, but neither made a move to separate the girls from the death-grip they seemed to have on each other's fingers. After a few seconds, though, they dropped, their hands falling limply to hang by their sides.

Specular and Zeke fused with the Di-Bison and Blade Liger to lower the cockpits, and the canopies glittered as they rose. As Thomas lowered Reese to rest in the seat, he noticed that his front was darkly covered in her blood. A heartbeat later, he decided that he didn't care. He settled back into the pilot's seat, and suddenly grasped that, less than twelve hours ago, he had been sure that he was never going to see another dawn. He took a last breath of the desert air as the canopy closed and acutely appreciated being alive.

"What do you think that was about?" Van asked quietly.

Thomas chuckled. "Who knows?" He turned the Bison away from the Valley of the Rare Hertz to face the violet outline of the Central Range, but took one last rueful look over his shoulder.

Van gave a snort, mirroring the direction of his thoughts. "Gods. And may we never come back."

"Do you actually believe that?"

"Not really."

As the two zoids passed over the last of the desert's sand, a scorching breeze blew over the dunes. It whipped the sound of their departure to the clouds, and rapidly filled in the two sets of prints with countless grains of gold, erasing every trace of their existence.

Bat-datta-daah.

I don't know if I'll do anything in this little universe of mine later. Maybe, maybe not. I don't even know if I want to stay in Zoids. Saiyuki beckons with sexy men. Mech, men...mech, men... Hmm.

The parallels with this story and goddess worship can fill a page. Email me if you want to hear me ramble about them. :P

Thank you Dillon, thank you Red Baroness, for editing. Thank you Shadowcat and Dark and Mael for reading...I'll have any edits up soonish. Thank you Crimson Dragon for caring. And thank you all for putting up with me. Review? Please?

Love you all.