"NDS: Book 11: Chapter 73: The Enduro Family"

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As Eon moved for the Ark of Destiny, a silence was about to be broken on the bridge. Gallows and Carole blinked and their stares at one another ended. "So…you're Emilia's mother." The Baskar muttered. "Will you really kill everyone like you intend?" The mature woman remained silent. "Why are you helping Nobuo?"

"Because the world is unfair." She replied coolly. "The world has only worked it's design to keep me down and kick me when I do rise back up." As her firm words of hatred faded a sob took it's place in her voice. "I will have my payback."

Gallows stood there firmly looking at her from the doorway. "I can understand your feelings. The world is unfair, and it has been to me as well. But that's no reason for genocide!" He argued. "Your daughter has had a very unfair life, and just when it seemed that it was becoming fair to her you came along and messed it up and left her in an unfair world like yours or mine." His passionate words continued as she could only stare into his face. "The truth of the matter is that the world will always be unfair, but there can be short instances when it won't be, and for that to happen we have to work to make it fair. A fair world will not just fall into our laps, and we can't just give up on it like you are doing by helping Nobuo."

Carole sobbed. "You…You just don't understand it!"

"If you keep this up you will no longer be Emilia's mother and she will only speak to you as Carole! Are you willing to lose your daughter to make the world unfair? Because if you are you might as well accept that you will always be in an unfair world. All you need to make it fair is her."

Carole let out a gasp. Gallows words were the realization that she should have had long ago. If she were to ever lose her daughter for real…lose her husband…she would have nothing but an unfair world. And in all of this she is doing now to remedy such an unfair life…she is only working against herself. "I…see…if I hurt my daughter…and my husband…by going against them…I will only create even more unfair lives than normally there would be." The woman slowly stood from the helm and stepped towards the man. Eon itself rolled slowly to a stop without it's helmswoman at the controls. "So…Emilia would still have me as her mother?"

"I'm sure she would be happy to." Gallows grinned as Carole ran to Gallows and hugged him tightly.

"Then…I have no more reason to worry." She looked up at him with tears. "And you…would you call me mother?"

Gallows blushed. "Ah…what do you mean?" Suddenly a light flickered and the controls erupted with a whir as Eon began to move again. The sudden movement knocked the two back towards the wall, but Gallows stopped them. "What's going on?"

Carole scanned the room. "I'm not sure…but…I think…Eon is controlling itself."

"What can we do about it then?"

"We can only hope to stop it's power source."

"Emilia went to do that."

"Nobuo and Jet are fighting in this hall so there's no way that we can get through. We will have to rely on my daughter, as much as I would not like to." She resolved.

Gallows grinned. "I know she won't fail us then. If she does, I'll be severely disappointed and have to knock some sense into her."

Carole nodded.

The younger woman in question had just finished descending to the lowest deck and began to move cautiously through the halls. As she did, she soon noticed a lingering shadow behind her. "An enemy?" From the halls behind her came Clyde Enduro. She readied her hand on her blade. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jet's older brother, Clyde." The man replied as he fondly looked upon Emilia. "You are Emilia, aren't you?"

"I am. So what of it?" She nervously wondered as she noticed his eyes examining her.

"It just surprises me that my daughter would grow so much in eighteen years. When I left you with Carole you were so much shorter, weren't you?"

"Is…is that true? What you just said, is that true?" She vehemently wondered.

"See…for yourself." Clyde drew a small blade, "Transcendent the Blade!" The nearby wall was shattered by his attack. He sheathed it as she remained speechless. "I learned the West Wind Sword Art when I was still a teenager. Filgaia was always a harsh world, and my aim with an ARM was always terrible, so I had to have some way of protecting myself." Clyde quickly explained. "Listen, we have little time to chatter and we must move on. We will have plenty of time for a reunion later."

She numbly nods her head. "Agreed." Emilia was a bit out-of-it as she watched her father take the lead. He was seemingly just as she always imagined her father would be. She realized why he had disappeared now. He had left her and her mother to deal with Nobuo. When she left Carole later on…the empty nest…must have killed Carole's heart. It was making some sense to Emilia, but she had little time to think about it as she walked alongside her father once more after eighteen years.

"You know…you're Jet's niece." Clyde chuckled.

"What? But I'm older than him!" She balked.

"Nevertheless, it's true. Jet is my brother, and in turn, your uncle. Age has nothing to do with it." He absorbed her sour face and smiled, but his mouth and eyes soon opened wide as he had turned the corner. It was slow, the image and animation, to Emilia's eyes, as Clyde fell to the floor in front of the floor. As soon as he did blood spread out and the hole to his chest became apparent as she moved quickly to grab him in her arms.

"Father?" She wondered as she watched in fear.

He let out a groan of pain. "Heh…I…didn't quite…expect to die…this way."

Emilia was looking around in confusion and was lost. Once more she was lost, and now she had no idea as to what she could do. She was powerless. "Who…did this to you?" She asked through salty tears. Anger and sadness converging in her body and soul.

"Eon…" Clyde softly replied. "Eon…has a body…" She looked at him in confusion as his breath became ragged. "Emilia…my…dear…you…look so…beautiful. Tell Carole…that…I love her…even with…her sins." And with those words…Clyde Enduro faded from this planet.

Two salty drops landed upon his fallen body. "It…it's not fair!" She erupted. "This wasn't fair, that I would be allowed to meet my father after so long, after forgetting him in forgotten memories…Then he is killed. Taken from me like my memories." She moved his limp body from her arms and laid him on the floor. She wiped his blood from her hands and looked to the opening to the room the power core was in. The door since had been shut. "I will avenge his death." She swore through gritted teeth. She moved for the room as the door moved aside and before she can even see anything due to a bright white light a pain rips through her left shoulder leaving behind a circular burn mark on her clothing and body. It was as if the wound never happened, but it had even if the beam did not leave a hole in her shoulder. With all her might and rage sputtering with her breath she fell to a heap on the floor. As she grasped her shoulder with her right hand she let out an agonizing scream, but it died when her eyes rolled and had become adjusted to the light. She looked on at a man who was merely a template. He had no features at all, and could easily be seen as a naked man's shadow without any distinguishing parts. His skin a light blue that emitted a similar color aura. The only contrast on his body was the darker shade of blue that came in swirl like or stripe-like tattoos on his body, as well as the mouth that had no lips, but when it opened to laugh there was red behind them. Emilia let out a struggled breath, "Eon…" She moaned as she attempted to stand. "I will destroy you!" She pledged with wroth.

Inner Eon chuckled. "Why?" He questioned with a voice that seemed to echo. Like when he spoke two others with the same voice followed only seconds after. "Forfeit, and I will give you everything you've ever dreamed of. All of those within me will see! I will give you a taste of what I can offer you." With those prophetic words a light blue swarmed and enveloped all of those within Eon, and the ship itself came to a halt in the middle of the sea once more.

Emilia slowly opened her eyes, feeling younger, and looking the part. She sat up quickly as she heard the pattering of rain on a windowpane, as well as the ground outside. She was seated in an all too familiar bed, on an all too familiar night. It was this setting that quickly made her look at Ed who slept in the bed nearby. "This is…is that night." Emilia quickly moved from her bed and as Isamu burst through the window she was quick to hit him right back out with a tackle. Right after doing so She ran for Ed.

"What's going on?" He wondered.

"Ed, hold still." Emilia held her shinobi-zue tight as she looked to the door to the room where Aries would enter, but instead Gallows calmly walked through. "Gallows? But…it's Aries who is meant to be here."

"You do remember me, Emilia?" Gallows wondered with a grin, but the voice he asked her a question in, was not Gallows' at all, but…rather that of Aries. "That's right, you have no memories anymore."

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Jet opened his eyes to find himself floating in a green tube that was prone to make him feel sick. It was all too familiar, and he suffered a phobia of it immediately. It was quickly that he shattered it and fell to a grassy knoll. He looked upwards towards Eliot Enduro.

"Are you all right m'boy?" The older man questioned.

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Carole calmly sat at a kitchen table in her quiet home. She had not been here in sometime. As she felt her hands let go of a coffee mug filled with tea she glanced to the doorway where Emilia had entered with determination on her young face. Carole immediately recognized it as the day that Emilia had actually left to find Clyde.

"Emilia…" The older woman spoke.

"Mother, I have made up my mind. I am grown up now, and I wish to see father once more. I can barely recall what his face looks like." Emilia swallowed some spit out of nervousness. "So…I shall go and find him."

Carole only stared at her, as she found that she had returned to the day that led to her joining with Nobuo. This was when he life truly became unfair. But could she change it to be fair this time?

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"Gallows, we have something to say, son." Virgule Caradine remarked as the child-sized Gallows came to his senses in Baskar Colony. Though this is a long and forgotten memory, Gallows immediately recognized where he was, and what his mother and father would tell him soon enough. This was the day that they left him and his brother behind.

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There, now we're cooking. See, that was unexpected I hope. We knew that Clyde was Jet's brother, but this time we learned that Clyde is also Carole's husband and Emilia's father. I hope it surprised you. It was one aspect of this fan fiction that had not been a part in NDS. Though, it is kind of sad that Clyde was immediately killed off after that, and while one person does come back from the dead seemingly in all of NDS, Clyde is not them. I also liked Inner Eon. But it's hard to describe him. I mean, you just have to imagine a template for a male character, lacking male equipment, and then paint him an eerily light blue, that's sort of glowing, and then paint on swirls of darker blue in random fashion, and add a mouth. It's hard to write. So, the story is all downhill from here, up next, "Confrontation". There are seven chapters to go, and to keep suspense up, I will not post two chapters on the same day again. So be sure to tune into the same NDS channel, at the same NDS time, friends, to see the continuing adventures of the Maxwell Gang!

Sigh…even though I'm too young to actually have been alive when shows had endings like that, I do remember seeing a few old cartoons and Batman episodes to use it.