Such a tumultuous thing, the truth is...in writing a story, its absolution astounds me. Writing a story, for you, the reader, to digest, to read, to think about, leaves me more depraved of energy than you, to read and digest these words should, because simply putting the thought to words and meanings to scribe is more difficult than interpreting. In my self-acclaimed profession, a writer in these times, I find it hard to tell you truth, amongst events narrated in a truthful light.

Because, a story itself, is a story, no matter how based on fact. That purely factual retelling, not even I can represent to you...no words or phrases, short of actually seeing it with your own eyes, could be truth enough, but even then, your eyes could deceive you...put you into a false paranoia and ambition of a situation, which then infers, what would be truth? Who dictates truth? And, as a recurring theme in this "story", is God. He, as commonly thought, is truth. I mean, how could He not be? He is God, after all. But, I am not God, I can't present a story so accurately and so believable in a way as to entertain and also narrate something I feel should be narrated, should be told.

That base on fact though...even that may be out of God's truthful realm. Such as, a fact being that Gears kill humans...but not even that is true fact, such as nothing in my "story" can be considered fact, only a misinterpretation of fact...but is that fact then? The purpose of a story, I believe, my dear reader, is to dissuade fact, present something other than what you know to be true and factual...even presenting a factual event(s), it is in my nature to blur the lines, or else my trappings and self-indignation of being an author is shot, correct? But that, my friends is where fact comes to a screeching halt.

That fact...even the fact in the Bible, is not fact, how can it be? The Bible was written by a man, not God, through God, but not by God. This is not written by anything near the Bible, yet is a telling of a time and story at humanities edge, so it in turn is as influential as the Bible, right? Or maybe it isn't. That fact is something the reader decides, but fact is not decidable...fact is fact. It's a conundrum, a perplexing wheel of "Yes", spinning around to come to "No", then circling back to "Yes". My fact is as much fact as you, the reader, wants it to be...it's a story of chosen fact or not, and with that sort of outlook, I find myself even contesting and questioning the pages of scribbling lying in heaps around me...of this story, of this quest to tell a thing which must be told...

But how fit am I, the author, to tell it? I am not God, how could I be dignified to tell the fact of a time and a place so shrouded in rivers of blood and fogs of fear, that my fact is lost among the faces and bodies of the war. Fact leaves no room for imagination and thought, outside of pure, methodical truth and fact...which this story is purely not, but an interpretation of that fact...this is what the story strives to be, and even that, may be the best of what can be presented to you, since fact is unattainable, so please suffice, dear reader.

To add insult to injury though, how troubling is the fact in our time, our war against Gears and our plight for survival, based off of the founding and finding of something widely considered fiction, a work of fantasy and sorcery; magic. Magic is the devil's work in the Bible, when judgment day comes, God uses his powers and miracles, blessings and good will to fight Satan's magic and sin, angel and devil fighting amongst the behemoths of each world, the clouds of heaven and fires of hell merging, clashes of their powers. And, in old fantasy, magic was something used to conjure up spells and summons, plumes of fire and bursts of lightning from nothing...but, our world, we know magic as what it is, evil. It spawned Gears, but how could it be evil when it was always there...the fact that it has been proven to have existed in every molecule, every atom, every everything, the very fibers of existence itself, but just unharnassed, like magnetism or oil or any sort of resource. Much like iron was inaccessible for being underground, magic was inaccessible for millennia because it was too complicated and involved in using and harnessing it, until science one day found out how.

Is sin an unharnassed variable waiting to be plucked and used, as much as good is, and life itself? The fact that magic exists denies its fictitious roots, calling either the Bible or stories fiction. Yet, called magic as a pet name by founders, by Frederick, it stuck, and with results tremorous, more so than a pet name, as much as Justice's own justice is a constant reminder of how deceiving names are and can be. The fact magic exists...whether it's magic in the true sense, or an intangible source of power, residing in every molecule and atom, as much as hydrogen or oil or electricity is...but the name, magic...it has that alluring distanced self from it, that distinction of fact, not in lush green worlds of elves and dwarves, where warlocks use magic for good and evil, but in a world where magic itself crafts beings that kill humans, and humans harness it in weapons...which really, can't be truly discounted as too far off the old stories, or the Bible's connotations of it, despite its form and function being much different than that of its roots...fact or fiction, my dear reader...

And, back to the story at hand.

The Gears came on unrelentingly, their bodies and swords as one as their gigantic masses hurtled forward onto the human soldiers, both riddled with fear and cuts, their blood spilling anxiety into death, and rousing those left alive into action. Seeing the men next to you cut down...their dying screams echoing in your own head...you either get more scared, and run, or you fasten down your own fear, and you fight, to avenge deaths and to not fall pray to a fate similar to theirs.

Despite folly or error, they succeeded, too. The human morale, the spirit, the continuing perseverance beyond biological boundaries, extending to the mentality, is what made them worthy adversaries to Gears. Gears were stronger, faster, acted as a whole, and killed as a whole. Humans, while not exceeding in any of those traits, had its own role of exceeding variables, the most important one being humanity. The ability to think, plan, dodge that blow, punch that Gear, and come back to the first. Something that Gears couldn't comprehend, couldn't calculate, Siren unable to distribute the facts and figures to the Gears in that sort of way. Not to say Gears were stupid, they did lead a hundred year war against humanity...

But, neither Gear nor human could calculate or wit themselves a victory...that resided in the amount and life of the humans versus the Gears, even insurmountable odds were burnt down by the human flame, as shown in the H.Q., and through the entire war. And, that spirit ran high after a blistering first blow.

The soldiers were scared, petrified, the first few dozen killed without a blink of an eye by swords and hands of Gears, plowing through them, their blood splashed upon the rows behind, jolting them from their glazed state of cattle before the slaughter, into bulls before the red towel. Fear was gone, resolve made, and they themselves acted as a whole, securing their emotions to their job at hand, fighting Gears.

After Sol's introductory attack, the Gears seemed to swoop around him, like a stream around a jutting rock, a few Gears challenging his authority breaking their rush and fell the same fate as their brethren. Despite the soldiers falling behind him, he had no care for them, not moving backwards from the onslaught, and if anything, only forward, into the surge of Gears, like a living wave of enemies.

The Gears tried swiping at him as they ran by, an attack here, blood spilt there, none of it any good. With almost lethal precision and quickness that seemed unearthly, every attack from every side was fended off with the charring clang of reverberating off of his sword, the Gear in contact, by weapon or body, singed and engulfed in flame, running up the length of the weapon touching his, and shooting off with each slash, like a bag of fire being open and slashed around, bits and pieces flying every which way as to the direction it was swung.

The Gears swallowed the defenses behind Sol, standing as a statue of defiance under the pressure, still lazy in his stance with the tip of his sword clanging on the ground in the few moments where he didn't have a Gear on top of him, the cigarette butt in his mouth hanging languidly, the smoke rising from it completely lazily and uncaring of the battle and death around it, like an apathetic sentiment of hell, the burning fires sucked back into those who smoked it, the hell-fires consumed billowing out in purple wisps from the user.

Flying in to his right, the enemy was cut down, the leaping slash met with the dull blade ripping through its abdomen mid flight, Sol only pivoting with his sword to accomplish it, the body cut, blade passing through it before it erupted in flame, hitting the ground and splattering in blood, boiling away under the flames consuming it, flesh eaten to ash, bone bubbling in black stench. The fire stopped as soon as it began, the volcanic burst that came from no where and returned there on slash and defend from the Fuurenken showing that it was a Frederickian weapon. The flames themselves seemed to either billow from the blade, like blowing on it would cloud the flames forward, or they were delayed, in wake of the slash, dictated by the user itself. They shared a bond, user and weapon, how they both interacted, the user and weapon both responding based off of each other. Which is obvious, as we know what happened to Quint when he ran in with the Fuuraiken. The best way to describe the weapons and uhow they react to their users is a horse tamer. Sometimes, a horse will ride as fast as you want it, and all you have to do is giddy up. Others will buck and be violent until you get off, and only tamed by one man, or none at all. It's that sort of ability a sword has with its user that can change it from a blade to a weapon that harnesses its Frederickian roots and crafting.

On his pivot from the dead Gear, the flames spilling around the feet of other Gears, but dying short of their killed adversary on the ground, another attacker flew at him, nearly coinciding with the one before. This one he was unable to attack or dodge, the Gear's lunge knocking him forward and on his side, a Gear in front of him readying for an overhead attack, but received the weight of Sol and the Gear behind him bashing through it, sandwhiched by two Gears and falling backwards. A few Gears behind also fell due to the tackle, Sol quickly standing up, a swift kick to the Gear who had tackled him, crushing jaw to its skull, its own jagged teeth piercing through its cranium and a yelp before it rolled over dead. He stood over the body for a second, a few twitches from the convulsing body, spat on it in a manner of pure hatred and disgust, then turned back to the Gears standing up around him, hissing violently and venomously, bits of spit and saliva dripping from their mouths, tongues lapping through the graveyards of teeth, deformed bones and skulls placed upon deformed bodies, muscle exposed to peeling flesh, and shattered bones nothing but physical embracings to them.

Sol surveyed around him, slowly letting the tip of his sword touch the ground as the Gears enclosed around him slowly. He took a look over his shoulder, the brown mane of hair he had, groomed from years and years of not cutting it, falling past his back, rustling against his vest. His free hand took the cigarette out for a moment, blowing out a plume of smoke before returning it, a smirk on his face. He pointed his finger at a Gear in front of him, flicking a bit of the ash at it, then returning the cigarette. Its eyes flopped over in its head, thinking, when its thoughts transmitted Sol in front of it, a raised fist coming down on it before static engulfed the stream to Justice.

Run, run, run, run, run! Ky's grip tightened over his sword, the blade wisping off little bolts of electricity in each running stride, running along the ground, over rubble and tar, the blue fingers creeping their way up and around, searching and prying as he ran. His hair blew threw the dead night, no moon out, no wind, his helmet thrown off by him earlier. It wouldn't do much in way of helping to stop a Gear from bashing his head in, and it only stopped him from seeing entirely, so he discarded it. In plus, the clouding and hot breath made him a bit claustrophobic.

He ran along the streets, a few soldiers behind him, hearing the grunts and stampedes of Gears behind him, each step clawing into the ground, ripping up the cement in chunks as that foot was thrown forward for another leaping bound. Pieces of buildings were also cascading down to the ground, ripping through the counterpart Gears below, the animalistic types running up and along the sides of buildings over the crowd of Gears that plagued and razed the streets, the chunks of cement killing a few on the way down, but it was of no consequence. They made large leaps, from shattered wreckage of one room to the side of the next building, bashing through some walls, running along the outside, jumping across the street to another building, over one, whatever worked, a magnum opus of agility in the death-dealing amalgamations of science.

A few soldiers trailed behind him, maybe thirty, not more. His initial roster of about two hundred had been cut down at the initial attack, the circling battle before at the sewage pipe exit. He had created an opening out of pure luck, blowing down a few Gears with an attack, due to his sword, and the remainders followed him in the moment of panic and thinking amongst the Gears, them all sitting still for a second, thinking and receiving orders, before pursuing Kiske again.

And here he was, running. The sergeant with the compass and directions had been killed; a Gear had jumped over the ranks in the circle before and skewered him to the cement, before Kiske cut it down. But now, he was running blind, in the direction he thought he should be going. He needed to meet up with another group of humans, anything...he needed more men. And, if he stayed in his position, he would have been killed, so running was the option, despite U.N. mission parameters saying not to. Who gives a damn what the U.N. said to do or not...this is a war, and there are Gears on top of me...

The air rushed past him, his blonde hair being thrown out of his face, bits of sweat beading and running along the strands, flying off to the crushing oblivion behind him, Gears behind in the darkness. Only teeming and swirling red dots circulated behind them, gaining closer every second to show there were Gears, sounds of quiet death and fierce animals on pursuit being a dream like irreverence otherwise.

He was in the relative front of the mass of running soldiers, the thirty or so dwindling fast. A soldier's burst of speed caught up to Kiske, then surpassed him, the frills of his coat being kicked up by the fear induced sprint, the cloth grazing along Kiske's face. But, it was short lived, a Gear from behind leaping up in the air, thirty feet forward and only about teen feet high, it's animalistic nature giving it long extending nails, or bones...just stabbing utensils on each of its fingers and toes, all four manipulators outstretched to pierce the enemy. And it did. The spikes of all four of its palms gashed through the sprinting soldier, exhorting themselves from the front of his shirt, blood an unwanted guest of the preoccupation. He gasped out, taking another step with the Gear's talons through his chest, before he fell flat, the talon scraping along the cement as the body fell into the mass of Gears behind, swallowed by darkness, the only trace that he ever existed the curdling screams, echoing in eternity amongst them.

Ky could hear it all, the screams, pants, everything. The other soldiers were self contained, their helmets screens of reality, holding out a lot of the sounds and sights that the God-given senses would pick up and perceive. Their breaths culminated in the visor of the ask, fogged by their parched mouths and dry throats, their breaths the only solace to keep pushing them as the noise bounded back to their confined ears, a bit claustrophobic, but also allowing them to neither look back and be afraid, but also neither affording them the luxury of looking about and back and going "Shit, they're on top of me! Run faster!" It was a simple natural occurrence, the stupid animals killed by the smart, marred by their own Darwinian deficiencies, and them taken under by the forces around them. Saying goes, put a frog in boiling water, it'll jump out instantly. Put a frog in cold water, it'll sit still. Slowly heat that cold water until it boils, and the frog will remain stationary, boiling to death inside of the pot of water.

Ky pushed forward harder, each step thinking to be his last, not fully recovered from his tour-de-force in Paris, an aching in his left leg, and his back starting to regain some of its feeling from the wearing off effect of the pills. His unsure foot stepped forward in a lazy stride, his body leaned forward to propel his balance off ward, and make him run faster, his sword being a crutch when he needed, and if it got too bad...turn and fight. But, he ran, only kept running, the grunts and breaths of Gears down his spine enough to induce the extra boosts of speed he needed. He had been running full sprint for nearly fifteen minutes, no easy task, but he was in the moment, adrenaline rushing, everything moving at the speed of light yet also slower than a snail...it was glorious, glorious combat.

Then, the thrill stopped, hanged silent in a slow state of reality. Ky didn't know why, his mind shot about, thinking, making decisions, trying to react, but couldn't, only falling forward. He saw the oncoming cement to his face, coming up to him quickly, his fall like the descent of a meteor from the celestial galaxies finding its way to Earth, slow in comparison of how long it needs to get here, but also very fast when considering it is traveling hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.

He turned slightly, his shoulder rolling up on the cement, feeling the armor underneath grate against the cloth, ripping down the grain of the woven intricacies of the new blue-trimmed commander uniform. He now knew it, felt it, didn't need to say it; he tripped. Rubble, a body, nothing, he didn't know, but he fell, and now he was scrambling, hands reaching, feet trying to push him up but only scraping along the surface of the road slicked in dried blood.

The patter of boots passed him, the soldiers running unaware of the fallen commander, darkness and their helmets denying them that privilege. Finally, Ky stood with a limp in his leg he shook off as he tried to sprint ahead, the darkness holding the trail of the last Seikishidan soldiers in the back of its cavernous mouth, waiting to swallow. Ky ran harder, eyes closing as sweat beaded off of his furrowed eyebrows, his free hand wiping his head. Looking back up, he ran harder at his only shred of life and shred of salvation, that Seikishidan soldier he could vaguely see ahead. But, it seemed even the darkness, which sent its agents against the moon, and was helping Justice, was a morose and darkly humorous fellow, snapping its jaws shut over the trail of the last soldier, Ky's eyes deceiving him as only nothing was in front of him. But, there was plenty behind him.

"No..." he breathlessly gasped as he ran. "No!" he screamed now, his pace increasing to catch up, his echoes returning to him in stabbing points, his own breaths stabbing at his kidneys, his eyes stabbing shut, and an inevitable stab from a Gear behind. He sprinted harder, his gasps coming like clenched fists of pain, his hands tightening over themselves, the leather in his palms screeching in anger, his own blade glowing a brighter dull blue, the shattered fragments of light bounding off of it and sprouting out fingers of electricity lighting up his pursuers in an awkward azure light, there for only a second before captured by darkness again, as if the darkness sunk into form of the Gears under presence of light and then morphed back to its vacuous nothing once it was gone.

But, Ky knew they were there. He could hear those gasps...haggard gasps from broken jaws and lips, following command to kill, he could feel their hot breaths down the back of his neck, and he pushed harder, only feeling them get closer and closer. He shut his eyes and pumped his arms harder, legs slowly turning to irons under him, eyes clenched and running with a wide mouth sucking in air as he gasped it as fast as he could, sprinting further, before he felt a crunch on his shoulders.

Something hit him square between his shoulder blades, the sewed injury bleeding through its ribbons by the sudden hit, Ky screaming in a yelp of pain before toppling forward from the hit upon him. He fell forward, hand gripped on his own sword, left hand in front of him, his face buried in his elbow, his right hand forward, meeting the tar first, his glove being ripped, the synthetic leather ripped shred from shred as he slid forward, withering down to his knuckles, a few layers ofskio equally ripped off, a bloodied hand resulting from it, and no lost sword, still firmly in his grip. He heard Gears trampling behind him, almost on him, then a thud in front, the attacking Gear hitting the ground in front of him from its leaping strides where it knocked Kiske.

It turned as soon as it landed, one so much on instinct, a talon off of its foot was implanted into the ground from the massive landing, and on the turn, ripped from the skin and bone connected, cracking in a disgusting squelch of old blood, but it didn't seem to even know or care. It took one step forward, brought an arm up to attack, then fell backwards, its hand instinctively grabbing at its gut, then falling with a dry thud as it fell back on the previously left talon, dead by the time it touched the ground. A slash across its gut showed the mark, a littered blue virus or infection of electricity brimming from the incision, boiling the innards, running up along and through, underneath and above the skin, withering and turning black, caught up by the dull wind, twitching then just going dead, the blue light ceasing its mortality-stealing romp.

Shit, get up! Ky took a look down, then got to his feet, and started to sprint, left hand skipping the ground as his balance was off, right hand trying to grab onto something in the air to stabilize himself, his legs pumping hard for speed but also forcing his head on a collision course with the ground. Eventually, he tripped, a small piece of rubble from a building over head, the rock fragments thrown out when the body inside had been, a man trying to protect his family, and was thrown right through a wall and down four stories, the decaying body next to the rubble and the envisioned action of how he died four weeks old, but playing in Kiske's mind when he saw how things were strewn about. Ky fell over the small hill of rocks, tumbling over one side. He tried getting up and running, but couldn't, his foot was trapped underneath a rock that had taken the roll with him over the top of the eight foot hill, and had found a nice resting place between his ankle and the covered side of the hill.

He looked around quickly and sporadically, waiting for a Gear blade to stab and kill him, yanking at his own leg, just as ready to chop it off and run on a stump than left here to be picked off. His eyes scanned the darkness, seeing nothing, the blue hues of his own sword dyed off, his hand now groping at his own ankle as the blade lied next to him, the hilt resting across his upper leg. He could hear them, they were close...so close, maybe on top of him, those breaths and trudges of their awkward, muscular feet and legs, ridden with death and pestilence, as well as an unholy power, one that was unchartered by emotion or care, one that only served to do what it was told. He pulled harder, knowing they were near, hearing them, he thought he felt the breath of one behind him, a glance into the darkness revealing nothing, afraid to leave his front side open for a second, another glance of nothing. By his third hard tug at his leg, he noticed something...the rumbling. He could hear it in front of him, to the sides of him...but past him? He heard the footsteps of Gears raking along the ground, cracking it and splintering it, their husky bodies swaying in each step with each open-mouthed, slack-jawed breath...but they were getting fainter in the distance, as the other hundreds (he couldn't tell how many) passed by him, them unaware of him.

...How! They don't know I'm here...they must have lost me, they can't tell I'm here! God has his blessings! But, don't waste time, keep working, don't use this blessing like a completion of everything, it's only a step. Go on, get out, hurry, before they realize what happened to you. The programming...must have lost me, and they continued on their objective, thinking I kept running forward, or assumed I got killed...I don't know, but I can't waste time to find out, please God, give me the time to get out of this, here, something. Work, damnit! Start moving, pursue, kill them!

Ky took one last look at the sky before reaching down to the crushing rubble on his foot. The moon was emerging its veil of darkness, the sheet of night and midnight cloud breaking, the bonds of slavery to Lucifer's enrapturement whittled by time, letting it come back out to shine down unmercifully upon dead and alive, as its brethren the sun has and did. Slowly, the covering coat of clouds seemed to form and wisp away into the night, like a wall that was cut down and flowed off along a river, lit dimly on the edges and frills of its transport by the shimmering silver.

"Ever seen a moon like that?" Bianca asked slowly, sitting with her legs hanging, hands secured with palms on the edge, fingers dangling, her eyes locked upward.

"...I actually have." Quint returned, removing his stare at her to the moon. "Though, not in a long time, back in Tibet."

"A year ago, you'd say?" she asked, looking back over at him with an air of curiosity.

"'Bout." He responded mildly. He sat carefully, his shattered collarbone on his left not much for support, so leaning on his right, which despite a deep gash across the shoulder was about functional. "Bianca...I want to thank you." Quint said after a sigh. She looked over at him with a new curiosity, one more intrigued than before, a wry smile on her face urging a because she didn't need to say. He smiled briefly before sighing; looking out upon Troy, then back at her.

"For this. Troy. You brought me here, you're the reason I am here...I have everything to thank of you." She blushed slightly, looking back out at the city reflecting at them.

Troy was bathed in a perceiving moonlight, one breaking free of chains of guilt. The dim yellow lights of technology and self-sustained generators and reactors spread underground and hanging atop the massive Babylonian towers giving them life, strips of that light running up and down from the sky to the darkened streets below, in a blanket of darkness, the feet of a giant always being in its shadow. The lights above, stretching to the reaches of their sight, rivaled the few stars they could see, the twinkling white veering for sky space with the yellow distant lights of small rooms and offices of upper Troy. The small catwalks like webs linking building to building, for support and transportation, had hanging lights in strips, that arced as did the suspension wires holding them, looking like a stringed piece of glittering gold in the sky, linking two stars that couldn't be reached as if to say "You and me...linked".

"...Is this gonna work?" Bianca asked timidly, her feet dangling slightly, head doing the same. They both sat on top of Bianca's apartment, the top of the third floor what was a fourth floor, that had been renovated with steel pillars and inch-thick wire suspension, leaving a space of about four feet between the new and old Troy above her, which they went up, crouched underneath, walked to the edge, and then sat underneath the building top. From the top of the building, covered in small pebbles of gravel, she could just sit and look at Troy, the vast city in every detail from a moderate perch. The four foot space between the fourth floor and the upper Troy was separated by the bottom of the building above, a thick steel that had its fair share of graffiti and dents, but couldn't be broken, using her building as a step to hold itself higher.

"What?" Darton asked, caught off guard by the question.

"How is this going to work between us?" she asked seriously, looking straight at him. He took a deep breath, looking around, then back at her.

"It won't be too hard. I mean, we take every day as it comes, right?" She only looked at him with more intent, a very solemn and serious glance chiseled into her smooth and effeminate features. "Well...what do you want me to say, Bianca? I don't have a place, I just got here."

"Not that, I don't mean that."

"I don't got a job."

"Not that."

"What." He said more than asked.

"...Us." She said rather at a whisper. "...After the talk we had earlier in the bar, I've been thinking...I don't know what to do, really. I have these mixed feelings..."

"For what?" Quint asked intently, but with enough reality and passion behind it to not be a redundant and idiotic question.

"Ugh, Quint...I don't know if I can trust you...well, not that. We've already spilt our shit to each other, it's not past or background...I can't trust people, I never have, I never could. I've always been an orphan, with friends to help me out when I needed it, but I never needed it, I always got my own way by because of what I did, and I can't live any other way, it's not right to me..."

"I'll protect you." Quint said very seriously and monotone.

"I don't need protection" she protested, trying to find words to her problem.

"I'll be there for you, then." He said very matter-of-factly.

"No..."

"I will always be there for you, Bianca." She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it, looking down, then at the night sky, the beams of silver shining through the buildings and fighting the unnatural light filtering through the silver in warlike counter arrows of a different color, marking territory. She finally sighed, looking back down at Darton.

"Always?" she whispered, looking at him intently.

"I said always." He replied with a smile. "You hardly knew me, and you brought me here, out of faith...I owe you, I owe you big."

"...No, you don't. I just wanted someone, and you seemed like a good choice, I didn't expect you to come, I wanted someone, somebody there..."

"...So did I." He muttered back to her. She smiled slowly, then leaned over to him, their sitting positions next to each other, both looking ahead, accommodating a different one, Quint's right arm around Bianca who leaned on his chest. She looked out at the sky scrapers and small webs of pathways and the high walls of Troy, falling like play pens in comparison to the height of the massive towers, but still high enough to defend from invasion. She blinked a few times, shuddering a little, nerves racked and brittle.

Slow down, girl...you'll be alright, don't worry, it's okay, you'll be fine...with him. He said he'll be there, he's got no where to go, right? He'll be there, don't be afraid...don't be afraid...just sleep, be comfortable, for once...you've got something, someone, just stick with it...

Quint had a different idea on his mind. His right hand had Bianca by her right shoulder, her left leaning into him, his thumb rubbing up and down her arm in a methodical movement, her own warmth and body near his just enough of a sensation to keep him at full alert...but his mind wasn't at full alert. He had an amalgamation, a war running through his head...and that moon, that damn moon, something's wrong, I know it, I only seen that moon when bad things happen...don't screw this one up for me, God. You did too much shit in the past, I don't like you, I don't really believe in you God, but if you fuck this up...if you get in this one, with Bianca, with me...you won't sleep a day until I find you, you won't do anything with us, you will not, I won't let you...

"I'll be there for you, Bianca..." he whispered in a low voice, his head dipping down to hers, and softly kissing her forehead before looking back up at that midnight moon. I'll be there for you, Bianca...I failed my brother, I failed my family, I even failed Ky Kiske, now that I'm dead, now that I'm here...I won't not be there for anyone else. I won't live in the fear or shadow of a life gone by, nor in that fear that if something happens, I'd be unable to protect myself or the ones I love...no, never again, not in Troy...I'll protect you if I need to, Bianca...I'll be there for you, I'll protect you, from anyone, even from God..."

Zeronova's Notes:
Wow...150k. 30 Chapters. That's an accomplishment, one hell of an accomplishment, and only 57k more until I am the winner of longest GG story (Damn you, Talon! I shall yet hold that title!). But, in all honesty, this really is something far and beyond what I thought I'd be doing when I started doing a bit of DG dabbling back in May 2004...that 30 chapters, 150k later, I'd be going strong and healthy, Desolate Gail...and wow, how it is coming. It's coming alright, and it's going to finish too, oh baby is it. I'd like to take this time to thank some people though.

Samuraiter, for being about the only person who knows what happens in DG anyways since of all the ideas we bounce off of each other, and being a good person to just have a good conversation with. Still awaiting a review, but hey, how many times did Halo 2 get pushed back, and it was still good.

P.W.M.A., jeez, you've been with DG since the original, you knew all of the turns and twists up to about THIS point right NOW, so this is where I get to spook you out. Thanks for being a consistent reviewer, and well, a GG fan. Now that you've got OCOS in the running and are using the type of GG I like (harsh reality), plus our little ideas for the future, it'll be awesome to see what we get out of these next few months, from each of our stories and our ideas.

TWH, a new reviewer, but a good, long reviewer. Your story's coming along slowly but surely, it's got a lot going behind it, it just needs some steam behind the drive to get it posted and written. Can't wait to see what comes out of you in the future, and thanks for being a reader.

KR2, for being the rival with which the original DG competed.

Nik Hasta, for being another good reviewer, and for not being a total ass in my review of your story (which wasn't too nice of me). You took it well, and then pulled a great mature thing and really went the full mile on being a reviewer and good kind of guy.

Lone Wolf/Sheo Darren...you two, while not really reviewers of my stuff, have been in the GG running ever since us oldies died out (before our resurfacing, kinda), and with each of your third installments winding up, it seems like you both have just been around a while, without much of interaction between us. Though, a nod of that of course to fellow writers.

And, to my family/friends, whom I shamefully neglected and put through hell when writing this, both for the periods of "I'M ON THE COMPUTER, LEAVE ME ALONE!", and the all-nighters with WinAmp blasting to wake up two hours later and go to school, but thanks for what it is worth (such as Danai waking me up in A.P. U.S. History...).

Whoever else I missed, sorry, but this is only about halfway! Don't worry, plenty more a-coming! We have the end of Arc II coming up around Chapter 40 (ha, yeah, right, try about 55), then we head into the final arc, which will be about 10-15 chapters, ending on such a high note and with such ferocity as to leave you stunned, appalled, in a general stupor, and terrified, yet begging for more! On the way from DESOLATE GAIL, DUN DA DUN DAAAAAAAA! (I love 50's advertising...).
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