Episode Five

Confessions And Stories

Tyler was surprised - both with his own resilience, and with his companion's behavior. Anna had been nice to him since he got here, and though they had a few arguments now and again, they both helped and coordinated with each other over the last few months. Cancer research went swimmingly. Everything was going so well. Every test had the same results. Tyler already knew it would - he had done this before. He had been working against the clock, himself, long ago. Four hundred years in a radioactive hell with carbon monoxide in the air everywhere had its effects - Cancer was just one of many. So Tyler didn't blame her for keeping her own battle with cancer to herself. He'd been there before. Not wanting anyone to know how desperate he was. Interesting that Anna was in the same boat. More and more, the will of the Force was made clear. He was meant to meet her. And she was meant to meet him, it seemed. They had a lot in common - intelligence and wisdom beyond their years, similar battles against time and a then-incurable disease, a desire to help each other. Tyler couldn't help but chuckle at it.

And this evidently got Anna's attention. "What's so funny?" she asked. She lay next to him, her arms wrapped around him, gently squeezing him and keeping him close. Of course, they both saw what this also meant - they both had grown close, so close that they were comfortable sleeping in the same bed. That's why Anna got it. It never sat right with her how Tyler always slept on the floor. He kept telling her he'd slept in worse conditions. But she wanted him to be more comfortable. He couldn't deny her hospitality. And her selflessness was bar none. For a dragoness that worked to cure herself of an incurable disease, her demeanor over the last few months was rather ironic - contrary to what others had said of her. Even Damion admitted she was selfish. Yet here she was, willingly sharing a bed with Tyler and looking after him as he recovered from what should have been fatal injuries.

"Just thinking about how far we've come in such a short space of time," Tyler told her. Anna smiled and chuckled, herself.

"You call four months short?" she jested. The others had since left the apartment, so Tyler and Anna both didn't worry about eavesdroppers. Bryce returned prior to nightfall, offering to have some officers posted here as security. It was a big risk, with MJ12 running amok somewhere. They knew Tyler was here, and on the off-chance that they knew where he was staying, Tyler armed the officers guarding the complex with his own weapons, called up from his transporter buffers. Disruptors, he called them. Powerful weapons. He gave them the best crash course on firearms he could, given his present condition. So, with a new sense of security, Anna slipped into bed next to Tyler, keeping him close. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed. She shifted, and Tyler sensed she wanted to say something. Such as it was, he didn't have to press. "Tyler... with what happened, I... I never realized I meant so much to you. So much that you'd sacrifice yourself for me."

Not quite what I expected, but still accurate, Tyler thought. "I do care about you, Anna. I was not going to let you be a casualty of my war," he told her.

"And because of that... I think you deserve to know the truth," Anna said. "There was a reason I was pushing so hard with our cancer research."

"You have cancer, yourself. I know. Admittedly, I'd known for a while," Tyler said. Anna gasped quietly, but then almost immediately settled down.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"Hints. Clues. Things you said. First hint was when you came in physical contact with me, that night we met in the alley, when you tried to wake me up. I felt in you what I once had. You telling me we were trying to cure cancer was the final confirmation. You had your reasons for keeping that from me, and I respected them. Even though I knew already, I understood your desire to keep it from others," Tyler explained. A moment of silence followed before Anna made her response.

"So you had Cancer, just as I do now. That's how you knew how to attack it. You had done so before." She chuckled softly. "How ironic that we both kept secrets from one another. Under different circumstances, there'd be arguments between us right now." She paused, then added, "But we are not like that. We know better. But if this..." she indicated herself and Tyler. "... if this is gonna work out, we need to be open and honest with each other."

"Like I said - we've come a long way in a short time. And on that note, you might want to check the pocket in my cloak, left side," Tyler told her. Anna looked up and saw the coat hanging on Tyler's computer chair. Amazingly, it emerged from that incident unscathed. Anna got up, went to the cloak, and checked the left-side inner pocket. She felt something - a small...

"Is this what I think it is?" she asked. She retrieved the item, and saw it was a hypospray, loaded with a proper dose of the nanoprobes they were using to fight cancer. Enough to completely eradicate her own late-stage cancer. She looked to Tyler.

"Snagged it from the lab before we left, and Damion covered our tracks there," Tyler said with a smile. Anna looked clearly elated. Tyler couldn't blame her; first he protects her from a band of bandits, then coordinates with her on her research, helps her make the breakthrough she's been hoping for, gets the council to agree to this path, then saved her from an explosion and then a sniper's bullet, and now he's given her their cure for cancer so she doesn't have to go through anyone else. Hell, she looked thrilled. She was quick to inject herself, then return to bed with him. This time, she held him a little closer than before, her smile even bigger.

"There's so much more beneath this soft, cuddly skin, isn't there?" she asked. Tyler smiled.

"Always was. That's my greatest strength - my complete unpredictability. Few know what I'm capable of, even among MJ12," he said.

"That man, though - the one that confronted me after the explosion. He called you a Jedi," Anna said.

"Did he?" Tyler asked. He scoffed. "Shows how much they know. I'm no Jedi. Never was. Never claimed to be."

"That's true - you never mentioned that to me. But if you're not a Jedi, what are you?" Anna inquired.

"If you spoke to anyone from my home world, they'd tell you the color of my lightsabers indicate one thing - Sith," Tyler explained. "The ancient enemies of the Jedi. Sith used the Dark Side, Jedi used the Light. Both shunned the powers of the other. And they were always perpetually at war with one another."

"So which are you?" Anna asked. Tyler leaned his head on hers.

"I am neither. Neither Sith nor Jedi. Yet I use both sides of the Force, never shunning either side of the spectrum," he told her. "Both sides have their uses. Both sides have limitations."

"Is that how you survived that explosion?" Anna asked.

"Part of that was the energy shield I was wearing. Outside of that... all I can tell you is that the Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural," Tyler responded.

"So the Force keeps you alive? Kept you alive all these years?" Anna asked.

"Indeed," Tyler affirmed. "Among other things. Some of it is the Force, some a unique effect the Nuclear Fallout had on me, some was an unintended side-effect the nanoprobes had on me. All points to me - and now you, it seems - living eternal."

"Funny. Never dreamed I would find a way to live forever," Anna chuckled.

"Nor did I," Tyler agreed. "But whatever the reason, we do. But take my advice - this is one detail you'll want to keep away from others. Trust me, that can attract all the wrong kinds of attention."

"No argument here," Anna said. She lifted her snout up to plant a tender kiss on his cheek. "Amazing how comfortable you are, laying next to me. You ever..." she stopped herself, remembering Tyler had spent most of his life on the run or at war. "... right. You never had a chance to sleep next to a human woman, let alone a dragoness as I."

"You'd be the first female, dragon or otherwise, to take any kind of interest in me. Period," Tyler told her. He heaved a sigh. "I had to stay away from most people. Admittedly, the night we met, I was prepared to live on the fringe. I was just gonna stay at your house one night and be gone just before dawn. But then... there was you. The dragoness who impulsively offered me a place to live in exchange for my cooperation. I was tempted to say no, but then... I don't understand why, but I agreed. Something told me this was my chance to live the life I could have had before MJ12 came along and wrecked everything."

"Don't you find it odd, though?" Anna asked. "You're now sharing a bed with a female. A female that clearly has a... romantic interest in you. And it's only been a few months."

"Some people would find it odd..." Tyler admitted.

"... And how do you find it...?" Anna inquired with a smile.

"... Overdue," Tyler said. "Remember, I've been alone most of my life, Anna; I never knew the joys of companionship. Or romance. That kind of solitude can erode a man's sanity over time. And my time alone has been a very long one."

"Thankfully, yours wasn't," Anna chuckled softly.

"Says who?" Tyler countered. There was a pause before he added, "My dear Anna, there are days I question my sanity. Do I truly sound sane? Do I act such? Do my words ring true? Or do people just politely smile and nod?"

"Valid points; but one thing I know as a doctor and a scientist, is that crazy people don't realize they're going insane," Anna explained, "You have the clarity of mind to ask such questions, and you have the clarity to wonder if you truly are sane. Crazy people don't think the way you do."

Tyler chuckled softly, leaning his head on Anna's. "You truly are an amazing woman, Anna," he complimented her. Anna smiled at the compliment.

"Thank you," she said, squeezing a bit tighter.

{{{{{ }}}}}

Tyler woke the next morning to find Anna was not at his side like she was when he fell asleep the previous night. He heard sizzling from the kitchen, and the distinct sounds of a coffee pot, and after a few moments, heard Anna's voice humming. Was she...? A grumble in Tyler's stomach interrupted his thoughts, and he lacked the strength to get up. Slowly, memories of the previous night surfaced in his head, and his sleep-addled mind slowly recognized the demeanor of a pleased, happy woman that his Force awareness sensed.

Hnh. Next thing I know, I'll be calling her my girlfriend, Tyler thought. The instant he thought that, he felt... odd. Light-headed. Could have been the blood loss from the previous day, or the lack of food - or it could be his subconscious wasn't against the idea of a dragoness as her as his girlfriend. Or his wife. Hnh. They'd already been living together for a few months. Would it really be so bad? After all these years, to have a lover? And a dragon lover, to boot - the one creature he had a soft spot for. A dragoness. The Force worked in mysterious ways, it seemed - but there were times that Tyler wasn't convinced it didn't have a sense of humor. All these years, wanting a companion, a lover - a woman that understood him, and that woman ended up being a creature that, officially, humankind said didn't exist. How ironic.

Tyler's thoughts were interrupted when Anna poked her head in the door. "You're awake," she commented. "I was starting to worry breakfast would be cold by the time you woke up."

"Truth told, I'm used to waking up to my night..." Tyler stopped when he realized he didn't have a nightmare last night. He pointed to Anna and asked, "... How did you do that?"

"How'd I do what?" Anna asked innocently.

"Don't pull that on me," Tyler said. "You kept my nightmares at bay last night - how?" Anna seemed to take it in her stride, and crawled across the bed, putting a hand on Tyler's cheek and affectionately flicking her tongue over his nose.

"Just chalk it up to the effect a dragoness has on the Dragonborn," she told him. "Admittedly, I didn't think I could do that. But I think that's one thing the Force allowed me to do - calm your raging soul. I suspect that's another reason we met."

"Don't tell me you're a believer, now, too, are you?" Tyler asked.

"And what if I am?" Anna countered with a toothy smile. "Even as a scientist, I know there are things that science can't explain."

"Interesting to hear you say that," Tyler said. Anna just chuckled.

"The unfortunate byproduct of a human influence..." She leaned in and briefly kissed Tyler on the lips. "... Dragonborn." She then got to her feet with a smile, and headed back into the kitchen. Tyler could smell the bacon, now - and the eggs. And hints of cubed ham. Any other person would ask if she was making an omelet - but Tyler's mind was elsewhere.

Kissed by a dragoness, he thought. Tyler couldn't get his mind off it - she really was interested in him. But could he afford to have romantic attachments at this time? He didn't know. At the same time, however, he realized he already had taken steps to protect her - from fighting with MJ12 agents disguised as police, to protecting her from agents wanting to take her alive and finally to pushing her clear of the blast radius of a bomb meant for him. Why not formalize what evidently already has taken place? He remembered the vision; he knew she was in danger. And he took it upon himself to protect her. As a result, he stuck by her side, and helped her develop a nanomechanical cure for cancer, and he even secured that cure just for her. The end result, clearly, was that in those months, he had grown attached to her, though Tyler wasn't quite ready to say they were in love. Neither of them were. But they had all the classic signs - only thing that remained was that they tell each other how they feel.

Eventually, Anna came back into the room, and helped Tyler to his feet. Surprisingly, Tyler could still walk - though he was unsteady on his feet. The bullet wound in his shoulder still throbbed, but Tyler ignored it. She sat him down at the table, where she then placed in front of him, what he suspected she was cooking - an omelet. Tyler was surprised at how good it was, but had gone no more than halfway before the doorbell rang. Anna looked irritated, and went to answer, when Tyler heard her voice and another familiar voice.

"Bryce? Is something wrong?" Anna asked.

"Is Tyler able to walk?" Bryce asked back.

"Barely," Anna responded.

"Hm... well, he's needed - the council wants to see him," Bryce said. "It's urgent."

"Urgent? Is he in trouble?" Anna queried.

"I don't know - they didn't give me any details," Bryce admitted. Anna returned, with Bryce in tow, and Tyler looked up at the dragon.

"I'm the last person that's gonna keep the council waiting," he told him.

"Can you sense anything?" Bryce asked. Tyler closed his eyes, and reached out with the Force. He felt fear, curiosity, and apprehension - but nothing indicating he would be exiled or punished in any way.

"As best I can sense, the council wants to know what I know," Tyler finally said.

"Good enough," Bryce said with a determined smile. "Come on - you can ride my back. I'm not gonna make you walk all the way to the council chambers." Tyler nodded, downed as much of the omelet as he could, and with Anna's help, climbed up on Bryce's back. "Hnh... you're lighter than I thought."

"Thanks," Tyler chuckled. "I used to weigh a lot more than this." Bryce laughed as they got moving. When they got to the council chambers, they were met outside by Emera, the Minister of Culture and Arts.

"So you're the Dragonborn everyone's been talking about," she said. "I must admit, I was almost certain you wouldn't survive yesterday's incident. I'm glad you did, though. I know for a fact Anna would have been devastated."

"I've survived worse things than that bomb, Minister," Tyler told her. "And for the record, my name is Tyler."

"I know what your name is; I just wanted to make you feel more comfortable by using the title the people gave you," the Minister said.

"Minister, what's this about?" Anna asked.

"It's about your friend's future here," Emera said bluntly. She looked to Tyler. "It's nothing personal, Tyler - and you're not in trouble. It's just that the people are worried - and that worries the council."

"I suspected as much," Tyler stated. "Two brawls are easy enough to keep quiet - a bomb attack, not so much. I think it time you all know the truth about the enemy we both face."

Emera nodded. "Then we are agreeing," she said. She looked to Anna. "Why don't you stay at his side? It'll be easier for him to tell his story with you around."

Anna just smiled, then responded, "Thought you'd never ask." Remy approached Emera's side, paused to give Anna and Tyler a smile and a nod, before whispering something in Emera's ear. Emera nodded, then spoke,

"Council's waiting for us - Tyler, Anna, come with me, please," Anna gently grabbed hold of Tyler, and supported him as they walked into the council chambers. Anna sat Tyler down at the podium on the floor level, and sat in an adjacent chair, still nervous. Arrayed before them in podiums looming over them were the seats of Emera, Minister of Culture and Arts; Haman, Minister of Healthcare and Medicine; Drake, Minister of Civilian Affairs; Alice, Minister of Defense; and Grace, Minister of Foreign Policy.

"You are Tyler Horgus, yes?" Grace began.

"That is correct," Tyler affirmed.

"And you know why we summoned you here?" Alice asked.

"I know the basic gist," Tyler admitted.

"Be assured, we bear no ill will toward you; you are not being tried for anything," Grace reassured Tyler.

"And we have the greatest appreciation for your selfless and no less heroic act yesterday," Alice added. "None of us have ever seen anyone who can take an explosion like that and survive."

"But this Majestic Twelve you describe poses a clear and present danger to our world," Drake said officiously. "If we are to coordinate in combating this threat, we need information."

"We need to know what you know," Haman said calmly.

Tyler shook his head. This was not what they wanted. What they said was what they already had - they already knew how Majestic Twelve had goals of world domination, how they'd been recruiting dragons, and how they made terrorist strikes. They had the picture that Majestic Twelve sought to use fear and intimidation to seize control of everything. No, what they were asking for was how Tyler knew them. They wanted to see if he could be trusted. "No," he finally said. Emera was the first to respond:

"Tyler, there's no need to fear us; we just-"

"What you ask of me is what you already have - it's in your reports and in your heads, all the dates, incidents, the basic gist of the enemy we face; what you want, what you really need, is a story. You want to know if I can be trusted," Tyler said.

"Stories can be true or false," Drake said.

"I leave such judgments to you, councilors," Tyler stated.

"Proceed, mister Horgus," Emera said. Tyler sat back as he began,

"Our story begins, as these stories often do, with a young, up-and-coming businessman-turned politician. On the surface, he's a deeply religious man, and a member of the Conservative Party. What lies beneath, however, a side of this man few ever see and fewer still ever survive seeing, is the mind of a complete sociopath; he's totally single-minded, and has no regard for the lives of his fellow man or political process. The more power he attains, the more obvious his zealotry, and the more aggressive his supporters become. He paints his group as majestic and righteous, enticing others to believe they are the answer to the world's problems. Eventually, his party launches a special project in the name of national security; at first, it's believed to be a search for biological weapons, and it's pursued without any regard to it's cost." Tyler sat up before continuing, "This, councilors, is where, like these stories go, the Hero enters; he develops certain abilities, can do things his fellow man cannot, and has this power in his very blood, as it's later revealed through blood work. Our politician's group approaches our hero, offering him a cozy position in the project, trying to offer our hero what they think he's been seeking most of his life up to that point - but our hero refuses, sensing something is off with this group. So begins the war, between our hero and this shadowy group. Most would imagine such a war impossible to fight alone, but this hero does so anyway, during which he discovers that the real aim of this project is power - complete and total hegemonic domination. The project in question, however, ends violently, as our hero succeeds in ending it, and is branded a terrorist for it; unfortunately, the efforts of those involved was not in vain, and a new way to wage war is born from the blood of one of the victims." Tyler leaned on the podium, almost in a sinister fashion. "Now, imagine a virus - the most terrifying and virulent virus you can, and then imagine that you, and you alone, hold the cure. But, if your ultimate goal is power, then how would you best use such a weapon? It's at this point, in our story, that along comes a spider. He is a man seemingly without conscience, for whom the ends always justify the means, and he is the man who suggests that the target should not be an enemy of the country, but rather the country itself. Three targets are chosen to maximize the effect of the attack - a school, a train station, and a water treatment plant. Several hundred die within the first few weeks." Tyler sat back. "Fueled by the media, fear and panic spread quickly, fracturing and dividing the country until, at last, the true goal comes into view. Before the Grey Death crisis, no one would have predicted the results of the election that year - no one - and then, not long after, lo and behold, a miracle. Some believed it was the work of God, himself, but it actually was a pharmaceutical company, controlled by certain party members, which made them all obscenely rich." Tyler paused to take a breath. "A year later, several extremists are identified, captured, tried, convicted, and executed, in a highly-publicized event, while a memorial was built to canonize their alleged victims. But the end result, the true genius behind this grand master plan was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool of this government, and through it, our businessman-turned politician was ultimately elected by the people to the highest office in America, the Presidency." Tyler paused to scoff, almost scornfully. "Most would assume that this would be the end of the story, and the rest, as they say, would be history; but fortunately, this is not the end, as our hero remained active in the shadows. Having already been branded a terrorist, he had to duck out of the spotlight and vanish, and most on our politician's group believed him dead - which allowed the hero to work unhindered. His friends were safe, at least for the moment, and he was appalled and disgusted with this group, with the fear they spread. They tried to draw him out with those executions, because they felt he would rush to the rescue of these people; the trials, the events, the executions, were all publicized to draw him out, but our hero had accepted long ago that the good of the many often outweighed the needs of the few. Trouble with that approach is, as you might understand, that one eventually runs out of people to sacrifice, especially when facing long odds on one's own." Tyler shifted in his chair. "But, after the executions, the party believes that the hero would no longer pose a threat, having learned this via intercepted messages and communiques that the enemy never realized had been read. This meant that our hero had better odds, however slight, at beating this enemy that took innocent lives for seemingly no reason. So our hero goes on the offensive, spreading the truths he'd discovered over the years. The public is understandably disgusted, and cries for justice; however, our hero only had theories and conjectures at the time, nothing to compel an impeachment inquiry - in response, our politician, outraged our hero is still alive, orchestrates a number of incidents, and tries to pin the blame on our hero. Our hero, while having no proof of the now President's crimes, has more than enough evidence of his own innocence, and the public cries for blood. Just as our politician had gained so much power, and tried to change the laws so he could stay in office indefinitely, he was starting to lose it - and there we have the lesson that all who gain power are afraid to lose that power." Tyler popped his neck before taking a breath to continue, "It is at this point in our story that things change - the public begins to see the dark side of their president, and the more he tries to defend himself and his party, the guiltier he looks; however, without evidence, which this party has expertly controlled, they cannot simply impeach him and charge him with the same crimes he tried to pin on our hero, and our hero is hailed as a hero for the first time. But with a Tyrant in power, our hero continues to stay out of the spotlight until he is certain the tyrant can't pick his nose without someone knowing about it. Then, the next election comes along, and our politician is voted out of office by a landslide in what is termed as the most important election of the century. But this is not where the story ends, either, as our politician had a contingency for this very event, a contingency our hero knew nothing about. The politician and his group vanished, and thought gone for good - but they deployed a virus, a computer virus, that subtly hacked into every nuclear missile silo in the world, and aimed the nukes everywhere, at every major population center they could target, starting with Washington, D.C. The result was that, on the eve of the new President being sworn in, the day our hero was due to receive a medal and felt he could finally settle down, the world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation; not only that, but every volcano on the planet, by means even our hero never understood, was set off, like a giant time bomb, and the world was covered in clouds of ash and soot. Only our politician's group, locked away in bunkers they'd constructed in the years before and during our politician's presidency, and a few groups of survivors, were able to survive the blast. Those outside the blast zones built walls - that never helped. It was then that this group identified themselves as Majestic Twelve, and they began recruiting, or enslaving, anyone they could find. Our hero continued to wage his war against them, saving those he could, for four centuries, until they mysteriously vanished. A few years, give or take, after they disappear, our hero stumbles across one of their facilities, and learns that his enemy went to another world, to try and do to that world what they did to the hero's world. So, with a sense some might call vengeance but our hero calls duty, he followed them through, and here the hero sits before you, telling his story." Tyler sat up straight. "Our politician? A man named Robert Page. His lieutenant? Walter Simons. And our hero? Well, he sits before you - one Tyler Horgus."

A long, uncomfortable pause follows this long-winded story. Finally, Emera spoke, "Can you prove any of this?"

"I wouldn't be telling you any of it if I couldn't at this point," Tyler answered. He tapped his gauntlets.

"Tyler," Alice asked, "Why didn't you tell us any of this before?"

"Because, Minister, at the time, it was not your war to fight," Tyler responded. "I did not want to involve you in my conflict unless I had no other choice, and even now, I wonder if it really is a good idea."

"Good idea or not, we need you," Drake said. "You understand Majestic Twelve better than anyone in this room. We'd be fools to cast you aside."

"I agree," Haman agreed. "But the first thing we need to do is see to your recovery."

"If you are to coordinate with us on this issue, we need you at your full strength," Grace said. Tyler smiled.

"I am humbled by your kindness and understanding on the matter," he said. In the back of his mind, he wondered what this would mean... both for him, and his would-be dragoness girlfriend...