Chapter 30

To Save Us All~

9 closed his optics tight as the now familiar feel of his body weight settling in mid air came upon him. There was an icy blast, but it didn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, it was almost like a congratulatory feeling that washed over him. The talisman was allowing him entry to the past.

After the falling, there was the wait, which 9 was traped in now. He didn't think of it as being trapped anymore, however. To him, this felt all too real, all too familiar. He had just gone over the last stepping stone.

Hopefully.

He began to use his time to think. Maybe that was the intention, to get him to think. He thought at first about what he was going to do when he got back to whereevr the talisman was taking him. He tried to think of each possibly situation, and what he would do if he landed somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.

But no matter how much he tried to torture himself with guilt and pressure, the one thing he was trying to block kept coming back to him.

7. She wouldn't know who he was, and he would already be in love with her. He would have gone through loving her three times over and she would just be meeting him...

What if she didn't even like him at all?

9 shook his head, ridding himself of thhat. Too many people, including himself, had reassured him that everything would go like it had the last few times. But the youngest couldn't help but return to the same subject.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldnt stop thinking of what 7 would say when he stared at her longingly, or when he tried to casually hug her out of habit now. He didn't want to make himself look any stupider than he was.

He groaned, burying his weightless head in his weightless hands.

"Please..." he whispered, so that it sounded as if he were about to cry. "I don't want them to forget... I don't want her to forget..."

Hearing himself say it out loud broke the only string he had left to containing himself, and his body began to quiver, the 9th drawing in shaky breaths. Though buried deep within himself, his human instincts were trying to make him cry actual tears.

But not even the tears would come to let him cry.

A woman walks, a human, but at the same time no where near it. She walks towards him, and he smiles, like he's known her all his life. Jason picks up his mate and kisses her passionately, his human yet... not... eyes closing in the pure love he felt for her.

The others walked around, like they knew what the two were doing, like they had seen it before...

"It's called kissing." 9 found himself saying to the other stitchpunks. "Me and... Well I used to do it..."

Everyone looked back at the young couple, teens by the sound of their voices. they looked with hungry eyes, like vultures, wanting knowledge. Why did these humans do it? Why did they hold each other like this?

Who were they?

9 sat up, calmly, like he had only been slumped and relaxed, not asleep and having dreams. His mind filled with even more questions and soon he found it full to the brim, his own head screaming at him over and over to find the answers he didnt have, to find the answers he couldnt even grasp at.

"I don't know them! Stop asking!" he finally yelled, hearing his voice echo. He had tucked into himself, curling into a weak ball of fear.

"9? How did you get up over there?" 5's voice called.

9 looked up. 5?

"Wh-what...?" he said slowly, blinking and letting his optics adjust to the dim light.

His most trusted friend climbed the pile of debri he sat on, and raised a questioning eyebrow. When the 5th reached him, he clung to his arm.

"Oh, Creator 9 I thought the beast had you!" 5 whimpered, clinging to 9, obviously terrified. "You just disappeared! I looked behind me and you were gone! And then-"

There was a low growl.

9's hand swung up to 5's mouth. 5 paused, looking up at him with his optic wide. 9 slowly brought his hand back to his own mouth, motioning with one finger for 5 to be quiet.

5 nodded, letting go of 9. They helped each other up, making almost no sound as they did. 9 turned around to access where exactly he had landed when out of nowhere--

"ROOAAARRR!!!"

9 jumped and 5 screamed, his hands fumbling for the needle he had packed behind him, then shakily loading it into the crossbow. The Cat Beast had landed with a huge thud right behind them, and had given one of it's loudest thundering roars.

9 looked around for a weapon, trying to think quickly, but found nothing. He realized 5 and 9 had been backing up, stalling the beast and staring fearfully up into it's red eye. 9 stepped on someone's foot, but whoever it was didn't even make a sound of pain.

9 stared right into the red eye of the monster, and glared as deep and meaningful as he dared.

Then, without thinking, he reached down and picked up a small pebble. He hurled it at the monster, much to the surprise of the two stitchpunks beside him. It narrowly missed the Cat Beast's red eye, and only succeeded in making the monster even more mad.

It roared once more, but was intterputed, by a swoosing sound...

Everyone turned toward it, but as soon as they thought they had caught a glimpse of the source of the noise, it leapt, and was soon on the beast, wrestling it down.

The beast put up a good fight, but whatever was fighting it was easily ahead of the game, seeming to know each weakness spot in the beasts body.

7 leapt into the air as the creature reared back, and with one quick movement, brought her blade down upon its neck, decapitating the Cat Beast once more.

9 smiled, but the others were still in fear, not knowing it was their long lost relative 7.

7 walked forward steadily, stabbing her spear into the ground, making the other two flinch.

Wait, the other TWO!?

9's head snapped around to look at the elder he had never got a chance to know, the one who's death had started all of this in the first place, the inspiration for the savior.

2.

9 gasped, attracting 7's attention for a moment before she lifted her skullmet and revealed her identity.

9 was lost. He hadn't seen 2 alive in... Creator even he didn't know the amount of time it had been. For him, it had been months, for 2, it had only been seconds.

9 chuckled with the irony of it all, drawing no one's attention however as 7 was the main focus.

"7?" 5 said his almost scripted line, making 2 blink with recognition, his suspitions confirmed by his apprentice. The two got up, but 9 stayed put, both too stunned to see 2 in motion again and to see his beloved 7 standing a mere foot from him, not knowing he existed.

With slight hesitation, the 9th picked himself off the ground, dusting off a layer of dust he hadn't known he was sporting and coughing to get the itch out of his mechanical lungs.

That got 7's attention.

She looked past 5 and 2, her optics focusing on 9. She blinked, recognition seeming to fall upon her before she brought her hand up to her head. 9 stared, his optics showing how much he was silently begging for her to remember. A soul never forgets... Right?

"Do I... know you?" 7 asked hesitantly, narrowing her optics.

9 held his breath. Did a soul really remember? Even back in time? Was that what deja vu was? Did 7 remember him?

"It's ok, he's with us. He just woke up." 5 assured her, smiling one of his trusting smiles. 7 saw that, and seemed to take trust from the 5th.

"So where have you been hiding?" she asked gently, smiling at 9. 9 frowned, knowing he couldn't kiss those perfect lips yet... He had just met her in this time. She didn't even know him...

Seeing 9's frown, 7 thought she had insulted him, and leaned in to reassure him she didn't mean to, almost taking hold of his arm when 2 interuppted by kicking at the Cat Beast's jaw. As 7 went to go help him out, a thought came to 9.

The talisman.

He looked around to where it should be, and spotted the devil several paces from him. He looked back at the others, noticed he didn't have any of their attention.

This time he wasn't going to screw up. This time, he was going to do it right.

"2." he said, staring at the three holes in which the talisman fit perfectly. The eldest looked up, and so did 5 and 7. "What if I told you something crazy? Something that would make you wonder and wish, but at the same time, sympathize?" 2 furrowed his eyebrows gently, leaning in, eyeing the talisman inches from 9's hand.

"I would act accourdingly." 2 said carefully, walking up behind 9. 9 didn't look away from the BRAIN's talisman socket.

After a few seconds went by, 9 looked at 2, who was staring at him with an odd look, trying to decide whether to smile or to be worried.

"What if I showed you?"

2 kept his confused and cautious stare, not saying a word, but kindly waiting for 9 to finish.

9 took a calm breath and looked back at what had started it all. He picked up the talisman and ran his fingers over the smooth surface, smiling almost insanely down at it.

"Hello again." he said simply, chuckling lightly at the sense of irony he felt.

2 seemed to make up his mind. "Um... 9, m'boy, you may want to hand that to me..." he said uncertainly, holding out his hand.

9 shook his head. "It's fine. I just... I thought I'd seen this before..." 9 lied, not sure why he did.

He suddenly felt the pain of the factory. All the mistakes he had made here, all the pain he alone had caused... They were like voices, screams, anguished cries that he couldn't surpress. He didn't want to be here anymore. He thought about what to do, where he could go so that he just wasn't... Here.

He didn't want to feel this pain anymore, this guilt he no longer had a right to feel. Everyone was gone now, no one knew him as he was now. He didn't even have 7 to help him through these new feelings of loss. Even though he had made things right, without her he felt empty.

He looked down at the talisman in his hands, and without another word, just started walking.

He felt all the other's optics following him with confusion, but he kept walking, right out the pipe that had served as his exit for the third time now. Only this time, he wasn't running for his life from the monster he had woken.

The world was free now. They were free. G's family, and his own. None of them would die because of him, yet he found it so hard to crack a smile.

"Where are you going?" asked 7, seemingly sensing his sudden gloom, the way his feet dragged, barely able to keep him moble.

9 turned and gazed at 7, a faint smile on his lips. Only for the no longer his beautifull 7 would he smile. Only for her...

"I don't know where I'm going yet," he said softly, "I need to think for a while. But you'll see me again. I know where to find you after all..." he said mysteriously, leaving the others puzzled and nervous.

After unzipping himself to securely place the talisman within his protective body, 9 walked out of the factory. This time, he hadn't destroyed their lives.

Instead, he'd saved them.

A/N: Welp, everyone. *is crying* There's the last chapter of "To Save Us All"...

I hope you all know I have a sequel coming up :3

But just a thank you to all my faithful reviewers! God, I couldnt have carried on without you all here to read it. 3 Thank you all for standing by me throughout this CRAZY fic!

The sequel may take a while to get u, or it can take a few days. It all depends on who cares, and if the ideas come as fast as I inject the sugar into my body to produce them...

I'm kidding. XD

Thanks again, everyone!!! 333