"Shirou!"

"Shirou!"

"Shirou!'

"Where are you, Shirou!"

Apollo looked around frantically through the trees and bushes in the forest on Onogoro. Shirou carefully followed him undetected as they ran through the forest.

"Shirou!" Apollo yelled one more time with no response. It began to grow dark and the sun began to fade. Apollo began to worry more as the darkness crept forward. Apollo then heard rustling in the bush; he jumped back frightened. Shirou found his perfect chance to strike and jumped on top of him. They wrestled for a few seconds and Shirou managed to pin him down.

"Apollo you shouldn't make that much of a racket, the forest spirits will hear you," Shirou whispered.

"But, I was worried, I thought I lost you."

"BRACE YOURSELVES." One of the crew members cried. Suddenly a huge jolt rattled the ship as they continued further into the pull of the rift. Everyone fell over and some injured themselves as objects went flying everywhere. "We're heading into the event horizon, everyone to your stations, prepare for the worst."
The eternal began its decent into the rift. Huge bolts of light sparked everywhere outside the ship as it crossed into the nether. Everything on board went dark as the power systems failed when crossing the rift. All the crew soon had their helmets and suits on as to prepare for the worst possible scenario.

"What's wrong, Apollo?" His mother asked as she walked into the room with a bag of groceries. She found him sitting by his father but something was wrong.

"Father isn't waking up." She dropped her bags and broke down completely upon seeing his blank stare.

"Someone get a medic," Apollo yelled. He was taking care of a crew member named Daniel, who had taken a serious hit from heavy equipment falling from the galley. The equipment tore a hole through his suit and he was bleeding profusely. Reina ran off to the medical bay, she found it was already full with the staff completely busy."Don't die on me. Stay with me. Daniel." He saw that he was barely staying conscious. His life was teetering on the edge and Apollo knew that. Apollo kept pressure on the wound and called for anyone with medical experience to help. He watched his chest to see if he was still breathing. "Come on Daniel, it'll be alright."

"Yeah it'll be alright," he muttered faintly, trying to say the words, "my family will be alright. Apollo, if we make it through this..."

"No don't give me that crap, you're gonna live. Please someone help." Another crew member handed him a vial of pain killers and a syringe. "Here's some morphine. Stay with me." Apollo turned his head toward him. But he saw the look in his eyes. They were filled with tears. "No don't do this to me."

"Tell them, I love them..." he cried with his last breath as his lungs filled with blood. He began coughing and then all went still.

"Apollo is it," a man dressed in a black overcoat grumbled.

"Apollo Raynorth. You're the kid that flies the GOUF

right?""Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you say that before, you're in kid. Welcome to the Black Flag. You seem like a good boy, why do you need our help anyways."

"Because, I don't want mom to suffer any more, and I'll do what I can."

"Yet there are so many other things you could do yet you are here with us. You know what we do."Apollo stood there in silence. He didn't know what else to do, he had gone this far. As his mother grieved, everything at home fell apart. They lost their home and everything they owned slowly but surely was going to disappear. He knew his mother was in no state to work so he took it upon himself to support the family. No one would accept him as an employee because he was still and he didn't want to end up in the foster care system.

"Because I have one mission, and I'm willing to put everything even my life on the line." Apollo then explained everything to Black Flag's boss, and he was soon accepted into their ranks.

"These guys will be your buddies from here on out, now play nice," The Boss said kindly. In the room where two other boys who were in similar situations, their names were Fareed and Gara. Over the course of the next 7 years they'd fly many daring missions together and clash with the UHFS Military and Police forces in their mobile suits. Apollo set himself apart from the rest of his group. While Fareed and Gara always went for kill shots when taking down their enemies, Apollo always opted to disarm them.

"Why do you disarm them," Fareed asked. Having noticed after the end of one mission, "they're out to kill you. The UHFS has no intention of leaving us alive so why not fight back."

"Because I don't want anyone to suffer," he paused, "no one should end up like us. Especially those in the UHFS Mobile Suits we go up against." He took another bite of bread and attached his paycheck to a messenger bird. The bird flew over to his mother's house as always where it'd deliver his earnings after every operation. "Yeah I don't want anyone to suffer the same pain. Death isn't something to be taken lightly."

"Damn it," Apollo cried as he slammed his fist into the ground. He opened up his helmet and closed his eyes ritually. "What the hell is happening." He ran over to the elevator and took it up to the bridge. Upon arrival, the rest of the crew on the bridge paused and looked at him and continued frantically issuing orders and trying to maintain control of the ship. "Where are we headed?"

"We don't know," one of the navigators replied, "we currently don't even exist."

"But we're all here so we do exist," Apollo retorted, "Captain, do we have a solution."

"Do you think I know what in the blazes is going on," the Captain replied, "we're stuck in a rift in space-time. The entrance just closed on us, so even if we somehow generated enough power to escape the gravitational pull we'd stuck."
"Captain, Life Support is down to 30%," one of the crew members called out.

"Divert engine energy to the life support systems, we aren't moving anywhere but where the pull of gravity takes us so there isn't any point in keeping them on."

"Roger that sir, diverting energy to life support systems." The engines powered down and the lights on the ship came back to life."That should buy us another 2 hours depending on how the hull holds up. Debris is tearing it up," the captain added. An engineer from the research deck came aboard the bridge panting and holding a set of papers in her hand. She looked flustered but was absolutely determined."Nina, what do you have for us," the Captain asked.

"Captain, I think there is a way for us to escape," she stated.

"With that kind of thinking, you'll get yourself killed," Gara continued. He was right, if they were out to kill him, and he would do something as dangerous as toying with them in that way, he would eventually get killed.

"I'll do what I can to make sure they don't suffer even if it means risking my own life," Apollo walked off and fell into his bunk.

"Catapult online, transferring launch timing to you, Apollo," The flight director said over the intercom, "you do what you have to do." Then the comms closed and re-opened with Reina on screen in the Alpha.

"You're insane, but at least honorable, good luck out there. Thank you for everything."

"Thanks, Reina," he replied, "Gundam Parallel Omega, Apollo Zala, Launching." The Omega Gundam riveted off the catapult, it was instantly pounded by the flying unknown debris. He lost communications with the Eternal almost immediately as expected. He pulled out the prototype beam rifles the Omega was equipped with, and watched the clock as it countdown. The pressure was on as he waited out in the darkness. The only lights were on in his cockpit. There was nothing out there. It was the type of darkness that was so unsettling, not because you were out in it with the scary monsters from horror stories. No, it wasn't that, it was because you were out there by yourself, you were your own monster. Images of what his past flew by him as he watched the clock run down. Apollo knew that his time to go would be soon but didn't realize how quickly it would come. The charge notifier had hit 200%, the wormhole power core from the Alpha pulled through.

"Eternal, if you can hear me, I'm charging up the the positron beam." Another, HUD display went up showing him the charge rate of the beam rifle "Come on." His HUD started lighting up with warning with armor compromised messages.

"You know you aren't coming back from this right. The blast will completely drain your mobile suit's power."

"I understand."

The charger beeped. "FIRING!" A large stream of red and white light filled the void and all of a sudden the rift opened and light poured in. He saw the Eternal fly through the exit. He tried to follow them, but his suit was drained. Apollo knew that much, he couldn't bear to see the suffering on their faces any more. If it meant putting his own life before everyone else's, that meant everything in the world to him to know they were smiling. He closed his eyes and the world went completely black. His suit powered down and he drifted into the void.