AN: Updated on chapter!

As you'll see in the chapter, I discuss the year. I was in two minds: either the 4th book or the 5th book. My goals were to go with the 5th book as makes it easier in the long run. However, the 4th book will allow me to world build with different, colorful characters the Gundam pilots will meet, and the magic demonstrated by these various cultures.

Update: Shorter chapters make me a bit happier.

Chapter II

The western spaceport at C205 was busy. Masses of people had gathered in long, streaming lines, moving slowly like lazy rivers, awaiting to board their flights, with bags and suitcases dangling from their arms and hands like extra, colorful appendages. Trowa gave a cursory glance at the lines and found it both startling and amusing: the people there seemed to generate a sense of goodwill and calm, their pleasant interactions intimate and bearing warmth in their smiles that were contagious.

Children smiled and laughed as parents doted on them – brushing their hair, holding their hands, and exchanging pleasantries. Casual conversations between strangers, that looked at ease, flowed freely, uninhibited by stern-looking Alliance or OZ soldiers, weapons in hand, and postures full of menace. It was a picturesque scene that was only found in peace. And the throngs of people meant, since OZ had liberated control from the Alliance, that people could travel freely to any colony they so desire.

Trowa watched them for moment, letting his gaze linger on their faces. He felt something warm move through him, flutter his heart. It felt like comfort, like the sun had warmed his body. He basked in the feeling, just for a bit. He did not want it to take control, just touch his heart, just for a fleeting moment.

When the feeling dissipated, Trowa moved. He let his gaze wander the spaceport until his eyes landed on what he was looking for. He bent his knees and jumped forward. Weightlessness took over. He surged through the limited gravity to the gangway before him, where a young man leaned by the gangway door, unmoving. He was perfectly still like a mannequin as his wild brown hair danced around his sharp, angular face.

Lightly touching down on the floor with a mild click of his boots, caused the young man to stir. Heero Yuy opened his cool, Prussian blue eyes and turned them on Trowa. His body remained still.

"You're late," Heero said matter-of-factly, his voice a low, cold baritone that could freeze water when it wanted to. "It's not like you to be late."

There was a question in his tone that Trowa rather not address. Not yet anyway. It really was neither the time nor place.

"I had a slight delay. Nothing to worry about," returned Trowa.

Heero gave him a piercing stare and finding something in his eyes, he gave a curt nod, straightened himself, and headed into the doorway. Trowa had to smile at the greeting; it was usually him saying those words in return, on the opposite end, waiting for Heero. He gave a brief smirk to the empty doorway. It was just like Heero to cut conversation for expedience.

He followed his fellow pilot through the corridors into the flight deck, their hurried footsteps echoing off the floor in impatience. It was to his surprise that he saw more than one of his veteran compatriots from the war. At first, he had thought it would be just he and Heero as they were the only ones who had met Julia. The sight of them again, together, brought him some level of comfort that this trip would be a reunion of sorts in a terrible yet nostalgic way: they were all at and attacked New Edwards Base when Heero had slain the Alliance's pacifist leaders. They all bore witness to the assassination and were, thereby, complicit in their murder.

Maybe they feel the need, in some way, to atone for the lives lost as consequence of our actions, he thought. As if agreeing with him, he felt the Time-Turner in his pocket vibrate lightly against his thigh.

Trowa's heart skipped a beat, and he frowned deeply. Wait! Did this thing hear me? Hear my thoughts? Trowa queried to himself.

The Time-Turner vibrated once as if affirming his thought. Trowa fought to restrain the urge to touch his pants pocket. If that thing could hear his inner thoughts, he hated to think if it had any sentience of its own. More questions danced in his mind, and he became wary of the thing he carried, wary of its own thoughts, and even more, wary of his own thoughts that could influence this device.

Besides Heero, who had taken to the left of him and was putting on his normal suit that he had opened from a footlocker, two of Trowa's friends had gathered around the ship controls in their green, space normal suits while the other sat in a passenger seat behind the co-pilot's seat. Sitting in-between the open space of the pilot and co-pilot controls was Duo Maxwell. His spritely brown bangs cascaded over his face like the drooping leaves of dracaenas; the rest of his hair was pulled back into a long, dangling braid that was tucked inside his normal suit. His large, expressive, cobalt blue eyes, when finding him at the entrance, shined in delight, and his mouth curved into a large, splitting grin.

"Well, look-y here, boys, we found our missing comrade! 'Bout time you showed. I thought we were about come and swoop you up when the rendezvous time passed. What's up, Trowa? You're lookin' larger than usual," Duo boisterously yelled, giving an energetic wave.

"Sorry. I was held up by some business," Trowa said. He ignored the compliment despite it being true – he had grown more muscular. He had been lifting more weights to accommodate with his fulltime employment with the circus and the demands for new performances.

"Business? Were there last-minute arrangements from Catherine and the manager?" asked a familiar and concerned, soft voice. "I'd thought they be more concise about your timetable, Trowa."

Trowa moved his eyes to his third comrade, the one whom had asked the question. Next to Duo was Quatre Raberba Winner, a dear friend to him. A boy of Arabian descent, his platinum blond hair fell to his long nose and gently brushed his cheeks. His ocean blue eyes glowed in warmth, standing out on his olive-tone skin like windows to an ocean, and looked in askance, if not concern.

"No, just a last-minute conversation between me and a staff member," Trowa said rather dismissively but giving Quatre a warm, assuring smile. "Nothing to worry about, Quatre."

Quatre returned the smile brightly, taking in his words at face value. If not for one thing, Trowa was thankful Quatre trusted him almost implicitly. His friend was not naïve, but Trowa knew he did hold a soft spot for his comrades. Quatre's trusting nature could be as bright as the sun or as dark and tumultuous as the gates of Hell.

That, and Trowa would rather withhold the conversation of magic to himself for now. He was unsure of the repercussions of discussing it meant. And the questions… He too was not sure of the overall effect would be on his friends.

Would they believe me?

Coming to a sudden conclusion, he doubted they would. Real magic would be hard to prove. They would be downright skeptical of the existence of magic. These young men were realistic, believing in the extraordinary facts of science and evidence. To breach those walls, Trowa would need to shatter their rigid belief in science.

However, something told him he would have enough sway to prod their defenses, to open them for a chance to slip curiosity and intrigue into the cracks of their walls. There were some instances, extraordinary instances, during the rebellion and the Eve's War that would have some sway. There were moments where science could not explain away, where mysteries remained. His own thoughts had turned to death, where even Death's cold hands could not hold him when it should have.

Not just yet, he decided. He would gauge them before he committed to a plan. Trowa doubted he could fully articulate what magic was besides the fake magic that was ubiquitous, that merely entertained for amusement than a pragmatic use for it. The question was: How could he explain the illogical, the concept that fantasy and myth woven into legends, held truth?

Trowa gave another look around the flightdeck. His eyes landed on a pale-yellow skinned young man with hair as black as night, pulled into a tight ponytail, sitting behind the pilot's seat. He had had his arms crossed, and his quiet gaze directed to the flightdeck window.

"I see you made it, too, Wufei," Trowa started, taking up Wufei's left side.

Feeling Trowa's gaze, Wufei's onyx eyes on his ovular face flicked to his. His eyes were penetrating, searching for something within Trowa's eyes and face. "I was invited," he said, briefly glancing past Trowa.

Following his gaze to Heero, Trowa understood. Heero probably had his reasons concerning Wufei, and Trowa thought it might have pertained to his knowledge that day on New Edwards Base. It would paint a far larger picture of Treize's deviousness. Julia would have full context on how and why Treize plotted to kill her husband. Wufei said nothing more, and Trowa took that the conversation had ended.

"We need to get going," Heero said promptly. "If we lose time here, we may miss them by a day."

Giving Heero a fond smile, Duo turned his eyes on them and placed his hands on his hips. "You heard the co-pilot! Let's start this voyage!"

Before Trowa could get his normal suit, Heero presented one to him and then settled in the co-pilot seat next to Duo's. Duo then reached his arms up to the ceiling like he was holding an invisible weight, interlocked his fingers, inverted his palms to the ceiling, and let his bones speak and pop. With each crack and pop, Duo let out a relieved sigh as Trowa heard the light laughter of Quatre next to him and observed the blank stare from Heero and the closed expression from Wufei.

Quickly pushing the heavy suit on, Trowa felt, with ironic amusement, to be suiting up for battle. A sense of nostalgia rolled into him where he was on the Peacemillion battleship with his fellow pilots in the thick of the Eve's War. He could still smell the scent of oil and burnt metal; the thickened scent of each pilot from an arduous battle, sweat and salt clinging to their temples like dried resin; and the smell of ocean sea from Howard's scented fragrance that permeated the hangar and reminded one of being on a tropical island.

Trowa couldn't help but be reminded that although there was no hostile force bent on world annihilation, it still felt, somehow, good to be amongst friends. He had never felt like this since the war. He never did have people he could call family and friends. He never did have a home to return to.

Dressed, Trowa took a seat in the middle between Quatre and Wufei. Trowa then fastened his seatbelt and pulled hard over his lap. If he was not fastened well to his seat, his ass would be an inch or less afloat. It was not that he was uncomfortable with floating – far from it – but he liked to feel stabilized while seated. It gave a small comfort of control.

Duo, who had finished stretching, flicked the radio switch. "Mission control, this is shuttle CX3994 Meteor. Ready for takeoff."

"Mission control reads shuttle CX3994 Meteor," came the male voice of the controller from the space control station. "Takeoff confirmed. Lanes are clear. Condition good. You are cleared ahead. Safe passage."

"Read ya loud and clear," Duo said. He then cocked his head around, eyes flicking to each one of them with barely concealed anticipation. "We're good to go, boys! Let's start the mission!"

With that, they were off into space as the gates fell open to them, opening to endless stars. Trowa tilted his head back and let his eyes fall into darkness. Sleep would be good. It would quiet his busy mind.

"Trowa! Trowa!"

Trowa slowly opened his eyes to the voice calling his name. His sleep had been a dreamless one. A state of dreamlessness was comforting; it was safe. It was being free from the natural world. He had lost himself in a plane of pitch-black and remembered nothing.

Trowa never liked to dream. He did not like seeing distorted dreams of his life reflected to him in some pointless hope that he would succumb to a sea of despair. His dreams were often filled with struggle – from his early childhood to the end of the war. They were strange, sporadic images that never had a set plan nor purpose except to haunt him.

He either sat like a passenger in them or reenacted them like déjà vu. He would then stare at the horrific destruction wrought by his hands or another's, never once looking away. He had accepted his cruelty a long time ago when he had picked up his first gun, aimed it, and shot and killed his first man. It was his distorted reality.

Slowly, purposefully, Towa laid his eyes on Quatre, who had a large, brilliant smile eclipsing his face, his body facing him in his chair. His blue eyes were brilliant pools reflecting happiness. He seemed to radiate that emotion.

Quatre, Trowa thought, what's got you so excited?

"We made it, Trowa! We made it to the Earth!"

There was this tremendous energy of excitement that poured from Quatre. It was as if his anticipation had finally reached threshold and broke, pushing all his joy and excitement into his grinning expression. It filled the shuttle with a touch of warmth as space was quite cold. It was contagious, and Trowa was infected, his energy rising along with his body, eyes switching to the flightdeck window with sudden haste.

"Hell yeah, we did. Come take a look. It never gets old," came Duo's excited voice from the pilot's seat. "Burning through the atmosphere just like the old days. Meteors of destiny!"

Trowa leaned forward in his chair, his eyes finding the large, glowing, blue orb that was the Earth, dusting with swirls of white clouds. It was alone, besides its haunting, scarred moon, that remained close like a lover as is orbited around the planet. Trowa felt his lips curl into a small smile. The beauty of Earth from space never failed to capture his attention.

Before him, the Earth orbited in its massive eminence, a ball of natural wonder, of life. Sapphire oceans churned slowly and brushed against large continental masses made of brown earth and rock. Green forests and grasslands and plains painted the earthen surface, contrasting from the barren, glowing, yellow and brown deserts and plateaus, and were only broken by the long and rigid ranges of mountains and canyons that erupted and weaved high and far, their tallest tips capped white in snow. Topped off between both hemispheres were the polar ice caps.

Trowa had to restrain a shiver as he was reminded of bone-cold and frigid snowy weather and a continent of ice and glacier. His brief experience in Antarctica, whilst angering and somewhat useless in his opinion, was not something he'd ever forget. An hours long fight on a continent made of ice on the Ronnell Ice Shelf wasn't something a person could forget easily. It was a frozen wonderland filled with destruction, crumbling glaciers reduced to blocks of ice by a storm of bullets and missiles, gunpowder, and a fabled fate of two adversaries locked in battle against time and reason.

It was beautiful scenery, but the mission was simply pointless. Trowa realized stupidity could capture and enthrall fate and vanquish rationality and reasoning. It could steal time and delude the hopeless. And that was the summation of his trip in Antarctica: to delude time in search of introspection and answers. To Trowa, that was dangerous as time was something humans could not delay, not when protecting the lives of his fellow Spacenoids. They did not have time to fumble across the Earth and reevaluate their lives and goals; they needed new ways in defeating OZ before they solidified their oleaginous, deceptive grasp on the colonies. Secluded in isolation faraway, in a world of white and ice, could not escape reality and time, because reality and time existed even in isolation.

Just because time had stopped for a person, it did not mean time surceased for everyone else. Zechs and Heero were playing dangerous games, he thought, but those dangerous games did eventually become fated encounters. Antarctica was not the beginning, but a point in their journey to the final conflict.

Breaking his reverie, he returned his gaze to the Earth. As the Earth grew closer, and the shuttle touched Earth's atmosphere, in Trowa's peripherals, he noticed Heero and Wufei giving the Earth a transfixed look. It was not an expression of intrigue or even admiration. There was something greater on Heero's mind that spoke more than what he was seeing. It seemed to weigh on him like a small load. In contrast, Wufei's expression held a ponderous look, one of careful calculation, where contemplation clouded his eyes as the shining Earth reflected in them like mirrors.

As the ship started its descent, Trowa buckled up. The ship started to rumble. There were deep vibrations that reverberated from under him, vibrating his feet and along his backside as they increased speed through the Earth's atmosphere. Duo expertly guided them through the torrent of red heat when they collided with the atmosphere, and it was in that moment, that fateful moment, when chaos and panic enveloped the shuttle.

Trowa, throughout the flight, had ignored the slight vibrations buzzing in his pocket in favor of looking at the shuttle's reentry and Earth's rotating blue body. It came too late as the vibration became manic as the Time-Turner dug through his jeans into his thigh and pressed, gyrating angrily. The noise from the persistent Time-Turner was dim compared to the sound of the shuttle's reentry, which screamed in his ears, almost deafening sound.

Trowa hurriedly dug it out of his pocket, tightening his fingers around the spasming trinket. The vibrations were almost numbing as the thing spasmed in his hand, the sensation moving through his fingers into his bones, like he was holding Heavyarms's control column and unloading the Gundam's Gatling Gun. Before he could fully open his hand and grab the Time-Turner by the chain, a gold pulse exploded from the thing, blinding all in golden light.

The light encompassed his body in a rush of golden magic that looked like a mass of flowing gold dust. It swept through the floors, to his friends and everything in the shuttle, moving over them like a dust storm, obscuring and then fading and winking golden particles. After all had been swept in gold, time froze. He froze.

The world, the shuttle, his body, became still, dressed in golden, sparkling dust that winked in and out of existence.

In the stillness of space and time, hurriedly gathering his wits about him, Trowa regarded the shuttle and its occupants in puzzled amazement. Heero had taken his eyes off the planet and found him. His blue eyes had widened slightly, and his mouth remained slightly ajar. Trowa could only see a head of platinum blond from Quatre as his focus was on the flightdeck window while Wufei was out of view. Duo's head was still facing away to the planet below.

What is going on? he thought wildly. Why can't I move? Why can't I move?

Trowa repeated those words over and over. He tried moving a finger and found the action useless. He couldn't even move or blink his eyes. His mouth was slightly open, and he could not move the muscles to close it. Something as simple as his breath and the cool air from the air condition, touching his tongue, kissing his skin, was absent.

Fear, like a slow-moving shadow, crept on his heart and invaded his mind.

The only time where time slowed to a crawl were in near-death experiences, where it looked like fate was to take him permanently offstage, where his performance would have ended in a red curtained finale. Those times were where he was completely helpless. This time it was different. He was safe – but that safety quickly vanished when his mind returned to the thought of the very realness and reality of magic, and its consequences settling on him in a mysterious fashion.

Is this time magic? Does this magic affect all within a certain radius? Trowa didn't know, and he certainly was clueless in the throes of this unknown factor. Magic wasn't something he could entirely, as of yet, make sense of. Its abstractness could not be likened to reality – his reality. His repeated astonishment was a consistent and annoying reminder that he was in foreign territory, looking at land with no existing shapes or boundaries.

Before he could think of another option, a whisper echoed through his mind, the very same voice that had called to him when he was with Mauricio.

Where a shooting star falls, time begins.

It was in Latin again. Where a shooting star falls, time begins? What was that supposed to mean? When the voice spoke of shooting stars, did it mean reentering the Earth's atmosphere?

Trowa refocused his gaze to the Earth, and in that moment, his and the world's stillness was broken. His ears came alive and perked when the roaring sound of the shuttle met him. Volume rose as life aboard the shuttle resumed, animated by the beeping of the shuttle's controls and machines.

Trowa blinked, feeling the softness of his eyelids touch, the warm air flushing from his nose to his upper lip, his tongue gliding along the upper roof of his mouth. Feeling and motion arrived like easing of pressure. He swiftly tore his gaze from the Earth to the motionless Time-Turner, finding it inanimate. He would have cursed it to oblivion if his mind couldn't stop racing with questions.

"What the hell was that?" Duo yelled, his gaze still on his controls. "What the hell was that? It felt like the world had stopped! Felt like I almost left my body."

"I haven't a clue," answered Heero slowly, brow slightly furrowed, and blue eyes clouded in thought, though lingering on Trowa. "It wasn't like anything I have ever felt before."

"The same, Heero," said Quatre. "The world froze in a splash of gold. I thought I might have imagined it if you didn't bring it up. Anyone know what's going on? It almost felt like an out-of-body experience."

"It was an odd feeling, pulsating with energy… I could not discern what it was," said Wufei. Trowa saw him shift his onyx eyes to him, slightly narrowing, slightly calculative.

Heero's eyes narrowed on Trowa, too, then lowered. "Trowa, what is that in your hand?"

Heero's eyes were intense orbs of cutting blue. They looked at him in question and accusation. Trowa gave him a look, and then sighed deeply. What was he supposed to say?

Trowa imagined the situation. Guys, magic exists. I know it's hard to believe, but this is the reason for this anomaly. The device responsible for this incident is the magical object in my hand.

Thinking that thought in his mind's eye, he immediately trashed it. It sounded moronic. Perhaps, he should start with something simple. Yes, Trowa thought, that would work. They could be amenable to memories of their past experiences, which could serve as an opener. He might get some leeway in their responses instead of caginess and fortified skepticism of magic.

"Heero, do you by chance remember what happened at Lake Baikal, Siberia, during our days in Operation Meteor?" Trowa started.

Heero narrowed his eyes into slits, his mouth becoming a line. "What does this have to do with what happened, what's in your hand?"

"Do you know how you survived that encounter when you self-destructed Wing Gundam?" Trowa continued, ignoring his questions.

Heero opened his mouth and then closed it, eyes clouding in contemplation. After a moment, when his eyes returned to the present, he shook his head. "I don't know. I still wonder how I didn't die. I should have. I know I should have."

"What the hell does that have to do with what just happened?" Duo exclaimed. "As much as I as wanna know about how Heero survived that damn incident – and trust I do wanna know – what does it have to do with that golden light? You're not makin' any sense here, Trowa."

"I'm getting there, Duo," Trowa said calmly. "There are things in this world that have happened that almost seemed fantastical, right? Things that have happened that we haven't fully questioned the reason to. Like Heero surviving his self-destruction. Like me surviving the Vayeate's explosion. Like hearing each other's thoughts during the Eve's War on Libra, Duo."

"Trowa, what are you trying to say?" Quatre asked, fear flashing in his eyes. There was guilt there, too.

"What if all this happening," and Trowa looked in his hand and opened it, revealing the Time-Turner, "is because of this fantastical idea of…" Trowa paused, throwing out a sigh, and then continued, "magic."

The room fell into a pregnant silence. It was an unearthly quiet, filled with disbelief and incredulity, at the thought, at the insult, that this was caused by magic. Then, a loud snort broke it as Duo guffawed loudly. "You gotta be jokin', buddy. Magic? Is your head okay? Nah, it can't be okay, cause you talkin' 'bout magic."

"Magic isn't something that I…" and Trowa paused as the lights in the shuttle flickered once, then twice, thrice, and then completely off. Something unsettling settled in Trowa's stomach. This felt like a bad omen of some kind, something dark.

They were soon blanketed in darkness with only blue sky in front of them of the thermosphere. It looked endless. There was a strange quiet in the shuttle, and Trowa's stomach sank! If all power had turned off, then –

"What the…?" Duo exclaimed. His head moved in frantic stops and motion. "The ship has shut down! Damn it, the engines!"

"Shut down?" Heero said next to him. "Do what you can."

"Be immediate," Wufei called. "We're not dying here."

"I'm doing the best that I can!" Duo shouted back, scowling, unbuckling his seatbelt in haste. "It's not my fault we're encounterin' some troubling obstacles for such a simple flight."

He and Heero got down on their knees. Duo opened the bottom panel and his hands disappeared into it. Trowa leaned forward and Quatre mirrored him. Wufei had stood up and moved to Duo's seat, grabbing gently the back of the headrest. He was ready to grab the steering wheel if Duo was too slow in moving back to his seat.

Trowa looked outside. They were losing altitude fast, falling into vast blue sky that would soon end on Earth's hardened or watery surface. He withheld a tremble that started at his fingers and curled them into a ball. At the speed they were falling, it would be hard to stabilize.

"Can you reboot the shuttle?" Trowa offered, feeling restless. "Was it a malfunction?"

"How the hell should I know?" Duo called out, his voice echoing from inside the panel. "This thing isn't a piece of crap. It's a fairly new shuttle. Something like this… something like this shouldn't have happened. Now, where's the failsafe lever."

Duo's hands shifted a bit. "Ha! I think I found it. Heero, hold these wires."

Heero scooted next to him and lifted his hands. Duo reached deeper into the panel and then white lights flooded on them. A rumble and a slight jerk and the shuttle stormed to life.

"Status: Is everyone good?" came Heero's voice.

"Good here!" Duo called out shakily, standing up and sitting back down in the pilot seat. Quatre gave a sigh and echoed Duo. Trowa gave Duo a nod. Wufei inclined his head as he made it back to his seat and buckled up.

Heero stood up quickly and returned to his seat. He watched the map, and then his eyes grew dark.

"What's the matter, Heero?" Trowa asked.

"We overflew Luxembourg," Heero informed quickly, eyes still on the map. "By several hundred miles."

"Darn! For the love of…" came Duo's shocked voice. He had his hands on the wheel, arms straining, trying to turn the wheel. "The wheel is locked! I can't control the shuttle," he gritted.

"What do you mean?" Heero asked, looking back at him and then at the interface. A question was written on his face as he tried to decipher the malfunction.

"It's exactly what I said! This thing ain't movin'! Looks like were gonna miss more of our landing by quite a bit if the map reads right!" Duo exclaimed, his eyes swiftly moving to the map and then back on the wheel.

"Just keep us afloat until we get things ready. Quatre – give me a hand up here." Heero had taken off his seatbelt and opened the interface compartment. In a blur, Quatre was over Heero's shoulder in a second.

"Hurry up, guys, I'm don't mean to be pushy, but this isn't good time to take your time," Duo complained.

"Eject the parachute, Duo," Trowa said urgently but firm. "It'll slow our speed!"

Duo gave a curt nod, face twisted in concentration, and then the shuttle lurched back for a moment. The motion gave a slight jerk backwards, pulling Trowa back to his seat. They were still moving fast, but quickly slowing. They passed by long towering highlands, glittering lochs, dense woodlands, and a sea of rolling green hills. For a fleeting second, Trowa thought the landscape beautiful, before his thoughts reversed, darkening, and he found them terrifying as they could be their final resting place.

"It's on!" Quatre shouted. "Gain altitude!"

"Like hell, I'll try! Hold onto your asses! I see a spot up ahead," Duo yelled over the noise of the shuttle.

"Just make sure we're in one piece, please!" Quatre shouted as he ran back to his seat and buckled up.

It almost seemed like slow motion as the shuttle descended to the ground. It was an out-of-body experience and Trowa found himself a passenger of it. Trowa watched the shuttle careen through dense forested woodlands, ripping off branches like a scythe slicing through a long wheat field. The deployed parachute did not reduce their shuttle's speed fast enough for a safer landing. In fact, Trowa braced on his seat as the plane shook terribly and…

Boom!

Trowa chanced a glance to the side windows. The wings were gone, clipped, and fragmented, smashing into the trees behind them. Before Trowa had a chance to look back at the plummeting wings, his body was thrown forward as they crashed into the forest floor. It was as if his stomach had jumped into his mouth. His seatbelt strained harshly against his chest, digging and biting, and then he collapsed forward as the shuttle dragged and dragged through the dirt and finally, came to a halting stop.

Gritting his teeth, Trowa muttered, "Still alive, huh. That was painful."

A rush of energy course through Trowa's body. He noted idly his adrenaline had shot up like a rocket. Hands trembling, he unbuckled his seatbelt. Trowa's neck felt stiff, and his trembling hand went to massage it. It felt like whiplash. He stood to his feet, wobbled forward a bit but grabbed onto to Duo's backseat for support and breathed out a tired sigh.

His eyes wandered around.

Heero was out of his seat. Sitting on the interface, Heero grimaced. He looked be somewhat in pain as his hands sunk into his cascade of brown bangs; they were massaging his forehead. Wufei was camped by the side window of the flightdeck, rubbing his wrist. His brow was furrowed, and he looked annoyed by the situation.

"Let's not do this again," Duo grunted from his seat, slumped over the wheel. "I've already added it to my collection of nightmares. An ever-growing list of nearly dying or gettin' my ass kicked. This one's gonna leave it mark, though. A nice red one lining my chest."

"Agreed," Quatre added, putting one hand on the wall panels to Trowa's left, looking down. He looked to be sick as his face lost some color. "I don't need another crash landing. I've suffered through that already during the war."

"You and me both," Duo said exhaustedly, drooping lower in his seat. He looked towards Heero, who was looking outside. He was quiet for a moment, then: "Where are we?"

"Somewhere far north of our location," answered Heero. He was leaning over the interface. "The power is still functioning. Barely. I'm going to try and contact the Preventer agency. Hopefully, they can lend us some support if not another ride to get us to Sicily."

"Hey, Lady Une may harangue you like a child, but she'll give us what we want," Duo said, half smirking half grimacing. "We're heroes."

"Heroic deeds don't affect her feelings," Heero retorted. "She's more present-minded. Noin would be far more convincing if she wasn't so busy with Sally."

"Heero's right. Heroic deeds will only get you so far, Duo," Trowa chastised lightly, a small smile on his face. "Sometimes, deeds are not enough to sway ethics. That, and she's more meritocratic than we give her credit for."

"It's not like we ask for a lot, anyways," Duo returned with a snort, rolling his eyes. He banged his head lightly against the wheel. He then groaned into the wheel. It was a pitiful groan, but it amused Trowa.

Sighing, Duo unbuckled his seatbelt and came to stand near Quatre and Wufei. He nearly tripped over his own feet but Quatre, with quick hands, seized his shoulders, preventing him from falling. Duo gave Quatre a grateful thanks. They all formed a small circle inside the uneven flightdeck, all visibly worn and putout.

There was something else… something else was wrong that Trowa could not put a finger as his gaze traveled from face to face of his friends. Something was off about their faces… something had changed, like… and then Trowa felt his eyes widen slightly.

His friends' faces had become younger! His hand shot up to his face, slowly tracing the contours of nose and cheeks, feeling a slight softness under his fingertips that he had erase from his training. What did the Time-Turner do?!

Before Trowa could bring it up, Duo cut in with "What in the hell happened?" he asked to the group.

"Everythin' was fine until we hit reentry. The trouble started to spiral down from there."

"Besides whatever illogical malfunction?" came Trowa's rhetorical while he tried to quell his maddening heartbeats into stillness. He gave big sigh and felt his heartbeats slow. "I would venture magic."

"That again," Wufei's replied. There was a hint of skepticism that lined his comment, but it seemed to venture on the curious. Trowa knew for Wufei, he would never look at things one-dimensionally.

Duo's brief skeptical look did not escape Trowa's notice. Duo then sighed and raked his hand through his bangs, flicking them this way and that. "Magic my sorry ass," Duo grumbled. "It had to be a malfunction."

Duo turned his attention on the Timer-Turner in Trowa's hands. He wore wary look, one of apprehension and incredulity. He looked like wanted to touch it but seemed reluctant to get near it. Muttering something under his breath, Duo made up his mind and reached for the Time-Turner.

He carefully picked it up by its chain like he was picking up something fragile and tainted. He brought it up to his eyes. "This thing must have some electromagnetic field for it to reduce our ship immobile. Doesn't seemed to be glowin'. Now, where's the screw for this thing? What is it made of?"

He gave it several more looks, searching for something that would dismantle it but gave up and tossed it to Heero. Catching it with one hand, Heero inspected the device silently, blue eyes moving in a careful dance along its features. His fingers ran across the device's surface. He held it up and down, watching it lightly sway with each motion.

"Intricate. It's telling that this small thing could cause so much damage," Heero said after careful examination.

His eyes then found Trowa's. A warning shone in them. Reprehension was at play, and Heero never minced his words. Trowa looked on with great care as Heero opened his mouth and said:

"Next time warn us that you might have something dangerous onboard, even if we don't believe you. At least, we would have some form of knowledge as precaution, despite our initial skepticism, before things devolved the way they have had. It would have given us time to at least think."

"Saves us a great headache," Duo muttered quietly, massaging his temples with his fingers.

Heero walked to Trowa and handed the Time-Turner to him.

Clasping the device by the chain, Trowa nodded. "Will do."

Trowa put it around his neck. The chain was strangely warm around the back of his neck. The pendant was still like it had been before. It did not emit any buzzing or glow. It was inanimate, and that was even more dangerous, because if it stirred again, Trowa would not have the power to control it. He thought of stomping or shooting it to pieces. He wasn't sure what the consequences would be if he tried to destroy it, and he was not willing to find out.

It was too early to play with things far greater than himself and his intellect.

"We can figure things out later or whatever. Let's assess the damage," Duo called while turning around.

Duo went to open the flightdeck door. He grabbed the lever and lifted it up. The door groaned and suddenly as it pushed opened, its hinges broke and fell straight down. Duo then let out a yell as he fell forward. Thinking fast, Heero grabbed Duo's waist as he was about to tumble with the door and pulled him back into the shuttle. Heero staggered back with Duo's weight before he found balance. The door hit the ground with a loud solid thud before falling forward like a plank of wood.

"Thanks, Heero," Duo breathed over his shoulder as Heero released him. He turned his attention back to the ground.

"There goes any hope of repairin' that," Duo muttered and jumped down into the clearing.

Trowa and Quatre followed behind Duo, jumping from the flightdeck, and gathering at the nose of the shuttle. Trowa looked back to the ship and noticed Wufei had joined Heero, their bodies hovering over the communication system, in conversation. Trowa then looked at the damage of the shuttle's warpath. They had certainly carved a trail of destruction with their land.

Their impact produced a trail of downed trees that lined forest floor as if a hurricane had plowed directly into them. Splintered trunks and treetops, mangled like stiff limbs, lay in a trail of heaps from the path of their shuttle's crash. The damage looked bad. For a beautiful forest, Trowa thought, the crash had left a deep scar to its beauty.

The shuttle itself was beyond repair, appearing like a dead dove that had lost its wings and fell ungracefully to its death. It's elevon wings were clipped and sputtering angry red, gold, and blue sparks, exposed wires and slashes appeared like lesions and spread across its plated surface. Smoke pilfered from the engines and other exposed wounds. The flightdeck window was cracked, fractured in hundreds of cracks. If Trowa pushed his thumb on the window, it would collapse, shattering the glass into hundreds of pieces.

Duo whistled at the destruction while turning his head, eyes rolling up and down the trail. "It could have been worse. Far worse."

"Let's be grateful that it wasn't, Duo," Quatre said softly. He walked to the engines and looked it up and down, frowning. "Otherwise, those trees would have perforated our shuttle into cheese."

"Not a pleasin' image to visualize, Quatre," Duo said with a shiver. He looked troubled as he gave the shuttle another long look. There was something he wanted to say or to shout, but he only shook his head, disbelief expressed on his face, mixing with resignation.

A few minutes passed when Heero and Wufei joined them at the nose. Heero was scowling, and when Heero scowled, Trowa knew things were about to be heavy. Wufei's face was blank, but annoyance expressed in his eyes.

Duo stepped toward him, looking at Heero expectantly. He knew he might not like the answer, Duo's lips thinning and his hand meeting his hip.

"Any luck?" Duo asked, watching Heero. There was not any hope there.

With a start, Heero shook his head. "Couldn't reach them. Before the shuttle lost its power, I tried reaching them through the communication hub. It didn't work. None of my calls went through as my phone wouldn't even start, too. Wufei tried but met a similar end. It was at full power before we landed. I can't get it to start."

Trowa went into his pocket and checked his own phone. He pressed the touch screen, but nothing happened. He tried rebooting the power by holding down the power button. Only a blank black screen mirrored his concerned green eyes.

"The same here," Trowa added. He put away his phone and crossed his arms.

"Another electrical disturbance," Quatre posited. "If communication is knocked out, there must be some powerful ECMs here, but where?"

"And why?" Wufei said. "Why would Scotland, for instance, have any use of ECMs since we're so far out from the mainland of Luxembourg. The Unified Earth Sphere Alliance had some bases here once upon a time, but most of them were naval bases far lower than this area. I believe they were decommissioned after OZ's coup d'état."

"So, what do we do?" Duo said, shuffling his feet a bit. "There has to be some sign of human contact somewhere?"

"We'll figure things out as we go, but I am feeling uneasy. This place feels off," said Heero, blue eyes circling the forest.

"Heero's right. There is something ominous about this forest. It hangs on you like a ghost-like presence, stirring, haunting," Wufei said. "It may be only a feeling, but this presence lingers."

Trowa turned his head around and let his eyes assess their surroundings. They were in a large clearing yes, but he hadn't noticed how tall the trees spanned, how interconnected their branches were, and how darkish blue they appeared. They seemed to radiate an imposingness of a prison. Almost as if this space in the clearing was all that was trapping them here.

Gnarled arms and fingers of branches interlocked, like restraining guards keeping or holding prisoners detained, weaving a dark fence. The bodies of the trees were wide and towered to the sky. It was strange that Trowa did not hear the scurry of animals or hear the chirps of birds. Perhaps the sound of their crash had driven them off further into the dark forest.

He did feel, from all sides, something in the thick, dark forest watching him. Like there were invisible eyes lurking between the dark spaces of the trees, waiting, watching, like they were intruders to a home. Silence reigned despite the sound of wind rustling leaves and shifting branches. He decided he would have to be cautious while here. This did not feel like normal forests he had ventured-in in the past. The forest pervaded an eeriness that left Trowa on edge.

"I feel the same," Trowa confessed aloud, and the rest look to have agreed by the nods of their heads.

The longer they stayed there, the more danger they would face. It was not premonition but certainty. His hand drifted to his back pocket, feeling the outline of his handgun bulging behind his pants pocket. It brought him reassurance. It would do if any wild animal attacked or whatever hostile predator that made this forest home.

"Heero?" Duo deferred.

Heero had been looking between the shuttle and the forest. His blue eyes were narrowed as they flicked to the forest, giving a calculating stare. Trowa knew he was probably devising a way out of this. When Heero saw opportunities, he was instantaneous in seizing the moment. He would cut through wind, breach concrete, and blast through metal to reach his goal.

"We should get moving." Heero looked up to the cloudless blue sky. "Before it gets too dark," he finished, bringing his eyes down and shifting his legs.

"Then, let's do it," Quatre stated while moving to Trowa and clapping his hands. He patted Trowa's shoulder. "Let's get our belongings. Make sure we get any extra food, water, and flashlights."

The pilots nodded and set to it, each easing back into the shuttle to gather their belongings and what they could scrounge around for water and food. They met back at the nose of the shuttle. Trowa came back with his duffle bag strapped to his back. He did not pack much, only for a two-day stay at most. Remembering how large and vast the forest was from the ground, Trowa hoped the two days of supplies would last him enough to escape from the area.

Trowa had taken off the baggy normal suit in favor for his long-sleeved black shirt and blue jeans. It was a lot more agile than trudging, with gravity, in a space suit that was made for, well, space. His friends had also made the change: Quatre wore a light blue shirt with brown pants; Duo, a black hooded, zippered jacket over a red shirt and black pants; Wufei found comfort in a short-sleeved beige shirt and black pants; and Heero returned to his green tank top fitted inside blue jeans.

Heero gave them a one over, his face set as Prussian blue eyes stood pronounced on his face as shadows flickered across it. There was a warning there, one that Trowa deciphered was the uncertainty of the situation. Old selves revealed themselves when training took hold, breaking away the new exterior when one's lives were at stake. Heero's face reflected determination, stemming from his training.

Trowa could not escape it as it as his own training manifested, bringing forth the Trowa from the war, the one he had locked away months back. In a situation like this, it was easier to morph into the old routines and training, like fitting on old shoes. It was comforting to burrow himself into a fighter.

"Let's move," Heero commanded.

As soon they started for the forest the sound of movement ahead of them, lurking in the forest, behind the rows of tree trunks, paused their steps.

Wufei held up his hand. Trowa and friends stopped. "Who's there?" Wufei called into the forest. "I can feel your presence. You don't seem to mean us any harm, judging by your intentions, but we would respect it if you showed yourselves. Unless you want to escalate…"

"Uncanny awareness, Child from the Stars. Your gifts serve you well," a soft voice spoke. It had a lilt to their tone that seemed curious and humble.

"I would advise you to take precaution, Children from the Stars, before you venture alone into these forests. What you carry will not be enough to defend against those who would do you harm and from magical beasts that call this forest home. Scare them, yes, but keep them away? No. Even a beast, when frightened, attacks."

"We'll be the judge of that ourselves," Heero returned.

The pilots turned to the sound of movement, seeing a dark shrouded silhouette of a man. A very tall man whose head reached the lower branches of the trees. The man took a few steps to them. For some reason, it sounded like hooves as the man clomped closer. His silhouette expanded, and it seemed he was on a horse.

As the light of day enveloped his features, illuminating his appearance in an outline of white, Trowa's green eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. Trowa had seen many things before, incredible and terrifying things. He lived in space so the impossible was possible. He had seen destructive battleships fire cataclysmic beams that went on for miles and miles turning all in their path into balls of infernos.

High-powered war machines known as mobile suits, standing tall as storied buildings, were possible and had the strength to destroy colonies and warp minds. He had recently seen magic and felt the unfamiliar touch of snarling wands and golden pendants. But this? He could have never foreseen it.

Not in his lifetime. Not in his imagination. History had proven a majority of fantastical myths false, a convenient way for humans to express their uncertainty and fear of things never before encountered. It was easy to make sense for humans that way, to explain their known world. Truth in myths were very little, or so he thought as the figure drew closer.

"What in the world?" Duo muttered besides him, and Trowa could only agree with a slow nod of his head.

"I'll be damned," Wufei added in a whisper.

"I thought they were myth," Quatre whispered in awe. "Mere fairytales from ancient civilizations long vanished that were used to explain their own natural world and civilizations they've never visited."

Heero looked captivated as well but said nothing. Stunned silence left its mark on him. Trowa thought there weren't any words that could sum up the imagination manifested into corporeal existence. Sometimes words were never enough when the eyes and mind could not fully interpret or comprehend what they were seeing.

"Apparently, they're not," Quatre added after a small chuckle in between his awe.

Trowa caught Quatre's gaze as the teen said, "I guess magic does exist, huh, Trowa."

Trowa said nothing, letting the scene play out, as the myth became real.

He had read about these creatures a long time ago as a child, thinking of Greek mythology and the fantastic and the Centaurus constellation that painted the night skies. It was supposed to be fantastical, fiction, a child's imaginative folklore, or man's creative nightmares of the unknown. But they were real as human flesh.

The figure of the voice wasn't a man per say, well, not all that Trowa could see. The figure had a light complexioned, naked upper body and build of a sinewy man with long, flowing white-blond hair and a handsome, chiseled face. His shocking electric blue eyes were almost clairvoyant in how they appeared, almost like they could see into and through them. His lower body was that of a horse, a shade darker with four strong, muscled legs.

He walked closer to them, and the pilots tensed. There seemed to be some humor tracing on his face as he observed them from high, his lips slightly curved, his eyes dancing slowly over them in appraisal and amusement. He seemed to find them fascinating, and Trowa probably felt the same way about him.

The centaur opened his mouth and said, "Fear not, Children from the Stars. I did not come to engage in combat. Quite the opposite. Now is not the time to reduce ourselves to our based instincts."

"You're a – you're – who are you?" Duo asked. He seemed to be struggling with his words, stumbling between disbelief and coherency racked in awe.

The centaur smiled kindly. "I am your guide. You may call me Firenze. I have divined from the stars and planets of your arrival. Fortune has granted me a seat to meet you here."

Firenze lowered his upper body; his left foreleg took a knee to the ground as his right stretched out in a slight bow. After a second, he rose to full height. "Now, we must bear haste. Your arrival has had its intended effects on the forest. My herd, and other creatures and beasts that have made this forest their home, have heard your thunderous arrival. It has bought us some time but not by much. We must go before they arrive. I suspect they'll be less than generous with humans dwelling in this forest than I am."

"How can we know to trust you? You seemed to know who we are and where we were intended to land," Wufei said, eyes calculating and hardened, overt suspicion bearing down on Firenze like a prosecutor. "And at this exact moment. You telegraphed our moves."

"Your suspicions are valid, and you should have them. To trust me without question would be a foolish endeavor. However, at this instance, I'm afraid you will have to trust me for now. You may deal with your trust when we have made it to the safety of Hogwarts. Those that are coming will not be as kind or forthcoming as I am.

"Now, decide. What will you do?"

Trowa and the rest looked at each other. There was a silent understanding in his friends' eyes. They turned back to Firenze who had been looking into the forest, a deep look of concern written on his face. It was quite perplexing. Was he afraid of something or someone? And who were these creatures that were on their way?

Were their creatures that Firenze feared, that were once legend now made real? Trowa imagined many things: Golems, ogres, trolls, chimeras, minotaurs, and cyclopes traversing the forest, on a hunt to investigate the crash. Even fearsome fire-breathing dragons crossed his mind, thrashing the forest floor like a natural disaster while hurdling torrents flame from its mouth. Terrible creatures that put fear in men.

Creatures born from myth and nightmare now held weight and perhaps prowled the dark grounds of this mysterious forest. Despite the danger, Trowa wanted to see them firsthand. His curiosity was that great that it exceeded danger. He was a Gundam pilot, after all, and he thrived in the chaos.

"Lead the way," Heero said simply, but his eyes spoke of caution and guardedness.

Firenze nodded. "Very well. Stay close." He trotted slowly out of the clearing into the forest and waited at the edge of the clearing, his upper body covered in shadow.

Trowa sidled up to Heero. He kept his voice low and whispered, "You sure about this? We don't even know this centaur's motivations."

Heero was silent for a moment, his expression focused on Firenze. "He doesn't seem like a per… an individual that would make up this. This is a territory I'm not familiar with, even by Earth's standards. We'll go along, for now. If things take a turn for the worse…" Heero directed his eyes to the back pocket of his jeans, a black handle ostentatiously poking out.

Heero stared at Trowa for a moment and then set off after Firenze into the dark forest. "A territory we all have no familiarity with," Trowa said softly, and quickened his pace after the rest of his comrades, into the embrace of the dark forest. He wondered once again to the voice, to the beginning, if this was all related to the Time-Turner around his neck and its magic.