Wild Arms 1. Prologue

Inconceivable!

A Wild ARMs III Fanfiction By

Black Waltz 0

(A/N: Recently I've been pinching a lot of ideas off Skylark Starflower (With permission, of course!), but this idea similarly grew into a plot bunny in the night and mauled me when I got up to go to work. Then it kept bugging me until I conceded to write the darn thing. So here we are.)

xxx

Upon the grassy fields of Claiborne it was getting ready to storm.

The sky rumbled with the promise of distant thunder and lit up the bulging greyish clouds moving in from the horizon, blotting out the night sky. It had only just gotten dark, but it seemed like it was going to be a rough night ahead. Two figures, wearing cloaks that had been well oiled to repel the impending rain huddled under its protection to avoid the cold that the night brought, something that was so very different to the burning Filgaia sun. The air was humid and dewy, practically charged with currents of electricity. If they were lucky they might get there before the storm broke. At the very least they didn't want to get their cargo wet.

Castings of light and shadow by the spotty clouds overhead partially illuminated faint silver-white hair under the hood of the dark cloak, the figure trying to keep in step with the person in front of them, who was walking faster but erratically, as if they carried some kind of limp. A wind blew across the fields and caught against the limping stranger's clothing, whipping back to reveal a night-darkened pink dress. In the darkness it had become a deep purple, the colour of ugly bruises. The stranger in the dress gasped at the blade-like coldness of the rushing wind and stood still for a moment to allow it to pass, gritting her teeth from the frosty pain.

The other figure had also stopped. "You alright?" It said.

"Yes…" A feminine voice answered. "I wasn't expecting a storm." The winds died down and she pulled back her hood momentarily to address her companion, blue eyes staring from a face paled and chilled. They almost looked pleading. "Should we go back? Wait for another night to do this?"

He almost seemed to consider this, but shook his head only after a second of contemplation. He would have removed his hood as well, but his hands were busy securing their cargo against his chest. As another wind swamped them with the consistency of rhythmic waves he tightened his hold a little, but only gently. A slight whimper rose quietly but was ignored. "No." Said the silver-haired stranger. "If we don't do this tonight we'll never do this again, an' this is something that has to be done. It's fine, it's not that cold. Keep moving."

Begrudgingly the woman obeyed his order, not bothering to raise her hood again even though the cold storm winds buffeted her cheek and turned it to ice. She could hear her companion easily keeping pace behind her. It hurt a lot to walk, but she had come anyway. She _had_ to come. It was her duty. But still, even the numbness of the night and the temperature had been unable to keep the pain away. "We're nearly there." She said encouragingly, and a little conversationally.

The man only a few feet away from her heels grunted noncommittally, not in the mood for conversation. There was a large estate on the boundary of the village of Claiborne, but they had walked all the way from Westwood station without a rest and a second thought. It would have made more sense for them to get to the town and visit the estate in the next morning, but time, as well as his own feelings in the matter were not on their side. He knew that he was right. If they didn't do this tonight they would never do it again. Light violet eyes were hard and set firmly on the invisible road ahead of them. They had no choice.

By tomorrow morning they would be dead meat anyway.

_That_ was nearly a certainty.

Why hadn't they flown in Lombardia? There was only room for four dragoons on that flight, and Lombardia would take no other. The sandcraft? It was too much of a dangerous place. The horses? He needed at least one hand to guide the reins. He didn't trust that either. The train and then travelling on foot were the only options left, the ones that they had managed to get him to agree too. He knew that it was terribly cruel to ask her to walk after all she had been through, but she had wanted to come anyway, and so she had. She would have to deal with the pain she had decided to endure all by herself.

He admired her for it, but also felt it was a very stupid decision. The very first few raindrops fell from the sky and struck his shoulder, sliding down his coat. He felt the small impact, just barely. The storm was beginning.

_Damn it, we're too far away from shelter…_ He thought wretchedly, looking around and seeing nothing of description they could use to hide from the rain. Not even a single tree graced the presence of Westwood fields. That was probably just as well, though. They could be struck by lightning.

_Since when have I been so suspicious of everything? _The man wondered of himself as he stopped walking and sunk to one knee, feeling more of the raindrops striking him with their cold moisture.

_Since all of this started, I guess…_

"Virginia, stop." He said urgently, causing the woman leading their small party to halt in her tracks. She looked down at him with a worried, expectant expression.

"What is it?" She asked as she doubled back a bit and knelt in front of him. The woman watched him set their very precious cargo down on the grassy ground and rip off his own cloak, revealing very worn drifting clothes underneath, along with an ammunition belt and a red and white scarf. He spread the cloak out on the ground and proceeded to wrap their cargo up nice and securely so it wouldn't get wet. "Jet, no." She protested softly, all too aware that the rumbles of the storm were growing closer. "Your bandages will get wet."

"That's fine. I'll change them once we get back." He replied smoothly, finishing up his task. "I'll be fine." Jet ran a hand through his hair absently, feeling as drops of water were beginning to land on his head. He stood up and pressed the bundle of oiled cloak into Virginia's arms, who had no choice but to accept it wordlessly. "You hold onto it. You'll be warmer with that cloak on." He smiled ironically. "That's what women are meant to do, right?"

Virginia looked at him sadly. Her loose brown hair was beginning to wave in the breeze. "You'll catch cold." She stated at last, numbly.

"Whatever." Jet answered airily, taking Virginia's elbow and beginning to tug her along to walk again. He was impatient to get out of this rainstorm. "C'mon, let's _go_!" He barked, becoming forceful.

"Ow, that _hurts_! Jet!" The woman cried suddenly, resisting Jet's eager attempts to drag her along. "Please…" She murmured weakly to him. "I can't run, not like this…"

He paused and remembered. Of course. "Sorry…" He said timorously. "I forgot about that." Stepping towards her with a bit of restraint in his step Jet held both his arms out and embraced Virginia, gently, so as not to hurt her or the bundle that she was holding. They both felt warm, too warm to be trapped in these cold winds and rain. When they got back, he'd be sure to make it up to her somehow. "…Where did this all go wrong?" He asked softly, saddened by the choice that he had made.

"In the beginning." Virginia replied, not mad at him for forgetting her pains. He had pains of his own to worry about.

"All of it, in the beginning…"


	2. Heart of Filgaia

_Several months earlier…_

The Heart of Filgaia, next to the blue shining brilliance of the Tear Drop, was the most precious crystal upon the face of the planet. When the land was wounded and scarred through the wars long since passed on her surface, the crystals came into being as physical manifestations of the life that was lost. It was like amber, blood from the very tree of life. There was such amazing, unimaginable power and sheer _potential_ within those gems. This gem in question was one of the very best, and it was aptly named. No other crystal could shine as a reaction to life as well as the Heart did.

It was also the original source of Jet Enduro's life force.

"_What_?" The silver haired boy said in astonishment, straightening up from his careless slouch against the laboratory's wall.

They were on the fifteenth floor of the tower of Yggdrasil, more commonly known as the floor of genetic manipulation and where the Prophet Malik Benedict had once called his home. The Maxwell Gang were there on a quest for information, attempting to salvage anything they could possibly find that could benefit mankind, without there being any kind of maniacal grab for power or anything else that could disturb the world. Yggdrasil was a treasure trove of knowledge, and so it couldn't be left naked to time and the elements, where any old transient could find them.

Virginia and the others didn't fancy themselves great knowledge-keepers of the future, but they had at least been involved with the troubles of the past and felt that they had some sort of responsibility to protect it. Who else could? The Ark of Destiny was too caught up with the death of Lamium to continue researching Filgaia's past, and like an organism with its heart freshly ripped out, it was beginning to break down into chaos.

So they were more or less safe for the time being. Yggdrasil, with its remote location made it the perfect hiding place. Virginia and Gallows were rummaging through the books the Prophets had kept safe, whilst Jet had stood around and done mostly nothing. He didn't enjoy unearthing secrets, yet he was listening to Clive, busy at the monitor that had once connected to the Hyades database, but was also hooked to a much smaller bank that had kept some of the Prophets important documents secure. Clive was good with computers. Nobody really knew why, probably not even Clive himself.

"In this report." Clive said with a surprising amount of calm, finding it hard to contain his own excitement. "I believe it to be a project statement about the steps taken to engineer the Filgaia Sample. It looks like a record of the results as well." The archaeologist pressed a couple of keys in such a calculated way as to make the screen scroll down further. Small text undulated across it in pre-programmed streams. Jet couldn't read it from where he was, but knew that Clive was either dictating or paraphrasing it.

"It also has an account of a particular gem. When the Filgaia Sample essence was redeveloped into a humanoid form, it proved that they possessed the power to develop an organism suitable to live independently of any life support systems. Originally they wanted to try and transplant the old Jet's soul into the newly constructed body, but it was not a success. How could it be a success? They had no blueprints to work from. You cannot design a human soul. He was dead long before they had any chance to intervene. What a shame."

Jet wandered over from the wall and curiously looked over Clive's shoulder, at the text on the screen. "Forget that." He hissed sharply. "Get back to the stuff about the gem. The _gem_."

Clive tilted his head a little to glance at Jet from the corner of his eye. He looked very interested now, almost hungry for the information the computer held. He really was not that amazed at Jet's reaction, but was happy to know that he was not the only one fascinated by this. "Gems are crystallized life. In the making of the Sample, they extracted a potential energy from the body of the gem and transferred it to the body of their experiment. The hypothesis according to the computer is that the raw life within the gem would find shape inside the physical flesh and make it into a home. Apparently…" He paused and murmured sheepishly. "It worked. It worked without any problems at all."

"So the 'potential energy' within the gem was me. I came from a crystal? Is that what you're saying?" Jet pressed, leaning back up again. It sounded like something from a fairy tale, but Jet knew very well the power that some crystal ores held, particularly the elemental shards that were sometimes left behind after a battle, when arcana was cast. But he was more than just an arcana. He had a _soul_. Could a crystal hold a soul?

"The Heart of Filgaia was mined from a mountainous region that was once known as 'The Sea of Sand'. It is most likely under the quicksand ocean now. According to this…" Clive read a little further in the reports regarding the crystal. "There was also a legend that the Heart was a gem in the hilt of a weapon that slashed open the world."

"Move over. Lemme see that." Jet stormed, nudging Clive out of his chair. He wasn't that good at reading and interpreting scientific and historical reports, but what he _could_ understand seemed to match up with Clive's story. Jet knew that he was special, he knew that he had been given life in a strange and unusual way. His body was a science experiment, but he had never given any thought on how his very _soul_ came into being. It wasn't something you usually thought about. You were born, and your soul was there. Nobody knew where they came from. But _his_ had come from a gem.

Apparently.

The two drifters had switched places and now it was Clive who was looking over Jet's tense shoulder. "This is a very remarkable discovery!" He exclaimed, pleased. "We have been able to extract energy from lots of different outlets, sunlight, coal and the motions of water, but this would top them all! Nobody knows how life is made, or where it comes from. That whole department is more the business of a priest than a scientist, but if crystals harbor the raw material that can produce life, simply think of the possibilities!"

"Yeah, think of it." Jet echoed tonelessly, inwardly finding himself unable to believe the words that were printed upon the screen. He could believe in Guardians and magic and demons from eons past, but he could _not_ bring himself to believe that the most essential and meaningful part of himself could be likened to a rock on the ground. It was degrading, and simply impossible. "More artificial life. More golems. More poor bastards who haven't a clue on who they are." His words were sour, cynical. "We could _certainly_ use more of that, eh?"

"…That was not what I was referring to." Clive sounded hurt. Jet's bashing on his new discovery struck him personally. "I meant that if crystals have a raw potential energy in them that can be harnessed, it could be turned into something like electricity, or light and heat. It may result in minimal pollution of the future." The green-haired man paused and decided to keep himself in check. "Maybe I am getting too ahead of myself, but I like the idea of an easier future for the next generation."

Jet didn't want to start a debate with him. He knew that once Clive started to talk it took a lot to shut him up again. It was better just to avoid the issue. His own interest lay within the gem itself, not in what kind of powers it held. "Does this thing say what happened to the gem after they used it to help make me?" He asked the older man, unsure on how to make the computer work properly by himself.

Clive smiled and began to manipulate the keyboard from where he was standing, behind his friend. More text appeared on the screen, along with a map to a place that would have seemed familiar to them, had they been better acquainted to construction blueprints before. "It says in this cross-referenced file that the Heart of Filgaia was put into storage for possible further use. Perhaps they were going to make a Jet mark two sometime in the future." In the chair Jet shivered uncontrollably for a moment, hating the idea. Clive continued on. "Yes… it is in storage at the Leyline Observatory. Huh, that makes sense. It is very close to a mining town, where gems are in abundance."

"Usin' leylines and magic crystals to make a man, it sounds more like gypsy voodoo than a science experiment." Jet said with distaste, clicking off the open documents. A new window popped up, with only a single picture plastered upon it. Jet and Clive stared at it with mixed reactions. The Heart of Filgaia. The archaeologist thought it was a lovely treasure, perfectly cut by a jeweler's hand, but to Jet it was like looking at an old family photo, the picture completely new to him, but also oddly familiar.

But he had dealt with many gems before in his journeys and rare acts of outright thievery. Maybe he had stolen a gem just like that sometime in the past? The Heart of Filgaia was a particularly large gem, a very light aquamarine bluish green, in a brilliant cut that could fit snugly into the palm of a person's hand. It looked like a cross between an emerald and a blue topaz. No, he had never even _seen_ a hybrid crystal like that before, let alone stolen one.

But still, it was familiar to him.

The archaeologist was analyzing the picture on the screen, rather than the object that it showed. His hand had crept to his chin in thought. "That is a professional photograph." He said knowingly. "It has been marked with an exhibit number and somebody has placed a small gella coin next to it so we can determine its proper scale. I am impressed."

_The crystal must be worth a tidy sum, I ain't never seen a shade like that before. _Jet found himself thinking, the rational part of his mind shoving away his prior amazement and sense of déjà vu. He was hardly a geologist, but had been a drifter long enough to be able to value treasure on sight. _I'd like to get my hands on that…_

_And see if this phony report is right, too._

xxx

Far, far away, on the other side of the planet, a computer monitor clicked itself out of stand-by mode and connected to the same up-link as the terminal within the tower of Yggdrasil, showing the exact same picture of the Heart of Filgaia gemstone. It was accessing the very same computer file. Somebody was sitting in the chair before it, though 'sitting' was far too strong a word to use. It was more of a lazy, careless slouch. He was not even facing the computer screen, instead looking away at the floor from a right angle, regarding the person staining the clean sparkling tiles a nasty splotchy red.

Albert sniffled with that was left of his broken nose and inhaled a flood of his own blood, causing him to splutter and choke. Askew several feet away from him, well out of arm's reach was his useless gun. The figure on the computer chair crossed one leg over the other and held his chin in his hand, thinking hard, or perhaps, amused by something in front of him. "Well that's a mighty fine thing." He said piteously in a seldom heard green isle accent. "Look at what yeh've done now, yeh daft bugger. Blood all over me brand new floor! A mighty fine thing indeed!"

The acolyte of the Ark of Destiny snorted more of his own lost blood and scooted away a little, towards his gun. His elbow was set down in the splatter of bloodstains and caused it to smear on both his sleeve and the tiles as he crept away. The man on the chair was eyeing this distastefully. When Albert spoke his voice was plugged and stunted, sounding like he was trying to breathe through a blob of mincemeat. "You… hit me…" He burbled in astonishment, also angrily. "Why? …I didn't do anything to you, 'was just showing you how the computer program worked…"

The figure removed his hand from his chin and placed both of them, on his knees, leaning forward eagerly. "Yeh cult bastards can't even take a single jab to the face. Sad, really." His eyes narrowed accusingly. "Yeh had yer gun out when you was showing me the buttons. I don't like that, not when I've got me back to yeh." He smiled in a sinister fashion. "If yeh was a smart lad, boyo, I'd learn to duck before yeh learn the play with yer ARMs around _me_. Just a warning."

It seemed a little too late for it to be a simple warning, but Albert currently didn't have the guts to say that out loud. Whimpering, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and raise a hand to his face, stopping himself just a moment before realizing that if he touched his nose where it was broken, it'd hurt a hell of a lot more. "'M sorry…" He whined, taking quick breaths so as not to breathe in the blood. "It won't happen again…"

In a move that proved that the man who had wounded the young boy was particularly light on his feet, he sprung from his chair gracefully and slid down to seize Albert by the arm, slinging it around his neck and helping the boy to stand. The boy leant his head away from the other man's face, wondering what he would do if he ended getting bloodstains on his drifting clothes.

The man noticed this and laughed, truly finding it funny. "Don't yeh worry, lad. If I was going to hurt yeh more'n what I've done already, why, I would've hit yeh twice instead 'o just once. Lean yer head back a spot and the blood should stop flowing so freely. Good." Coughing, Albert did as he was told and got a nod of approval as a reward. The stony grey eyes of the older man looked at him in keen calculation. "Yeh'd better go talk to yer cult medic afore that wound begins to fester."

"Y-yes, Mr. Grady…" Came the reply, sliding out of his supportive hold. Albert had cupped his free hand over the bleeding part of his face carefully, hiding the wound while trying not to touch it at the same time. He could easily stand by himself.

Grady brushed his hands on his dark drifting clothing and kept them on his hips, standing in a position that made him look like a stern lecturing father. Short red hair the colour of fire framed his face that wore a cold smile. Holding himself like this for a little while, he broke his stance and went back to sitting at the computer screen. He didn't know how computers worked. He had needed somebody to teach him, as he could not read or write. "Hey, lad." He said curtly, looking at the pretty aqua gem on the screen. "What do yeh press to get sound from the terminal far away?"

Albert stumbled back towards the computer, making very sure to stand by Grady's side rather than at his back. His gun was still on the floor of the room, but still, it helped to be safe. Deftly, he pressed a sequence of keys into a program that he drew up on the screen, causing it to activate. He didn't know why Grady wanted to hear what was going on in a room half a world away, but again, he didn't want to argue. "If the computer you're trying to get into has a microphone attached, you should be able to pick up what is going on around the machine. _If_ it has a microphone. I'm not sure if it does. If nothing happens it's not my fault…"

The red-haired man smiled. "I wouldn't blame it on yeh if it didn't work, lad!" He said quickly and pleasantly. Behind the pleasantries something nasty was watching through him. "Yeh can't take responsibility for a _machine_. Go get yer nose patched up. The smell is workin' me up."

"Uh… yeah." Albert agreed, beginning to back off. He wanted the burning pain to go _away_.

"One last thing, by the way." Grady added, not looking away from the screen. He was still smiling at the screen coldly, well aware that Albert knew that the smile was solely for him. "If yeh tell anyone where yeh got that busted honker, and I mean _anyone_, I'll kill yeh." The fact that he said this so plainly and simply, without any pretensions in his tone convinced Albert that what he was saying was the truth. A cold chill of terror crept up his spine. "As far as yeh're concerned, yeh fell down some stairs onto yer face. _Right_?"

This was a drifter. A bounty hunter. A man who killed for a living.

It wasn't just small talk. It was a promise.

His words were small and shaky as they slipped out of his throat. They were nearly halted by the terrible state his face was in. The blood that had poured out of his nose was drying and giving him a comical-looking moustache. "Right, Mr. Grady…" He squeaked, and then left the room as quickly as he possibly could.

Now that that annoying disturbance was out of the way, Grady sighed contentedly and put his legs up on the table the computer was on, harshly kicking the keyboard to the side with his thick black drifting boots. It's not like he knew what was written on those funny little keys anyway. It was what was on the screen and speakers that entertained him, as it had all been set up perfectly. He could sit here for as long as it took the party to get started.

From the computer came a sound of rustling, and then of distant footsteps.

_"Hey, Virginia…"_

Hell, he could wait all fucking _night_.


	3. Contract

(A/N: Um, Grady has a bit of a foul mouth and mind, so some of the things he says and thinks are particularly vulgar and close-minded. If you take offense at this, please remember that this is only a story and not meant to harm its readers. But if it _really_ bothers you, just tell me in a review and I'll try to fix things.)

"So it's a gem." Virginia said at last, over a small metal table set out in Malik's laboratory. Some spare chairs from other rooms nearby had been brought in especially for this meeting, as there had not been enough room for everybody to sit down. Her circle of friends was seated around her, with Jet unexpectedly conducting the course of their meeting. He and Clive had probably gone through a conversation similar to this one, but now Virginia and Gallows needed to be included as well. She was the leader, so it was her decision to ultimately select where they had to go.

"I guess we could go get it." Virginia said thoughtfully, genuinely interested in the idea but still a little hesitant. These three men around her were her responsibility and she had a duty to keep them safe. "It'd be dangerous. There's still a large bounty on our heads. Do you think we could make it all the way to Leyline Observatory without being spotted? I guess we could avoid all the towns, but we'd have to be really careful with the supplies…"

Clive offered his input brightly, as if he had thought up the information earlier and had kept it to himself. "Once we have acquired the crystal in question we could bring it over to my home for further study. There may be some properties within it that we are as of yet unaware of. Yes!" He clapped his hands together in a rather overt show of delight. "I find that to be a genuinely splendid idea!"

"You're only saying that because you want to see your wife and kid real badly." Gallows argued with a surprising amount of bluntness in his tone. "No matter how interesting or special this crystal is, it won't be worth anything to us if we get found out or killed over it. I don't want to die yet, I still got lots more stuff I need to do first." Clive grimaced at the accusation and hung his head slightly, a sure fire sign that Gallows had touched upon the truth.

Jet found the clarity of Gallows' words to be particularly astounding. Clive was on his side regarding the finding of the gem, but Gallows was against it? Perhaps he worried more than the others? Virginia looked like she was going to be sitting on the bench for this decision, but it was her word that counted most of all. Jet's eyebrows knitted together as he shot a purposeful glare at the Baskar sitting across the table from him. "So you're saying we should hide in this puny little tower until all the people who remember us either die or suffer amnesia? I'm not gonna do that. I'd rather have bullets flyin' at me rather than just sittin' here being bored to tears. We were looking for info, right? We just _found_ some, and you don't want to look into this?"

"It's more complicated than that-" Gallows began to retort.

"I disagree." Clive cut in, backing Jet all the way. "Gallows, Virginia, please consider this. Say that for your entire life you had no idea where your true home lies. Suddenly you discover its location through a remarkable stroke of luck. Would you not wish to see it? This is what Jet is experiencing right now. This gem is his home. It is where his very soul came from. If you can put yourself in his situation, wouldn't you want to pursue this lead for as long as you possibly could?"

He was a little touched that Clive had chosen to support him, but also knew that it was most likely for his own selfish reasons. Nevertheless, it helped. "It's not really all like that." He assured the others gruffly. " It's just that I'd like to see it, is all. It might be worth a fair bit of money too."

"…We _are_ running low on gella, food and supplies." Virginia informed them. "With things as they are, we'll have to move along to a town anyway. Look, Leyline Observatory is between two towns, Humphrey's Peak and Little Rock. If anybody knew we were going to head for that facility they'd expect us to move via Humphrey's Peak because that's where Clive comes from. It'd be safer if we took the long way and went from Sunset Peak station to Westwood, and then bypass Little Twister to go straight to Little Rock. We'll try and find this gem and take it back to Little Rock. It's a mining town, maybe somebody there might know something about it."

Their resident sniper looked to be moderately disappointed. It was a compromise, but not what he really wanted. "Even if we do bypass Little Twister you cannot deny that we would be travelling through the most dangerous area on Filgaia. That area is _filled_ with bounty hunters. May I not appeal for the secondary route?" Clive hesitated, and then added with a heavy heart, "We do not have to _enter_ Humphrey's Peak, but the lands around it are much safer to travel through. Let us please go from East Highlands station to the observatory and then onwards to Little Rock. I should like to avoid the rats nest of Little Twister for as long as possible."

"Well I guess the only thing we can do is ask for a show of hands." Virginia concluded after all the arguments had been made. One way or another, they had to leave Yggdrasil soon or resort to killing monsters for food. They didn't deserve to live that way after all they had been through. "Who wants to go get this crystal through the highlands and then Little Rock?" Clive studiously raised his hand alongside Jet, who appeared to be embarrassed to do such a thing. "Who wants to do the same except through Little Twister?" Nobody moved. Gallows appeared to be thinking. Virginia sighed. "Who doesn't want to go at all?"

"It's not that I'm afraid," Gallows muttered after a moment, "it's just that I don't believe that a soul can come from something as earthly as a gem. I was always told it was higher than that. More spiritual. Sorry if I sound pigheaded, but I just don't want us to get caught out over something that was never real to begin with."

"But we'll never know if it's real unless we look." Said Jet, his hands gently clenched on the surface of the table. "Risk-taking is part of our job, have you forgotten that?" He stood up suddenly, slamming his hands onto the table hard, making everybody flinch a little. "I'm gonna go pack." He called over his shoulder and he left the room, heading towards where he had been sleeping for the past few days.

Gallows frowned. "Even if we chose to stay here it looks like he'd still be going. We're a team, but that kid'll _always_ be a loner. Pain in the ass…" He started to grumble as he got up himself.

Virginia watched her team break up and wander away. Clive excused himself politely and practically skipped with glee to the locker that held his sniper rifle. The pressure of being wanted outlaws was getting to them, to each and every one of them in their own ways. It was like cracks were starting to appear over the contract that bound them together, stronger than paper, blood or flesh. Yet these three elements in themselves were weak. The Maxwell Gang was not invincible, in combat or otherwise.

She was all too aware that the one thing that might finish them off for good could be themselves.

xxx

So, they were headed to that dead scientific laboratory. It was a shell, nothing more than a meaningless foundation. This computer was equally useless, because he already fucking knew that! His foot threatened to lash out and shatter the monitor's flickering glass screen, but the eavesdropping device the damn brat had set up might have been a two-way street. The drifters on the other side of the world might have cause to wonder why the computer within earshot sounded like it was busting itself up inside. Best to lay off, for now. Nothing screamed innocence as much as inaction. It had been a hard business of sorts for him to get this far, he could afford to be lazy.

Grady could hear their voices from seemingly a fair distance away, faint and hollow, like he was using a drain pipe as a listening aid. His mother had beaten him hard and true for the sin of eavesdropping and he would be lying to himself most blatantly if he didn't acknowledge the sense of guilt that he felt. He had been as proud as a parson on the Sabbath day when he walked into this clan of crazy devil worshippers and promptly shoved the whole lot of them under his boot, it had been easy now that their leader had been sent to Hell. He had never felt so much as a twinge of guilt when he had made the lads and lasses miserable, because that was part of his job.

The bastards probably deserved it, anyway.

He felt that putting the fear of God into their useless little heads was his ultimate responsibility as their new unofficial leader. They had bought him like an item of interesting commodity, a drifter who could slit a throat with only the barest notions of movement at all, and with a tenacity that only a mad terrier could surpass. They had asked him to murder the ones who had taken the life of their most exalted leader and they had been willing to pay any comission that he could have asked of them. But all Grady wanted, and would ever really want, in truth, was a promise of good meals and a roof over his head, along with any little bits or pieces of help that they could offer him in regards to capturing the Maxwell Gang.

It had been as easy as pie, and all he had to do was work his way up from there. The contract had been forged by _his_ pen and under _his_ terms from day one. The Ark of Destiny had been a multicellular organism that had had its heart ripped out and its head cut off. What the Ark had come to realise was that needed justice to be the tincture that would restore it back to life and wholeness once more. Justice would give them a new hope and maybe, just maybe, the Ark might thrive again. It wasn't pleasant, but they understood that Mr. Tyler Grady was the ugly prosthetics needed to survive. They took his abuse with good humor because they so desperately needed the small glimmer of hope that lay within him.

Sometimes, hope can be such a deadly, dangerous, vicious, _evil_ thing.

"Zephyr flies on wings of black, its bitter horseman laughs as he drives a tamed God into a mountainside." Grady chuckled lowly to himself, listening to the voices from the other side dropping away, one by one. He pushed his feet off the table and stood up, his line of sight attracted to the drying blood on the Ark's polished floor. _His_ floor. He'd have to make somebody clean that up soon before it coagulated fast like glue, one of the lasses maybe, or that piddling brat who had spilled the blood in the first place. He would have liked to have seen the boy clean the bloodstains away with his _tongue_.

But he had more pressing matters to attend to for the time being. He couldn't forget that his purpose here was to take care of the white-haired brat, the young cunt and the two older blokes, one white, the other lightly coloured. He knew how to take care of all of them. Lord, he _knew_.

The mention of the gem, the so called 'Heart of Filgaia' intrigued him greatly, for more reasons than one. He could probably get there before the Maxwell Gang did and wait for them with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, but Grady had done his homework devotedly and liked to savor each job, a little bit at a time. Only the truly daft worked alone. He was going to pull a few strings for this job.

A few heartstrings, too.


	4. Dark Thoughts

No matter which way they chose to go about it, Leyline Observatory was still a very long way away. They packed up everything that they needed to take with them and set off at dawn of the next day, so that they would have covered enough ground during the early morning to have entered the Nidhogg Pass by the time the sun had met its burning hot apex in the sky. It was a timed procedure, nobody wanted to be outside during that time of day. The darkness of the pass was practically heaven in comparison. From this point they had to travel on foot until they saw bright daylight once more.

Virginia had her mind set on the usual grim thoughts that had taken over her spare time as of late. When Beatrice had framed them she had easily set up a curse that was non-magical, but just as potent nevertheless. Hate was a powerful motivator, as well as its polar opposite. Virginia liked to think that she was pushing away the hatred of the Ark with the love of her friends, and with a little stealth and caution they would be perfectly fine. A grudge can't be held forever, or, a bounty hunter's interest couldn't be held for _that_ long. They would give up a case if it wasn't providing them with enough leads and money. Eventually.

But those wanted posters, _they _were what bothered her the most. Wanted, dead or alive for murder most foul. The bounty on their heads was a large one, even individually it was well worth a person's attention. A short time ago she had passed through a small, virtually newborn town and the posters had been stuck up in the windows of stores close to where the memory figure had sat, so she knew the Ark had been close by. It was like being a rabbit in tall grass, able to smell the presence of the coyote but nothing more. Like being completely alone until the enemy finally struck. In the end she had torn all the posters down, despite the risk of being seen doing so. Virginia had disposed of them all except for one, which she kept as a reminder of the predicament they were in.

The penalty for the crime they had supposedly committed was a public hanging, or failing that, death by firing squad. In the society they were in an eye for an eye was perfectly acceptable. It was the most basic form of justice and Virginia felt she could respect that. When the nights were cold and the food was low, with her stomach as empty as a loose sack and her throat parched with dryness, justice felt like the only thing in her life that was solid, unchanging. It had not changed, even now, and the thought almost gladdened her, but the sobering images in the back of her mind of her three friends with ropes around their necks stilled her mood and kept it where it was, as low to the ground as the belly of a serpent.

Did the others also worry about such things? Jet had told her once that the thought of being hung didn't scare him as much as it once did, having escaped from such a fate once before. He had said it had been a lynching over an item he had stolen once, years past, but he had never forgotten the rough burn of the rope that had been noosed around his neck. Jet knew the difference between a lynch mob and the hanging house of the law, and was fairly sure he wouldn't be able to get away a second time. His fear was there and true, but it was numbed by experience and knowledge. Virginia and the others weren't privy to that luxury. The thought of an unjust death seemed inconceivable to her.

Yet all they could do was either prove their innocence or hide. Virginia was unsure on how to do the former and absolutely loathed the latter, because hiding appeared to prove some kind of guilt. She clenched her hands against her sides as she made her way through the underground pass, leading the rest of her gang. It all just felt so unfair. Often her mind drew to the sinister thought that if they had just taken out the boy who had caught them with Lamium's lifeless body, killed him quickly and easily, then maybe their names would have been clear today. They would have had the chance to enjoy the new world that they had helped to form.

The fact that she was now contemplating murder scared her in a way in which she had never been scared before. It meant that the sense of right and wrong that she held so precious in her heart was beginning to slip away, grain by tiny grain, leaving her a changed person, somebody who was...

Somebody who was no better than what Janus Cascade had decided to be?

Virginia shivered from an inner chill. When she thought in that manner, it almost seemed best to her that she be caught. Jet was walking beside her and noticed her shudder from the corner of his eye. He raised an eyebrow in question to her but did not speak. The drifter girl shook her head a little to let him know that no, she was not cold. They barely spoke to one another unless it was important. Body language was everything. Jet stopped paying attention to her and pushed on ahead, taking the lead and leaving her behind. He was unusually zealous for them to get where they had to go, but Virginia reckoned that he had a good reason for it. He would no doubt be the first one to go to sleep and the first one up and about for the next couple of days.

At least his thoughts didn't seem to be as dark as hers were. That, Virginia, thought, was the greatest blessing of all.

xxx

Heart of Filgaia, eh?

That was all that Grady needed to hear.

A gem of amazing properties? Of priceless rarity? Of a beauty that only a few could match?

Bloody hell, who _else_ could he turn to?

She was a proud, strong thing, a filly that had yet to be beaten down by its master and bent into a pleasing state. Not many men had the bollocks to do it nowadays, not with a creature like her, and although Grady fancied himself one of the few men left who were capable, that sort of idea was far from his mind. _Relatively_ far, anyway. He was only human.

The Jolly Roger Inn was particularly empty for this time of day, with only Hannah, its owner, studiously washing dishes in the small kitchen behind the counter, vaguely within the boundaries of earshot. Two men from the Ark of Destiny (The more correct term would probably be young adolescents) were outside, keeping guard at the entrance. There was nothing for them to guard against, but Grady liked his privacy and secretly thought that having the option of guards available to him was cool. He was sipping a glass of fine cognac with his feet on the table, slightly moved to the side so that he could watch his guest without an obstructed view.

"So it's a gem." Said a rich voice that was both womanly and sharp, a voice that bore an angry blade. She sounded bemused right now, almost bored. She studied the deep amber liquid in her glass carefully, like the whiskey that Grady had bought her was more interesting than Grady himself was. The ice in her drink clinked against itself as she gently tilted the glass towards her lips. "And you think this will interest me why? Gems are my passion, Red, you'd need something pretty amazing to startle this old girl out of her seat."

"Aye." Replied Grady, disliking the way she addressed him by the colour of his hair rather than his actual name, which he had given to her charitably. _Far_ too charitably, he believed. "Yeh're a bonnie lass, that I know, and a fairly popular drifter from what I've heard in the saloons of me travels. Yeh're a thief, are ye not? Never killed a person, have yeh? I like that. I like it a lot. Have yeh got a price for yeh services? I'm just asking 'cause I'm curious."

Her drink halted on the way to its destination. Merely by the tone in his voice she could make out what Grady truly meant. Maya Schroedinger's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Whatever my price might be, it'd be far too high for _you_. Go to Little Twister if that's your game, but you really didn't call me out here for that, did you Red? You just wanna talk about this gem of yours." She set her untouched drink down on the table and looked at him harshly, paying more attention than before.

Which was really what Grady wanted from her in the first place. If you wanted an uppity bitch to pay more attention to your words, the best thing to do was to make them feel cheaper than what they really are. The indignation would cause them to focus on anything else, anything that you wanted them to. Women were so simple to manipulate, it was almost sad.

"Nah, nah," Grady demurred politely, dragging his feet off the table and leaning over to converse with her better, "that ain't me game at all. 'Long time ago I had me a lass who was as beautiful as the moon and as strong as stone. One day afore I went out she said teh me; 'it's me or teh grog, Grady, what's it gonna be?' Yeh can see me here with this glass in me hand, so I think yeh can see how it went." He took a small swig of his drink to accentuate his point.

Maya cracked a smile. "Alright," she said cautiously, "just tell me what you want from me."

"Well, I guess the best way for yeh to think about it is; what do yeh want for yerself?" Grady put his drink down on the table and hunched his shoulders a little, making him look surprisingly vulture-like. "I know what yeh want for yerself. Yeh want this wide sandy planet of ours to be entirely in yer hands. Yeh want Filgaia. I got nothing against that. Better that _anybody_ should rule than nobody at all. I got some people to take a wee little peep into yer history, yeh family's history, I mean. Pretty interesting there."

The fair haired drifter was staring him down, trying to see what he was getting at. Both were determined not to let their eye contact be broken. It felt like they were silently battling each other for dominance without even moving a muscle. Calmly, Maya intoned; "I don't see what that has to do with anything. You're right. Filgaia is the most precious jewel there ever is and I want it to be mine. What of it?"

So she didn't want to talk about that. It was fine. Maya knew that he knew and that was a nice little advantage over her. But he wasn't here to beat her, although he would dearly loved to have done such a thing, he was here to tempt her, to add some strings to his pretty little blonde puppet. "I'm an old-fashioned man, lass," Grady admitted to her with a hint of theatrical shame, "I've always done what me mother taught me was right, and her mother before that, you know how things carry on." He nodded knowingly to his own words and continued. "I'd like to see the old monarchy put back in its rightful place. Yer family is pretty close to the crown, not entirely close, sadly, but close enough. Yeh're such a pretty little thing, Miss Schroedinger, I'd like teh give you the world if I could. Yeh can have it, but first yeh need the key."

"This gem." Maya concluded, adding the pieces together.

"Aye. They call it the Heart of Filgaia, an' it's supposed to unlock the secrets 'o life and the world. That's what they say, anyway. If yeh really want teh get any closer teh having this world as yer prize, hold the heart of this planet itself in yer hands and feel the life that's in it. I reckon it's Filgaia's portable soul. If that don't interest you, then I guess nothing will."

"So what's the catch?" Maya asked bluntly, knowing very firmly that trusting a man who bought you a drink and fed you a bunch of bullshit was not a man to be trusted. The information could be true, but she wasn't willing to take anything on faith alone. The wicked glint in the man's brown eyes was unsettling, too. He spoke like an illiterate, and he probably was one too, but there was a startling amount of slyness creeping around inside him. "Nobody would throw out a lead like that without wanting something in return. Tell me, Red."

"Me name's Grady." He retorted stonily, rigidly dulling the flash of anger that threatened to rise up within him from use of that nickname. It wasn't the first time he had been called that, but he couldn't remember exactly when it had been. Probably sometime during his childhood, he guessed. "Like I said before, I'm a God fearing man who dreams of the past. Me parents would have been so happy to know that the monarchy was back in power once again, I guess I'm trying to make that happen for their sakes. Yeh can have the gem an' everything else, just know that yeh're not the only team who'll be lookin' fer it. The info's been leaked already."

Now, had he leaked that information himself or was there a secondary informant? Perhaps he had located multiple people with ties to the original bloodline and was racing them to get to the gem first. Maybe watching the game was his own reward. Well, whatever. To be honest, Maya knew that she always worked best when she had some competition. It would help her to get her ass in gear and win. This lead was becoming more and more tempting as this red-haired man went on. "I just want yeh to know that there's one last thing I'd like yeh to do for me once yeh get the Heart of Filgaia in yer hands. I'd like teh see its sparkle, in person, and then afterwards it's all yours. Once yeh get it, bring it teh the Ark 'o Destiny, alright?"

"You haven't even mentioned where it is, yet. Gonna explain or what?" Maya probed irritably.

Grady smiled a carnivorous smile, dark thoughts prominent in his head. "Aye," he soothed, "I reckon I will."


	5. Shopping

It had been four days since the Maxwell Gang had emerged blinking owlishly at the sun from the catacombs of Nidhogg Pass. While they were making very good time on their journey to the observatory, food and water was growing dangerously low. The monsters of the Eastern Highlands were inedible and sometimes poisonous to humans, so they could no longer hunt and kill for their dinner. The water in the shallow creeks they passed by was cloudy and stagnant, smelling of earth and mud. There was so little of it that boiling the water was not an option, or else their entire water supply would evaporate away. There was a very good chance that if they continued to drink the impure water it would make them sick, but what else could they do? Die of thirst?

Originally they were firmly set on not entering Humphrey's Peak at all, but the situation had been worse than they thought and they needed new stores of food and clean water. Any longer without a source of fruits or vegetables and scurvy would soon set in. Together they drew lots on who would risk going into town for the four of them. Clive was naturally left out of the drawing. He would be far too recognizable to the townspeople. In the end it was Jet who ultimately drew the short straw and was sent out into danger by the others with a shopping list and a pocket full of gella, followed by a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. The others would wait for him in the rocky badlands outside of town, but if he was not back within three hours, four at the very most, they would assume that he had been captured by a bounty hunter or by the Ark itself.

He wondered what the others would do for him if that was the case. Would they attempt a rescue mission or would they write it off as another loss? With Virginia it was hard to tell. In the beginning she would have eagerly gone off on a suicide mission to rescue anybody that she cared about, but she had grown up a lot since then. Becoming a wanted criminal had forced her to grow up far more swiftly than was normal, even more than when she had the fate of the world resting heavily upon her shoulders. Virginia would think of the consequences first now, as evidently as Jet had watched her begin to smile less and less. It filled Jet with a sensation almost similar to regret to liken Virginia's melancholy to a flower shriveling up and dying in the summer heat. He had a preference to the old Virginia, because he'd rather be annoyed by her cheery antics than mourn the lack of them. Did she really know how much her loss of hope was making _him_ feel?

Luckily the change in scenery was making the thoughts in his head mostly a background noise to the surrealistic sensation of being in a town again. The calmness around him was a trap made to let his guard down. The town was so green and filled with trees, the opposite to the browning cracked lands that lay around it. Jet pulled the fold of his scarf up to mask part of his face and tried to remain inconspicuous. The outlaw walked to the fountain at the edge of the area, the small monument pouring a thin streamer of clear water into a basin below it. As Jet peered into its cool depths he was satisfied that he could easily see the bottom. The water was surely not contaminated.

He couldn't help himself. Jet knelt at the basin and freed his face from the veil of his scarves, dipping his cupped palms into the waters below. It wasn't as cold as he had imagined it to be, but still, it felt absolutely wonderful. He splashed his neck and face with the water and then drunk a palmful of it fearlessly. It was sweet and pure, almost as good as the water from the Yggdrasil lake, but was less artificial and false. Feeling the water trickling down his face and through his hair, already beginning to be evaporated by the sun, Jet got down to business and began to fill his waterskin and the waterskins of his friends, the loose dry leather becoming dark and swollen with moisture.

The water had refreshed him and Jet found that he could think more clearly now, rising with the waterskins slung about his body and fumbling in his pocket for the list that Clive had written him and had palmed into his hand right before he had left. Jet scanned Clive's thin spidery writing carefully, trying to figure out what it said. It was directions to the town's marketplace, but he didn't quite understand the method Clive had used to write it down, using the names of several landmarks that Jet had never heard of before. If he had been a resident of the town, things would have been so much clearer.

A small kid ran by, spinning along with him a thin metallic wheel which he was guiding with a stick from one of the nearby trees. A child's toy. "Hey kid." Jet called out as the boy passed him, prompting him to jam the stick into the circular middle of the wheel, immediately halting it from spinning. As the metal wheel clattered to the ground with a gentle tinkling sound, the boy looked up at Jet with expectantly bright eyes. Jet was almost taken aback by how directly the boy was staring at him, almost as if he was a bounty hunter in disguise. "Uh... you know where the market is?" He added lamely, surprised at how jumpy he was.

"Sure mister, you just take that street there until you see a shop with the butcher's sign in the window, then take a right to the grocer's. You'll be in the markets by then." The boy said readily, and then picked his fallen toy up from off of the ground. He spied the unique-looking ARM by Jet's side with awe, then transforming into a look that was almost like longing hunger. Perhaps he wanted an ARM for himself one day. Unable to help himself, the child asked; "Are you a drifter, mister?"

Jet shrugged the boy's inquiry off easily enough, beginning to walk away in the direction that had been indicated. "No, I'm just visiting from Little Rock." He lied smoothly, figuring that Little Rock was the closest town to his birthplace, so it technically wasn't a lie. "See you later, kid. Thanks for the info." He heard the child run away, probably gaining some momentum in order to get his toy spinning again. Had his ARM scared the kid? Maybe. But in this world children had to grow up scared, it was the only way they would be wise enough to stay alive.

The directions he had gotten seemed to be true enough, so it was with minimal hassle that he found the Humphrey's Peak marketplace. He had the small, annoying feeling in his mind that this was a chore better suited for a woman to do, and that he was wasting his own time needlessly for doing it by himself. Oh, how Virginia would have scolded him for admitting to a viewpoint like _that_! Jet smirked as he walked through the increasingly bustling streets, filled with shoppers taking their supplies home. He didn't think he'd be mentioning that any time soon, even if just to complain. He liked his testicles to remain intact, thank you very much.

It didn't take very long to find and purchase everything that they needed, and Jet was honestly surprised at it. The gella that the others had given him covered for everything. Red apples were in season too and he bought plenty of them as well, knowing that it would help fight off any traces of scurvy that only eating hunted meat had done to them. They would be alright. Jet left with a large brown paper bag that took two hands to carry, his vision slightly impaired by the sight of it. The full waterskins were weighing him down quite a bit, too.

So it was not very surprising that Jet wound up colliding with somebody walking on the same footpath as he, knocking the other person down. He recoiled from the impact himself and dropped the bag he was carrying in surprise, the food and medical supplies spilling out of it and rolling about on the ground. "Oh shit." Jet muttered as he knelt to pick everything up again, gathering it up in his arms.

The other person groaned softly and sat up, rubbing his head as if he had a slight headache. A can of pudding rolled towards him and came to a rest at the side of his foot. The man stared at it dreamily for a second but then got his wits back into proper order. "I'm sorry." He said apologetically as he started to help Jet with cleaning everything up. He smiled, embarrassed. "Sometimes I just end up wandering into my own little world."

When everything was put into order again Jet stood up and looked at the person he had collided into. He didn't react too much outwards, but on the inside he absolutely froze. Pike was looking at him with equal astonishment, wondering what he should do next.

_Shit. He knows me. He knows I'm a wanted man. He could tell the Ark and ruin **everything**._

_So what should I do? Should I shut him up for good?_

His trigger finger began to itch. Murder was an unpleasant thing but maybe it was something that had to be done. He could take Pike around into a back alley, execute him quietly and dump his body somewhere in the Eastern Highlands. No, that would be too hard. His ARM would be too loud and alert people when it fired, and after that, smuggling a body out of town without being seen would take an impossible amount of luck.

_Or..._

He was not a murderer. Running from a frame and then killing somebody to protect his own ass defeated the purpose of his running in the first place. He almost felt ashamed for thinking such a thought, but his eyes crept back to Pike's neck, wondering how easy it would be to put his hands around it and squeeze until either the body below it stopped moving, or until he heard the pleasing crack of vertebrae.

He was not given enough time to fulfill his sick, frightening fantasy. Pike dusted his hands on his pants and strode by Jet, patting him on the shoulder in a friendly and above all _familiar_ gesture. "Nice to see you again, Ted. Take good care of yourself." Before Jet could open his mouth again Pike had already disappeared into a store front.

Ted? Jet knew that Pike never forgot a face or the name that it was attached to. The kid had an amazingly impressive photographic memory, and to Pike, memories were the most important things of all. The fact that he would forget both his name _and_ his face seemed beyond strange to him.

The only other option that made sense was that Pike had purposefully decided to forget who Jet was. Either it was because he no longer wished to associate with the outlaw now that he had become a convicted murderer, or he was trying to protect Jet's anonymity. As the drifter began to walk again, towards the boundaries of the town, he ardently hoped that Pike was taking the latter option.

Call him merely insecure, but life seemed a hell of a lot easier when some people still believed him to be an innocent man.

xxx

"Do you really think that man was telling the truth?" Todd asked of his leader hesitantly, flexing his hand upon the round wooden surface of his saya. Grady had left a little while ago, taking his two young goons with him. The inn was now the property of the public once more. Todd didn't know what the man's true intentions were about, so he was considerably wary.

"I don't trust anybody who tried to get me drunk before we start talking, and that guy felt like the lowest piece of slime around." Maya said sourly, regarding the rest of her team who were ringed about the same table as she. Todd and Alfred were sitting up respectfully, while Shady was settled down in Alfred's lap. _Kids and pets_, Maya thought bitterly, _if it weren't for Todd, I'd be the only useful one here._

"So you're not gonna go after the gem?" Alfred piped up innocently, speaking what came to his mind before he could think about it.

Maya slammed her curled fist down hard on the table, causing Todd to flinch and making Alfred and Shady jump. "Of course I am!" She cried, determination written all over her face. "Even if that smarmy bastard is lying out of his asshole, I still have a gut feeling that this gem, this 'Heart of Filgaia' actually exists. If it does, then it's automatically mine by birthright. I have to have it in my hands!"

Alfred looked at his glass of milk. Beside it was a saucer of milk that was meant for Shady. "So we're going to either play exactly to his tune or we could ignore it entirely. When we bring him the gem, how do we know he isn't going to take it for himself? We would have done all the dirty work for nothing."

"Oh, I'm fairly certain that's exactly what 'ol Red is going to do, and with that crazy cult behind him he'd be able to with absolutely no problems." Maya grinned in her trademark way and spread her hands a little, a gesture that said she was forming a plan. "But since their old leader dropped dead, that cult's holdin' itself together with nothing more than a single loop of thread. That guy's the one who could unravel it whenever he wants. But when things are as chaotic as they are right now, all we have to do is slap his grubby hand away and hold onto that loop for ourselves. I _will _have this planet for myself, boys, so maybe this Ark place will be a good spot for it all to begin."

Todd chuckled, pleased. "You are proposing a strategic coup de tat, milady? You truly have the mind of a tactician. Lord Schroedinger would have been proud."

"I'm just saying that if one dirtbag drifter can take over a group of fanatics easily, I most certainly can turn them into my own kingdom. Then, the Heart of Filgaia will be all _mine_."

Alfred always felt a chilling thrill go down his spine whenever his sister spoke of the future. More so than her ability to transform information into materials on the physical plane, Maya possessed an inborn ability to lead flawlessly, to inspire and bring out the emotions in people. What was that word called? Charisma. His sister was a veritable fount of it. Sometimes Alfred thought that maybe she would have been more at home during a different point in Filgaia's history. The great demon war, for example. He could easily picture her there, in the front lines and screaming a war cry, leading the charge.

Over the centuries that sort of thing had always been left to the members of the aristocracy. They had been bred for it, so to speak. Secretly, Alfred felt that all the bad qualities that had been sucked out of his sister before her birth had been transferred to him, making him the genetic refuse pile of the Schroedinger family. He did not possess the special powers that Maya and her mother did. He was okay with it, though. He still loved his sister very much. If Alfred truly was all of Maya's bad qualities, then it could also be said that she was all of Alfred's _good_ qualities, as well. They shared their victories as one and the same.

But neither of them would admit to this sense of dualistic oneness to the other. Todd was the only one who noticed it on both sides of the siblings.

And frankly, he was very proud of them both for it.


End file.
