So....so this is what it felt like to die? Funny,Mya had thought there would be a bright light, or angels singing an uplifting chorus in her eardrums. But...all she could hear was her darling Julien screaming. That's not what she wanted....She didn't want that to be the last sound she ever heard! She wanted some angels, and she wanted her god damned chorus! After everything she'd done, after everything she'd sacrificed, didn't she at least deserve that?

Instead, all she got were memories.

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Romaya (call her Mya) Jones was sitting alone in a Tim Hortans in Vancouver. Her piping hot Coffee Mocha, which she demanded be at least 3/4's hot chocolate, 1/4 coffee, sat steaming in it's large porcelin cup in front of her as she scanned the headlines of the daily newspaper. Some annoying Simpsons song was being broadcasted on the radio channel, pumping out the speaker above her at a somewhat less then mind blaringly loud decible. At least, that's how if felt to her.

As the unforgettable lyrics such as "So move your body, if you've got the notion, front to back, in a rockin motion" rained down upon her head, Mya sighed and folded up her paper, wondering why in the hell kids these days would want to listen to such garbage.

"Romaya Jones?" The voice was coming from a stranger that had approached her table, and she frowned in puzzlement.

"Yeeees?" She replied, looking up and raising a single eyebrow.

"We need to talk" the voice answered. "It has to do with those shadows you've been seeing your whole life. Yes, I know all about you, Romaya, or should I say, Mya?" The figure moved to sit down across the table from her. Mya's eyes had taken on a slightly wider then normal appearence, and her heart was beginning to pound a little frantically inside her chest.

"I...I don't know what you mean?" She lied, instantly, "Shadows? Pffffft" She scoffed, though her insides twisted. How did they know? How could they possibly? The figure just stared at her, in a very knowing way. "...You...you're serious?" she questioned, and then. "Ok, fine, tell me who you are. Oh, and while you're at it, tell me what the ******** you want."

That was the moment that she first learned about the hunters, about the facility known as Deus Ex, and about what the shadows she had seen really were. They had assured her that if she joined them in their cause, in their fight against the darkness, and against fear, that her family (her father and little sister, her mother had died in a terrible car accident when Mya was only five) would be safe, that she would be doing the world some good. They had, of course, left her, to let her make her decisions. They had said that they would be back to talk to her again tomorrow, to hear what her choice would be.

When she reached down to her cup of Mocha, she found that it had turned ice cold. Her lips pursed in thought, she had pushed back her chair, risen from the table, and thrown her Newspaper back on top of the garbage bin on her way out.

It had not been an easy decision to make. She had a family, she had plans to go to college when this summer was over. She hadn't quite chosen yet on what exactly she was going to college for , but she had been leaning towards becoming a paramedic. Her dreams and aspirations couldn't be so easily tossed aside, could they?

As it turned out, they could.

When she had gone to bed that night, when the shadows of the tree outside her window stretched across the cieling of her bedroom and she closed her eyes, she knew. She knew what her answer had to be. She was going to say yes, and she was going to Deus Ex.


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She had shuffled into her assigned dorm room, weary after the days travels, toting nothing more then a duffle bag full of her clothes and a smaller suitcase full of her more prized possessions. It had taken her but little time to shove some of the clothes into the drawers of the dresser pushed up against one wall of the spacious room, and to hang what few dress shirts and dresses she had brought with her into the closet. With that little bit of business behind her, she sighed and allowed herself the time to let her gaze sweep across the room. This was it, this was Mya's home from now until some unforseeable time in the future.


She remembered, that she had taken a small running leap into the kingsized bed, burying herself beneath the blankets and pressing her face against the pillows as she struggled not to cry, or think about the life that she had left behind. This was going to be her new home, now. She'd best get used to it, and quick.

Mya hadn't been quite so hard back then, but she still tried to keep her emotions as private as she possibly could. This room would prove to be her safe haven in the coming two years that it took for her to ease her way up in ranks and become a full fledged hunter.

For the first week that she had been at Deus Ex, she had cried herself to sleep every night.

The only other person who knew that little bit of information was Julien Bond, and only after she had been with him long enough that she loved and trusted him with every fibre of her being. After that it had been easy to share every intimate detail of her life with him. Before that...?

She had made his life hell.

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No, she didn't want to remember this. Please no. If she had to relive her memories couldn't they at least be good ones? Not ones of the cruel things she had done and said to Julien...

Please...


She could feel him staring at her. That tall and deathly pale hunter with the ice blue eyes and the perfectly styled blonde hair. He always stared at her when she walked by him in the cafeteria.

It was unsettling, to say the least.

She tried her best to ignore him, every single day, but today it seemed he had finally gotten up the courage to approach her and to make himself comfortable at her table without even asking if there was a free space. Not that there ever wasn't a free space. Mya didn't make friends too easily, and after a week of being here, the other trainees had learned very quickly to stay the hell away from her. She eyed him suspiciously, her dark eyes trained on his. "Can I help you?" She asked him, her eyebrows shooting up, after she felt like she had made him uncomfortable enough with her stare. He had merely mumbled something incoherently in reply. Something about falling...and angels from heaven. "I'm sorry, could you please repeat that? I don't understand stupid." And so he did, he repeated himself, much louder then he had before. Uncomfortably loud. Oh god, it was one of those incredibly awkward and cheesey pick up lines! And now people were starting to stare....

Mya didn't hesitate. Best to n** things in the bud now before they got out of hand, right? She stood up from her chair, grabbing the glass of water that had been sitting in front of her, and proceeded to upturn the contents of it onto the blonde mans head. The look she gave him was absolutely flat, and cold, and she had turned on her heel, and strode from the room.

Julien had always been fond of telling people that story later on, after she'd finally come around to his charms. Except his version somehow always ended up with an entire bucket of water over the head. Oh dear,overly dramatic, Julien. If only Mya had known sooner how much you would mean to her. You might have had another year of bliss lying in each others arms each night, rather then the year of torture and torment she had subjected you too.

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It took a year of being in the Sun Division before Mya finally put her request in to be transferred to the Moon Division. The two division leaders had questioned her strongly on the matter. Why did she want to change divisions? Why, when she was doing so well, in the division she was already with? She had swallowed heavily, her throat and mouth had felt so dry at the time. Then she proceeded to lie. Some bullshit about always feeling more comfortable in defensive, and about how she'd rather be a healer. They had raised eyebrows, but had told her they would confer about it and give her decision by the next morning.

The real reason had been much more complicated then all of that.

To Mya's innermost anguish, she had often been sent on her training missions with Julien, who was a full fledged hunter, to guide her. He was a completely insufferable, dramatic, flamboyent a** that just would not take no for an answer. Every chance he got, he would ask Mya out on a date, again and again, rinse and repeat. As a result, she was always finding new and more creative ways of saying no. But, in the end, she got bored of the game, and there were the few times that she could see him coming, that uppity smile on his thin pale lips as he approached, that she would not even give him the chance to speak. Instead, she would just slap him, and tell him to ******** off.

After a few times of that, he had actually left her alone for a month. One sweet, blissful month! Julien free! Well, almost Julien free. She still had to do her missions with him, and she still had to endure his creepy stares.

And then the presents had began. Everyday something new. Nothing was ever exactly big or fancy, but every single day there was something. A rose, a small box of choclates, a card with a poem taped to the inside. These things would either be left outside of her dorm room, or slipped in under the door. There was never a tag to say who it was from, but she knew. After two weeks, the gifts were starting to accumlate in a small pile at the back of her closet. The flowers she usually just threw away.

One day she had opened the door of her room, just as he was leaving something. He had looked up at her then, his eyes widening, his mouth opening to say something. She guessed he didn't know that she would be up yet, as she tended to sleep in as often as she could. She had slammed the door in his face, just as he uttered her name, pressing her back against it afterwards. "GO AWAY JULIEN!" She had shouted, her voice harsh. "AND LEAVE ME ALONE OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL TELL THE HIGHER UPS YOU ARE SEXUALLY HARASSING ME!"

That had put an end to that.

The images in her mind were flickering, changing, jumping ahead in time. Why had she chosen to remember all of these things in her moment of death? Why couldn't she remember the good things? These were horrible memories, of all the horrible things she had done....

Somewhere, she could hear still hear Julien screaming...

He was screaming, because he had just saved her life. She ran towards him, eyes wide and staring at his pale and now lifeless form upon the ground. Why had he done that? WHY HAD HE DONE THAT? She had had things completly under control! Sure that monster had managed to grab ahold of her somehow, and it had begun snapping at her, razor sharp teeth and hot breath just inches from her face. But then Julien had to ride to the rescue jumping up on it from behind, wrapping an arm around it's neck and pulling it's head away from her. The creature had let go of her arm then, distracted by the tall blonde man that was now clinging to it, attempting to stab it with his sword. It had all happened so quickly, as the creature reached up with it's impossibly long arms,pulling Julien from it's ridged back and tossing him several long meters away as she looked on in absolute horror. Julien..oh no..nononononononononoonono!

She had run, abandoning the fight to the other hunters, and she had knelt down beside him. His sword had fallen from his hand and lay crookedly beside him on the ground. She checked him desperatly for a pulse, but his eyes fluttered back open first. "Oh!" she had gasped, and then she was hugging him, tears spilling down her cheeks, and he was whispering something to her. She had pulled back from him then, wiping away the tears and sniffling. What had he said to her? Was he...was he really asking her out on a date? NOW?

What could she have said? Of course it had been yes!

And so, she had gone and put in her request for a transfer. She didn't think it would be considered very professional for a trainee to be dating a hunter of her own dvision. Conflict of interest and all of that...

But mostly? Mostly it was because she knew from that moment forward that she needed to be able to protect him, because even just after their first date, she knew she had found something special, something she didn't think she would ever have, or would be able to find again. She had found her soulmate, her other half, and she wasn't going to watch him get hurt like that ever again.

She had somehow managed to keep that promise, until her dying breath.

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Her memories were reeling now, spinning by one by one. She was beginning to feel a little bit faint...

Lucas had been everything Julien was not. Well, lets be honest here, most men were everything that Julien was not. Her first impression of him was one simple word: a*****e. The way he had talked to her the first time they met, just after she had become a full fledged hunter and had been sent away on a mission that he had also been placed on...it had grated on her, to say the least.

Thus began the most beautiful non-love story never told of Mya and Lucas.

Mya and Lucas's friendship, if it could be called that, had been rocky at the best of times, and downright dirty and dangerous at the worst. There was always a sort of tension between the two of them that she couldn't quite place, and as the missions continued on, one after the other, that tension between them had only gotten worse. They yelled at each other, they did things to deliberately piss each other off. Mya would have never admitted out loud how much she actually enjoyed egging the older man on, but it would have been a lie to say that she wasn't smiling at least a little on the inside whenever he was around.

They had only worked together for those five..or was it six..? short missions. They had all been back to back, and they had all been to track a monster that had been making appearances across the continent. Each time they had thought they'd had it cornered, it had somehow escaped them, extending the battle to one more mission, and then another, and another, until they had finally killed the b*****d.

The last time she had seen Lucas before the events on New Years Eve 1999 had been six and a half years prior, just before she had borded a plane back to her station, and back to her Julien. There had been no sappy farewells, no tears, not even a hug. There had been a firm handshake, and a comment made with a smirk on her face. "Well, I'd say it has been a pleasure working with you, Lucas, but my daddy always told me it was a sin to lie. I've seen the monsters of hell, and I don't really think I'd enjoy their company permanantly, so I'll just stick with the truth. May I never have to work with you again. Ever."

His reply had made her smile even as she turned her back on him. "If you live long enough to work with me again, then you're a better hunter than you let on."

As it had turned out, she had been a good hunter. A damned good hunter. She had made it a nice, long eight and a half years. That was longer then most hunters could boast. But when she had seen Lucas again, she hadn't boasted, she had just tried to live, and he had tried to sacrifice himself so that her and Julien could have a chance of making it.

Life was a b***h, though, and often things never went as planned.

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The memories continued to revolve, but they were flashing by faster then she could process now, as her heart became peirced through with the claws that were tearing her insides apart. If only she could reach her hand out and touch Julien one last time...but there was no time, just not enough time.

Never enough time....

Images of lying in bed with Julien. The sun had just risen, and he had one long thin arm wrapped around her as the hand of the other traced the scars across her back. And then he was moving, brushing her hair to the side and leaning his head down to kiss her softly on the cheek and to whisper in her ear how much he loved her, while she continued to pretend to be asleep, and struggled not to smile...and failed. She rolled over so that she she would be looking up at him, then would bring her hands up to intertwine in the hair at the back of his head, and bring him down for kiss...

A memory of the time when Julien finally confessed to her that he hadn't really been hurt that day that he had been thrown from the monsters back. His Fear shield had taken the worst of the impact, he explained, and she had looked at him, and laughed. Of course Julien would have exploited a dramatic situation such as that to his advantage. It didn't matter anyways, he probably would have won her heart eventually, even without the little extra help.

Other memories flashed, of battles and mission, of fallen comrades that she had tried desperately to heal, but all of those memories had paled in significance against those of her sweet Julien.

The time..what time is it? It's so dark out..and so cold. So wet and cold...Julien, are you there? Julien....

She couldn't reach him, she couldn't tell him one last time how much she loved him, because there was something hot and wet and metallic tasting filling her mouth. But he knew, didn't he? He couldn't not know.

The world had dimmed completly now, and she could feel herself falling, falling, falling down an endless tunnel of blackness.

She was long gone before she would ever feel the impact.