Welcome to Gaia! ::

They say that the years you spend as a child are the best times of your life. Yeah right! I became orphaned before even knowing my parents, much less remembering their faces. Then getting sent to a place that was worse than hell. Well it wasn’t that bad. During my reign of terror, I made my first and only friend I would have until I became a bounty hunter. Her name was…I don’t really know, she never told me even to this day. But I called her Jade because her eyes were like jade emeralds. She liked it and stuck with it. We both never followed the rules and the Imperial Earth Military Academy. If there was a problem it was very likely that we were behind it. We were supposed to see each other during training, but that didn’t stop us. We snuck into each others rooms and schemed how we would escape, and what we do when we got away. Then one day, right in the middle of our session some officers stormed in and took her away saying that she was being transferred to another facility. An officer picked her up, slung her on his shoulder and yelled at her to remain quiet. That’s when I got angry. I jumped at the officer and pinned him to the ground and started punching him in the face telling him continuously to let her stay. It took a stunner to stop me. Before I fell unconscious I remember her telling me this: “Kaze don’t forget me!” And that was the last thing I remember. When I came to I was in my room, I felt as if the universe was against me, I had to run away, and one day I found my chance. It was during a shooting training session; and I knew my chance had come, and I waited for it.
“Ready…Aim for your targets, and for those of you whose aim is lousy take some more time in getting your bearings,” The Trainer said. I aim straight for him. “Fire!” Shots from all the guns were heard, except for mine… When he turned to see why I hadn’t fired he found himself looking at the barrel end of the pistol, all I said was, “See ya.” As soon as he was down I bolted for the fence, hoping that nobody would stop me…

For years after that, I did what I could to survive even if it meant working for someone you truly despised. I had hopped on board a freighter for an unknown destination. I had no real idea of where I was going, but somebody had knocked me out. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital, and, that, I was performing tests of some kind. When I was 10, I went looked into the doctor’s database to see if there was anything I could find out about my past. All my search came up with was that I had enough credits to purchase a small freighter. The only problem I had was getting out of this place and getting to a shipyard of any kind where I could buy my craft. I simply snuck out in the middle of the night through the air vents and into a laundry basket that would hopefully take me outta here. When I thought the vehicle had come to a stop I hopped out and ducked behind another basket in the back. I waited until the person was gone and bolted out of the cargo hauler and ran for the nearest alley. I was so concerned about not getting caught that I wasn’t looking where I was going and tripped over something. I got up to see an small droid attempting to get up. I felt sorry for the little guy and decided to help him up and to give him a quick look over to see if I had done any permanent damage.
“Let’s see now, you’re a ARX-15 model, very rare, wish I had one of these. I wonder if it could help me find a shipyard of some kind, I desperately need to get off this dust ball," I mumbled. It must’ve heard me because before I could try and leave it, it was in front of me nudging me to follow him.

3 hours later…

“You sure you know where were going? It looks like were lost or something.” I said unaware of the fact that the little droid was trying to hack his way through some vine that had gotten a tight hold onto his wheels. I realized that I left my pistol at the hospital, so I tried to rip them apart, but to no avail.
“You stay put and don’t try anything stupid alright? I’m going to go buy something that should cut you loose,” I told ARX. It just whistled back. I ran to the nearest store and walked in.
“What are you looking for little man? Something for you mommy? Or maybe Daddy?” the owner said to me in a childish voice. I ignored his comment and walked over to a shelf and grabbed a pair of gauntlets that had claws attached to them.
“How much are these?” I asked him. When he saw what I was holding he just backed away.
“There for free. You can take them. Please don’t hurt me!” he responded quivering in fear.
“Whatever.” I mumbled and walked out and back to where ARX was tangled. When I put the gauntlets on, a strange aura seemed to emanate from them. I just thought it was just the last of the preservation gas coming off.

Five Years later…

“I wish I could remember who that girl was in my past or what her name was.” I said to myself, but just loud enough for ARX to hear me. He whistled me a question.
“It’s nothing, I was just thinking out loud. Do you think you could mind the ship? I’m going to go into town and get something to drink” I replied. The little droid just plugged himself back into the ship. Luckily the spaceport was close to the town and I really needed to unwind. I had made my living as a freelance bounty hunter that finished the job in record time. When I got into town, a shuttle flew overhead with the Earth seal upon it. I knew this could get ugly, for I had single-handedly given them the reputation of being unable to get a job done. I ran to the pub and took a seat in the darkest corner. As soon as I sat down, an Imperil officer burst into the room and took a seat at my table.
“I saw you at the shipyards not too long ago. Who are you and who do you work for?” she demanded. I looked at her and took a sip of my drink.
“The name I go by is Falcon.” I replied calmly. Everybody just froze and stared at me, as if someone had walked over their grave. “You’ll, can return to what you were doing. Look ma’am, whatever it is you want, you’ll have to settle down and allow me to order you a drink first.”
“Are you always like this with women?” she asked.
“Only the ones who don’t want to kill me at first sight,” I replied. She just sat down, and I ordered her the same thing I was drinking, a Mindgripper.
“How did you know that I loved these?” she asked.
“Just lucky I guess,” I responded. My jaw would’ve hit the floor when I saw that she had drunk the whole thing at once.
“So, Falcon was it? What’s a bounty hunter doing without any work? I mean when was the last time you had a job?” she asked drunkenly. She seemed like one of those drunks who don’t know how to stop and let the other person respond. If I didn’t interrupt her, I might not have been able to answer.
“Whoa, slow down a second,” I said putting my finger over her lips, causing her to blush slightly, either from embarrassment or from the alcohol. “Number one: I’m here waiting for somebody else.” A strange man walked in, followed by a gun shot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
“Number two: I haven’t had work for about a second now. And number three: you’re a really bad drunk,” I continued. We both laughed. I hadn’t noticed that the man was getting up, or where the shot had hit him. He was too quick though, and put his gun to the officer’s head, and backed away towards the bar, dragging her with him.
“Note to self: Aim needs to be improved,” I thought to myself.
“Well, well, I thought the infamous Falcon would never have a girlfriend. What’s the matter? You so scary that the only ladies you can talk to are militaristic, have a strong tolerance level, or are just down right whores?” the man asked me. Everybody in the pub immediately dove behind the bar, turned over a table, ran into the bathroom, or jumped out a window. The man had a quizzical look upon his face, for he could not understand why everybody was running for cover.
“I guess you don’t know that much about me now do you,” I replied coldly giving him a stare that could freeze hell over, my hand slowly reaching for my sidearm.
“Barkeep what’s the story behind that? Tell me and I might let you live,” he said to the bartender with a shotgun pointed right between his eyes, and tightening his headlock on the officer.
“It was a long time ago… He don’t remember her name or what she looked like exactly, but he and that girl were basically boyfriend and girlfriend with the time they spent together. The only thing he remembers about the way she looked was, that the little lady had eyes of emeralds...” the bartender calmly replied.
“How the hell did he know all about that? I’ve never even been here before,” I thought. “Oh yeah, Barkeeps seem to know everything, even if you haven’t told them anything before. How do they do that?”
“Oh really? So what happened did? Did she dump you or something? I wouldn’t be surprised. Nobody would want to even come near you with your reputation,” he chuckled.
“That’s not all, the last thing those two ever said was not to forget each other…Not to mention shooting a man down for hitting a women before,” the bartender finished, before he himself ducked below the bar.
The officer lost consciousness, probably due to the lack of oxygen caused by the man’s poorly done headlock, which was more of a strangle if you ask me…When the guy noticed, I opened fire with four well aimed shots, all straight in the middle of his head. He dropped the officer, and went flying into the opposite wall, falling to the ground lifeless.
“Are all you people going to just stand there in fright? This woman is hurt and needs medical attention fast,” I commanded. “Barkeep, you got a spare room I could borrow?”
“Here are the keys; it’s the first door on your left,” He responded, throwing me the keys. I picked her up, ran up the stairs, laid her down on the bed and waited in the shadows with my back against the wall for the doctor to arrive...

It had been months since that had happened, and now some b*****d kidnapped Jade and took her to some research facility. I knew that I would be walking into a trap, but I would figure out a way to reverse the trap on them.
“ARX lets’ get Jade back.” I said to the little droid. He just started the engines up and aimed the freighter at “Omega Research Facility” on the moon. They wouldn’t know what hit them, and I was unaware of what I would find there…

Upon reaching the base I spotted somebody hiding inside a crater. I thought that she was waiting there for me so I landed on the other side of the crater and donned an exoskeleton suit equipped with a jetpack. I blasted off to her spot.
“I suggest that you don’t move,” I said to her with my rifle pointing directly at her head. She just turned around and I noticed that she had wings and antennae. Where in gods name did she hide those?
“Please don’t hurt me!” she begged. “My friend is in there and I really want to save her, but if I try to they’ll capture me as well.”
I was still a little dumbstruck to how there was a fairy, about my height, standing right in front of me. I raised the rifle and took out the two guards instead. She looked at me, like she I was going to assist her in rescuing her friend.
“Listen, now I’m doing this because a friend of mine is also in there,” I told her. “I have no intention on saving your friend I’m just doing what I need to do. But seeing as our goals, are the same you can tag along. But once I find who I’m looking for, you’re on your own. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said shaking my hand. Something in the back of my head was nagging me to help her, but I just ignored it.
“Before we go, what’s your name?” I asked as we reach the compound.
“Sarah,” she said shyly. “What’s yours?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you my real name, but I’m known as Falcon,” I replied. Her face just lit up.
“Then did you get my message?” she asked.
“Ummm…I don’t think so,” I replied. Her expression went from overjoyed to depressed. ARX came rolling over the hill, claiming that there was a message addressed to me. He handed it to me. When I read it over, I just fainted. Sarah just looked at me, as if wondering why that just happened.
“Are you seriously going to pay me this much to get your friend out of there?!?” I exclaimed holding the message that said she would pay me one-trillion dollars. She just nodded.
“I accept your job. Now you need something to defend yourself,” I said professionally. I opened my weapons trunk and sifted through the various weapons of mass destruction. “Grenade Launchers, Sniper rifles, Rocket launchers, Nuclear warheads, Microwave Cannons, Flamethrowers, Fragmentation grenades, Nuclear mines, Chemical warheads, Guided rockets, Heat-seeking rockets, Laser-machine guns, Mustard gas, Bubonic plague in a can, Hydrogen bombs, Hurricane spray, EMP mines, Particle Cannons, Scuds…Here we go. And the U.S. thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”
My joke fell on deaf ears, probably because the fairy had never been to earth or knew anything about its history. It was a little handheld dart gun, loaded with explosive darts.
“Oh… I didn’t think I was going to have to fight,” she said shyly.
“Well you’ve got to come with me, and since I don’t now what your lover looks like you’ll have to point him out to me,” I replied. Her face went totally red when I said “him”. She just whispered something into my ear.
“YOU’RE KIDDING,” I exclaimed. She just shook her head. “Well at least she won’t get suspicious.”
“Who, your girlfriend?” She asked mockingly. Now it was my turn for my face to go red.
“Enough of this chit-chat let’s get this over with,” I said trying to remain cool.
“Whatever you say, lover-boy,” She replied. I just stiffened up like I had been frozen solid.
“Let’s just drop it and get back to the matter at hand,” I replied, raising my gun up to her head. “Hands up.”
“What? You’re with them aren’t...” she started to say, until I winked at her. She looked into my shades and noticed some soldiers sneaking up on her.
“Its alright, I got this one,” I said as sternly as I could. The soldiers that were coming halted.
“Sir, we will take it from here,” one of the men said, grabbing Sarah’s arm.
“No you’re not taking her,” I replied taking his hand off of her.
“What is the meaning of this?” another demanded.
“You don’t know what she capable of. She nearly buried me in that crater. If you were to take her, you would be in for more trouble than you could handle,” I said calmly. The soldiers nodded and allowed me to take her.
“Act like you are struggling to get free,” I whispered into Sarah ear. She nodded and began trying to break free of my grip, I gave her a swift chop on the back of her neck and she was out cold. “I only need to do this until we reach the lab.”

Onboard the Phoenix’s Tear…

“What’s your destination?” I asked Amber and Sarah.
“Ummm… We don’t have any were to go, so actually we were wondering if we could stay with you?” Sarah asked.
“Jade, what do ya think we should do?” I asked her.
“Well I don’t think we have enough room for four people,” she replied. Sarah and Amber looked like they had given up all hope, but knowing Jade she had lure them right into a trap. “But, as the saying goes, the more the merrier. Welcome to the crew of the Phoenix’s Tear.”
Both of their face just lit up with joy, Amber nearly squeezed me do death.
“If there is anything we can do for you just name it,” Amber said.
“Give me a chance to breath would be a start,” I replied.
“Done,” she said dropping me to the ground. She walked to where her stuff was and noticed something was missing. “I left my electric whip back and the Facility we have to go back.”
“Oh, you mean this?” I said showing her the whip. She just took it from me and was so overjoyed by it. “If it wasn’t for that I would’ve missed my flight.”
We all laughed. And we had also agreed that Sarah and Amber would also join me and Jade’s ‘Family’ since they were both orphans.

Now currently…

“Okay Kaze, you’ve had your fun now tell us what the big deal is,” Jade said. She, Amber and Sarah were all blindfolded. For the whole day I kept them out of the ship, and made a little surprise party, to mark our anniversary of becoming a crew.
“Okay, you can take the blindfold off now,” I said, sneaking in front of them. When the blindfolds were off, they just stared in confusion and amazement.
“It’s to celebrate our first anniversary, of being a crew and I mean all of us. So take a load off or something like that, and let’s party,” I said pointing the Tear to the second star to the right, and Amber managed to find the alcohol.
“Where did you get this great food? It’s delicious,” Sarah exclaimed.
“I made it,” I replied. Sarah just looked at me, like she was saying ‘what did you do to this stuff?’ “Hey, is it a rule that a guys can’t cook? If it is then you can make your own.”
“NO!” All three exclaimed.

Several hours later…

“Those two are party animals,” Jade said, feeling very exhausted, and a bit drunk.
“Speak for yourself, miss give-me-another-round,” I replied. It’s true we did have a lot of fun that night.
“By the way why are we out here in the middle of nowhere anyway?” Jade asked.
“Other than the fact that it gives a great view of earth?” I replied. Jade just nodded. “Work.”
“You’ve got work to do? I thought you had promised no work for the whole day,” Jade said.
“When the target gets within range it’ll be midnight, which should be happening any second now,” I replied getting up from my seat and exited the ship. I pointed my rifle straight out in front of the ship and waited. In a matter of second a ship came flying by as I fire four shots, the last three hit, the first missed.
“Let’s see now that should reach my employer’s yacht within the next couple of minutes. I’ll remind him the he’s got to pay me,” I said and fired a shot in the direction the damaged ship was heading. I watch our bank account go sky rocketing, due to the reward money.
“You hit the target, so why are you still out there?” Jade asked me.
“Our employer said that we could keep whatever came out of ship up until it reached tractor range of his own,” I said floating over to bars of 25 karat gold. “And with this sort of a bonus I’ll finally be able to give this thing some better weapons, faster engine, and a much needed paintjob. That and replace all the alcohol you and Amber chugged.”
“What’s with all the laughing?” Sarah asked, still half asleep.
“It’s nothing, go on back to bed. I’ll wake you when we get to the station,” I replied. Jade giggled at that. Sarah and I just looked at her in confusion, and we both shrugged it off.
“Alright, but remember to wake us up alright,” Sarah said heading back to the bedroom. Once she was bed, Jade turned back to me.
“You’re going to throw ice cold water on them?” she asked. I just nodded. “Should’ve figured, you’ve been doing that to me for a while.”
“Hey, I could do worse,” I replied.
“But you wouldn’t…would you?” she asked.
“Well, maybe…” I started to say, and Jade had me against the wall with a knife to my throat. “Okay, okay. I won’t do anything worse. Now it’s time for you to go to bed, I’ll handle the ship tonight.” She just walked towards the bedroom. I realized peace would never exist on the Phoenix’s Tear ever again.

The next morning, instead of throwing ice cold water Jade, Sarah, and Amber, I walked over to Jade and shook her awake. She was about to ask me something, when I covered her mouth and pointed to the other two, whom were still sleeping. She nodded and quietly got out of bed.
“WAKE UP!” I yelled and simultaneously threw a bucket of ice cold water onto them. Boy, did I ever regret doing that. When Amber woke up, soaking wet, with her whip in hand.
“I guess I should start running now,” I said. Amber just nodded, and I bolted off in the opposite direction with Amber right on my tail.
“Come back here when I’m done with you, you’ll be so banged up you’ll need somebody to push you around,” She yelled chasing after me. I swear we made at least 20 laps around the ship until it landed, and the door opened. I went running out, heading for the hills, with Amber right behind me.
“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Sarah asked Jade.
“Beats me. But I bet that Amber catches Kaze, in at least an hour or so.” She replied. “Want to go into town and do a little shopping, I think we need the walk.”
“Sure,” Sarah replied. They both just headed into town, heading for all the stores and such.

1 hour later…still running…

“That was fun, we should really do it again soon,” Sarah said trying to carry one to many bags.
“Yeah, but the problem is how are we supposed to get all of this back to the ship?” I replied. We soon both heard someone yelling and it was getting closer. Upon looking behind us, we saw Kaze flying straight towards us. So, we both just took a step to the side and he landed head first into the rock hard ground.
“Guess Amber caught up with him,” I said. “Now that your done playing, be a dear and help us carry these things now will you?”
“Sorry, I’m going back to the ship, I’ve got a monster of a headache,” Kaze replied. I heard a whip crack and looked up to see Amber standing right behind Kaze. “Of course that could wait for later.”
Kaze was given everything, except the light stuff, and it’s unbelievable that he made it back to the ship. Probably had something to do with the fact that he was getting whipped every time he started to fall behind.

We were probably the finest, and strangest, crew anybody could ask for. Jade handled battle tactics, navigation. Since Sarah didn’t like fighting, she took care of being Medic and Science officer. Amber, being the easy to anger type, took care of security and weapons. ARX was the chief engineer; he could spot and take out a possible problem before it even got a chance to breathe. I just handled piloting and overall maintained the ship itself. This went on until it was my turn to get into trouble…

“Kaze…Kaze, where is that guy?” I yelled. I was looking for him, to see if it would be possible to make a few adjustments to the engine, to maximize the ship’s speed and keep the power drain to a minimum.
“Jade, what’s wrong?” A sleepy Amber asked. She had been woken up by my yelling. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Jade, the computer says that Kaze hasn’t been on board for the past 3 days,” Sarah said rushing into the room.
“Wait a sec, didn’t he say something about if he didn’t return within 3 hours that we were to leave without him,” I said remembering the last job they had.
Suddenly, the com signal went crazy. “Shut up, ARX” we yelled. But when we noticed that he was recharging we scrambled over to the bridge. A light was flashing; and Sarah just hit the button underneath it. A screen popped up with Kaze’s face on it.
“Jade, Sarah, Amber, and ARX. If you are listening to this, then that means I’ve been captured. This message automatically activates when I haven’t made any contact with the ship for at least 72hrs. I have placed a homing device upon myself, in hopes that it shall lead you to where I am being held. The frequency is…” The message stopped and it began to repeat those last three words. They all turned to Amber, who had leaned her arm against the side panel. Sarah pulled her off of it and the message resumed. “The frequency is 159.372.401.282.915 MHZ. If this signal is located on earth, head to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There you will find a submarine that is capable of withstanding any amount of pressure put upon it, at any depth. The Scuba suit will do the same. The vessel is unnamed, and ARX has to stay with the Phoenix’s Tear.”

500 yards from the underwater station and closing…

“Amber as soon as we get in range give them everything we’ve got, while I head inside. Sarah I’ll need you to tell me who, and what’s around the corner, and if I’m getting close to Kaze. If it becomes to dangerous retreat to the rendezvous point and wait until I’m done, then come back with everything you’ve got left, pick us up, and get us outta there. Is everybody clear?” I instructed from the mini-sub, armed with a machine gun, several grenades, two pistols, and a shotgun. When we were 100 yards away from the facility Amber stopped the sub, because there was another sub that had come from an underwater base, screaming towards us with about a dozen others on its tail, firing upon it.
“Screw our last plan Amber, lets give them a little surprise, hid behind that rock face, and wait for the sub to come our way, once it’s past us wait for the others, then open fire as soon as you see them,” I commanded, then I opened a com channel with the lead sub. “To the unknown sub, please head towards the rock face on your left, we will supply you with cover fire.”
“Roger that, were on our way,” said a voice over the radio.
“That wasn’t Kaze, where is he? Could this be a trap? It couldn’t be,” I thought, “After all I did come here for Kaze, so I was expecting it to be him. It’s too late to worry about that now; we have to protect that sub at all costs.”

In the mini-sub…

“You sure we can trust her?” The guard asked.
“Don’t worry, if I know Jade she’ll pull through, she knows what she’s doing,” I replied. I turned back to the missile pod and let fly 4 more torpedoes, which detonated after 3 seconds after launch.
“What if she thinks she’s falling into a trap?” He responded. I just shrugged. He had a point, if Jade thought of this a trap and she would fire as soon as we came into range. The only thing I could do was pray that she would blow us to smithereens. But for some strange reason I knew that she would not fire on us.
“Stop the ship right now!” I yelled at the ex-guard.
“What are you nuts? Those guys are going to kill us if they catch us!” He responded.
“If we keep going we’re the ones who will be dead. STOP THIS SHIP RIGHT NOW!” I screamed at him. The ship immediately came to a halt, and my head slammed right into the torpedo launcher. “Next time give me some warning…” I had stopped when I noticed that it was the girl had hit the brake, and that’s when I also noticed that my head had become a geyser of blood at the same time. Soon explosions rocked the water around us and through the smoke the girl saw our pursuers going right towards us, but instead of firing there were torpedoes chasing them right back to the base. The sub Jade, Sarah, and Amber were in cut through the smoke and connected to the escape hatch under our ship. We then filed out, the girl first, then the guard, then me after I detonated the explosives the guard left back on the base.
We immediately headed back to port, where we would stash the sub and give the two lovebirds a ride into town along with a hand full of cash for them to use to get their lives started. After we said our goodbyes, Jade, Sarah, Amber, and I headed back to the Phoenix’s Tear, eerily quiet for our group, but I figured that I shouldn’t bother asking what’s wrong. When we approached the ship, Jade just slapped me and ran straight into the ship crying.
“Do either of you two know why she’s like this?” I asked Amber and Sarah.
“She’s probably mad at you for scarring her.” Sarah responded.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I would never try to scare her,” I said confused.
“I think that the reason you scarred her was the thought of you not being able to return with us, or that you had been killed,” Amber replied. “I can think up more than one occasion were I was scarred I would lose Sarah forever. So probably she’s mad and happy that your back.”
“Do you want us to talk to her for you?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah that would be a good idea,” I replied. “Could one of come get me when she has calmed down a bit?”
“Sure, no problem,” Sarah and Amber replied in unison.

Onboard the Phoenix’s Tear…

“Hey, why are all the lights out? And where is everybody?” I asked Sarah.
“It must have been a power surge. Stay here while I go find ARX to fix this mess,” She replied leaving me alone in the dark. After about three minutes I heard a strange noise, like somebody trying to push something heavy.
“Hey Sarah what’s the problem?” I asked into the darkness.
“Whatever happened to the ship, has affect our little friend here. Could you give me hand with him? He weights a ton,” Sarah answered. I just started walking forward until I kicked something. Just then all of the lights went on and this huge cake was right in front of me.
“SURPRISE!” yelled Jade as she popped out of the cake, with Sarah and Amber standing right behind her.
“Happy Birthday!” they all said in unison and showered me with streamers. They were all dressed up in the best outfits they had on. Sarah was wearing a black dress with gold lines spiraling down it. Amber, who was never one for dressing up, was wearing the one piece black swim suit we found her with. Jade was the most beautiful of them all, she was wearing a white silk dress that left her left arm exposed, and seemed to sparkle no matter where she was. It was so quiet you could here a pin drop.
“Kaze, Kaze, is anybody in there?” Amber asked while bopping my head.
“I guess we were so beautiful that we knocked his socks off,” Sarah said happily.
“More like his we slugged his soul out of him,” Amber said. My nose just started to bleed.
“Hey Kaze, you’re a virgin aren’t you?” Amber asked slyly.
“Wha-whatever gave you that idea Amber?” I asked, while my face turned into a cherry.
“Well one you’re blushing and two your nose is bleeding,” Sarah replied.
“You mean you two never did it?” Amber asked Jade.
“No, we never have done it!” Jade replied sternly as well as shyly.
“You two should try it some time it’s a lot of fun, especially…” Amber started saying before Sarah slapped her hand over her companion’s mouth.
“Sorry about that, she has the tendency to do that sometimes, even if it’s appropriate or not. Now if you don’t mind we’re going to make your real cake,” She said and pulled Amber with her to the kitchen. That left me and Jade in the room by ourselves.
“You look really beautiful in that dress,” I said blushing.
“Thanks it took me a long time to pick this one out,” She replied also blushing.
“So when you ran to the ship was it to tell the other three that it was time or were you really crying?” I asked. She just began crying. “Oh man, look at me, I made you cry again.”
She just leaped into my arms and looked me straight in the eye, then buried her face in my chest.
“I thought I had lost you again, and that I would never see you again, or you may have gotten over me, or died, something horrible like that. If something like that had happened I would never have been able to live with myself,” Jade said crying. “After I was taken away from the academy I was immediately thrust into the command program, and…”
“And what..? What happened to you to make you feel like you’ve committed some horrible crime,” I asked her. This time I grew very concerned for her, because whatever had happened to her she was so ashamed of that she couldn’t find the words to say what had transpired.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for it to happen, but…” She started cry, I just put one finger on her lips to let her know I was here for her. I pulled her to my chest and let her just cry, for whatever had happened she wasn’t willing to talk about it.
“It’s okay Jade. Your safe here with me, nobody is going to hurt you. Whatever happened in your past, it doesn’t matter to me,” I told her. She looked me straight into my eyes. I returned the gaze, but all I saw was sorrow.
“Thank you. I feel much better now that you’re here, I just wish it could stay this way,” She replied looking away from me. She just pushed me back and ran out of the ship and headed for town. I was about to give chase, when a hand landed on my shoulder.
“Don’t bother going after her right now,” It was Amber. “She has some things she needs to work out on her own.”
“I hope your right Amber,” I thought. “I really hope that that’s all she’s doing.”

One week later, 100 km from the Training academy…

When the Phoenix’s Tear finally landed Jade had slipped into a coma, but there was no explanation for this. The only thing the medical scans found was that most of her internal functions had stopped and her heart had greatly slowed down, also a membrane started to form on her skin, to keep her from drying out.
“Sarah, Amber, could both of you look after Jade for me? I’ve got an appointment to keep and I don’t want to be late,” I asked them as I walked off the ship, with the hatch closing behind me. I didn’t look back and wonder if this was the right thing to do, there were only two things on my mind finding the Command Academy and revenge. I activated the jet pack and shot off in the direction of the only building within miles of our LZ, The Imperial Training Academy.

Upon reaching the facility, I turned off the jet pack and disguised myself to look like a worn-torn solider looking for a job as a hand-to-hand combat trainer. I kept my right gauntlet on to be careful, and proceeded to the headmaster’s office.
“You may enter,” said a voice over the PA system and the doors opened in front of me to reveal a dimly lit room with a tactical map in the middle of it, there where red and blue dots everywhere upon it.
“Well, Kaze, it’s been a long time since I last saw you,” The voice said again.
“It’s hard not to forget someone who turned your life into a living hell,” I replied. “Headmaster, I see you haven’t changed the staff that much.”
“I only bring in fresh new trainers when the old ones are unable to fulfill their duties, and since were reminiscing about the past there’s still the matter of you running away,” He said. “And the punishment has never changed.”
The next thing I heard were safeties being released and I dove into the shadows and crept around the room quietly. The Headmaster’s subordinates shot in which ever direction some sort of sound emanated from. I snuck up behind the Headmaster extended a claw and put him in a head-lock with the claw threatening to decapitate him.
“If you value your boss’ life then slide your weapons over here on the table were I can see them,” I demanded to his subordinates, then turned my attention to my hostage. “I have only one question for you. Where is the Command academy located? If you tell me I’ll let you live, if not then every person in this room dies and I’ll access the computer for all ships that had left this place around the time when Jade was transferred.”
“Is that why you’re here over the fact that your girlfriend was taken from you? But you have her with you don’t you? Let me guess she slipped into a coma when she came within area of 100 kilometers and something happened in her past that she dare not tell you is that it?” He asked with a chuckle in his voice.
“How do you know all this?” I replied pressing the blade closer to his throat.
“I have my spies everywhere, and about the coma, every person that has left this academy legally has a special implant that forces them into a coma when they get within 100 kilometers of this facility, so we can prevent this same situation,” He replied with a sneer in his voice, I pressed the blade deeper into his throat and blood started to drizzle out.
“I suggest that you tell me where the Command academy is and quick, I’ll accept an answer from anyone in this room,” I demanded while keeping the same pressure on the Headmaster’s throat. “I’ll release him if you give me the exact coordinates, not some made up location or I’ll come back here and kill every single one of you very, very, slowly and painfully.”
That last comment must have scared the s**t out of them, because all the subordinates started typing furiously on the panels in front of them. The tactical map changed to a star map that was constantly zooming in and out looking for the Command academy but every search came up negative. One of the subordinates was missing and somewhere in the room, because the hatch would have let in tremendous amounts of light and exposed him. So, I turned on night vision, scanned the room and found him. I let five HE shots loose on him from the pistol I had in my other hand and one of them missed the other four blew his legs and arms off.
“This is their plan, pretend to be doing something while someone tries a sneak attack. That won’t work,” I thought and chopped the Headmaster’s head off, and fired four missiles at the subordinates, who had barely enough time to look at the oncoming missiles before each one blew their heads off. “Fools, they shouldn’t have tried to resist, I would’ve spared their lives had they just followed orders. They had and to try and rescue this idiot, but now all that’s left is blood. Well I better see if I can find the Command academy, but I’ll need some help.”

On board the Phoenix’s Tear…

“Sarah how’s Jade holding up?” Amber asked Sarah, who was watching Jade in case anything happened to her.
“No change since the last time, but…” She started to say when the com channel got cut off.
“Phoenix’s Tear are you there? This is Shinning Knight, please respond,” the com channel sputtered.
“This is Phoenix’s Tear, Shinning Knight we read you loud and clear. You need anything?” Amber responded.
“Yeah, I could use ARX over here ASAP. There’s too much data to try and sift through manually, you can land on the field. All the auto-defenses are focused on the trainers. Don’t worry, they won’t shoot you if you don’t attack the trainees,” the com replied.
“Roger that, were coming in fast and low,” Amber responded, and began to start up the Phoenix’s engines and cannons.
“Amber what’s going on?” Sarah asked as she entered the cockpit.
“The knight has given us entrance to the castle it would be rude not to accept the invitation,” Amber responded. “If you could take the bottom turrent and clear us a landing space.”
“Got it,” She responded and headed towards the bottom turrent. Amber was amazed to how unafraid Sarah had become about using a gun. As the Phoenix’s Tear lifted off the ground and sped towards the chaotic training facility, and soon noticed that all of the perimeter guns were either smoking piles of rumble or shooting one another. There was a figure on the roof of one of the buildings waving two flares in the air.
“Forget the original LZ Amber, there’s too much fighting going on down their, but after this we get the coordinates to C.A. We’ll get these kids outta here and back to their families,” I said over the com.
“Roger that,” Amber replied. The Phoenix’s Tear landed very gently on the shuttle landing pad. Amber came off the ship with ARX right behind her.
“Well let’s get to work,” I said and Amber nodded and started to walk to the stairs. “Where are you going?”
“I going to help you,” Amber replied.
“Amber I need ARX’s help; you need to stay with the ship and evac all the trainees. There’s a aircraft in the hanger bay, that’s how I’ll get out. ARX will use his boosters to reach you when he’s done his job,” I said to Amber. She knew that I was planning to send this place to hell.
“But, what if you don’t make it to the hanger bay before this place blows, or someone takes your aircraft before you reach it, what am I supposed to tell Jade when she wakes up?” Amber asked. I just put my hand on her shoulder and walked away with ARX trailing right behind.
“Don’t worry I’ll make it out of here, I promised Jade I would never leave her and I intend to stick to that promise, just like you promised Sarah you would never let anything bad happen to her,” I replied and disappeared down the stairs. Amber just turned back towards the ship and headed it towards the battlefield.

30 minutes later…

The security to the Headmaster’s office had increased significantly, and I found myself ducking behind every wall I could for cover.
“The Headmaster’s office should be right around the corner,” I said to ARX and snaked a fiber optic cable around and saw three gun turrents and four security marines behind them. “ARX how long can you maintain your shield before it has to recharge?”
He just whistled back and immediately headed around the corner with me behind him. The turrents reacted faster than the marines did, but none the less they all opened fire on both me and the little droid. The little droid’s shield system held, but I could tell that it was draining faster than the droid had initially calculated. I whipped out a Castor shotgun, put two shells into it, and fired straight down the hall, letting loose twin beams of red and blue that engulfed the hallway and anything in it. When the beams dissipated there was nothing left in the hall, even the doors had been vaporized. Before I had gathered myself, the little droid had already entered the Headmaster’s office and was searching for the coordinates to the Command Academy. He found them as soon as I started to reload the shotgun. As soon as the coordinates were downloaded I fired another shot from the castor, but this time shooting through the ceiling.
“ARX get back to the ship as fast as you can, I’m going to make sure this facility never existed,” I said and the little droid just lifted off using his own boosters, and I towards the core of the facility…

Over the battlefield on board the Phoenix’s Tear…

“Sarah, more targets approaching from four o’clock,” Amber said over the intercom to Sarah who was now managing the side turrents. The ship had positioned itself in-between the trainees and their trainers and provided covering fire while the trainees boarded the craft. Time was running out because ARX had already returned, but there were still more trainees to evacuate from the facility.
“Ma’am we’ve got trouble,” A trainee at the com station reported.
“Spit it out trainee,” Amber barked back.
“I just intercepted a transmission for an air strike and support for this area,”
“That may complicate things a little bit,” She muttered. “ARX how far away is the nearest air field?”
A tactical map of the area appeared on the screen in front of her, showing that the nearest air base was a thousand km away, but with over 25 contacts inbound.
“Sarah, activate the starboard turrents and have them set for perimeter fire, then get those top turrents set for anti-aircraft fire,” Amber ordered over the intercom.
“I’m on it Amber,” Sarah responded and immediately went to work. As soon as she finished there were clouds of dirt all over the starboard side, followed by four shots from the long-range turrents on the top of the craft, which only meant one thing. The aircraft were within 700 km of the ship.
“Amber we can get out of here, ever single trainee is on board, and the marines are retreating back into the facility,” Sarah reported. Amber nodded in return and pulled the ship up and turned it towards the aerial threat.
“Sarah get every turrent on this ship powered up and arm every single missile this thing’s got,” Amber ordered. “We have some uninvited guest looking for some fun, so let’s play with them.”
There was some laughter on the bridge from Amber little joke, but that wasn’t the point, she was more worried about what would happen if Jade woke up and Kaze was dead. She shuddered at the thought and pushed it out of her mind, her main focus should be protecting the ship and its crew. A few minutes later there was a explosion and a shockwave from the stern. The whole bridge crew could feel the ship shudder and groan from the force of the explosion, it had also sent the inbound aircraft crashing into the ground.
“Show me where that explosion came from,” Amber ordered with a slight hint of fear in her voice. She was afraid of what the explosion was and what it meant. A screen popped up in front of her face, and all the color drained from her face…

One day later…

“It feels so much better now that all those trainees are gone,” Sarah said falling back onto the bed.
“Yeah, that’s for sure now we can get to work,” Amber replied and jumped onto Sarah, vowing to make her the happiest person alive…
I had been outside repairing one of the long-range turrents, and had just finished when I saw Jade in the observation lounge. The expression on her face looked so sad and lonely, like when I had first saw her after she was kidnapped. I just simply floated over to the airlock popped myself in, waited for the pressure to equalize, and proceed to the observation lounge.
“There just something about space that makes it so cold and lonely,” Jade said unaware of the fact that I had entered the room.
“Yet there’s something about it that makes very warm and safe as well too,” I replied, throwing my arms over her shoulders.
“Oh, I didn’t here you come in,” she replied a little surprised.
“Well of course you won’t here me. There no door to this room,” I replied. I knew something was bothering her, because these little details were always forgotten when something is troubling her.
“Jade, I’ve known you long enough to know when something is bothering you. Whatever it is you can tell me, I won’t laugh no matter how funny it is,” I told her. She just looked at me like I was the only person she could turn to for help. I could see the tears forming in her eyes, and just held her. She told me everything. How painful the implant process was, how she was brutally beaten and raped after a month in the academy, how the school didn’t do anything about it, everything that had happened from when I last saw her to when I found her again. After hearing all this I made a silent vow, no matter what, I would have revenge for what Jade had gone through.

The facility was inside the asteroid belt so it made navigation really difficult. It also meant that there would be no way to successfully sneak up on the facility, due to the fact that every gattling cannon was ripping any asteroid that got to close to shreds. Occasionally the long-range turrents would pick up a patrol group and swiftly destroy them.
“Kaze, every time we disable a patrol group they have enough time to get a couple words through. If their control room ever figures this out, then they would know that they had unwanted visitors on their doorstep,” Sarah said while monitoring the com channels.
“We should jam every sensor they have leaving them unaware of our presence,” Amber suggested.
“That won’t work, because if we jam every sensor, then our turrent’s targeting sensors would be disabled and we need those to keep the asteroids from pounding our ship into pieces,” Jade replied.
“Then it’s settled,” I said. All three of them gave me a puzzled look.
“It’s simple. All we have to do is push our engines to the max and go in guns a’ blazing. We ram the station, I’ll board it and download all the information I can about the incident, leave a timed nuke onboard, and get out of the belt as fast as we can,” I explained. Jade and Amber nodded in agreement, Sarah was already prepping the bow of the ship to be used as a ram, and increased the rate of fire on all the cannons.
“When we’re done with this we should head to the nearest spaceport to refuel and reload all of our weapons,” Sarah said. I just nodded in agreement knowing that we might not even have enough firepower left to leave the belt still intact. We all knew what the dangers were, how the odds were stacked against us for our success, but for some reason we always had luck on our side in this sort of situation.

At the Command Academy’s control room…

“Sir, I’m picking up a very large object approaching at a high velocity,” Said a Marine.
“Does it pose any threat to this installation?” The Colonel asked.
“It doesn’t pose any threat. By the time in reaches this location, this installation will have moved out of the way…” The marine started to say, but was silenced when something new appeared on the sensor readings. “Sir, I take back what I said.”
“Explain yourself marine!” The Colonel demanded.
“Sir, if I am reading this analysis correctly, then that object has changed its trajectory to match our own, and there appears to be a hail of weapons fire emanating from the object,” The marine replied shakily.
“Let’s see this ‘object’,” The Colonel ordered. A screen popped up in front of him and zoomed in on the object to show what the front look like. He couldn’t understand it; he had never seen a asteroid that was this colorful, although it could be a shuttle in disguise trying to sneak its way here.
“Show me what our camera drones shot,” The Colonel demanded. Another screen popped up and showed him what each side looked like. He backed away from the screen and towards his chair, shaking horribly.
“Colonel, what is it?” A marine curiously asked. The Colonel gathered himself, and walked over to the marine.
“You ever heard the legend of the Phoenix and the Falcon?” The Colonel asked the Marine. The marine just shook his head.
“The story go like this, whenever someone sees a crying phoenix coming towards them or saw the legendary bird it self, it meant that there was a falcon right behind it waiting to kill. I can’t believe that her true love was him,” The Colonel replied. “But now whenever you see the Crying Phoenix you’ll see a falcon made of jade with two sprites trailing close behind.”
“It looks like Jade has returned to us,” Said a voice from the doorway. “Wouldn’t you agree Colonel?”
“Y-y-es, Captain. But you don’t understand, that boyfriend we were told about is him!” The colonel replied nervously.
“Umm…Excuse me sir, but who do you mean by him?” A marine asked.
“The one person ever to locate and eliminate more pirates, terrorist leaders, anything, than our whole space force combined. He is the Falcon that follows the Phoenix,” The Colonel replied.
“Y-you mean, the legendary bounty hunter, Falcon, I though he was just a myth,” the marine replied.
“Well, as you can see he is not a myth, but very real and so is the legend,” The captain replied calmly.
“Why you would he come here?” the marine asked.
“Do a search. Look for a rape incident, involving a transferred student within the last 20 years,” The captain replied. The marine quickly typed in the search pattern.
“There is only one case of this happening,” The marine replied. “The name of the student was Jade…”
The marine was interrupted by the collision siren. The colonel had turned to face his superior officer, but only to find that he had left the control center.
“Turn all turrents towards that craft and fire at will!” The colonel yelled. He hoped that the turrent’s barrage would hopefully slow the craft or cripple it. If he was lucky he would destroy it. He knew it was a useless attempt, because you can’t kill a phoenix, for it will always come back. The last thing he saw was the front of the ship and then there was paradise.

Everybody on the Phoenix’s Tear had braced themselves for impact, except for myself, who was thrown through the front of his ship and landed on the deck of the facility face first.
“Kaze! Now you see why should strap yourself in?” Sarah asked peering through the broken glass. I just waved back while pulling a shard of glass about a quarter as long as my arm out of it. She then flew down to an undamaged panel and began accessing a list of all the people involved with Jade’s “violation”. She found the three men involved, where they located, and what their current medical condition.
“Two of the three men are still alive and here at this facility,” Sarah said.
“What about this one?” Kaze asked while pointing at a picture of a colonel. “What’s the story with this one?”
“According to this, he was right behind the windows when we rammed the station,” Sarah replied.
“Well, that’s one down. Only two more to go,” Amber said as she jumped down to where Sarah and I were. She was carrying two shotguns, ten grenades, and her whip. I heard Sarah ask if that was enough, but failed to here the replied. Sarah had already downloaded the location of Amber’s target and mine. When, she was done, Sarah set them both as NAV points on our heads up display inside our helmets. Amber’s target was extremely easy, she had landed right on his face, made some noise and there was nothing, but a body left.
“Well, looks like your done Amber,” Sarah said with a chuckle. Amber grunted in response. We all knew that she was hoping for some action, and ended up on guard duty.
“Kaze, I’ll stay here and monitor the com channels. Then, I can try to keep you out of trouble,” Sarah said. We all laughed, for we knew it would be very hard for me to stay out of trouble. Jade decided to stay onboard the ship, along with ARX, to keep the ship from becoming commandeered.

1 minute later, onboard the Phoenix’s Tear…

When Biggs repeated what he said, I replied that in fact it was the truth. Sarah and Amber stared at each other shocked, while Kaze walked away. I wanted to go after him and try to comfort him, but Amber and Sarah held me back, and I knew it was best for him to be alone.
“Now knowing the whole truth of what happened must’ve hit him real hard,” Sarah said softly. Amber was having a grand old time, using Biggs as a punching bag.
“Captain Biggs, thank you so much for volunteering to be my punching bag. When we attacked the station, I didn’t get the chance to shoot anybody,” Amber said while she pummeled Biggs. I walked over to Amber and slugged Biggs. The punch had enough force to send him through one of the bulkheads. Sarah helped me back to our room, and Amber threw Biggs into an airlock, but didn’t open it. I really wanted to help Kaze, but Sarah insisted I just leave him alone for awhile.
“Jade, if it will make you feel better, I’ll go talk to him,” Amber suggested. I just nodded in approvement. I felt a little bit of relief in what Amber was doing, but I was still afraid of what was going to happen to my relationship with Kaze.
“Don’t worry about it, there is nothing more powerful than true love, he was just a little shaken up that’s all. One time I was hypnotized into falling in love with someone else, but Amber broke the spell. It will be all right,” Sarah said. “Besides that, he’s got that whole invincible thing going for him.”
“That may be true, but he is only physically invincible, not mentally. Sometimes breaking a spirit is easier than breaking a body,” I replied in a whisper. Sarah must’ve heard me because she just leaned over and kept saying things to try and comfort me, but I knew that all of her efforts would be in vain.

Inside the gymnasium…

“Kaze where are you? Come out, come out where ever you are,” I yelled. I knew this had to be where Kaze was, it was the last place I had looked, and usually the first place he goes when he’s upset about something. Sometimes I really hate it when I’m right sometimes, because as soon as I enter the room I blasted in the face with bags sand, water and feathers.
“KAZE! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, I’M GOING TO BEND YOU IN SO MANY WAYS THAT NOT EVEN A CHIROPRACTOR COULD UNDO YOU!” I yelled, while wiping my face off. I heard the sound of feet slowly moving towards the door and lashed out with my whip, only to feel tension on it a second later.
“I’ve got him now,” I though and flipped the switch on the whip that filled it with electricity. Normally the person who had the whip wrapped around him would be electrocuted, not the person holding it.
“Young lady, you forgot the fact that you were covered in water, which only conducts it,” A voice said.
“That’s not Kaze’s voice…It sounds like Biggs…but it couldn’t be, I personally threw him into an airlock…I’ll deal with this later, first I need to find Kaze,” I thought to myself. I wanted to slug who ever had said that really badly, but my ears were ringing so bad that I had to keep my eyes shut really tight in order to relieve myself of the pain. When the ringing had stopped, I looked at myself in a mirror, and almost laughed my head off. The person in the mirror looked like a chicken that had been badly singed, so that the tip of each feather was burnt off. When I had calmed down, I had found that it wasn’t me who was laughing it was somebody behind the mirror.
“So that’s your game,” I thought and kicked the mirror, shattering it. There was nobody behind it, just a laughing box with a motion sensor on it.
“Damn, I was positive that he was going to be in here,” I thought. “If he’s not here, then where in Nine Hells is he? I’ve checked every inch of this ship from bow to stern, and I still can’t find him…”
I just then realized where he was, because it was the only place I hadn’t looked.
“He couldn’t be there, I mean nobody in their right mind would even think about going there,” I thought nervously to myself. “Then again, after learning the full truth about what had happened to her, I wouldn’t exactly me alright myself; so I might do something like that.”
“Amber, get outside now; we have a very bad situation on our hands,” Sarah’s voice echoed over the intercom.
“Got it. I’ll be there ASAP,” I replied and started running full sprint towards the airlock. “I hate it when I’m right…”

“I hope Amber gets there soon,” I thought. “She’s the only one who might be able to talk some sense into him. I mean, if I found out something like this about Amber, I would want to be alone, but that’s suicide.”
Jade had just arrived on the bridge, wrapped up tightly in a blanket. When she saw the scene outside the ship, it became so quiet on the bridge that you could hear the engines gently humming, and sounds of the gattling cannons reloading. Outside the ship, was Amber slowly flying towards Kaze; who was using his rifle to vaporize every asteroid that came to close to him. Amber was trying her hardest to steer clear of any asteroids coming her way, because she could end up in the line of fire of either Kaze or the Phoenix’s Tear’s .55 gattling cannon point defense system.
“We’ve got to bring the ship in closer, it would be near suicide to attempt to come out of the field,” Jade said. As she began to feed power to the engines, I slapped her straight across the face.
“Why did you that for?” Jade asked.
“Think about it Jade. If we bring the ship any closer we risk both of their deaths with the P.D.S. constantly retargeting itself to destroy any asteroid that gets to close,” I replied sternly. I moved Jade’s hand off the control, and reversed the ship. That’s when it hit me; both Kaze and Jade were so upset with this ordeal that they wanted to die, but not without a good reason for going.
“Amber, I pray you’re making more progress than I am,” I wondered, praying that she would talk some sense into him. I helped Jade back to our room, and set her down on the bed, and prayed that this whole ordeal would be forgotten, and everything would be back to normal.
“Like any day here is normal,” I thought to myself, letting out a little chuckle

“Jesus! Is he trying to get himself killed?” I thought. “Sarah, you owe me big time for risking my head, to try and save him from himself.”
I still couldn’t believe that I was doing this for him. I really wish I knew why I am out here, in an asteroid field, with beams, bullets and asteroids flying by me.
“Sarah, why am I out here again?” I asked over the com channel.
“Amber, if it wasn’t for him, we would still be back at that research lab, or be running and trying to get a job somewhere that accepted us. He saved our lives and gave us a place to sleep, work, food, everything. We owe him our lives,” She replied.
“If we owe him our lives I’m amazed at what he hasn’t tried…”
“AMBER, HE HAS KNOWN ABOUT US SINCE I MET HIM, AND HE HAS JADE!!!” Sarah cut in. “Now can you please talk some sense into him.”
“Before I do, exactly how did he find out about us?” I replied.
“Well, you see he wanted me to…err…point the…um…guy I was in love with and…um…I sort of…um…told him about us,” She replied softly. I just shook my head. Kaze had known about us from the very beginning and never mentioned it to a soul, even to me. You gotta admire a guy who knows how to keep a secret.
“Well duh Amber, he has secrets of his own, that even his personal logs won’t expose,” I thought to myself. That’s when I realized it, something must’ve happened in his past that now makes him feel very guilty.
“Jade did you and Kaze ever make some kind of agreement when the time came for you do escape either place you where?” I asked over the com.
“Yes, we did. We promised we wouldn’t harm anybody when we escaped,” She weakly replied. That was all I need to here, for if my women’s intuition was lying, it wouldn’t take much time to wonder why.
“Jade, what would you say if he killed someone when he escaped in search of you?” I asked. I didn’t get a response, but I could tell just my looking towards the bridge that she wasn’t unhappy. I turned around and headed towards Kaze as fast as I could.
“Kaze! I’ve got a bone to pick with you about you past,” I screamed over the com channel. He stopped firing and came towards me slowly, only shooting asteroids that came to close.
“What is it Amber?” He asked, his voice full of hatred, but hatred for himself.
“Jade wants to talk to you,” I replied and opened a communications line to him.
“Jade what is it?” He asked.
“You killed somebody when you escaped the training facility, didn’t you,” She replied.
“Yes I did and by doing so I broke our promise that there wouldn’t be anybody dead when we escaped the facility,” He replied. I just went up to him and punched him straight in the gut.
“YOU IDIOT!” I screamed at him. “You had promised that when You and Jade escaped, that there wouldn’t be anybody dead. When they took Jade away, the promise was nullified. So there is no reason for you to be doing this. I still can’t see what there is about you that drives Jade so nutty.”
I hauled him back to the ship and set him on a bed and just walked off, leaving Jade with him to sort their problems out together. In the mean time, it was up to Sarah and I to locate Biggs, who during the commotion some how got off the ship.
“Sarah if we’re going to find that piece of s**t we’re going to need some help. I’ll go and see if I can enlist the help of those trainees we rescued, and you see what you can get out of those scientists at O.R.F. They should have something that we can use, and get it by any means,” I said. Sarah looked back at me, her eyes about to overflow with held back tears. “Sarah what now?”
“Its just that we haven’t been separated from each other for a long period of time since O.R.F. I don’t think I can handle it,” Sarah whimpered. She was right, before O.R.F. we had never spent more than a day or two away from each others presence, and it was usually I who came to save the day.
We had lived in the middle of a island in the Polynesian, and the route to get there was so treacherous that nobody had ever attempted to land on the island, for fear of the that the coral would tear your boat to shreds. It was never lonely, because there were others as well, and everyone accepted one another, for who or what they were. That had all changed when a nuclear-powered ship crashed landed on another island adjacent to our own. The queen had noticed the ship flying over headed and had order Sarah and I to inspect what it was, but not to leave the sanctity of our island. We had reached the edge of the forest when we witnessed the explosion. It was an awe-inspiring sight to behold, yet we did not know that we had been exposed to lethal radiation. We did not notice anything strange about ourselves until we returned to report to the queen what we had witnessed, when Sarah promptly fell over curled up in a little ball. The queen immediately summoned the doctors to her chamber right away. I followed the doctors back to the hospital, stayed with Sarah the whole time, assisted in any way I could to find out what had happened, yet nobody had an answer. Then one of the doctors asked what we had been doing before we returned to the palace, I replied telling him about the explosion, and the ship crashing. The doctor did not see any thing with that, because there had been many fairies who had witnessed a human built ship being destroyed, yet there were no after affects. All the doctors could suggest was that I take her back home and stay with her till she wakes up. So I picked Sarah’s curled up body, flew back home, scared and worried about my companion.
The next morning, I awoke to find Sarah sitting next me eating breakfast like nothing happened, except there was one difference, she was bigger than me. Height, waist, bust, wing length, everything, it was as if her whole body had grown six millimeters during the night. I had found this very odd, because I was usually the bigger and stronger of the two of us, but now Sarah was in my position. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she was feeling fine. It wasn’t until that night had I discovered that the same thing had happened, but this time I was the one who grew. Over the years, our bodies continued to grow, and we found ourselves eating more, having increased stamina, until we had grow to a size equivalent of a human. The queen had no choice, but to exile us until either we found a cure or if the doctors found a cure, to reverse the process. So we left and began island hopping until we reached human civilization. Our first glimpse of man’s world was in America, where many people had given us weird looks, yet did not seem to care much.
We had bought ourselves some human clothes with the little gold the queen had given us, and tried to fit in, yet we just couldn’t. It took us a couple years to learn the language, but it did not change anything. We took up jobs to keep us supported, Sarah worked as a secretary for some corporation; while I…Well I rather not say what I was doing, but I will tell you that Sarah wasn’t very happy with my job of choice. We never saw a doctor while we were with the humans, because what would the response be to seeing a pair of fairies. We had hoped to keep our secret safe, until we could find a suitable doctor, but that all changed when Sarah and I had gotten into a car accident, and what we truly were was exposed to the whole country.
Sarah and I had escaped before the doctors could do anything serious to us, but every place we went, by some freak accident, our secret was exposed to another country. The only country we had left to turn to was Russia, that where Sarah came up with the idea of going off into space. So we enter Russia’s space program and seconds before the launch was our secret revealed. That was the end of it, or so we thought. We had known that earth had colonized space, yet what we didn’t know is that they still belonged to the countries that founded them. Needless to say, our arrival upon Neo-America wasn’t exactly what you would call charming. By the time we had realized what had happened, we were mere minutes away from the Omega Research Facility. There were two option we had at the time, just go quietly or fight back and attempt to escape. Sarah was against fighting, yet even more against going to a research facility. So we fought back, and I was captured during the confusion, but Sarah had managed to escape by launching herself in an escape pod. The scientists informed the facility of the escape pod, and they requested a recovery team be dispatched. What happened next nearly broke my will to live.
The recovery team had returned after a one week search and found the wreckage, but no body, which by there conclusion was that she had either died in the crash or attempted to leave the escape pod only to discover there was no oxygen and died upon taking her first breath. I had seen the pictures, read the reports, but I still wouldn’t believe it, yet all the facts were right in front of me, and the evidence always lead to that. This nearly tore me apart, I felt so alone and afraid with Sarah that I soon felt as if I didn’t have a reason to live, like the fire in my soul, my passion, had been put out. I had tried to commit suicide several times during the experiments, yet the scientists promptly put a stop to me every time, and always telling me ‘you can kill yourself after were all done with you’ and I knew that it would never come. They nearly had me receiving every order they wanted me to do in terms of the current experiment, and I had almost lost all hope until I met Jade. The scientists needed to find a regular human who was a physical match or close to it, so they kidnapped her. She told me everything about Kaze, she told him how she knew that despite anything obstacle between them, weather it be physical or physiological, she knew that he would always break through it and come to her rescue. As she told me this, I found something I thought I had lost. Hope. It was hope I had believed to have lost, but I found myself remembering that Sarah as well wouldn’t let anything come between us. I gradually began to disobey the scientists, refusing to partake in many of their twisted experiments. I still did doubt that Jade was actually in love with that kind of a person. He seemed so unreal that I began to question if it was Jade’s image of him, or if it was him actually. Three days later, he appeared carrying Sarah into the Bio-dome. From then, I made sure no matter what the situation, I would never lose hope and listen to what other’s had to say…