[UF:FI][FanFic] Twilight - First Seal: Introit

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

Hey all - Gryphon again.

Here's the first episode of the first major Undocumented Features
Future Imperfect arc, "Twilight". I won't go into too much detail
here, since you're hopefully going to read it anyway - suffice it to
say that, compared to what Our Heroes face in this arc, everything up
to now has just been a warmup. Sounds like hype, but I think when all
is said and done you'll agree it's truth.

Unlike the other new series debuting today (assuming both my posts hit
your server at the same time), I won't be posting any of the
upcoming-ep release dates on the Web but the one for the very next
episode. There are a couple of reasons for this, but they're not
really important, so I'll let you speculate. :)

I -will- tell you that, as if you couldn't guess from the ep title,
there are seven Seals in Twilight... but that's all. Read on, and
enjoy! As ever, you can scope out our Web site,

http://www.eyrie.net/

for all the goodies.

--G.
Oakland, California
July 2, 1997

NEW AVALON
ZETA CYGNI DYSON SPHERE
5 SEPTEMBER 2390

MegaZone, the Supreme Commander of the Wedge Defense Force,
sat at his desk in the WDF Administration Complex in downtown New
Avalon, feeling hemmed in and cheated. When he had resumed command of
the WDF, he'd felt a grand surge of destiny, of a sort -- as if, after
his chaotic, no-thought-only-reaction Exile, he had returned to his
rightful place in the universe, and all would be well. It had been a
heady moment.
Here he was, then, almost two years later to the day, slogging
through paperwork. What kind of cosmic gyp was this? You come out of
the shadows and take your place at the top of the most powerful
military force the galaxy has ever known, and they give you FORMS to
fill out? Weren't there people to do that? Geez! The more he
thought about it, the madder it made him. He was just about to pick
up his phone, call whoever cared, and tell them he was going for a
long walk and would they please forward his official mail to hell,
when he noticed something.
Sitting atop a precariously tall pile of material requisition
forms from the Shipyards was a Federated Express standard delivery
box, its blue, white and red color scheme standing out against the
grey wall and white papers. Curious, Zoner got up from behind his
desk and went to it, picking it up and turning it over. It was rather
heavy -- too heavy to just be documents -- and something inside it
slid and thumped when he turned it over in his hands. The airbill
listed the shipper as one "Chaos Theory Laboratories, Inc.", right
there in New Avalon, and on the top of the box was a prominent WDF
Research Division holostamp. Why hadn't he noticed this being
delivered? For that matter, why hadn't he noticed it earlier in the
four hours he'd been here?
Zoner took a knife from his pocket, slit open the packing
tape, and opened up the box like a pizza box. When he saw what was
inside, he nearly dropped it on the floor. It was a mask of a
stylized human face, rendered in some sort of green, translucent
gemstone, with a sharp triangular nose and balefully rendered eyes.
It would have been singularly nondescript, had it not been for the
eerie way it seemed to be looking back at him.
"My goddess," he murmured, taking the mask and dropping the
box to the floor. "How did this get in here?" He turned it over,
noting the way the light shivered across the inner surface, feeling
again the silent call it gave to him. Then, shaking himself awake, he
put it down on his desk and picked up the box, looking for a letter, a
note, anything which might explain how this lab came to have it and
why they sent it to him. Surely they didn't know its origins and the
way he figured in them...
He picked up his phone and started to dial directory
assistance, but was distracted as he did so by the mask lying on his
desk, looking balefully up at him. It had been so long since he had
felt the rush of chaos, the divine madness, wash over him -- so long
since he had carried with him the discordant purpose inherent in the
green artifact. The detective work could surely wait, couldn't it?
His hand nearly trembled as he picked up the mask and turned it over;
he shivered as he watched the opalescent light gleaming from within
its reversed face. Holding his breath, he raised it to his face,
waiting for the rush.
And then, just as it began, he realized that it was wrong.
Wrong, tainted, poisoned -- it welled up from the mask like the
effluence of a sewer at the beginning of the rush, where the fresh and
clean fragrance of Chaos belonged. By then, as the instant stretched
wide and thin, he knew it was too late to stop, and just before his
consciousness vanished, he cursed. He'd been had, taken for a ride
like an amateur.
As the combination of mask and man burst into a small
hurricane of transformation, the windows of the office exploded,
showering the streets below with glass. The green and black whirlwind
which MegaZone had become spun down in the middle of the wrecked
office, his hands clutching at his smoking face, and for a long moment
there was silence.
Silence broken by a low chuckle.
The hands fell away, revealing a grinning green face with
jagged sharp teeth and baleful red eyes; from the top of his head
sprouted a shock of garish, orange-red, straw-coarse hair. He
slavered for a moment, the tatters of his WDF uniform hanging from his
body and smoking slightly. Then, eyes narrowing, he whipped a comb
from his back pocket and ran it through the straw.
Instantly, he was transformed. Tall, much wirier than he
should have been, his clothing transformed to a chartreuse pinstriped
three-piece with retro wingtip shoes, the glowing red coals of his
eyes behind wire spectacles, the orange hair slicked back. But for
the outlandish color scheme, he looked remarkably like that most
terrifying symbol of Order:
An attorney.
As he strode out of the office, chuckling and whistling a
little tune, it would have become clear to any observer who happened
to see that he was anything but.

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presents

UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
-=TWILIGHT=-

FIRST SEAL: INTROIT

Benjamin D. Hutchins
Lawrence R. Mann
MegaZone
Kris Overstreet

With (as ever) the gracious assistance of The Usual Suspects

(c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

SIX DAYS LATER

When he designed his study in his home on Morgan Lane, Gryphon
took special care to make it as welcoming and relaxing an environment
as possible. His office in the shipyard was rather small, by his own
insistence; it fit with his working style. It was small and square
and cluttered, jammed to the corners with printouts and mementoes and
random things. He had a couple of computers serving as terminals to
the UPNS network, one on his desk and one on a small table, and both
were constantly covered with papers and notes. The whole thing was
wildly chaotic, which fit in with the way he liked things to be when
he was working.
At home, on the other hand, he was taking a different tack.
He figured that his working life would be interesting and chaotic
enough that he would need his home -- and particularly his study -- to
be quiet and spacious, a kind of oasis against the stresses of the
yards. To that end, he had deliberately designed it to be oblong and
asymmetrical rather than square.
It was L-shaped, with rounded corners. Visitors entered into
the tip of the L's short leg through a set of large paneled doors from
the corridor outside, and the visitor immediately found him or herself
in a small foyer-type place. There was a coat tree standing by the
doors, and three steps led down to the main floor, which was a pretty
grey marble tile. Oak bookcases lined the walls, full of books
ranging from technical specifications for the old VYF-1 Veritech
experiments to Gordon Prange's studies of the Pacific War in World War
II. The far wall, which formed the long back side of the L, was
entirely a window, seamless klaster stretching out of sight around the
bend. In the L's corner stood Gryphon's desk, a large and sturdy
affair made of scarlet Salusian greelwood; it had been a gift from Her
Imperial Majesty Asrial. This desk held the only computer in the
room, a Sun Super SPARCstation XL-4, the top of the Super SPARC line,
equipped with an F19091 FTL processor.
The foyer, desk and computer in the short leg and corner of
the L formed the office portion of the study. The rest of it, the
long leg of the L, was more of a relaxation area. Its walls were
adorned with various of Gryphon's favorite artworks, most of which,
given his somewhat eclectic tastes, were not regarded as art. One of
them, for example, was a theatrical poster for the 1994 motion picture
"The Shadow"; where Kei had found it, he had no idea. At the end of
the room was a large, clear pool of water, about ten feet in diameter
and perhaps four feet deep, which was stocked with unusual and
colorful fish. Gryphon and the occasional visitor would go and look
at the fish when in need of a quiet moment. There were several
comfortable chairs for reading.
At this particular moment, he was sitting at the Super SPARC,
hacking at the second draft of the proposal he intended to take to
Zoner when it was completed, embodying all the best concepts he and
Kei had worked out so far for the unilateral law-enforcement and
public-protection organization they had conceived a bit over a year
previous, during their journey to Earth after Kate was born. Outside,
it was a crisp fall day, and he felt the sudden desire to go outside
and play in the leaves.
[Now that would amuse Martin,] he observed to himself as he
got up from the desk and went to stand by the window, looking out.
The view from that side of his home was always pretty, but right now
it was particularly spectacular -- the leaves on the trees lining the
hillsides were exploding into their usual autumn brilliance, and
rolling down to the glorious, bristling collection of chrome and
masonry that was downtown New Avalon, rising out of the valley to the
south.
Gryphon had always held a special fondness for autumn, but it
had long been tempered with a touch of melancholy. Very few of his
friends understood quite why fall depressed him slightly. Most who
knew enough of his history made logical and erroneous parallels to the
fact that the school year on Earth began in fall and assumed that he
missed the simpler days when that piece of calendric trivia had
applied to him. A few other attributed it to the general feeling of
winding down and preparing for winter; this too was logical and wrong.
Gryphon had no reason to dread the coming of winter; winter was his
favorite season of them all.
The real reason autumn slightly depressed Gryphon was because
it reminded him of an old friend, one of whom he had lost track not
once but twice in his lifetime, and Gryphon hated losing track of
friends. He sighed, putting his hand against the window to feel the
cold of the glass, looking out at the leaves and wondering where she
was now.
It is a documented scientific fact that nothing is a
coincidence. Here's proof:
Behind him, he didn't notice the surface of the fish pond
bubbling gently, then beginning to glow. Presently a circular opening
appeared in the water, its edge pushing back the startled fish as it
expanded, leading down to a source of bright light. Out of that light
a figure began rising -- and that was when he noticed and turned.
Wary but not overly excited, Gryphon took a step back away from the
pond, his hands open at his sides, eyes narrowed, as the figure rose
completely up out of the pond and the water fell back into place
beneath its feet.
The figure hovering above his fish pond was a woman of
considerable beauty. She was tall (had she been standing on the
floor, Gryphon estimated that she would have been about his own
height) and slender, with alabaster skin and long, straight obsidian
hair reaching nearly to her feet, and tied back into an immense
ponytail. At the front of her head a few wild sprigs of hair flew
free, giving her a slightly disheveled look. Her face was Nordic,
with a sharp, small nose and high cheekbones, and her wide brown eyes,
as they opened, fairly crackled with intelligence. She was dressed in
a skirt of some very pale pink material (nearly white) which was
knee-length in front and dropped to the floor in back, and was lined
and edged in red; a jacket of the same material, with similar red
trim, large red buttons and rolled sleeves; low white boots and white
gloves with rolled red cuffs. Around her neck was an ornate necklace
of glittering golden rods which, upon closer examination, would prove
to be isolinear memory rods. Hoop earrings suspended smaller rods
nearly to both shoulders. The head of what appeared to be a croquet
mallet protruded above her right shoulder from where the object was
slung across her back.
It was a few moments before Gryphon realized that he knew her
-- had just been thinking of her. He was about to speak, but she saw
him there just as he opened his mouth, and, recognizing him, flew to
him. No -- flew -into- him, crashing into his chest and nearly
knocking him down as she threw her arms around him and cried out his
name.
Thrown off-guard in more ways than one by this event, he
folded his arms across her back and said nothing. There they remained
for a long moment, until he took her shoulders in his hands and pushed
her back to look at her.
"Hello, Skuld," he said softly. "It's been a long time,
hasn't it?"
As he spoke, he looked at her carefully, noting the
similarities and changes from the last time he had seen her, as well
as the transient features of appearance which provide clues to a
person's state of mind. She was pale, even for Skuld, and her eyes
sunken and rimmed in red. The dark circles around -that- were so
livid that for a moment she almost appeared to have been beaten. She
was also somewhat dirty, something the Skuld he knew would never allow
to happen. Behind the intelligence in her eyes lurked a terror so
stark that he didn't need his ki to see it.
All this he took in across the space of perhaps a second,
during which Skuld attempted, unsuccessfully, to form words with her
quivering lips; then he relented the pressure on her shoulders and she
crumpled against him again, sobbing. He had been feeling a bit
unpresentable, dressed as he was in a rather threadbare New Avalon
Institute of Science t-shirt, a pair of ratty old sweats, and his
crazy-quilt bathrobe, but that feeling evaporated instantly with the
knowledge that something was wrong -- very wrong.
"What's happened?" he asked quietly. "What's wrong?"
Again she tried to speak, and again, she failed. Gryphon
pondered for a moment, then shifted his position slightly and picked
her up from the floor, cradling her in his arms as if she were still
the child he remembered. She offered no protest as he carried her out
of the room and down the hall to the house's master bedroom. This was
a large, rectangular, and rather pedestrian room, finished in pleasant
greys, with thick shag carpeting, heavy drapes on the large picture
window, and a bed about half again the size of the traditional
king-size. The covers on the bed were also grey, patterned with a
nearly subliminal WDF sigil.
He placed Skuld on the bed, covered her with the thick grey
covers, and told her to sleep. As he retired to the armchair in the
corner, he was somewhat surprised to see that she had complied. He
considered calling somebody else and consulting with them about this
event, but decided to wait until he actually found out what brought
Skuld here. Obviously she wasn't here just to catch up with an old
friend; something terrible had happened or was happening, and he
wanted to know what before he involved anyone else. She might have
come here hoping to find a confidant.
So he waited, reading a book. Several hours passed. No one
arrived home, which wasn't surprising. Kei was probably haunting the
3WA Center downtown, pestering Yuri and generally making a nuisance of
herself, and Kaitlyn had, the previous day, embarked on the Grand
Adventure of spending a week with the Rose clan at their country place
on Vortigen Lake. That was fortunate, Gryphon reflected, for if what
was about to happen took him as far from home as he expected, he
wanted Kate to be safe.
He sighed, reflecting for only a moment on the somewhat unreal
feeling of the divinity he named as his patroness having arrived in
his study, and returned to his reading.

Looking out at the expanse of the great city of New Avalon
which lay beyond his office windows, Dr. Lawrence Mann, CEO of GENOM
New Avalon and Executive Vice President in charge of GENOM's Enigma
Sector operations, reflected on just how far he, the company, and the
galaxy at large had come in the last four centuries. It had been one
hell of a ride, and not much of it particularly pleasant, since GENOM
had until just recently been on the wrong side of the moral line, and
he had spent most of that time in a grim and bitter mood, caught
between his loyalty to the corporation which had made his continued
existence possible, and his own nature, his understanding of right and
wrong.
But that was all behind him now. Largo was gone, destroyed by
Gryphon himself, and the much more benevolent Buma known as Kwei-
Chang Caine had taken the mantle of Master. GENOM and the WDF were no
longer the bitter enemies they had been made to be because of Largo's
machinations, but allies assisting each other in the peacekeeping of
the galaxy. Dr. Mann's life, both personal and corporate, had taken a
dramatic turn for the better. He was no longer the anonymous
background figure he had always struggled to be in order to protect
himself and those he knew, but a highly visible executive officer,
with GENOM New Avalon under his complete control and the whole of
Enigma Sector answerable to him. That put him very near the top of
the corporate ladder; only one rung away, in fact, from the Big Chair
itself.
But the Big Chair belonged to Caine, and that was just fine
with Larry. Being Sector Chief was plenty complicated enough for his
taste. There was a brief time, back on New Japan in the 2330's, when
he'd been very close to actually running the whole company, and it was
not an experience he was particularly interested in repeating. Even
with the help of Aki (or Jilehr, depending on her mood), his faithful
ACI, the number of challenges in a day were sometimes overwhelming.
Part of the problem was, of course, a backlash against GENOM
for things it had done in Largo's name during the past centuries, as
people started crawling out of the woodwork with complaints and
lawsuits and such, emboldened by the Military Arm's defeat at Zeta
Cygni. (It was not unlike, Larry noted ruefully, the backlash against
the WDF which had started right after Sonset.) Dr. Mann himself
seemed to have become the target of one of the leaders of the
Confederate Freespacers Alliance, who had been sending a steady stream
of notes to the office. Some were legitimate complaints, others (at
least in Jilehr's opinion) just seemed to be for the sole purpose of
being spiteful or annoying. And still others, he honestly could not
be sure about.
Case in point:

To: Dr. Lawrence Mann, exec. VP GENOM Enigma Sector.
From: Rear Adm. Kristan Overstreet, Tactical Fleet Commander CFMF

My dear Dr. Mann: I write to you in reference to the appalling state
of affairs regarding the quality of the latest shipment of replacement
tactical sensor array networks which were intended to be installed in
our currently operational starfighter squadrons. Not only did they
prove totally incompatible with the older systems, but during the
abortive attempt to install these units, a power surge apparently
caused by a mismatch in voltage requirements fused the connections and
caused a near-total lockup of all computers in the starfighters,
tender ships, and carriers involved.

Furthermore, since your sales representative specifically claimed
universal adaptability to any existing interface system, I must file a
formal protest regarding not only the shoddy equipment you are
selling, but the blatantly misleading sales tactics GENOM seems to
prefer using above all other methods.

And furthermore, the complete, total, and utter lack of helpful
response from both your Complaints department and your Consumer
Support division leads me to actually wonder if the money of the CFMF
would be better spent on products from the Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation. After all, their approach to customer relations is
extremely similar to that which GENOM Enigma Sector has demonstrated.

I would appreciate the earliest possible reply with your suggestion as
to how this exerable situation may be remedied. In the meantime, we've
stuck a camcorder on the nose of all our ships, and we're going to
hope the Kilrathi, Romulans, and Cardassians don't get wise. I look
forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely yours,

Rear Adm. Kristan Overstreet

"According to the Freespacer database," Jilehr snorted from
her window on R-Type's multiterm. "This guy's callsign is 'Redneck'.
That sounds about right."
"Jilehr, please," R-Type groaned, hoping that when he
uncovered his eyes the message wouldn't be there anymore. No such
luck, unfortunately.
"Look, if these guys had even bothered to read the damn
manuals they probably would have noticed that those sensor arrays
wouldn't be compatible with their kind of fighters. Is it our fault
their equipment is from the fucking stone age?? If you ask me, boss,
this Overstreet asshole and his entire goddamn fleet should go fuck
themselves. I say we put his ass in the killfile and tell him to find
another company to complain to."
"Jilehr..." R-Type sighed, his patience beginning to fray.
"Be nice, please..."
"Boss!" Jilehr retorted angrily. "You do *not* need this
shit! He's doing this just to piss you off!"
"And you're doing better than he is!!" R-Type barked testily.
"Boss... *please*, *PLEASE* let me add this asshole to the
killfile!" It was as close as Jilehr would ever come to begging.
"JILEHR--" he started to yell, then caught himself, took a
deep breath, and continued in a more normal tone. "One, we have no
conclusive proof that the customer was at fault for this. Two, even
if we did, and much as I hate to admit it... the customer is always
right. Even when they're wrong. Yes, I agree this *does* seem like
an impossibly large blunder on our part, but we're trying to make nice
with the galaxy here, and that means we have to take our share of
bullshit, just like every other company."
Jilehr said nothing for a long moment, then growled "Fine,
whatever," and went offline with a derisive snort, shifting back to
Aki in the process.
"Gaah..." R-Type groaned, leaning forward and burying his face
in his hands. This was one of the less enjoyable aspects of being a
Vice President in a company with a history such as GENOM's. He was
beginning to feel rather ill. Come to think of it, he had felt ill
for several days.
"Do you wish to compose a reply?" Aki asked, trying to be
sympathetic. "There does seem to be a degree of urgency involved
here." (A questionable urgency, to be sure, but it was there
nonetheless.)
"Uhh..." Larry wheezed. "Yeah... tell him... give the
standard 'apology for this error on our part' speech, tell him I'm
sick right now, and I'll get to his case as soon as I'm feeling
better, probably tomorrow...... as a matter of fact I *am* feeling
kinda sick right now." (It wasn't a lie, either; this had intensified
an already unpleasant sensation in the pit of his gut which had been
gnawing at him most of the day.) "You have the desk; hold any
important calls and messages, the usual spiel."
"And if Admiral Overstreet is not satisfied with my
authority?" Aki asked, prompted by the ever-present growling voice in
the back of her head.
"Then tell him I'm terribly sorry for any inconvenience, but I
am *sick*, so he will just have to wait if he wants me to deal
directly with him," R-Type replied evenly, knowing it was really
Jilehr who wanted an answer to that question. "And no personal
opinions of character, please."
"Of course not," Aki nodded, ignoring her other half's
bitching.
"Thank you," Larry said, getting up and pulling his coat and
hat off the nearby rack with noticeable lack of enthusiasm. "I'm
going home now."
"The car will be ready in three minutes."

*rrrrringgg*
Larry groaned, wondering what exactly the universe had against
him today, as the sound of the phone forced him back to consciousness.
He briefly contemplated ignoring it and hoping that it would either
stop ringing or Aki would take a message, but even as he was thinking
this something in the back of his mind advised that he'd be better off
dealing with it.
Thus, he levered himself up off the bed -- where he'd
collapsed immediately after arriving home -- and trudged over to the
wall vidphone. "Hello?" he mumbled.
The screen came to life, revealing the face of a raven-haired
vision of loveliness. "Hi," Yuri responded quietly. She too looked a
bit on the ill side, much as he did.
"Hi yourself," he answered, straightening up a bit. "You
don't look too good."
"I don't feel too good," she replied. "Came home a little
while ago. Stomachache."
"Me too," he said, immediately sensing that there might be
more to this problem than he previously thought. "Nervous tension?"
"Nervous tension," she confirmed.
"Angst?" (One more symptom to check.)
"Could you come over?" (Exact match. Oh boy.)
"I'll be right there."
*click*

There were a great many things about the city of New Avalon
which made it one of the best cities in civilized space to live in.
But ultimately it was the people that made life either pleasant or
intolerable, no matter what the location. And Yuri Daniels made this
place one of the best reasons to be here, in Larry's mind. In the
time since he'd moved here, the time since they'd spent their first
night together, their already intimate relationship had deepened even
more, with none of the problems Larry had half-expected to be seen or
heard anywhere. (Except perhaps in the yellow press, who were
terribly confused because a scandal hadn't erupted over this "affair"
between a top GENOM exec and the WDF Supreme Commander's SO.) The
bond they shared gave each an almost instinctive understanding of the
other's feelings and emotions, allowing them to know when it was time
to be close, and when to stay away, with surprising accuracy.
Of course, when one of them was suffering, and the angst was
strong enough, the other was made to feel it too, and as the car drew
closer to the Daniels residence, Larry began to have a clearer picture
of what had been troubling both of them today.
The absence of the Daytona helped reinforce this.
Larry set the car down on the curb (despite assurances of
having equal status in their little triangle, Larry still refused to
park in a driveway he felt was Zoner's personal space), and made the
short walk up the steps to the front door. Without hesitation he gave
the doorbell a firm push, and waited quietly. The answer was not long
in coming as the door rattled and swung open, and again he was
confronted by that beautiful face. "Hello again."
"Hi." And without another word or hesitation Yuri embraced
him tightly.
"M-m-m-my," he Porky Pigged, yet another sign of spending too
much time associating with the Rose family. "You c-c-c-certainly are
an affectionate p-p-p-pussycat all of a sudden." That got a brief
giggle out of her, but it didn't seem to do much to help lessen their
mutual stomachache. Yeah, this situation was shaping up to be Not So
Good. Sighing, he resumed his normal voice. "Let's go inside before
somebody accuses me of being a salesbeing."

MegaZone disappearing without a trace was not usually any
cause for concern. Indeed, it was expected half the time, as both his
personal agenda and his WDF work regularly took him off on one secret
mission or another. Hardly anyone would notice, thinking it another
of the man's ongoing efforts to be secretive and mysterious, something
he got a kick out of, as Gryphon had remarked more than once.
This time, however, Yuri had a gut feeling -- literally, in
fact -- that something was not right. Nobody she'd been able to
contact could be 100% sure if his latest disappearance from the
Central Office was planned or not, or what he had gone off to do. Of
course, the fact that his office was totally destroyed and all the
windows were blown out gave her pause... But not *too* much. He
might have just freaked, though, admittedly, this was a bit much -
even for him. All she was able to determine was that he had taken
WarpZone with him, and he had left roughly 48 hours before. Everyone
she'd talked to so far seemed fairly sure that he knew what he was
doing (whatever it was) and he'd be back or report in when he felt
like it. But Yuri wasn't convinced; you didn't live with someone for
300 years without developing a connection with them. She was becoming
more concerned that this time something had gone wrong, something
beyond his control, and he was in trouble, wherever he was.
Larry listened carefully as Yuri related the story of her
day's investigations, curled up next to him on the couch. Everything
she had done had turned up nothing conclusive. "Finally I just
couldn't take sitting there anymore," she finished. "So I came back
here, and that's when I called you."
"What can we do?" Larry asked, holding her a little closer.
"I mean, he does do this from time to time..."
"I know, I know," Yuri sighed, her frustration evident. The
whole secretive-and-mysterious routine worked just fine until
situations like this one cropped up and someone actually needed to
*find* him. "It must sound stupid--"
"Hey, hey," Larry replied, putting a finger under her chin and
levering her face up so that their eyes met. "If you think he has a
problem, then he has a problem." Yuri was one of the most rational
people Larry had ever met, and she was not the type to indulge in
unfounded paranoia, even where her lovers were concerned. "Trouble
is..." he went on, more to himself than to Yuri. "How do we find
out?"
"I'm out of ideas right now," Yuri said sadly, looking down.
"Shh, we'll think of something," he whispered, planting a
small kiss on her forehead. She snuggled against him, taking comfort
in the fact that he was here, that she wasn't totally alone.
Loneliness was the sickness that had overcome her today; from the time
Zoner had run in 2288 until their reunion a century later Yuri had
suffered from that sickness, and she didn't want it any more.
Larry stroked her hair absently as he looked up at the
ceiling. He had a few ideas of what could be done to track Zoner
down, but actually going about them without bringing undue attention
to the matter could be a challenge. For that matter, even with what
he'd heard, could they be sure he actually needed any help?
Well, one thing was for sure: Yuri wanted her Zoner back, and
she was going to get him back, even if Larry had to go out there and
personally drag him back here... wherever 'there' was...
Still looking up at the ceiling, he absently wished for a
sign, or a hint, or something, from whoever happened to be listening
up there at the moment. Yuri, for her part, simply wished she had
both of her teddy bears here, disturbing as the image is, on the
whole.
Somewhere in there, they both fell asleep.

/* Andreas Vollenweider "The Birds of Tilmun" _Book of Roses_ */

A cold, cruel wind whipped over the young goddess as she stood
on a barren crag of rock which jutted out into the churning sea.
Waves crashed violently against the rocks, sending massive sprays of
foam and icy water into the air. She shivered against the cold, a
cold which chilled not only the marrow of her bones but also the fire
of her soul.
The signs could not be denied. The three winters of blood had
passed in Midgard, and the world was caught in the iron grip of
Fimbulvetr, the three winters with no summers in between. There was
no sun now, nor moon, nor stars. Only an angry sky filled with dark
clouds, churned by the cold wind. Had Skoll and Hati taken their
vengeance on the sun and moon then? Already the order of things was
in turmoil. Could it be that the most ageless of bonds and fetters
had already shattered, and Fenris was running free, preparing for his
own terrible plans? Dear Allfather, could Loki be free as well?
Fear screamed in her eyes as the sea began to churn all the
more violently, and lightning began to crack across the sky and plunge
into the water. Jormungand was coming. Why else would the sea twist
and writhe in such fury? Jormungand... and Fenris and Loki...
Ragnarok.
She was deeply troubled, for it was impossible to deny. This
was Ragnarok, the Destruction of the Powers... the Twilight of the
Gods. It sent an icy dagger through the core of her being. She was
Skuld, Norn of Being, goddess of the future... Ragnarok was the end of
Being, the end of the future... the end of everything that she stood
for.
In short, it was the sum of her innermost, greatest and worst
fears.
She clutched her mallet tighter as the flashes of lightning
began to increase in number and violence, but its aura would grow no
brighter than it already was. What?! Where was her ageless power
then?! Certainly it was there... but it was strangely weakened.
What, was her very life being sucked away with the coming of the Final
Chaos? Her terror increased with each passing moment, and the anger
of the sky and sea seemed to increase proportionally with her fear,
almost as though Loki himself were taking his vicious delight in
tormenting her to the edge of insanity before snuffing out her life.
Then the sea bubbled and seemed to erupt upwards, and with a
terrible hiss a huge black shape rose out of the abyss... the greatest
of serpents himself. Jormungand. He twisted around, illuminated by
the lightning crashing into the ocean around him, venom dripping from
his mouth, and his gleaming eyes lighted on the tiny goddess standing
on the rock, clutching her equally tiny mallet in fright.
<My sisters, where are you?> Skuld said in a voice that was
choked with panic. <Allfather, where are you? Has *no one* heard
Gjall's calling?>
Suddenly she knew she was not alone on the rock, but that
which she sensed was not the presence of a friend. She wheeled and
found herself faced by a huge wolf, and she could not miss the hole in
the roof of his mouth where a sword had been thrust to gag him so long
ago.
<No one shall hear Gjall's calling,> Fenris snarled in the
most evil of voices. <Because there is no one to sound the horn, and
no one to hear!> And then the rocks behind him were no longer gray,
but clotted with blood and gore, and littered with the bodies of
warriors, gods, elves, and all the peoples of Asgard. Skuld took a
step backward and nearly tripped over something, looked down, and it
was all she could do to not scream uncontrollably when her eyes met
the unseeing eyes of the eviscerated corpses of her sisters.
Then Fenris sprang toward her. In blind fear she swung with
her mallet, felt it connect. Fenris howled in rage and stumbled
backwards, then sprang again, fire burning in his eyes and curling
from his nostrils. Skuld shrieked and swung again, but this time
something exceedingly painful ripped across her body. Her
bloodstained mallet soared through the air and was caught by the wind
and carried out over the ocean, where it dropped and sank into the
abyss.
Before Skuld knew what was happening pain seared into her body
from both sides as she was caught and pierced by Fenris's powerful
jaws. Fenris levered her around and held her small, writhing form
upwards, out toward the gleaming eyes of his brother Jormungand, who
had watched the whole exchange unmoving. Now he began to swim closer,
as Fenris spoke to Skuld, sending pain shooting through her with every
syllable:
<Your time is at an end, goddess. Your crimes against me,
against my brother, against all whom you did not favor, will be
avenged. Ragnarok has come! There will be no future. There will be
no -being-. -You- will know the -abyss- that YOU FORCED US TO ENDURE
FOR UNTOLD CENTURIES!!> He released her then, and she crashed
painfully to the rock, lying on her back, her blood pooling under her,
eyes turned up towards the uncaring sky.
Jormungand's eyes glowed brighter. Frozen and powerless,
Skuld could only watch as he reared up higher, gathering venom in his
mouth, preparing to send her into an eternity of agonized torment.
Tears streamed from her terrified eyes as she tried to squeak out the
names of anyone... *anyone*... she knew. But it seemed that as she
spoke each name, the corpse of that person floated by...
<Allfather... Thor... Freyja... Heimdall... please help me...>
Jormungand's head dove down from the clouds, flanked by
lightning, his mouth beginning to open.
<Verthandi... Urthr... my sisters... no... please don't be
dead... *please help me*! I don't want to die!!> But it was useless.
The corpses of everyone she knew surrounded her.
Except one.
Jormungand opened his mouth fully and a torrent of venom
spewed forth, racing toward her face. Complete terror seized her
then, and full in its sanity-destroying grip she brought the last of
her strength into one final burst, opened her mouth, and screamed.
<GRYPHON!! PLEASE HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!>

Gryphon, who had dropped into a light doze in his chair, was
jarred awake nearly two seconds -before- Skuld awoke with a shriek of
unadulterated terror. Such was her fear that he could feel it without
trying to do so, and it nearly caused him to cry out along with her
before he mastered it and sprang to her side. She was bolt upright in
the bed, clawing at the thick grey blankets, tears flowing from her
wide wild eyes so rapidly that they were forming a solid stream.
Gryphon pushed his way through the terror around her as if it were
water, fighting to keep his concentration as the images of her dream
buffeted his mind, until he reached her and enclosed her in his arms.
The contact seemed to startle her, and for a moment she struggled to
escape. She was surprisingly strong, but his grip was firm and
determined, and in only a couple of seconds she realized where she was
and what the arms around her really meant.
When that happened, she seemed almost to crumple, settling
into his embrace, and then she turned and buried her face in his
chest.
"Shh," he whispered, rocking her. "It was only a dream,
Skuld... only a dream."
He wasn't entirely convinced of this; it had, after all, been
a dream of such vivid intensity that he had seen it. Of all the
things he could do with his skills with ki, seeing into the dreams of
others was a feat he had thought out of his reach, at least in this
decade.
Skuld wasn't convinced either. "No," she said between sobs.
"It wasn't j-just a dream... it was a w-warning. I've... I've had
that dream every time I've fallen asleep for the last week. And it
always ends the same... so I knew... knew I h-had to find you... "
"I... " Gryphon stopped. He wasn't about to tell this poor,
terrified creature that he didn't think he could do a damned thing
about it, even though that was, inside, what he was feeling.
"I know, I know," Skuld said miserably. "I'm nothing but a
c-coward... it's always been written that when the day comes the gods
will line up shoulder to shoulder and die gloriously for the
Allfather, and here I am... going to a mortal for help... but... "
She shuddered with renewed sobs as her fear and sorrow re-established
their hold on her, and she crumpled against him again as she
whispered, "... I d-don't want to die... "
"It's all right," Gryphon repeated, holding her tighter in his
arms. "Nobody wants to die, Skuld."
"W-will you help?" she asked him, her voice tiny.
"I'll help you," he replied solemnly. "You aren't going to
die. I swear it."
"Th-thank you... please... please hold me... "
"Until the mountains fall into the sea," he replied, "if I
have to."
She sobbed against him for a few more long minutes, as he
rocked and shushed and comforted, and then she drifted off to sleep
again. Gathering his mental warders around him, Gryphon laid her
gently back on the bed, then stretched out next to her, maintaining
his embrace. He had seen her nightmare once; now it fell to him to
see if he could prevent it from returning.

Larry was running as fast as he could, and yet the world
didn't seem to move as he wished, like some invisible force was
keeping him from getting over to the Daytona. But he had to get over
there; he'd seen Zoner fall out of sight behind it, attacked by
something. Zoner needed help, whether the big oaf wanted to admit it
or not. He strained harder, and began to close the distance more
quickly. Ahead of him he saw two figures running toward them,
shouting Zoner's name just as he was. One was Gryphon, the other was
a raven-haired young woman who looked annoyingly familiar but whom he
couldn't identify. He ignored them. He had to get to Zoner. The
sounds of struggle could be heard behind the car, and Larry thought he
saw the big man trying to wrestle something away from his face.
<ZONER!> he yelled as he vaulted over the car and landed right
in front of the struggling man. Something was indeed trying to attach
itself to his face: a rubbery mass of brown and green which looked
like it was well on its way to covering his entire head. Panicked,
Larry reached down and tried to get a grip on the monster, to pull it
off, but before he could do this, Zoner's head snapped up. His face
was completely covered by the brown and green mass, except for his
eyes and mouth. The former were full of shock and fear, and then the
latter opened wide and emitted a shrill scream.
And suddenly Larry was awake again, panting rapidly. He felt
a short, rapid breathing against his neck, and looked down to see that
Yuri's eyes were also open, shock clearly visible. Sensing that he
was looking at her, she turned her gaze to meet his.
For a moment he wasn't quite sure what to say, as the
nightmare began to slip away from his consciousness. Yuri solved that
problem by speaking first: "Did... did you see...?"
"Uh... greenish-brown thing?" he ventured.
"On his head?" she asked her own question by way of
confirmation. (Uh oh.)
"Did he scream?"
Yuri just nodded mutely. Good goddess... they'd had the exact
same dream...
"Whatever this is," Larry half-whispered. "We've gotta do
something and do it now."
"But *what*?" Yuri asked, doing her best to bite back the
small wave of panic which was beginning to rise despite her efforts to
control it.
Larry thought very hard, for several long moments, recalling
what fragments of the vision he could. "I think," he turned to her.
"We better go talk to Gryph."

As he slept, Gryphon dreamed as well -- his mind roaming back
to happier times in a disjointed, splintered, stream of consciousness
way. Years ago -- 2149, deep in the heart of the Golden Age --
himself, on sabbatical, a guest professor at a tech college on the
planet Tomodachi, teaching military history. It looked like it was
going to be a lonely year; Kei was on Meizuri teaching at the 3WA
Academy. Rain and thunder and surprise as a young student, hapless
and well-meaning Keiichi Morisato, turned up dripping wet on the
doorstep of the converted temple he had rented with a most unusual
burden and a strange story to tell.
It had been an interesting year.
And Skuld had been there. She was younger, then; she appeared
perhaps thirteen to an observer. Young and playful, and fun to be
around; one of the only non-adults he had genuinely liked during that
period of his life. Her sisters as well -- sweet and kind Belldandy,
who doted so on Keiichi, and mischievous Urd, with her thousand and
one unworkable schemes and her sometimes unfortunate passion for
wine...
... yes, it had been a very long time.
His mind drifted as a dreaming mind will, wandering out of
memory and into speculation. As he slept he wondered about the
significance of Skuld's dream -- she was the goddess of the future,
after all, and if anyone's dreams could be premonitions... He knew of
others who could see the future. Very rarely, Yuri and Kei could,
although their visions never made any sense at the time. Takanaka had
seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of destiny, if not actual
events in the future, and he had always claimed that Gryphon too would
find himself knowing these things, eventually. At the time, Gryphon
had not believed him.
Now, he wasn't so sure.

FIRST SEAL: END

--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder and Keeper-Straight of the Continuity
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-