Ryo ran to Mia. She was in a lot of pain—that much was easy to see. Mia was so weak that her armor had completely disappeared, revealing a gaping wound to her horrified friends. A pool of blood was spreading underneath her. “Astarte! Trace! Quick! Your healing powers!”
In an instant they were there. The two of them had discovered that since both of their powers drew from life itself, they could merge those energies into a strong healing force. Astarte knelt beside Mia, summoning up her own powers, amplifying them through the Jewel of Life she still wore around her neck. A red glow spread down her arms to the site of Mia’s wound.
Trace moved to the other side of his fallen comrade, placing his hand over Astarte’s. A green glow enveloped him and flowed along his arm to his hand. His energy melted into Astarte’s, winding down into the wound. Mia opened her eyes with a gasp of surprise. There was a long scar marring her shoulder, but the injury was closed.
Mia tried to sit up, but she was so weak. The pain was still there, too. Not as excruciating as before, but bad enough. She’d thought she was going to die. She saw Stygia’s sword coming towards her. She knew she couldn’t move away in time. Why was she still alive? She remembered… Someone had stopped Stygia. A man with strange black eyes, but… There was something about him she recognized. “Ryo?” Mia struggled to sit up. “Ryo?”
Ryo soothed the damp hair from her face. “You need to rest. Trace and Astarte healed you, but that was one ugly wound. You’re going to need to take it easy for a while.”
“I have to see! That man—where is he? The one who saved my life?” She tried to lift herself up on her good shoulder, but just couldn’t. Ryo gently propped her head up slightly against his leg.
Ryo was curious now, too. He’d been so worried about Mia that he’d forgotten about that other guy completely. He scanned the area. There! He was on the ground not too far away.
Uli lay on his side, dazed. He could feel his body getting smaller. He looked over at the body Stygia had used. It was getting younger, too. Tears were streaming down his face. It wasn’t fair! Obsidian wanted to save his people, but he ended up destroying almost all of them! Uli knew from the thoughts Obsidian had shared with him that some of the Darklings didn’t join Stygia’s army. They were out there somewhere waiting for the sun to set like they always did. But so many of them were here… The Nameless Ones tricked him! They said the spell of darkness Stygia cast would last until nightfall. They’re the ones who taught it to her. They knew it would disappear when Obsidian killed Stygia. They must’ve! They tricked him into killing the people he wanted to save. “I’m sorry, Obsidian. I’m so sorry. I’ll get them for you someday. I swear!”
“U u u u u.
Uuuuli. Uli.”
What was that?! It was kind of like when Obsidian had been inside his head. Sort of. He stared at the woman’s body. No. It was a little girl now. Uli wondered if Obsidian did that somehow. Maybe the magic that made the body grow so fast wore off with Stygia dead. Who knew? He crawled over to her, too tired to stand up. “That was you, wasn’t it? How did you know my name?” He watched with wide eyes as she swiftly de-aged until she was a baby. Then she seemed to stop. He looked down at his hands. Little kid hands. He was just a boy again. The baby cooed at him. He found himself staring into her wide blue eyes. It was almost like she was looking inside him and he could almost see inside her, too. Creepy, but kind of cool, too. “Who are you?”
“Yuriko.”
Her voice in his head was like a little kid laughing. Nothing evil. He could feel it. “Oh, yeah? I’d introduce myself, but you already know my name.”
“Uli, Uli, Uli.”
“Don’t wear it out.” He picked her up, noticing how right it felt for her to be there.
“ULI?!”
He jerked his head around to see Ryo walking towards him hesitantly, carrying Mia.
Ryo sat her down next to him. She reached out with shaking fingers to touch his face. “Are you real? Please, please, please be real.”
“I am so real, Mia.”
She grabbed him with what strength she still had and held him close, crying with relief.
“Careful. Don’t squish your baby.”
Mia pulled back, noticing the squirming bundle in Uli’s arms. “My baby? I heard… I wasn’t sure.”
“Yours and Ryo’s. Stygia had her made from you guys—your genetic stuff and magic stuff and soul stuff. It’s almost like creating a regular baby only faster. Her name’s Yuriko.”
“You named her?”
“No. She told me.”
Astarte frowned. “One of the Darkling Sidh was inside you, wasn’t he? What did that creature do to you, Uli?”
“He needed a body to get close to Stygia.”
“He used you?” Her fists clenched and unclenched at her side.
“No! He told me what he wanted to do and I said it was OK. He never would’ve done it if I didn’t let him. It was so cool! I was him and me and grown-up and…”
“Why did he need to do such a thing? Stygia’s spell spread darkness over this land. He would have had no need of a human body.”
“But Stygia would never have trusted him if he’d just showed up. He needed her to relax. When she saw him in a human body she thought he was here to help her. She let her guard down. That’s how he was able to zap her. He needed my help. Only…”
“Only what?”
Only they weren’t all supposed to die. He didn’t think he should say that to his friends. They’d just got done fighting the Darklings and probably didn’t miss them at all. “Nothing.”
Mia put her hand on Uli’s head, feeling for fever. “But…the poison? How...?”
“Obsidian did something. I’m not sure. It’s still there. I feel really tired and I know that’s mostly the poison, but he pushed it back or something. I don’t think it’ll ever go away, but he left some magic behind to keep it from going crazy through my body again.”
“Does it...hurt?”
“Nah. Just a little stiff. I’m OK. Really.” It did hurt. His muscles felt sore and kind of crampy, but he wasn’t gonna tell them that, either. He wasn’t a baby. He could handle it.
Sage patted Uli on the shoulder, his eyes misty. “You know, you look younger than you did before.”
“No way! Come on! You’re just kidding, aren’t you?”
They all shook their heads.
“This really stinks. It’s gonna take me forever to grow up now!”
Sai looked at Yuriko. “Look on the bright side—at least you’re not a little baby.”
“I guess.”
Astarte left the rejoicing group and walked over to King Breon who surveyed the handiwork of his warriors.
“We thank you for your assistance.”
“Assistance, Astarte? It was more than that.”
“We routed more than half of them for you before your arrival with a mere handful of warriors—most of whom are human.”
“Impressive indeed.”
“Would it have been an inconvenience for you and your warriors to have arrived sooner? They were storming the gates to your homeland, after all.”
“I was weighing my options. Taking an army of fairy warriors into the earth realm is not something done capriciously. I had to make sure my actions were justified in light of the law.”
“Your are king. You make the law.”
“But even I must be bound to it, else it means nothing.”
“Someday your meticulous attention to the details of the law will be your downfall—or someone else’s.”
King Breon ignored her last comment, choosing instead to look out over the ashes scattering in the wind. “So much foolishness and so much waste. As king of the Shining Realm, I wield the power to lift the curse of darkness my mother placed upon them. I do not hold grudges as she did. They are an illogical waste of emotional energy. If Stygia had come before me as a supplicant and asked in the proper manner…”
He pulled on the reins, directing his horse back toawrds the mist from whence he came.
“You would have welcomed her to the land of the Dayling Sidh? Then why did you not offer that choice to her?”
“I knew her far better than you. Her hatred and pride were such that she would never have accepted anything from those she felt wronged her—especially not the son of her hated rival.” He waved his hand. A trumpet blew and the golden warriors galloped into the mist and disappeared.
Astarte shook her head. Stygia was not the only Sidh guilty of pride. She walked back to her friends.
Mia took the baby from Uli, holding her little hand. “She’s beautiful—something wonderful out of such a horrible experience. Don’t you think so, Ryo?”
“I don’t know, Mia. I’m not sure about this. Are we certain Stygia’s totally gone? What if it’s some trick? What if this baby grows up evil because of that witch?”
“She won’t grow up evil. How could she with a family like ours?”
“But she’s not… We don’t even know what she is.”
“I’m not going to hold Stygia’s actions against her. I don’t sense any evil in Yuriko at all. She’s our daughter—however she came to be here. Isn’t that enough?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Just love her, Ryo. Be there for her. And for me.”
“I’ll try. That’s all I can promise right now, Mia. I’m really not sure how I feel about her. I’m sorry.”
She took his hand, smiling up at him. “That’s OK. I understand.” She really did understand. It was hard to hold the baby and not think about the horrible things Stygia did to them in order to create her. But Mia knew that as time passed, the good feelings she had when she held little Yuriko would outnumber the bad ones. They just needed to be patient and not give up. Easier said than done. Something had changed in them, something she didn’t like at all.
Mia looked around at her friends. Despite the relief of victory, dark shadows of despair and anger still clung to them. She saw Ryo’s pinched face, Astarte and Gilgamesh’s wary looks, Anubis’s efforts to calm a shaky Jack, Uli’s pained eyes. And she still felt a darkness in herself—an anger and hurt that would be there a long time. Stygia was gone, but what kind of devastation had she left behind?
Finally!
Story
Notes:
1) Well, I decided to name Uli’s parents. I just got sick of always calling them “Uli’s Mom and Dad”. I couldn’t find anyplace that gave a last name for the family so I gave them one of those, too. Hope you like Takeo and Hana Nakamura.
2) You didn’t really think I was going to kill off Uli, did you? Granted, he’s certainly killable (he isn’t one of the fighters, he doesn’t really do much, he can be annoying), but I have plans for him. I also had personal reasons for saving him at this time (*see note 4). I have thought about killing off another character, though (a more main one). Just playing with the idea at this point, though.
3) This had to be the hardest story I’ve ever done! I just lost my motivation somewhere along the way. Then things kept happening in my personal life to derail my writing efforts. Then my Dad died in January and I seemed to just kind of lose my impetus for a while. I couldn’t seem to rouse myself to do much of anything creative. *sigh Then I took a summer graduate course which ate up a lot of my free time and effort. A story that I thought would be started and finished in the summer of 2002 took me until now to get done. I’ve never had this much trouble before! Thank you, everyone, for being so patient.
4) Obviously, this story had some parallels with real life. In a few scenes where Mia thinks about the dying Uli, I found myself writing my state of mind into hers. She was the one who knew death was coming, but tried to keep things together by keeping herself busy, the one who purposelessly avoided thinking too deeply of what was to come in order to maintain some sense of control over her emotions. But I took pity on Mia and gave her what I lost. I gave her back her friend and family.
5) I’m not sure what I’ll do next. I try to rotate among my different fanfic interests so I don’t burnout in any one universe. I might write a short story for this site and a long story for my other site. I’m also contemplating just how much work it would be to create another website for my other fanfic interest, the Magnificent Seven. I’ve been reading a lot of fic for the show and started getting inspired with ideas for 5 or so stories. I even sketched out about six hand-written pages of one I really want to work on. Help! I just don’t know what I’m going to do!
6) THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SO PATIENTLY WAITED FOR THIS STORY TO BE COMPLETED! A special thanks to Emily who followed the entire story as it progressed and e-mailed me praise and encouragement for each part I posted. Thanks! I hope it was worth the wait!