The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

by **Juliana** Thu May 07, 2009 6:33 am

by Mary Tellorenzello

Prologue

Juliana Sundry glanced around her favorite hangout of Yulgar's Inn. Familiar faces stared back at her from every direction, their expressions ranging from curious to outraged. Her friends, all of them, but they were not going to take no for an answer.
She had been hiding something from them. They wanted to know what it was. Now.

"Please understand.... It will not be an easy thing for me to tell you." Militant looks told her that she had better tell it anyway. "I will reveal everything, but it will be difficult. I have been keeping this secret for so long, it is now habit for me to keep part of it back. I simply ask that you excuse the way I have to tell it."

A ripple of assent passed through the room, and Juliana waited for five more seconds. Then she began to speak, and her voice took on a new tone. She spoke with authority, as if she were reciting a spell. And in a way, she was, in that her audience was soon held enrapt by the sound of her voice. And the promise she had made months before was finally fulfilled: she told her friends of the Saga of Traitor and Betrayed. What follows is the Saga in the exact words Juliana used that day to show her friends the history of their world and her own place in it.

by **Juliana** Fri May 08, 2009 2:32 pm

Chapter 1

This is the Saga of Traitor and Betrayed, as it was once written in a great school of Lore, as it has not been told since the time when the Betrayed asked that her name be forgotten to history. I, Juliana Sundry, by my right as heir to the legacy of the Betrayed, claim the right to identify the heroes and the villains of legend by their own names.

Now it begins.

Generations upon generations ago, when life was very different from how it is today, and vast distances seemed much, much smaller, there lived a girl named Juliana Sundry. Yes, I am indirectly named for her. Yes, I am descended from her... or rather from one of her siblings, as she never had children. At that time, the Sundry family was massively rich. However, they generally did not tell anyone that they were rich; they lived on what income the parents could earn by working, and they almost never touched their enormous fortune. The one luxury they allowed themselves was a vacation home on another planet--which, by the way, was indeed possible back then. So they had a vacation home on a lovely planet in a distant part of the galaxy, and they visited it for a month or so every summer, after which they would return to their everyday lives in the city of Tibattleonia on Lore, which was then known as Loreon. So Juliana and her siblings had a fairly ordinary childhood.

Though her adolescence was almost as ordinary as her childhood, there was one respect in which it was anything but ordinary: it almost didn't happen. When she was thirteen, Juliana surprised a pair of lawbreakers in the act of breaking the law. She did not intend to do anything about it, but the criminals decided not to leave any witnesses. Although she was entirely untrained, Juliana tried to defend herself. She did better than she knew: she came away from the encounter alive, but with an injury to her brain that would leave her unable to experience any kind of romance for the rest of her life. This, of course, is why she never married or had children.

When it came time for the oldest of the three children to go to university, all five Sundries visited their vacation home together one last time, and then saw Emily Sundry off on a shuttle that went to Gears University back on Lore. They then returned as a family of four. This was repeated a year later for Jacob Sundry, the only boy, and the year after that it was Juliana's turn. The shuttle picked up about twenty other college-bound students before and after Juliana joined them. She quickly became friends with a few of her fellow hopefuls, girls by the names of Sally, River, and Xenia; and boys by the names of Dooder, Alex, and Vance. They were mostly content to study feverishly for the entrance exam, watch messages and dramas broadcasted from Lore and a few other planets, and play some of the myriad games available to them. However, about halfway through the trip, Dooder and Vance apparently had an inspired burst of stupidity, owing no doubt to a great deal of testosterone and a marked immaturity of the prefrontal cortex.

It all started when Xenia accidentally tripped the automatic opening mechanism of a door that wasn't connected to anything... meaning that it opened into outer space. Upon the discovery of this door, and the consequent discovery of a safety feature that rescued anyone unlucky--or stupid--enough to get sucked out into the vacuum of space, Vance decided to hurl himself repeatedly out of this door. Not to be outdone, Dooder not only joined in but also made a competition out of it. The rules and scoring system of this sport have thankfully been lost to time, or else some abysmally idiotic young sailors would still be playing it.

Fortunately, they all somehow managed to survive the ten-day journey back to Lore, which was for some of them nothing short of miraculous. None of them ever forgot what happened as it ended.

As they approached the planet, Juliana strapped herself comfortably into a seat. Just in case. All around her, her friends either followed her lead (in the case of Sally, River, and Alex) or laughed at their precautions (in the case of Dooder, Xenia, and Vance). They chatted for a while, even to the point of laughing together at their own overcautiousness.

Then the shuttle entered the troposphere at a point eight miles above the ground.

"Something's not right," observed Sally calmly as the shuttle flipped upside-down. Xenia screamed as she, Dooder, and Vance were thrown against the ceiling.

"How's the weather down there?" inquired Alex.

"Oww," Dooder replied around somebody's boot.

"Maybe you should try and get up here so you can strap--" began Juliana. She never finished her sentence, because at that point they made their acquaintance with the ground. The shuttle, which had been in abject freefall, came to a stop rapid enough that those on the ceiling were suddenly nose-to-nose with those attached firmly to the floor. Sally, finding her face less than an inch from Dooder's, took advantage of their inability to move. Much to everyone's surprise, she kissed him, provoking twenty seconds of stunned silence. "That was... different," Juliana supplied at last. "Why did you do that?"

Sally shrugged. "Because I could."

About five minutes later, a large crowd came to free the trapped passengers from the totally destroyed shuttle, and to take the injured to the hospital for treatment. Since all of them had been injured to some extent, their entrance examinations were postponed until all of them recovered.

by **Juliana** Wed May 13, 2009 8:42 am

Intermission

Juliana paused here in her recital of the Saga, and refreshed her voice with a drink of water. "Say, Juli," Kayleen pointed out, "what was that whole mess earlier about? I'm confused."

"Patience. I told you I'd get to it," Juliana evaded. "It'll take a while, but I think you'll be able to put together the pieces as I go."

"Well, there's an easier way to find out," Kaotic informed them. He strode over to the door to Juliana's room. "I'll just take a look in here."

"Um, Kao, I wouldn't do--"

Kao opened the door, and screamed as his hair caught on fire. He slammed the door shut again.

"--that," finished Juliana. She sighed, and cast a quick spray-of-water spell at his head.

"What did you DO?!" he sputtered when the fire was finally out and the water mostly cleared from his mouth and nose.

"I? I did nothing," Juliana replied. "The three nervous dragonets in there, on the other hand..." She walked closer to Kao, sniffed his hair, and added, "Judging by the state of your hair, I'd say it was Alacia who did this. Hers always have this lightning smell."

Everyone stared at Juliana. "Who's Alacia, what does lightning smell like, and why do you have three nervous dragonets in your room?" asked Winnie at last.

"Alacia's my sister Emily's dragonet. She breathes fire laced with lightning. It smells hot and clean and sharp and just a little fiery. And I have three nervous dragonets because Alacia didn't want to stay behind when I called the two who normally answer to me." Juliana sat back smugly.

"Okay, why did you call your own two nervous dragonets? And how the heck did you wind up with any dragonet, much less two?" Winnie amended her question.

"That," Juliana answered, "is another question I will answer later. Suffice it to say that it is not the best of ideas to go into my room until the dragons have been soothed."

"Oohkaaaaaaaay."

Juliana smiled at her baffled friends, took another drink of water, and continued with her story. "Well, as I was saying..."

by **Juliana** Sat May 16, 2009 6:45 am

Chapter 2

By Juliana's assessment, if medicinal technology had been even slightly less advanced, her choice to wear a seatbelt would probably have saved her life. As it was, it saved her a lot of pain and a lot of time in the hospital. She had only a gash on her arm from some sharp object that had flown past during the crash; Xenia, on the other hand, had no fewer than six broken bones, a concussion, a skinned elbow, and a dozen minor injuries. Those who had crashed while unrestrained had to spend weeks recuperating, because there is only so much that can be done for such injuries. Juliana spent only two hours in the emergency room, getting her arm bound. After that, her astonished brother and concerned sister came to welcome her to Gears University, express their amazement at her method of arrival, and introduce her to her dorm room. She had no idea how it had been arranged, but her room was right next to Emily's.

"Well," Juliana observed as she gazed upon her new room for the first time, "at least I don't have to go to the trouble of making my own mess... Is that over there on the wall a decoration, or a leftover?"

"Um," Emily followed Juliana's pointing finger with her eyes. "I think it's leftovers from whoever had this room last, but I'm not sure. Definitely some kind of pizza splat, but there's no telling how artistic it's supposed to be."

"Eww." As that single word summed up everything that could be said about the condition of Juliana's dorm, the sisters backed out of the room--nervously, in case the previous occupant had left behind a pet rattlesnake or similar in addition to the already noted big mess--and shut the door the moment they were both over the threshold.

"Something wrong, ladies?" Jacob asked in a voice dripping over-the-top solicitousness.

"See for yourself," Juliana replied. "Just try not to inhale too deeply."

"Ha! How bad can it be?" he quipped, opening the door. Famous last words, not unlike those we heard from our singed friend over there five minutes ago. As Jacob opened the door, the full force of the smell and sight within the room hit him like a hammer. He staggered backwards and collapsed on the ground. "I take that back," he mumbled. "That's worse than mine was when I got it. And they say girls are cleaner than guys!"

"So you admit that the proper description is indeed 'ew?'" his younger sister challenged him.

"Yes. Yes, I admit it. Now please close the door!"

"There's a maid service that can be convinced to come to the University dorms sometimes," Emily piped up helpfully. "I think you have to pay them extra if your room is too disgusting, though."

"Whatever they charge, I suspect it's not too much to pay to render this sty fit for human habitation again," posited Juliana. She was correct.

by **Juliana** Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:04 pm

Chapter 3

A few weeks passed, Juliana's room slowly became more and more habitable as a team of maids--who wore biohazard suits just to be safe--cleaned out the detritus left by its previous occupant, and the newly arrived would-be students were finally ready to take the entrance exam. They were a bit unnerved by the rumors of the exam killing some of those who took it, but their friends and siblings who had already gotten in assured them that this didn't happen nearly as frequently as the rumors made it seem. "Brutal maimings are much more common," Jacob consoled his little sister, which reassured her not at all. Emily's advice was far more comforting: "I think it's a form of hazing. You see, there are maybe three kids out of the thousand that apply every year who actually get hurt. But, just to scare the heck out of the incoming freshmen, those three are hauled right into the entrance hall and treated right in front of everyone, while a bunch of other people stand around and talk about how impossible the exam is. The point is that you see exactly what could go wrong if you don't act responsibly, and the rest of the school--teachers included--get a kick out of seeing the newbies panic. The teachers encourage the illusion that it's almost always deadly. I think they're trying to say something along the lines of, 'If you can't deal with this fear, how well could you stand up to the real thing?'"

All these things were in Juliana's mind as she stepped into the testing arena. And arena it was; it appeared to be some sort of sports field that contained more giant fighting machines than she could have ever imagined could fit into such a relatively small space.They were all shooting at one another, yet by some miracle they never hit anything other than the single mecha opposite from themselves. Juliana swallowed, recalling that her parents had told her they would pay for her tuition and one mecha, but that for anything else she was on her own. She had known that she would be buying things for herself; she simply hadn't thought that she would be presented with the near-certainty that she would destroy the one mecha she didn't have to pay for so soon. What was I thinking?! I'm not ready for this! her mind cried out in silent panic. EEEEK!!! It didn't help that the teacher who had directed her here had ordered her to "report for your funeral--I mean, um, exam, of course."

"Juliana Marie Sundry," she told the lady who was sitting at the information desk running traffic control. It startled her to discover that her voice was perfectly calm, with not a trace of the terror she felt.

"Testing drone twenty-three; your mecha is already there," the lady replied, sounding bored. She had doubtless seen hundreds of others already today, and would doubtless see hundreds more, as Juliana had arrived on time.

Juliana thanked the lady, who looked astonished and gratified to be acknowledged so, and turned to go. Behind her, she could hear a confident voice proclaim, "Vance Cade Tanner." Hmm, what a name! Juliana thought, interested by the effect Vance's middle name had on the rhythm of the whole.

Then she caught sight of testing drone twenty-three, and all thoughts of money issues, bored traffic control people, and Vance's middle name went straight out the window. Juliana tensed, instinctively assuming the fight-or-flight pose of a natural warrior, because the drone was unmistakably designed to inspire fear. It was smooth and black and ovaloid, and it looked like something out of a nightmare. Of course, there was no alternative but to fight it, so Juliana swallowed the lump in her throat and walked over to the gargantuan battle robot she would be piloting. It was reassuring in its solidity and in its enormity: the nightmarish testing drone was only about three-quarters of its size. As the pilot, she would be in the safest place in it. Reminding herself of these facts comforted her enough that she climbed up into her place with only a minimum of tremulosity. In moments, the power of the twenty-ton battle mecha was quite literally at her fingertips.

A voice crackled over the communication system. "Candidate Juliana Sundry, are you ready to begin the examination?"

Juliana gave the instruments a cursory glance. Everything appeared to be in order. "Yes."

"Then begin. Good luck."

The testing drone brought its weapons to bear on Juliana's mecha. In reply, she raised the forward shields and quickly targeted her opponent. Within seconds, salvos were being exchanged so fast that she couldn't tell whether or not she was winning. But in a few more moments, it became obvious, as the drone disintegrated in a series of blasts that would have been deafening had they not been muted by several thick layers of steel. "Good job," the voice of the examiner assured her. "The next drone will appear momentarily. You have time to run a diagnostic on your mecha."

It was sound advice; Juliana took it. The results told her that she was in good shape for another round. Then another drone stepped in front of her, and the dueling began again.

This time, though, something went wrong. One of her shields failed with an ominous boom. Knowing that this left her vulnerable, Juliana tried to route extra power to her weapons in a last-ditch attempt to destroy the drone before it destroyed her. It began to shiver and crack under the onslaught. Maybe, just maybe, it might work.

Juliana thought she saw the drone disintegrate in a massive fireball. She thought she had just won, but before she could be certain, a gout of flame issued from one of the weapons of her doomed opponent and a massive explosion rocked everything around her. Juliana was flung back before the violence of the blast. The last thing she knew was heat washing over her as her head struck the floor with a sickening crack; then, nothing.

by **Juliana** Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:43 pm

Chapter 4

When Juliana blinked awake, she was lying on a stretcher, and there was a nurse's face within two feet of her own.

"You're finally awake," said the nurse. "We've been very worried about you--this year's students had only two injured, but those were the worst injuries I've seen in years. But you're almost as good as new now. You're going to have that scar on your right hip forever, but nothing else seems to have gone wrong."

Juliana wasn't worried about having a scar on her hip, given that she fully intended to be the only one to ever see it. She didn't ascribe quite as much weight to that news as it deserved, but she wouldn't realize for a very long time just how much she had undervalued it.

There were several questions that she wanted to ask, so she picked one at random and asked it. "Did I pass the test?"

The nurse chuckled daintily. She was surprisingly dainty, considering that she was a nurse. "You passed. Not a record-setter, unlike your classmate over there, but you passed." She indicated a second stretcher a few yards away. Juliana turned to look at it, but couldn't make out the face of the person on it. "He's in bad shape. We're fairly certain now that he's going to live, but we can't let him regain consciousness yet. He'd be in too much pain. But, when he wakes up, it will be to the news that he's set a new school record for the highest score on the entrance exam, ever. Lucky boy, that one."

"Who is it?"

"I'm not supposed to say," admitted the nurse, "but you'll find out pretty soon anyway, so what's the harm? His name's Vance Tanner."

"What about my mecha?"

"Totally reparable," the nurse assured her. "Proportionately better off than you were right after the explosion. You should be able to get it fixed, no problem."

Soon after, all of Juliana's friends and family at the university were crowded around her. She had done a spectacular backflip off of the stretcher, flipping it over her head in the process, which had caught all of their attention and drawn them straight over. They all congratulated her on getting in, and she congratulated Sally, River, Xenia, Dooder and Alex on the same. There was a decidedly festive feel to their conversation: jokes were exchanged, schedules were speculated on, advice was dispensed.

Emily half-joked at one point, "There was this movie I saw once where one character says, 'Every girl, if she's honest, goes to college to catch a husband.' Since I'm doing so terribly at actually learning anything in college, I ought to go find a husband who is much smarter than me. Maybe that Vance character; he looks decent." Her friends laughed even as they protested that Emily was much smarter than she gave herself credit for.

When they finally dispersed, Juliana and Emily headed back to their dorms together. Though Juliana had inhabited hers for quite some time already, tonight was the first night she would spend in it as a true university student.

"Are you sure you're all right, sleeping alone?" asked Emily as the two of them stood in the hall outside their dorm rooms, preparing to part ways.

Juliana laughed. "I've had a room all to myself every night for the past two years, ever since you left. Why wouldn't I be all right with it? It's not like I was injured that badly today."

Emily didn't laugh; she merely looked solemn. "You didn't see what happened to you. When your mecha caught on fire right where you were, we thought... we thought you had died. And before the medical team started, I saw what you looked like."

A distant sense of horror suddenly colored Juliana's perceptions, a premonition of what her sister was going to say next. "Why?" she asked mechanically, knowing that it had to be said. "What did you see?"

A sharp intake of breath, and the truth. "I saw you covered in blood and ashes. It looked like your right leg had been halfway to ripped off, and your hair was, was all matted. With blood. I'm glad you don't remember any of it, because it was horrible."

Juliana shuddered, thinking of all the pain she had escaped only through unconsciousness. It also occurred to her... "Wait, according to the nurse, Vance was hurt worse. How badly off was he?!"

"He was pretty much shredded," admitted Emily. "I didn't see him that closely, but he looked like he'd been stuck in a gristmill or something."

"Thank you for the happy image," Juliana told her sister sarcastically.

"Well, you did ask," Emily pointed out.

"You're right, I did. Well, despite that, I still think I'm good to sleep alone. Good night, Emily."

"Good night, Juliana," Emily replied, and the sisters parted ways.

by **Juliana** Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:13 pm

Chapter 5

"Oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat."

The whispered words of the chant filled the cockpit of Juliana's mecha. She was running the whole thing solo. Again.

"Oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat."

Her rational side told her why she was alone, but the reason wasn't at all comforting. Out of all the hundreds of freshman students at Gears University, she was the only one who flew solo out of fear for the lives of her crew. She had been at the University for all of a month, and she was already behind in Mecha Combat.

At least her grades in all the more academic classes were high, though that was little comfort at the moment.

"Oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat."

It should have been a simple mecha fight. The only problem was that it was three against one. Juliana could only handle two opponents with a considerable measure of luck, and three still seemed to be beyond her. Luckily, mechas were a lot more easily repaired than anyone would have guessed.

The first of the three mechas she fought fired a rifle at her. She had perfected the move that would bring her out of its range, but unfortunately it put her squarely in the middle of the third one's sights. It shot a laser beam, vaping her machine gun--drat it all, I'm going to have to replace that again--and singing off half the paint on her mech's right side.

"Oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat, oh drat."

With only seconds left before her mecha went up in ignominious flame once again, and with approximately 0.000000000000000000000000003% odds of being able to pull out an upset victory, Juliana prepared the eject sequence. She was getting a lot of practice with this maneuver, more than she would have really liked.

PERCENT CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 10 flashed on the screen. "Uh-oh," Juliana muttered. This meant that she had a ninety percent chance of dying in the next five seconds, which was never good news. She was pretty sure that there were supposed to be safeguards in a classroom setting, but she didn't like those odds at all. A couple switches flipped, to maximize her chances, and the percent chance of survival readout rose to forty. This was still not good news, but it was better.

An uncomfortably familiar flash of flame interrupted her preparations. "Uh-oh," she repeated. "Oh drat, oh drat, oh DRAAAAAAAH!!!"

Fire and ice flashed before her eyes, and Juliana passed out.

The next thing she knew, she was standing in a thick forest of marine life. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the cool comfort of kelp against her bare arms, breathing deeply, for a moment, until it registered in her mind that she was breathing underwater. Her eyes flew wide, but the water still seemed to act no differently than air to her. And, in the next moment, even the conundrum of breathing water seemed irrelevant next to what she saw.

Four tall human figures stood in front of her, watching her face. Juliana stifled a gasp, because all four were carrying beautiful, old-fashioned swords, and all four were glowing a gentle blue. "Who are you?" she asked. Something told her they were people to respect, but that was all she knew.

"We are the Keepers of the Legend," explained one of them--or maybe all four, Juliana couldn't tell which. "We guide the heroes marked by fate to create the legends that the world needs to have."

Juliana tried to speak, and found that she could. "Create legends how?"

"A strong-willed hero needs very little guidance to want to shape the world into something better. When there is something remarkable about the hero, their quest, or their circumstances, a legend is born. We help it form in the minds of the people and help the world to keep it alive. You are marked for a legend that will be told for centuries, that will determine the fate of the entire galaxy, that will make known to all who hear it the true source of great strength."

Juliana shrank back as they spoke. "Are you sure you've got the right person?" she inquired timidly. "I'm about as ridiculously un-legendish as anyone could get."

Gentle laughter answered her comment. "Your legend powers will come to you as you grow into them. In fact, you already have some; you merely have not noticed them in your preoccupation over those that you do not yet have. And now, it is time for you to return, and find your own strengths. Always remember, your powers will be strongest when you act from love..."

A familiar sensation woke her, and she was unsurprised to see a concerned face was right above her own. "Oh, my! You had me worried there for a moment!" said a voice that Juliana had heard several times before.

"Hello, Nurse Helia," groaned Juliana wearily. The head nurse of Soluna Hospital was becoming an all-too-familiar sight, and one who knew by now exactly what Juliana would ask before she asked it.

"You stopped breathing there for a few minutes, but you're good as new now. Your mecha is already fixed. And you have a friend who would like to talk to you." The nurse gestured to the door, where a tall young man stood waiting. Juliana sat up and turned to look at him.

Vance Tanner walked over, a broad grin on his face. "Did you forget to wear your seatbelt or something?" he asked wickedly.

"No," Juliana assured the star student of Mecha Combat 101. "Unlike you, I need the thing. So, unlike you, I remembered it." This joking around was normal for them, since Juliana had long since learned to understand male humor. Her brother had regarded that as an indispensable part of her upbringing. Now, though, it felt hollow to be joshing with Vance with the words the Keepers of the Legend had spoken still ringing in her ears.

Vance frowned, apparently noticing the same thing she did despite the fact that he had no idea of the reason. "Is something wrong, Juliana?" he asked compassionately. "Wronger than usual, I mean, since you always seem to wind up on a stretcher before the end of class."

Yes. I've just been informed that apparently I was born to be the subject of a legend, and that my mystical magical legendary powers are starting to show up. She thought it, rather than saying it. Looking up into her friend's face, she couldn't tell him. "No," she replied instead. "Nothing's wrong."

by **Juliana** Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:23 am

Chapter 6

A sword hilt rested in Juliana's right hand. There was no blade on the end, not right now. There wouldn't be one until she switched on the laser sword. Later, there would be, once the instructor, Master Lonway, was done telling her and her classmates how to use it. Following her vision of the Keepers of Legend a week before, Juliana had been trying to figure out if the vision had been real, and, if it had, what her powers would be. To that end, she had signed up for several extra classes, including The Art of the Laser Sword. Which was what she was doing now.

"For now, your swords will be much less dangerous than they would if you were out fighting in the real world," he informed them. There was a collective sigh from the class; about half of them seemed to be relieved about it, and the other half was disappointed. "It will be the same when you duel your classmates later in the course. All of this is to prevent this class from being fatal to anyone, since it would look very bad for students to die in a class they paid extra for the privilege to take. When you enter real-world combat situations, you will use laser swords at full strength." There was a collective gasp, which seemed to be half fear and half excitement. Master Lonway surveyed his students, looking satisfied, and announced grandly, "I will now demonstrate today's exercise." He strutted over to a dummy sitting on the floor. It looked to Juliana's eyes like a plank with a few sticks coming out of it to suggest a vaguely humanoid shape. Activating his sword, Master Lonway slashed at the dummy from either side, leaving blackened marks on the sides but not cutting it. His sword was clearly adjusted in the same way as his students'. "Simple enough. Now, one person per dummy, your turn."

Juliana chose not to get involved in the insane scramble to get to the nearest dummies, instead strolling coolly across the room straight to one that no one else wanted. By the time she got there, many of her classmates had begun to slash cluelessly at their dummies. Some just stood around, looking lost, until Master Lonway came over and explained again. A few accidentally got their swords turned around in such a way that it became very apparent why they weren't using the full strength of their weapons. One particularly arrogant young woman by the name of Judy had managed to leave sootmarks from her weapon on her own throat, much to the amusement of the rest of the class.

Juliana finally reached her dummy. Turning her back coolly to Master Lonway, who was instructing the baffled girl behind her, she regarded her "opponent" calmly. It mattered that, unlike her opponents in Mecha Combat, this one would probably not hit back. She ignited the sword; it felt almost alive in her hands. It felt wrong, though, to stand upright with the blue-white blade dangling at her side. Instead, she adjusted her position so that she stood braced, leaning slightly forward, with the sword up and ready in front of her. That was better.

The sword hummed musically in her hands as she began to fight. At first, she stayed with the assigned exercise, but then another idea presented itself to her, and she changed her pattern. She stepped back and forth as if trading blows with the dummy, which did indeed seem to spring out and try to hit her. Whether it really was or not, it never succeeded. Then another thought came to her mind, and her body immediately responded. She backflipped over the dummy, leaving a black line precisely down the middle and over the top of its head. Only after she landed on the other side in a feral crouch did she wake up to the fact that everyone in the room was staring at her.

Master Lonway spoke first. "You should have informed the university that you have already taken lessons in this art. I do not recognize your style as any of the six most widely accepted, but it is clear that you have been trained."

Juliana straightened and shook her head. "But, sir, I haven't. This is the first time I've ever so much as touched a laser sword."

He raised his eyebrows. "Then perhaps you would like to explain what you just did?"

"I can't explain it, sir," she protested. "I just did what felt right."

Master Lonway's eyebrows shot even higher. "Do you honestly think I believe that?"

Studying his expression, Juliana replied seriously, "Judging by your reaction, I'd say that you do not believe it right now. Which is unfortunate, because I'm telling the truth."

A strong hand gripped her left arm. He has a grip like a vise, Juliana thought in some alarm. Master Lonway pulled her over to the nearest corner. "What are you playing at?" he hissed urgently. "Why did you sign up for this class? Are you trying to show off?"

"No," she replied quietly and evenly, doing her best to conceal her growing annoyance. "I signed up because I've been looking around for something I'm good at. I knew that eventually I would be able to do something--I just didn't realize it would be so dramatic when I found it."

He looked at her suspiciously. "How did you know that there was something you could do?"

In her most persuasive tone, Juliana replied, "I think everyone has at least one talent. Because I'm so far behind in Mecha Combat, I decided to get out and find where mine is, rather than obsessing endlessly over where it isn't."

Master Lonway frowned. "Well, I'm going to have you put in a higher-level class by next week, because whether or not you're lying, the fact is that you have clearly mastered all that is taught in this one already." As he turned away, Juliana could have sworn she heard him add in a mutter, "And I want you in a class that I don't teach, because you scare me."

by **Juliana** Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:48 pm

Chapter 7

The next morning, Juliana woke up to the sound of her computer beeping. She yawned and trudged sleepily over to the terminal. The message was marked, "Revised Class Schedule: SUNDRY, Juliana M." Opening it and scanning the contents, she noted that she was now in a laser sword class three levels higher, and that despite Master Lonway's intentions, he was still her instructor. She had decided that that was the only change when she noticed the small type at the very bottom: "Schedule goes into effect next Monday. Student should attend classes as designated by previous schedule for the remainder of this week."

"Happy Wednesday to me," Juliana muttered, not looking forward to being an oddity for three more sessions of that particular class, and wandered over to her closet to get dressed in something more substantial than her white nightgown.

Breakfast was a simple affair. Almost nobody talked this early in the morning, though what they did do varied. Some students ate slowly with glazed-over expressions, while others appeared to be dozing with their faces planted in their food, and a few read their textbooks with varying degrees of feverish urgency. Almost no one seemed to be truly alert until the bell rang, warning them to head to class.

Her first class of the morning was Advanced Trigonometry. She took a seat as close to the front as she could, devoutly thankful as always that the class she had to take while still drowsy was an easy one. Oddly, none of her classmates agreed that it was easy. Juliana suspected that the time spent napping in class and how easy it seemed to be were inversely related, though she could never figure out which was the cause and which the effect.

A snore from behind her interrupted her musings. She twisted in her seat and called to the room at large, "Wake up!" Heads snapped up all around, just in time for the professor to walk in to what appeared to be a class full of students who were awake and ready to learn.

After Trig was The Art of the Laser Sword. Juliana was still a hundred yards away from class when she ran into the crowd. "What's the holdup?" she asked the person right in front of her.

The young woman turned around; it was Judy. "How should I know?" she enquired snottily. "I only just got here myself."

Juliana rolled her eyes and pushed her way past into the throng. She made it far enough that she could almost hear what was being said by the people who could see what was going on, then was shunted sideways by a press of people and crouched down to avoid being impaled on the handle of the door that, had it been open, would have led to her Mecha Combat class. It pressed painfully into the back of her neck, but she didn't dare go any lower for fear of being trampled. On the other side of the door, she could hear someone asking, "But what if they can't get in?"

The normally strict voice of the professor who taught that class sounded a bit gentler than usual as she replied, "There are extenuating circumstances; I will be lenient for today on late arrivals."

Then the crowd next to her began to rustle in a slightly different manner than before: it sounded like they were asking, "Who is that?"

Juliana heard clearly one young man answering the question. "That's one of the local police. He's not in uniform, but I've seen him around. His name's James Jansen, but he likes to be called Mr. Jansen or Officer Jansen."

A stern, commanding voice, ostensibly Officer Jansen's, called loudly, "Where is Juliana Sundry?"

"Over here," Juliana called, forcing her six-foot frame out from under the door handle. Several other students moved aside to allow her just barely enough room to do so.

"How did you get under there?" demanded Officer Jansen.

"Probably the same way I did," replied a familiar voice from a door on the other side of the hall. Everyone turned to look as Vance extracted himself from a similar uncomfortable position. Juliana was interested to note that he was allowed more space by their fellow students.

"What's your name?" the officer snapped.

"I'm Vance Tanner, sir," Vance replied promptly, if a bit arrogantly.

"All right, Mr. Tanner," said Officer Jansen in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "how did you wind up trapped under the door handle?"

"There's a very eager crowd here, sir," Vance explained, putting a measure of sarcasm into his own voice. "I was pushed aside, and it was go under the handle or get jammed up against it. I figured that it would be better to go under the handle."

Turning a smart forty-five degree angle, Officer Jansen refocused on Juliana. "Is that what happened to you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see." He grabbed Juliana by the arm--Wow, she thought, that's the second time in as many days--and forced her to look him full in the face. His breath smelled terrible--like onions and alcohol together. It was a disgusting combination. "Are you sure you weren't trying to hide?"

"I have no reason to hide. And if I were hiding, do you honestly think I would tell you exactly where I was the moment someone called my name?" she pointed out reasonably.

A puff of onion beer breath hit her face, making her gag, as Officer Jansen said, "There are idiots in this galaxy, girl."

"I'm fairly certain I'm not one of them, as I'm sure someone would have mentioned it by now," Juliana retorted.

Officer Jansen frowned and shook his head. He seemed unsure what to make of Juliana. "Well, regardless, you're going to have to come with me. You're under arrest."

"What?"

He ignored that, assuming that it was an exclamation of surprise. Instead, he recited the list of rights that he was required to say. Despite their content, Juliana couldn't help asking one question.

"Could you at least tell me what you think I've done?"

He looked at her harshly and began dragging her down the halls of the University. "You're our prime suspect in a murder committed last night. That's all I can tell you for the time being."

by **Juliana** Fri Aug 14, 2009 1:57 pm

Chapter 8

Minutes later, Juliana was seated in an astonishingly uncomfortable chair in the police station, and Officer Jansen was asking the questions. She tried to figure out what was going on, but things kept distracting her. Like the stench of beery-oniony breath blowing in her face--eww!--with every question, or the hard metal edge of the chair cutting into her legs, or the emotional shock of the past few minutes. The shock of suddenly finding an excited crowd blocking her way into class and even the considerably greater shock of being abruptly dragged off to the police station was nothing to the shock of what she was accused of doing.

"Where were you last night?"

Juliana summarized her night for him. She had stayed in her room and studied until about eight-thirty, when Xenia and Sally had shown up at her door and invited her to a party. She accepted the invitation, of course, and they had stayed out until ten, when Juliana had noticed how late it was getting and suggested that they tone things down a bit. Her idea of "toning things down a bit" had entailed going back to Sally's dorm and chatting for a while about everything under the sun. Then, around eleven, Emily had shown up and asked Juliana to come back with her to her dorm, where they had discussed secrets of the kind that sisters share, and then a few minutes later the sisters had parted ways for the night. Juliana had recorded an entry in her video diary, then gone to bed and that was that.

Officer Jansen frowned at her. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "So you were in constant company until a little while after eleven?"

"Right."

"And you claim you simply recorded an entry in your diary and went to sleep immediately afterward?"

"That is correct."

"You didn't, say, take your laser sword and hide in some dark alley downtown?"

Juliana shuddered, the memories coming unbidden. "No. I've loathed that kind of place since I was almost killed in one, five years ago, so now I don't even pass them if I can avoid it." Her memories of that night were so vivid that it was almost like being there again. She could hear low voices cursing her drunkenly, see them attacking her with every makeshift weapon they could find, even smell the heady stench of alcohol and something else that she couldn't identify, except to know that it was toxic. The equally disgusting stench of alcohol with onions cut through her recollections, and they dissipated like sea fog in a dry wind. Her attention was once more on the present, which wasn't all that much better, and she shifted in the seat because her legs seemed to be falling asleep.

For some reason, Officer Jansen interpreted these as signs of guilt. "Did you just have a flashback to last night?" he inquired accusingly.

"Yes and no..." Juliana mumbled, still feeling the aftereffects. "Yes, I just had a flashback, but no, it wasn't last night I was thinking of. It was... the time I almost died for seeing something that someone didn't want me to see."

This surprised the officer; he started and stared at her with the beginnings of what looked like it might be respect. "Why? What happened?"

Juliana recounted the night that she had surprised two criminals in the act of wrongdoing, whereupon they had tried to kill her. Officer Jansen blinked like an owl, astonished by the very idea of it. "And you were only thirteen?" he gasped.

"Yes--I remember because I missed a few months out of my seventh grade year because of it."

For whatever reason, he remembered at that point that he was supposed to be interrogating her about what had happened the previous night.

"Are you sure the experience didn't, say, lead you to become some sort of vengeful vigilante killer?"

The idea was so absurd that, even given her surroundings, Juliana laughed aloud. "Sir, I realize that this is what happens in most superhero movies. Invariably, the protagonist must undergo some sort of incident which leaves them with some form of superhuman ability, plus a burning desire to either be avenged or to prevent a repeat occurence. But you know what? We aren't in a superhero movie. I came away from the incident with nothing but a few scars, which is what happens in most real incidents of this kind."

"We're still fairly sure it was you," Officer Jansen informed her casually. "All the evidence points to you--evidence such as that the laser sword we found next to the body had your fingerprints on it." He snapped on a pair of gloves and produced a sword much like the one she had used in class the previous day. "Go on," he cajoled. "Take it. It's yours, after all."

Juliana shook her head at the thought. "I don't actually own a laser sword," she informed him. "Students aren't allowed to get their own until passing at least the sixth proficiency test, and since I've only been in the class for a day..." The thought didn't need to be finished aloud for Officer Jansen to understand. Despite that, Juliana reached over to pick up the sword.

No sooner had she grasped the hilt than she screamed and let go. The sword clattered to the floor, snapping on as the ignition switch hit a corner of the plain metal table that stood between them. The officer stared uncomprehendingly as Juliana turned it off with her toe rather than pick it up again.

"What?" he asked when her horrified hyperventilating subsided somewhat. "Why did you drop the sword?"

"It hates me," she panted.

"What?!"

"I'm beginning to believe that these swords are alive, or something very close to it. The one I used yesterday liked me; it felt friendly when I turned it on. This one... I didn't even ignite it, and I could still feel hostility just pouring from it. I'd say it's much, much more unfriendly than the one from yesterday was friendly."

"I... see?" It was plain enough that Officer Jansen didn't really see, and his drama-king mind was filing her explanation away under "Ridiculous Excuses" or something equally skeptical. He bent over and picked up the sword, apparently noticing nothing out of the ordinary from it. "It hardly matters, after all. Based on what I've learned between last night and this morning, I think I know what happened. If what I tell you next is the truth, life will be much easier for you if you say so." At Juliana's accepting nod, he launched into his idea of what had happened.

"At approximately eleven-thirty last night, you left your dorm room and retrieved a laser sword from the rack in the classroom where they are kept. You went downtown to the movie theater and hid in the shrubbery just outside it." He directed a sharp look at Juliana's face, clearly wondering why the word "shrubbery" had made her giggle, then resumed speaking.

"When Howard Lonway passed--" Officer Jansen's voice cracked embarrasingly and he froze in mortification for a second.

Howard?! wondered Juliana silently while she waited for him to continue. Seriously, who names their kid Howard?

"--passed you," repeated the officer, "you ignited your sword, leaped out of the bushes and stabbed him through the chest with it, turned it off, dropped it, and disappeared back into the shrubs, all so quickly that nobody in the crowded street could really see you. Is this or is it not--"

Juliana was already shaking her head. "It wasn't me. I have no reason to say that someone else didn't do exactly that, but I know I didn't. First of all, I never leave my room after turning in for the night, and last night was no exception. Second, only the teachers for Art of the Laser Sword can get into the rack where the swords are kept. Master Lonway told us as much during his introductory speech for the class. Third, have you ever really tried to hide in a bush? I have, back in elementary school. I don't recommend it. It's impossible to conceal yourself totally, and there's no way to keep yourself from getting scratched all over. Just by looking at the lack of injuries on my face, it ought to be obvious that I haven't tried to hide in anyone's shrubbery--" she broke off and giggled briefly again, much to the confusion of the policeman-- "for a long time. And fourthly, I can't move that fast. I don't know what you've heard about me, but I'm pretty sure it's almost impossible to move so quickly as to do all that yet not be seen clearly enough to be identified by anyone."

"So you're not going to confess," said the officer as if clarifying a point.

"No, I'm not. I believe that my confessing to this would be a crime... something called perjury?"

"You sound like a liar to me," snapped Officer Jansen accusingly. "The signs of a liar are all there, and your story's impossible."

Juliana looked him right in the eye. "I wonder... am I really showing liar's signs, or am I just not saying what you want the truth to be? Because you want me to be lying. You want me to be some perfectly ordinary psychopath with some perfectly ordinary motive. Because if I'm lying, you have your clear-cut case, your motive, and your killer, and the police's methods are working, and everything is as it should be. Whereas if I'm telling the truth, you have a mystery killer on the loose, and this means a long time's work, and something is seriously wrong on your watch." She had decided it was time to gamble, time to risk everything on the fact that she was being entirely honest. "So now I dare you to ask yourself if what you think you see is real, or if it's constructed by your own mind's defense mechanism. Because if something is wrong... then you'll have to fix it." Juliana snapped her fingers, acting once again from the strange instinct that had gotten her into this mess in the first place. If she hadn't shown that impossible talent, there would have been no reason for her to be at odds with Master Lonway, and therefore she would have been no more suspect than anyone else in the class.

This time, though, it was showing her the way out.

The police officer shook his head slowly as if he wanted more than anything to deny what Juliana was telling him, but she could sense him weakening. She leaned forward slightly and murmured in a soft, persuasive tone, "Here's what I think happened.

"Someone planned this all very carefully. I don't know who or why, but they clearly wanted very much to get either me or Master Lonway out of their way, and they clearly know what they're doing. They waited until Master Lonway and I appeared to be at odds yesterday, then carefully set up all sorts of evidence to make sure that you would immediately go after me. Probably they lifted my fingerprints from somewhere and put them on their own sword. It's not difficult."

"And how do you know that?" asked the officer suspiciously.

"Back when I was about nine or so, my brother went through a phase in which he wanted to be a police officer. He learned all sorts of junior-policemen methods for solving little mysteries around our home, and he taught me a lot of them too so I could be his sidekick. Transferring fingerprints is easy: all you need is some adhesive tape. So once they had their fingerprinted sword, all they had to do was kill Master Lonway with it and leave it there."

"But why would anyone do that?"

Juliana shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they thought Master Lonway was in the way of something they wanted to do. Maybe they thought I was. Maybe they just wanted to cause trouble; there are people like that."

Officer Jansen sighed, clearly disappointed that Juliana's logic tracked clean. "All right, I'll tell the higher-ups that I don't think you're guilty."

She stood. "Thank you, sir."

He stood, too, and led her out of the room.

by **Juliana** Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:19 am

Chapter 9

Juliana sat in the holding cell just outside the interrogation room where she had spoken to Officer Jansen just minutes before, thinking seriously. She was fairly certain that she had convinced the officer of her truthfulness and innocence, but she wasn’t quite sure whether or not that meant she would be released soon. Wasn’t there a law that said that unless they could prove something, they could only hold her so long…? She realized with a jolt that she didn’t know the laws well enough, and she privately resolved to educate herself better the moment she got out, whenever that happened.

The gray steel bars in front of her were astonishingly depressing. Rather than dwell on them, the young woman directed her attention beyond her cage to the much nicer scene just outside. Several police officers were scurrying around like startled mice in the clean, well-lit foyer of the police station. They acted awfully busy, though Juliana couldn't see anything actually being accomplished. To be fair, most of the accomplishments were probably made in other rooms rather than the entryway, she decided.

Then a man who seemed to be a secretary called out, "There's some doctor from Tibattleonia calling, and he sounds ticked!" Juliana's heart gave a happy little skip. This ticked Tibattleonian doctor could only be one person...

Sure enough, when the police chief received the holo-call, the figure that materialized was that of Dr. Thomas Sundry, Juliana's father. "Why is my little girl locked up?" he demanded. "What has she done?" Juliana had known everyone from schoolteachers to professional weightlifters to be cowed by her father in this mood. To his credit, the police chief stood his ground better than most.

"Sir, she's our prime suspect in a murder committed last night. She's being held for questioning because all the evidence points to her."

"Really." Dr. Sundry's voice was scathing. "And has your questioning produced anything?"

"I haven't got the report back yet, but--" At that point the chief of police was interrupted by Officer Jansen, who presented him with the report. "Oh. This would be it." He scanned its contents, then glanced back at Dr. Sundry. "Sir, we are going to--" Another glance at the doctor's scowling visage changed his mind, and he swallowed whatever he had been about to say. "--release your daughter right now."

"Thank you," said Dr. Sundry, and hung up.

Juliana chuckled in giddy relief, very proud to be related to such a formidable figure. Her father was a force to be reckoned with, that much was certain, and she imagined that if someone were to try and attack the Tibattleonian hospital, Dr. Sundry could probably repulse them on his own, armed with nothing but a few medical instruments and his forceful personality. Then one of the police officers scurried over to the cell Juliana was locked in, still reminding her of a startled mouse, and unlocked it. "You're free to go," he said.

The young woman strolled calmly out the door, headed out to tell her friends what had just happened.

by **Juliana** Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:17 pm

Chapter 10

Time passed. Of course it did. Life goes on under any circumstances, including these. And slowly, so slowly Juliana thought she was imagining it at first, Juliana caught up with her classmates in Mecha Combat. It had taken her a while, but almost six months after Master Lonway's death, she was second only to Vance.

Things were different now in many ways. Juliana had a full complement of crewers in her mecha, which still required regular repair work but not nearly so much or so often. She and all her classmates were more confident in themselves after more than half a year in college. And they were fighting in pairs these days. This was a technique that they were assured would be one they would use quite a bit as mecha pilots in the real world. The way it worked was that two mechas would fight side by side in a strategically coordinated manner. The better two pilots knew one another, the more successful they would be. It was a strategy that required a lot of trust and engendered very firm friendships.

So it passed that one day right before they marked seven months from their beginning college, Juliana was perched once again in the cockpit of her mecha. She fired a single missle into a cluster of enemy fighters. It missed--something that was becoming more and more of a rarity these days--and she mumbled, "Oh, drat!" into her microphone.

Her battle partner's voice crackled over the speakers that allowed her to coordinate with him in real time. "'Drat'?" he repeated, sounding very amused. "What happened to the stream of curses I'm used to hearing?"

Juliana laughed along with him. "It recently occurred to me that in a real combat situation, we would be in danger of our lives. I decided that it was a good habit to kick now, before I actually end up in that situation."

"I don't follow," he admitted. "Why would that be?"

"Well, Vancey-boy, would you really want your last words to be F, H, S and K?" Juliana inquired.

"K?" Vance sounded both amused and confused, which was natural. "There is no K-word."

Juliana sighed in mock distress. "How little you know. Of course there is a K-word. One must only contemplate the plethora of terrible words that start with K--such as kill, and karma, and ketamine--to know that someone, somewhere, must have come up with a curse word that begins with K. In fact, I will declare right now that the K-word is, once and for all, ketamine."

"Why?" Vance wondered. "What's it mean?"

His battle partner began to answer, but a flicker of movement from the radar screens caught her eye. "While I'd love to answer that question, it looks like our company is back. Let's go."

They went. As their instructor noted on the grades they received at the end of the lesson, Juliana and Vance were the perfect team. They were so much the opposite... and yet, they were so much alike. Vance was the aggressive one, the competitive one, and he knew how to destroy. Juliana was the cautious one, the alert one, the one who noticed the threats and risks that Vance didn't see, and she knew from long experience how to keep those threats from destroying them. But they were both quick, and they each had a feel for the other's personality that allowed them to pull off the impossible as if they could read each other's minds. This was no coincidence, either; the two had become very good friends. They hung out in a group with all their friends that they had met months before on the shuttle. Even Emily and Jacob sometimes showed up, although it annoyed Juliana when they brought up all the things that had happened when they were very young. It was embarrassing, and she was pretty sure some of the stories were made up. Particularly those among Emily's contributions that she claimed dated back to when Juliana was a toddler. After all, the latter could hazily remember the years in question for herself, and she had absolutely no recollection of Jacob shoving her--or anyone else, for that matter--into a toilet.

After class, Juliana and Vance lingered just outside the classroom for a moment. "I think it's time to get to class," Juliana suggested.

"I don't see why I shouldn't cut my next class," Vance yawned.

Juliana proceeded to explain precisely why he shouldn't. By the end of it, they were both half-laughing, half-crying, and Vance was fervently promising that playing hooky was not in his future. The two shook hands gravely (as gravely as they could get with tears still streaming down their faces) and headed off to their respective classes.

by **Juliana** Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:36 pm

Chapter 11

Juliana slept restlessly that night, and with good reason: her dreams were nightmares filled with blood and fire.

It started innocently enough. She dreamed she was standing in the midst of a familiar landscape on the outskirts of her hometown, Tibattleonia. It was silent this far outside of the downtown area where the only people awake so late would be right now, and the sky...

The young woman tilted her head back to luxuriate in the beauty of the sky. The biggest problem with living so close to the city, she had long since decided, was that she couldn't see the stars well from her home. It was why she and her father had camped out in the fields far from the light pollution of the city so frequently when she was growing up: their shared passion for astronomy was one that could only be pursued away from the city lights. Memories flashed before her eyes, of herself as a little girl, so proud to show her father that she had found the constellation she was looking for, of herself as a teenager, waiting in great anticipation for a meteor shower...

A dozen or so orange points of light appeared among the white stars, shocking Juliana out of her reverie. There was no meteor shower predicted for tonight, and these were no meteors. They thundered faintly, growing louder as they approached and became more clearly visible. Within seconds, they were right on top of her, and proved to be space-capable fighter planes of an alien make, flying past in a V formation and headed straight for Tibattleonia.

The dream changed suddenly, and she was in the middle of the city. Her father's workplace, the local hospital, stood to her right; before her lay a cityscape familiar from countless visits in her childhood. Cars passed, hovering just far enough above the ground that they wouldn't crush anyone they ran into, and in this part of the city a few people still treaded the sidewalks. As the planes approached, people began to notice them and stop to stare and wonder what they were. Within moments, all traffic both vehicular and pedestrian had come to a complete standstill. Juliana watched the city more than the fighters, but she could do nothing other than watch. She knew in that moment that it was a dream, yet at the same time she was certain that it was real.

Her own presence was the only thing that wasn't.

In the frozen moment after this epiphany, everything seemed just as it always had, like a crystallized vision of home etching itself forever into her memory. This seemed to be just some sort of flyover, and everything else was right, she could count the few stars visible in the sky and knew the name of each one of them...

Then one of the mysterious fighters opened fire, and the familiar scene dissolved in fear and flames. Panicked people fled every which way, trying to find somewhere they could be safe. With a thrill of horror, Juliana understood what was happening at the same moment as anyone else. Tibattleonia, her own beloved, familiar Tibattleonia, was under attack.

The city's defenses set up a covering fire in response, but it was immediately obvious to Juliana that they were at a disadvantage. Instead of every unit coming online at once and working as one, it seemed that those manning each spacefighter and tank had to be woken one by one and run over to their weaponry while drowsy and afraid. The result was disgracefully patchy, though that wasn't surprising for a midnight effort from a peacetime militia guarding a city that hadn't been attacked for over two hundred years. One by one, fighters rose into the air to engage the enemy, and one by one they were shot down in flames. This only added to the chaos.

Juliana's vision was soon almost completely obscured by smoke, fire, bullets, and panicking people, so she nearly missed the first parachuter. It was a vaguely humanoid shape, though there was something wrong about it--the head was too long, the limbs too thin, the torso too small--and it had actively leaped from one of the attacking fighters. The first one seemed to be like the first drop of water over an opened dam; it was quickly followed by dozens upon dozens of others just like it. Some were barely visible through the confusion, whereas others were close enough that Juliana could see their purple skin, elongated heads, and vaguely nauseating, sharp, curved, predatory teeth. They moved with boneless grace, switching effortlessly between bipedal and quadrupedal, and their hand/foot things reminded their silent observer of frogs' feet. The whole effect was so macabre and so other that she felt an instinctive terror. These things would tear her apart if they could, and the way they seemed all too aware and almost otherworldly quickly all-but-convinced her that being leagues away in Soluna City would make no difference if they saw her and decided they didn't like what they saw.

It was the single most terrifying thing she had ever seen, and it was in her own beloved city.

One of the creatures loped into the hospital, and a scream rose from within. Cautiously, in case the creatures could somehow see her, Juliana followed.

The lobby, usually a fairly calm place, was every bit as chaotic as the outside world. The presence of the alien creature had much the same effect as turning over a box of mice: a lot of squeaking and a lot of scrambling. Since Juliana wasn't actually there, she could easily navigate the throng and quickly found her father. He was in the operating room, with a large assortment of very sharp things at his disposal. Even as she watched, he turned away from the operating table, scalpel in hand, and severed the froglike foot reaching for him. The creature hissed in pain and surprise and drew back, clearly startled by Dr. Sundry's reaction.

The first intelligible words Juliana had heard in the entire course of her dream followed, almost precisely as she had always imagined: "This is not your place, thing. Leave!" The speaker, of course, was Dr. Thomas Sundry, who proceeded to back up his words by fighting with the scalpel as if it were a dagger. He beat the thing back into submission, but it was followed by more such creatures.

One of them hissed, "This is our place now. We will take it for ourselves. We will kill you if we must, but this will be our place."

Dr. Sundry slashed at it, and it fell with its head partially severed. "Not if I have anything to say about it!" he snarled. "Kill me if you must, if you can get close enough, but this will never be yours."

Juliana froze, seeing a side of her father that she had never imagined existed. She had known he had a forceful personality, but this... this was more than just force of character or even force of body. He fought as if he were absolutely aware of the precise postion of everything in the room all the time, as if it were all a part of him, and as if he had all the time in the world. As if he had done this his whole life and could keep going forever.

Miles away, in her dorm room at GEARS, Juliana breathed, "I'll never be that good." Not even the sound of her own voice could wake her tonight; the part of her mind that was aware of this realized that nothing could rouse her until the dream was over.

Over a score of the alien things had been killed or wounded badly enough to be unable to fight by this point, and it was Juliana's father who was doing it. She realized that if she had even a quarter of her father's talent, it was a small wonder that she would be chosen for a legend. And he was fighting with nothing more imposing than a scalpel, of all things, which was never meant to be more than a surgical tool and not at all suited for combat.

Despite his obvious talent, the limitations of the scalpel and the overwhelming numbers of the enemy were beginning to take their toll on Thomas Sundry. The creatures began to act more boldly, clearly searching for the slightest hint of an opening, but Dr. Sundry responded in kind, killing three more before they had time to register that he knew they were there. Still, they were obviously calling for reinforcements, because there seemed to be more and more rushing in. With these odds, it would only take one mistake to end his life. Juliana watched tensely, wishing hard that there was something she could do to help her father. If only she could take up her sword and fight here for real... but she wasn't really here. She was powerless until the dream ended, it all came down to that.

One of the creatures seemed to see a hole in Dr. Sundry's self-defense. It tried to exploit the gap, but the scalpel whipped over in plenty of time and the offending appendage fell to the floor. Its owner reared back in shock and pain, and tried again. This time, it died abruptly. There were others near it, but many of them didn't dare make a move. They were wary of Dr. Sundry and his scalpel, and Juliana could hardly blame them. She was still in awe of the blinding speed and impossible precision with which her father's hand bearing the scalpel moved. He'd even gone so far as to incorporate motions with his free hand into the mix, using it to physically force some of the aliens far enough away to leave him with some breathing room. Every second, more of them fell dead around the operating room. Juliana wasn't sure if there had been anyone else in the room before the attack, but it was certain that there were no other humans present now. Every second, the tension built. There was no way that this could continue indefinitely, but the ending seemed nowhere in sight. Every second, they moved that much closer to the decisive moment when the scales would decide to tip one way or another, once and for all.

When the moment came, it was a shock. A single creature broke away from the safety of its pack and charged Dr. Sundry. He killed this one as coolly as he had the others, but it wasn't soon enough. Even as it died, it struck out at him with some form of alien weaponry or some natural adaptation; Juliana couldn't tell precisely what it was, but it seemed to do its cruel work. Dr. Thomas Sundry gasped in pain and sank to his knees, bleeding from some wound his daughter couldn't see.

Then one of the aliens spoke. The surprise of it managed to reach Juliana's mind even through her shock and horror on the sight that to her constituted the only important part of this tableau. "What are you dying for?" the thing asked. It sounded confused, like it didn't understand the doctor's logic, but also ritualistic. As if this were part of some ceremony.

"I'm dying for my family," Dr. Sundry groaned, the effort involved in speaking clearly visible in his face and audible in his words. "For my wife and my children, of course, but also for the greater family of Lore. This is our planet... our home... our family." He looked up, and it seemed his eyes met Juliana's. "My little girl is going to follow in my footsteps," he added clearly, some of the strain oddly gone from his voice. "She will be a thousand times more dangerous than I ever was... I'm so proud of my little girl." Then his eyes lost their focus and he collapsed limply to the floor as Juliana's dream dissipated at last.

She shot bolt upright in her bed, screaming, "NOOOOOO!!!!!!" She was still certain that her dream had been a true one, and she hunched over, weeping, as she realized that if she was right and her dream had been more than a dream, the one man she respected most in the world was gone.

by **Juliana** Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:28 am

Chapter 12

Juliana had no idea how long she sat hunched over on her bed, weeping. It felt like hours, though at the same time it felt like almost no time at all, before a light showed in the hall and the door eased open a crack.

"Juliana?" It was Emily's voice, sounding concerned.

"Come in," Juliana managed to choke out. She turned to look at her sister coming in through the door.

Emily turned on the light and gazed compassionately at Juliana, concern in her blue eyes. Just like Mom's, the younger sister thought, and lost all composure again. She didn't know what had become of her mother. Had Mom died like Dad, or was she alive and under the domination of whatever those strange alien creatures were?

"Juliana?" Emily repeated. "What's wrong?"

Juliana fought for some semblance of poise. She succeeded only partially; her voice was still raw and choked as she sobbed, "It's Dad. Tibattleonia was just overrun by a group of aliens, a race I couldn't identify, and they killed Dad. I don't know what happened to anyone else. I did see the aliens' space fighters attacking Tibattleonia."

Emily laid a hand on her little sister's shoulder. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"Yes. No. It was a nightmare, but it was real, I'm sure it was real."

"It was just a dream, Juliana," Emily insisted, seemingly frightened by her sister's certainty. "You know better than I do what causes them, and you know they're not real. You're awake now. The dream doesn't have any power over you anymore. Go back to sleep now, and by tomorrow morning everything will be all right."

Juliana shook her head. "Not after this. I can't explain it, but I'm sure it was real. You didn't see it; you wouldn't know... but it was real. Dad is gone..." Saying this took all her strength, and she broke down in tears again. Emily hugged her, but Juliana could tell her sister didn't know, couldn't understand just what was going on. "Tomorrow you'll see, tomorrow you'll see... we'll hear something about Tibattleonia being attacked, or maybe they'll try to make it look like something else happened, but I know the truth and now you will too. Tomorrow, all this will be decided and there'll be no doubting which is right..."

The sisters slept in the same room that night, as they had throughout their childhood.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Juliana woke to the sound of complete and utter silence. She could and did sleep through the hubbub of Soluna's early risers waking and beginning their day, but in one moment all fell silent. This was irregular enough to shake her from sleep. Emily, too, blinked awake at the abrupt absence of sound. Acting on instinct, both sisters silently slipped out of bed and treaded lightly to the window.

They looked out at a city enrapt, a city captivated and silenced by the image on every viewscreen within sight. It was precisely the same as Juliana's dream of last night, and as she opened the window she could finally hear the voice of a newscaster: "...Tibattleonia attacked by aliens of unknown origin. These images were caught by security cameras throughout the city. The extent of the damage is not known at this time, but it is estimated that at least half of the city was destroyed in the attack. Attempts to contact the inhabitants have so far proved fruitless."

Juliana didn't realize that she wasn't breathing for some time. Images identical to her nightmare blurred by on the screen, and she glanced over at her sister. Emily's face was blanched and the look on her face made it clear that she was regretting dismissing Juliana's dream. The younger one laid her hand on her elder sister's arm, sensing that now was not the time for "I told you so."

The sisters exchanged a glance, and turned to leave the room.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emily knocked three times on Jacob's dorm room door. "Jacob?" she called softly. "You there?"

Jacob opened the door, his face unshaven and his eyes bleary. "What?"

Juliana sighed with relief; her brother usually woke up with a great deal of banging and she was glad he had spared them that today. Seventeen years she had lived in the same house as he, and she still hadn't figured out why he always made loud thudding noises in the morning. She could only think about this now because everything felt so unreal, and she was detached from it. That numbness of detached unreality was the only thing that kept her calm.

"Tibattleonia was attacked last night," she told her brother, her voice sounding dull and hollow in her own ears. "Dad was killed defending the hospital. We don't know what happened to Mom, but no one has been able to contact anyone in the city since the attack."

Jacob gaped at his sisters for a moment, his tiredness forgotten. His gaze darted across their faces as if he hoped to catch some line of a lie. "That's a really bad joke," he informed them curtly. "And what did you wake me so early for? Couldn't you prank me just as well after a few more hours of sleep?"

Juliana shook her head. "No joke. This is real. Look out the window if you don't believe me."

Jacob looked out the window and cursed as he saw a familiar image of Tibattleonia flash across it, distorted with fear and flames. "I really wanted you to be joking," he complained. "Why couldn't you have been the ones playing a prank for once?"

His sisters stood to either side of him and each put a hand on his back. "I didn't want it to be real either," Juliana told him, "but this is what is."

"I think the universe is looking out for us," Jacob replied dreamily.

The girls looked at him as if he were crazy. "What do you mean?" gabbled Emily, lapsing back into near-hysteria.

"Think about it," he murmured, sounding as if he were in a trance. "This could have happened just about anytime, depending on whether or not little things were different. But the attack comes when the three of us are out of the city, and we're young adults now. We didn't lose either of our parents until after we were ready to survive without them anyway. The universe wants us alive."

Juliana listened to her brother's recitation with a feeling of horror mixed with elation. You don't get much more proof than that, she realized. I really am meant for a legend. It was astonishing, intoxicating... terrifying. Power corrupts.

In a single moment, she understood what had to be done. She stepped back from her brother and wondered, "Do either of you know what's being done about this?"

Both her siblings stared at her. She stared deep into their eyes in return, trying to speak without words. We need to do something. This is our problem, our fight. It should be our actions that fix it.

Emily and Jacob shuddered in unison. "Juliana..." Emily began.

"There's only one thing we can do." Juliana's words sounded sharper than she had meant them to, but that hardly mattered. She turned around and strode confidently out of the room. After a moment's hesitation, Emily and Jacob followed.

by **Juliana** Sat Mar 20, 2010 7:13 am

Chapter 13

Juliana leaned her head against the cold window of the hovertrain. The ride was smooth enough that all she noticed was the cold glass against the side of her head; she knew the physics behind the cold she felt on her ear but that wasn't important. The cold inside her was.

She had read enough psychology books to know that the icy-cold numbness she felt was a normal reaction to fear and grief. After all, she was on her way home to a place that had been utterly destroyed, and she knew beyond question that she would find at least one of her parents dead there.

And she had chosen to come!

She couldn't help reliving the astonishing moments during which she had finagled places on this train for herself and Vance. It had taken so little time...

From Jacob's room, she had walked through the hallways of the school, calmly purposeful the whole way. Despite the fact that she had never spoken to the head of the university before, she had made her way unflinchingly to his office and walked in on him and several others discussing the only thing that anyone could talk about during that time: the situation in Tibattleonia. The entire group had looked up at her in shock: she could only imagine what they saw, but the first man to recover had turned to the head of the school and accused, "You said, Warlic, that you were sure none of the students were aware of this plan. How is it that this one makes her entrance now?"

Warlic, as his name apparently was, had leaned back casually. "I'm certain she had no knowledge of this plan... but this is quite a fortuitous development." He had leaned in intently. "So... Juliana Sundry, isn't it?"

Juliana had been slightly taken aback that he would know her name, but she nodded. "Yes, sir."

He had smiled, satisfied. "I have been taking notice of you since that minor fiasco involving your sword classes..."

"Time enough to chat later, Warlic!" snapped a rather imposing woman. "Send the girl on her way, and we can return to the problem of sending an expedition to Tibattleonia."

"I have to be part of it."

Everyone except Warlic stared at Juliana. "What did you just say?" inquired one man. Then he turned to glare at Warlic. "You can fool us once, but you can't fool us again! This girl clearly knew--"

"I didn't," the girl in question interrupted. "I came because I knew I have to go to Tibattleonia." Seeing the outright skepticism on their faces, she wondered if she'd gone about this the wrong way, but she didn't let that emotion show. That same strange instinct she had felt during the fiasco Warlic had mentioned was back, leading her to keep speaking. "You need a native to go, someone who knows the place well enough to find whatever hiding places any survivors might have found, and you can't choose someone too fragile to keep going in a familiar place that's been destroyed. You need someone who knows how things stood before the destruction, in order to determine the extent of the disaster. And..." her hand dropped to the laser sword hilt that she had carried since passing the test that qualified her to get her own, "you need someone who can fight, in case whoever it was that attacked Tibattleonia is still around."

"How do you know Tibattleonia was attacked?" snapped one of the men.

"I'm not stupid!" she shot back. "I saw the recordings, everyone did.... There's no way it wasn't an attack, with all that gunfire."

As he opened his mouth, Juliana began to tap her sword hilt. She sincerely doubted that that was what caused him to close it again, especially since Warlic was glaring at him as well. Soon after, the group reached a decision. Juliana Sundry would be part of the expedition, accompanied by her battle partner Vance Tanner.

Juliana was jerked back to the present by Vance tapping her on the shoulder. "It's time," he murmured, the first thing he had said since they had taken their places in the train car. "We're here."

by **Juliana** Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:52 am

Chapter 14

They had arrived in a war zone.

The devastation reminded Juliana of images she had seen of cities that had been bombed and bombed again and again for months or years on end. Cities that had been rolled over by tanks. Cities that had been crushed beneath armies. But this was worse, because despite its ruined state, Juliana was hauntingly aware of the fact that it was her home. Even just off the train, she could see that one pile of crumbled mortar and twisted steel had once been a coffee shop she had liked but had rarely been able to visit. Now she would never get the chance again--

I'm sorry... this part is very hard for me to tell. A moment...

All right. As I was saying, Juliana and Vance observed the destroyed city from the relatively untouched hovertrain platform. It was utterly abandoned. Chillingly, there was no sign of life, nor even any bodies visible. “What happened?” mumbled Juliana, far more shocked than she had expected to be. “Why are there no people?”

Vance didn't answer, glaring out over the ruins. A few moments ticked by, before the rest of the group that had come with them emerged from the train.

"Let's split up and search in pairs," declared a woman Juliana didn't know. The idea was approved in a whirlwind--strange that it hadn't been already decided, Juliana thought--and they divided accordingly. Igniting their swords, Juliana and Vance set off, the Tibattleonian woman leading the way.

Within minutes, they were so far removed from the other pairs that it was as if they were the only living things left in existance. Trying to ignore this chilling feeling, Juliana focused on finding the routes back towards the hospital and her home. This was tricky thanks to the unpredictably ruined state of the place, a fact for which Juliana was grateful: it was easier to keep going if her mind was occupied with the task of navigating obstacles and finding alternate routes if her first choice happened to be blocked.

After what was probably less time than it felt like, the still-standing hospital came into sight. Standing at exactly the vantage point she had had in her dream, the young woman realized all over again that what she had dreamed, had indeed happened. The view was full of crashed, burned cars and crumbled buildings. That the hospital itself stood puzzled her; had the aliens simply not cared enough?

"Where are we?" Vance inquired, looking around.

Juliana shook herself out of her reverie. "The hospital," she replied. "If there are any survivors or bodies left at all, this is the first place I'd think they'd be."

Cautuiously, in case the building was unstable, they entered. In sharp contrast to Juliana's dream, the lobby was entirely empty of anyone, living or dead. There were clear scorches on the walls and furniture, but no sign of life.

"We'd better stick together," she cautioned. "It wouldn't be safe to be caught somewhere alone if something happens."

That decided, the pair headed for the nearest hall. It was the one down which Juliana knew her father had died. She had to force herself to stay calm and check every room along the way. It was strange; they found no one in any of the patients' rooms or operating rooms. Finally they came to the operating room she had seen in her dream.

Here, it was evident, was the only place they had come to so far where a human had put up any kind of fight. Dead monsters were strewn around the room in a circle. Right in the middle of the carnage, the limp body of Juliana's father lay facedown in a puddle of blood...

by Sponsored content

The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed

Re: The Saga of Traitor and Betrayed