Well, for those of you who were wondering if I'd fallen off the fall of the
earth, I've decided to give you loyal fans a look into what I've been able to
get to thus far and let ya'll know I'm still working on this project.

I promise, this will end... eventually.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy this
little preview.  If you've got anything to say, just give me a ring at
bastion@ix.netcom.com.

Addy folks!

			------------------------
			Terrible Things to Waste
			------------------------
		     Part 9: Out There Somewhere II
		     ******************************

	"I mustn't give in."  The old man coarsely mumbled to himself. 
"I mustn't lose control."

	With each step, the proud General stumbled.  He could feel his
breathing becoming more labored.  The volume of black mucous
increased with each passing second.  He forced down the tar-like
substance as he glared at the gallery of familar faces
surrounding him, partially hidden in the shadows of the twining
branches.    

	They all were laughing.  The jeers of all of his antagonists
came at the old man from everywhere.  Above them all, Nihil's
caustic laughter assaulted his ears.

	"I still don't see why you fight me, Halebit."  The demon voice
echoed.

	Running his pale, wry hand through his stiff grey hair, the old
General tried to regain his composure.  "I will keep fighting
until I win."

	Struggling through the twining path of decrepit crystal roots,
Halebit looked for the source of Nihil's voice.

	"Heh, you'll die before you win, Hally, me boy."  From the
twisted nightmare of trunks in this ungodly forest, Nihil
emerged, dusting off some white spores from his shoulder.

	Halebit's eyes widened as a young man with light brown hair
stood in front of him.  The two almost seemed like mirrors of
each other, except for their great difference in age.  

	The surprise worn on the old man's face gave rise to the smirk
on Nihil's face.  "I thought that you'd take me more seriously
this time around."  The young man flexed his arm.  "My, you
filled out quite nicely as a gent too."  Nihil grinned at the
simmering old man.  "How many women did you ravage with this
body, Halebit?"

	"ENOUGH!"  Several startled insects flew overhead, their
shadows dwarfing the two below.

	The young man tilted his head, curiously eyeing his older self.
 He pondered for a moment and asked.  "Who are you, Halebit?"

	The General snorted, jostling some of the black tar in his
throat.  Once his fit of coughing stopped, the old man's face
wrinkled incredulously.  "What kind of question is that, Nihil? 
You know who I am."

	Nihil tilted his head to the left.  "Do I, Halebit?  The longer
I talk to you, the more I realize I know nothing about you."

	The slight smirk went almost undetected by Nihil.  "Heh, maybe
I'd like to keep it that way.  Perhaps you're not as perceptive
as you lead yourself to believe.  Perhaps if you could fathom
the power of control-"

	Immediately, the young man flicked back his light mane with the
arrogance of an adolescent.  "Oh please.  Don't tell me those
psychoactive drugs you took during the Great War were to enhance
your 'power.'  That 'substance,' as you like to call it, only
fueled my ambitions to escape."

	The smirk on the hardened visage of Halebit crept up further. 
"You speak like a caged animal, Nihil.  The substance allowed me
the ultimate control, I was able to conquer the inadequacies of
my mind.  I could control the shape of the environment around me
and the problems that threatened me."  With his blackened
fingers, the old man tap his temple.  "It allowed to keep my
urges from interfering.  It helped me conquer you."

	Shades of gold and brown undulaged with the shaking of the
young man's head.  "Conquer, conquer, conquer.  Why must you
conquer everything, Halebit?  It's no wonder you forced yourself
upon so many wom-"

	Without warning, Halebit lunged at his younger self, his teeth
threatened to crack underneath the intense gnashing.  Halebit
reached the ledge of his control.  "That..."  He could sense the
abyss of madness beckoning him.  "Is..."  It was becoming a
temptation hard to resist.  "Enough out of you."    

	Nihil stared calmly at the infuriated General, clamoring for
control.  It always amused Nihil to create such irony within his
counterpart.  "I see, you don't like to linger on such things."

	The old man grimaced, the black mucous began to pool in the
sides of his lips.  "I do not like to linger upon the times when
I was weak.  The times when I let you get out of control."

	The young man snorted.  "Why must I be your scapegoat when you
give into your insatiable urges?  Besides,"  Soft whimpering
could be heard just to the left of the pair where a young girl
laid limp, her face hidden in the crux of her elbow.  Nihil
continued and whispered into Halebit's ear, makung him hang on
every word.  "I think it's what drives you to conquer and
control."  

	The old man could feel the familar exhilaration stirring in his
veins once more as he towered over the weak feminine form.  Yes,
this is what he wanted.  This was the ultimate control, the
ultimate power.  This was the ends to his means.  He wanted the
Counsule at his mercy.  He wanted the Community at his mercy. 
He wanted the dimensions.           

	Nihil promptly doused the General's fiery ambitions.  "I hope
you realize that I am truly the one in control of you.  It is
your urges that drive you to control.  Thus it is I that has the
power.  I always have."   

	Sweat tainted with the dark tar bore down the old man's face
while the black muscus dripped from his pursed lips.  They were
all lies.  Delusions.  They couldn't be facts, yet what evidence
did he have on the contrary.  No, that wasn't the point, he was
in control.  He was all powerful.  No one could defeat him.  Why?

	Because he had... he had...   

	The General's eyes flashed opened.  

	He had the urge to do so.

	"It can't be."  He croaked.

	And then the General dove off the ledge into his maddening
abyss.  

	He luged with his hands out stretched at his illusion.  Nihil
stood still, smiling at the crazed old man flying towards him. 
"Hey old man, I've got something for you."

	Halebit's hands grasped in vain at the ghostly image and
continued forward, falling into the depths of the hellish
forest.  

	The demon voice resonated in Halebit's mind as his body bounced
off the twisted roots. "When will you learn?"

 

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



	She didn't know why she did it.  The two of them had hardly
exchanged a word since they began their trek.  Observations and
questions nagged at Amy every time she looked toward the shore. 
That strange dark water.  The sour smell coming from it. She
didn't have much else in the way of distractions except for Michelle's 
back and the wavy blue-green curls draped over it.  

	The purple blip on her mini-computer's scanner indicated that
Victoria wasn't too far away.  Amy prayed to herself that
everything would be well when they reached her.  The temporal
vortex that brought them here seemed to have randomly spit them
out in this.. place, whatever this place was.  The tall, dark,
twisted trees crowding the cliffs opposite the shore did not
look inviting.  Amy rarely asked much of a higher power, but she
hoped to God that the young, frail girl wasn't lost in the
decrepit forest.

	The silence was maddening to the blue-haired prodigy.  She had
so many hypothesis about how they got here and her observations
about this strange world, but she couldn't share them.  She knew
Michelle was intelligent enough to hold a conversation with her.
God, she wanted to speak and share.  Have an intelligent
conversation.

	"The sea is black as death.  The silence is overwhelming." 
Michelle murmured into the wind letting it carry back to Amy.  

	Finally, Michelle was talking to her again.  Amy hesitated. 
She'd piled up so much to say and she wanted to say it all at
once.  "From my scans, the water is composed mostly of some sort
of complex metallic acid.   It seems that the pH level is high
enough to be inhospitable for life."  

	Closing her eyes, Sailor Neptune smiled to herself, her voice
slightly tainted with bitterness.  "This is truly the River
Styx."	

	Amy couldn't help herself.  "Oh yes, the ancient Greek legend
about the river of death.  I read the book in clas-"

	Michelle stopped.  The sudden action brought Amy's diatribe to
an unexpected end.  Sailor Neptune didn't move to turn around,
she let her words chill on her shoulder.  "No, Mercury, I *read*
books, you *study* them."

	'Huh?'  The younger girl couldn't close her mouth completely
before she could respond.  "Oh.  I'm sorry.  I didn-"

	"Don't bother.  There's a mission to focus upon. We have to be
strong, Mercury.  "

	"I know... I know you must miss her, but you don't need to be
so cold to me."

	"That isn't your concern, Mercury."

	"No, it's not."  Some indescribable sensation grew in Amy's
stomach and spread upward.  "But your melancholy is not helping
our situation which is already dire.  You can't do this alone. 
We need each other."

	"You underestimate me, Mercury.  Uranus and I had battled many
monsters on our own long before you had discovered your own
powers.  I survived then and I will survive now, with or without
you, if need be."

	Amy could feel the back of her neck prickling with the hot
atavistic urge to raise her hackles.  She had to restrain
herself from saying the first words that came to mind.  She took
a deep breath and said, "Michelle, we need to be honest with
each other.  We can't continue like this."

	She paused and let her back remain facing Amy.  She let her
reply float in the lake's wind.  "You really want me to be
honest?"

	The tension spread into her temples, making her feel
light-headed.  "Please.  How can we trust each other otherwise?"

	The soldier of the sea laughed caustically to herself. 
Finally, she turned around.  "Trust?  We had no reservations
about the Traveller after Serena's agreed to protect her.  Now
we're trapped here."

	"Are you insinuating we should have listened to Pluto?"  Her
head felt stuffy, and she found it increasingly difficult to
hide her irritation.

	Neptune crossed her arms and snapped, "She was right, wasn't
she?  Instead of trusting Pluto, we trusted someone who betrayed
us.  If Serena continues to play the fool why should we follow
her?"

	Fury rushed through Amy, liberating her voice.  "Is that what
Pluto tells you?"

	"Pardon me?"

	"She never told us what she knew about Cindy so Serena could
make an informed decision.  Pluto always holds information back
until the last moment, and you two do the same thing."

	"We have our reasons, Mercury."

	"Did she order you to tell me that?"

	"Hardly, _Amy_."  Now it was personal.  "Eric and I may not
have liked the way Pluto seemed to randomly throw these missions
in our laps, but no matter how much we disliked it, we took
them, because it's our duty as Sailor Scouts."  Michelle's eyes
were filled with a blazing emerald light.  "When we looked back,
again and again we found that Pluto had  known what she doing
doing after all.  She earned our trust.  Not only can I think
without her, but your idea that I'm about to fall apart because
Eric is missing is furthest from the truth!"

	A chess board materialised in Amy's imagination and she
calculated her attack. "All that sound and fury to conceal the
truth. After all your talk about trust, you can't be honest at
all.   Have you ever been really honest with anyone except Eric?"

	Michelle looked toward the shoreline and she wrapped her arms
around herself protecting her from an imaginary chill.  Her
voice lost most of its bite.  "Wouldn't you miss the one you
loved?  What about that Greg boy?  Doesn't your heart ache to
see him?  Don't you want to go back home where he's waiting to
hold you once more, but knowing you'll never be able to go back
home again?  Can you understand how I feel?"

	In Amy's head, her opponent pulled out an incredible move.  She
quickly realized in her fervor of studying this exotic world
around them, Greg did not come up in her thoughts.  She didn't
feel anything for her love.  Her heart didn't leap at the
thought of his caring face or desire to be held in his embrace. 
Nothing.  

	She had immersed herself so much in her hypotheses and
discoveries that thoughts of Greg were drowned in the flood of
it all.  Had she been truly in love with him, she wondered.  Was
she incapable of ever feeling love?  There was nothing she could
say.  Checkmate was inevitable.  

	After Amy's long pause, Michelle's expression turned sullen. 
"I see."

	Amy stood and watched the wavy green hair go towards the
decrepit forest.  "You are truly a cold woman, Amy."     


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


	The small child blew some of the steam off her cup of hot tea. 
At least, it reminded her of tea.  She had forgotten what the
old woman called it, but it suited her just fine.  Victoria
occupied herself with drinking her "tea" as she tried to grow
accustomed to hearing the old woman's thoughts.

	'The valley has favorable winds that keep the misma from
spreading into it.'  The old woman noticed the child's confusion
and continued.  'The misma are spores that come from the Sea of
Corruption, the forest lining the valley.'

	The old woman pointed out the window towards the decrepit trees
seated on the cliff tops.  'Everything in the valley has thrived
because of the winds coming from the acid lakes.  For the misma
is poisonous and very few can survive in the Sea of Corruption
for very long.  Unfortunately, the forest gets ever closer every
year.'

	Trying very hard to concentrate, Victoria asked.  'Is that why
the valley is abandoned?'

	'Yes and no.  The people who used to live here have found
better places to live.  Cleaner places.  You see, long ago we
used to be an advanced people, but due to wars and pollution,
the land became poisoned.  The Sea of Corruption is cleansing
our world of ancestor's past sins.'

	An unexpected silence followed.  Victoria looked at the old
woman studying her from across the aged wooden table.  She
immediately became aware of how unusual she must of looked.  The
delicate material of her black skirt, constricting white bodice,
and frilly black bows on her chest seemed antithetical to the
sturdy cloth of her elder's homily and conservative blue sweater
and trousers.    

	The young girl scrunched her face in concentration.  'What is
it?'

	The old woman smiled at her efforts.  'I'm sorry, it must be
difficult for you to communicate like this.'

	Victoria returned the smile. 'It's okay.'  

	Slowly, the old woman's expression turned solemn.  'You think
you can tell me how you got here?'

	The young girl hesitated. 'I'm not sure if I can.'

	'You don't have to, child, just remember what happened and I
will remember along with you.'  The old woman paused.  'If
that's okay.'

	Victoria pondered over the woman's pause.  She didn't have
reason to distrust this woman, did she?  'Alright.'

	The old woman could detect her apprehension.  'Very well.  Try
to imagine the last few moments before you came here and only
those moments.'

	At this, Victoria closed her eyes and remembered.  A moment
later, the memories of the past played out in the old woman's
mind.  

	In a darkness, a man on an elevated platform held above him a
bright light in his decrepit.  

	'Who is that?'

	'That's some old general.  He held Reenie hostage to get the
Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon.'

	'Reenie?  Silver Crystal?'

	Quickly, the vision shifted to a group of women.  They wore
skirts similar to the child, but only in a variety of colors.  
They stood on their guard like soldiers, but she'd never seen
soldiers dressed like that.

	'Wh-who are they?'

	The dark-haired girl's pale face beamed with excitement. 
'That's the Sailor Scouts.'

	In the middle of the group was a blonde woman clutching a
pink-haired child.   The woman glowed with purity and
irreverence in her white dress, a striking contrast to their
dark surroundings.  The scene reminded her of the portrayal of
goddesses on the prophetic scrolls or of saviors depicted on
royal tapestries.  She studied the woman's face closely, noting
her pained expression as she peered at the light.  The blonde
woman's expression made her heart ache with sympathy.           
 

	'Who is she?'

	'That's Sailor Moon.'

	'And the child?'

	'That's Reenie.'

	'And that's Sailor Moon's Silver Crystal he's holding?'

	'Yes.'

	The old woman pondered about the significance of this crystal
that was the source of the blinding light.  What power these
beings must have?  She had never encountered anything like it
before, even the Ohmu never possessed such power.

	'Do all of you sailor soldiers have such Silver Crystals?'

	The girl then became silent, and answered with slight
apprehension.  Her dark violet eyes glanced toward the glaive
propped against the wall.  'Not really.'

	The old woman followed the girls gaze.  'Do all of you have
such weapons?'

	Again, the girl fell silent for a moment.  'Not really.'

	Sensing the girl's nervousness, the old woman continued with
her vision.  A sudden movement distracted her from the confident
solidarity of the guardians.  She could see a man running at the
light, holding something aglow in his hands.  Concentrating
harder, she noticed it was a sword.  The glow of the weapon grew
as the man approached the blinding light.

	'Who is that?'

	The response was sobering.  'That's the Timelord.  Tracer.'

	'I see.'      

	Everything about him exhumed darkness, she noted, his clothing,
his hair, his aura.  If not for his weapon, the man would have
vanished into the surrounding darkness.  The black veil of his
greasy locks though could not conceal the furnace in his eyes. 
It was a strange mixture of determination, confusion, anger, and
peace that kindled that hot cauldron in his  pupils as well as
his weapon.

	'What is that weapon?'

	'I don't know.  Pluto thought it was important.'

	'Pluto?'	

	The old woman could hear the girl sigh deeply.  'Sailor Pluto. 
She is the guardian of the Time Gate.'

	'What!?'

	Despite her utter confusion at this revelation, the young man
continued onward to the inevitable climax.  The group of
soldiers surrounding the woman clad in white finally noticed the
dark stranger, however it was too late.  As they ran to
intercede him, this Timelord leapt into the air with his weapon
held high.  The old woman held her breath in anticipation as the
weapon struck the source of the light.  

	Suddenly the light exploded, filling the vision before
everything went black.

	The old woman blinked.  The child removed herself from the
table.  Shaking off the effects of the vision, she went over to
the tapestry guarded by a rusted armor suit.  She ran her meek
hand over the thick strands woven into the cloth.  Despite its
age, the cloth still stubbornly held onto much of its rich
color.  

	In the top left corner, just over the armor's shoulder, the
young child spied a man dressed in blue.  He stood regally with
his eyes set forward, staring ahead determined to some far off
goal.  The writing above the figure was unrecognizable to the
child.

	'What does that say?  Above that man.'  The girl pointed out
the figure on the tapestry to the woman.          

	The old woman smiled warmly, the reverie soon diffused her
confusion from the vision.  'It's an old myth about one who is
cloaked in blue would descend into the golden fields of the
Valley and lead the people into the green and peaceful kingdom. 
It was an old tale told to me when I was a girl.'

	The girl's eyes widened in violet fascination.  'Did it ever
come true?'

	The warm smile turned to a knowing one.  'I suppose it did.'

	Before the woman could indulge herself into further fond
memories, the child stood rigidly at attention, like someone had
called her name.  Without further delay, the child walked
towards her glaive, her face now was filled with grave resolve.

	'What is it, my child?'  The woman asked, but the child
continued on until she retrieved her glaive.

	Swinging around the girl faced her elder with her weapon ready.
 The old woman feared to approached the armed child lest she
wanted to be cleaved in half by the sharp blade.  

	'W-what's wrong?'

	After a moment, the child responded like she were in a whole
other realm.  'There is a soul crying out for the Silence.'     
	 

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



	The silence in darkness.  It immersed his senses.  The finality
of it all.  Was this death?  No, the tinges of pain attacking
him answered, electrifying every part of his old body.  He
didn't remember much, except the image of his young face, stolen
by Nihil, laughing at him and then  he remembered tumbling down
and down.  His limbs didn't want to move, and he didn't bother
moving them.  He couldn't breathe, and he didn't bother.  Why
bother?  He could give in and it would end.  But giving up was
the epitome of weakness, and he wasn't weak.  He wasn't never
going to let Nihil win.  Never.

  	Halebit groaned and coughed suddenly as he felt a thick,
viscous liquid squirm down his throat.  Jolting himself upward,
the General opened his goo covered eyes and looked down at a
pool of some red substance.  He could see it slowly dripping off
his head in long sticky strands down into the pool below.  The
pains in his injured arms became more acute from supporting his
weight. 

	Carefully, the old man moved his broken body around.  He
glanced upward to see a transparent shell shattered in the
appropriate shape of his head.  Flowing the upper curve of the
shell, Halebit surmised it was a bulb full of the red substance
currently drying on his forehead.  It was attached to one of the
decrepit trees bowing from the weight of the bulb.  

	Wiping off some of the syrup from his forehead, Halebit tasted
a bit of it.  He noted the familiarity of the bitter taste when
a sensation on his leg distracted his thoughts.  Gingerly, the
General tilted his neck to examine the lower half of his body.  

	One of the smaller insects had crawled onto his leg.  The
General stared into it's multi blue eyes dotted all over its
armor clad head.  Its many little feelers pricked and tickled
the General's leg, from his thigh to his ankle, bringing along
with it unpleasant sensations.  

	Reflexively, the General threw out his hand at the insect.  To
his surprise, the insect flew off his leg and smashed into a
nearby tree.  Pausing a moment, the General stared at his hand
and the red substance that stained his fingers.  The taste.  The
color.  The power.    

	"It must be."  He grappled in amazement and he began to wipe
off the substance from his forehead and greedily lick his
fingers.

	"More."  He gasped and turned around, shoving handfuls of the
potent elixir down his throat.   

	The strength spread through his limbs, revitalizing his body. 
Finally, he stopped his gorging and composed himself, wiping
away some of the substance off his lips.  He reverently stood
and thrusted his right palm outwards.  The crystalline trunk of
a nearby tree crumbled and the tree folded over.  The General's
face hardened and a smile crept onto the cliff face of his
visage.  He paused again, closing his eyes.  He had to confirm
the silence had definitely returned, that he had successfully
sealed away Nihil.  

	Once satisfied, the General walked over to the small insect
writhing on the forest ground.  With a gesture of his open hand,
he raised the small insect off the ground.  He was once again in
total control.

  	'Now who has control, Nihil.'  Halebit narrowed his eyes and
closed his fist.



			*		*		*



	He sat on a throne shrouded in darkness.  

	"Come forth, sinner."  The foreign deep voice emanated more in
his head than in the room.

	Reverently, the sinner came into the light.  Her bright blonde
locks discolored by years of neglected still reflected the
angelic light creating the illusion of a hallow around her.  

	His eyes wandered around her form from her shadowed features to
the entrancing curves of her dark blue tunic where they
lingered.  Before he could continue further down, his subject
kneeled down before his throne.

	"Oh, great Sovereign,"  She spoke her prayer softly, "Forgive
me for my transgressions against you.  I was wrong to cast my
doubts about you and bring falsehoods to your good name.  I,
like many others under your charge, need you and we could not
live without you...  I know that now."  The blonde sinner laid
herself at his feet.  "I beg you to hear my pleas, I was always
devoted to you, whether I knew it or not.  Oh please, Sovereign,
forgive me."

	He could see his focus shifting to the delicate curves
disappearing underneath the tunic.  He figured, eh...  What the
hell.  

	"Hey,"  He heard his shrill, pre-pubescent voice respond, "as
long as you're sorry for what you did wrong, I have no problem
with you."  He noticed the small child's lustful grin as he jump
off the throne.  "I just wanna play!"

	The sinner stood, responding despondently.  "Yes, Sovereign."

	He noted the two were equal in height despite the obvious
difference in their ages, but that was besides the point, they
were playing.  As he approached, he kept his eyes on the round
curves in her tunic.  They calmed him, made him feel warm.  The
shadows toyed with them and transformed them into two dark blue
pools that stared back at him.  

	One of his stubby, underdeveloped hands reached out towards
her, hardly brushing the cloth of her tunic.  Something warm
filled his insides and spread to envelope him further.  The
closer he got the more he felt it, but was it alright to touch
her?  She had forgiven him, so it was okay, she had accepted him
as her Sovereign.  She would understand.

	Her breathing quickened.  A positive sign, no less, he thought.
 Yet, he was not satisfied.  

	"Now that we have come to an understanding, let's stop
pretending and be real."  He whispered, swimming in the dark
pools.

	She closed her eyes and sighed.  She pulled away eliciting a
disapproving grunt.  Just as he was to question her, the sinner
unsheathed a crystalline sword, pure and true.  Its untainted
edge ran him through.  He fell to the ground and the inner
warmth became a thousand bee stings.  A weight pressed on him,
his insides ached; it confused him.  He began to shake and sob
uncontrollably.  

	She sneered at him, her apathy had crumbled away to reveal her
anger.  "Does that make you satisfied?  You killed them all,
it's your fault!  I could care less for your forgiveness, I want
you to stay away!  Leave me alone!  Leave us all alone!"  She
kicked the sword further in.  "There you are.  No more
pretending!  No more faking!  Now *you* see.  This is reality..."

	He felt something... Guilt?  Violation?  He didn't know.  He
didn't want to think about it anymore.

	He saw the righteous sinner walk away from his sobbing form.  

	"Enjoy, child."  

	Tracer awoke from his deep slumber, with his mouth dry.  A
sudden assault of white alerted the Traveller's senses.  White
walls, white floor, white ceiling, and white bed.  A flat, hard,
dazzling white cot, to be precise.  It made him nauseous which,
he supposed, was the idea for a holding cell.

	The cells of the Counsule; he'd seen enough Society criminals
get thrown in them.  At least, the ones that survived.  Tracer
snorted.  He was screwed.  Damn them, the nerve to treat him
like a Society criminal when he was by far their most relentless
Timelord.  Which also, by default made him the best.          

	But there he was, stripped of his sword and weapons and facing
the possibility of being tried as a traitor by the treacherous
Counsule.  Abandoned once more.  Well, he was used to it.  It
wasn't something he couldn't handle.  Yeah.  

	The scar on his chest began to ache.  In his mind flashed the
angry visage of Cindy just before she ran him through.  The blue
in her eyes intensifying as she stabbed in the chest.   Tracer
sighed.

	That woman.  That stupid, stupid woman.  What was he thinking
when he told her he understood?  Why was he even thinking?  Just
when he finally had her not loathing his very being, he decides
to be heroic and winds up thrown into a cell.  

	What good are heroics when you can't reap the benefits?  His
father certainly knew how to do it.  His legacy in the Community
as the "Hero of the Great War" seemed endless, invincible, even
after abandoning them all, himself included, for reasons
unknown.  

	People all around the Community would sing their praises of his
father, and then wonder about him, the last surviving of a
family line that could be traced to Overlord himself.  What good
did he ever do?  Stupid bastards.  He worked himself as hard as
he could and hardly would get any recognition.  Not even that
crazy old coot, Halebit, wouldn't recognize his efforts even
after personally training him.  

	'I bet if I had his sword in my hands, I'd have them all
singing a different tune.'

	Without the sword, he would have all his abilities, all that
power, back.  But the withdrawal was getting to him, his senses
once open were beginning to close off.  Strange feelings that
filled him drained away to leave him empty.  His unusual
calmness eroded gradually under his ill temperament.

	Tracer shook his head, why the hell did he care?  Why the hell
was he even thinking about all this crap?  This was a call to
action or he was going to be dead soon.  He was so enraged that
he shook with excitement.  He wanted to flay his fists in the
air at anyone nearby.  But there wasn't and that just enraged
him further. 

	He didn't need anyone's help to get out of here.  None
what-so-ever.  He fought for himself, and that wasn't something
new to him.  In fact he preferred it that way.  As long as he
could inflict a lot of pain at least that would give him some
satisfaction.

	From down the hall outside of his cell, the dark haired soldier
heard the distant rhythm of heavy footsteps.  Suddenly, the
Timelord became still and strained his ears to the clicking as
it grew louder.  With deliberate moment, Tracer slowly laid down
in his cot, curled himself away from the doorway, flexed his
right hand, activating the silvery liquid.  His ears remained
attentive to the marching entourage coming closer and he readied
himself.

	The door to the barren cell opened and Tracer laid still on his
cot as the liquid began to form around his hand.

	"Hello, Timelord Tracer."  The unmistakable voice of the
Counsule Elder Naes resonated against the clean white walls of
the Timelord's spacious room.  "We have some questions
concerning your activities as of late."

	Tracer waited, his newly formed clawed-hand hidden from sight. 
If he was going down, someone was going to pay.

	Naes calmly walked to the reclined Timelord, each of the
accompanying guards flanking him on both sides.  "There is some
doubt of your loyalty."

	Tracer's ears picked up three distinct set of footsteps
approaching.  The odds weren't in his favor, but he would live
with it.  Gradually, he steadied his relaxed body into striking
position on his cot.  'Just a little closer.'

	"We were wondering what you had to say in your defense." 
Nonchalantly, Naes moved closer, all the while thumbing the
small device in the palm of his small, wry hand.    

	'Now I've got you, bastard.'  With the agility of a feline,
Tracer bounded toward the small frail man.

	*WHAM!*

	Naes just smiled at the Timelord's face flattened against the
force field.  "Not very wise, Timelord.  We have made several
changes while you were away."  The Elder casually displayed the
thin control device while Tracer collected his wits scattered
upon the floor.  "It's an interesting system.  I can control the
area the field covers, containing you to any area in this cell."

	Reaching his feet, Tracer felt something press against his
arms, squeezing them to his sides.  With a content sigh, Naes
stepped back as the two stocky guards encroached upon the 

confined Timelord.  "Of course, the field doesn't affect anyone
with the appropriate hardware."

	Tracer became acutely aware of the matching wristbands each
person wore, with him as the unfortunate exception.  "You
bastard."

	The Elder shook his head and both guards crowded the Timelord. 
"I suppose this is the only way you're ever going to learn
anything."  His leathery skin peeled back into a crooked smile. 
"It's unfortunate."      


-End of Preview-

That's all I have for now.  A big thanks to all of my pre-readers who have hung
in there during my periodic updates, and a special thanks to David Johnston who
helped rewrite the Mercury/Neptune scene.

Please, if you've got any comments about the story so far how it's developing or
what you think of it go right ahead and give me a holler.

Thanks, and see ya later!

Bastion
bastion@ix.netcom.com