Abyss walked down the hall, his tail lashed out and tapped the doors as he passed, one two three four five. He glared at the sixth door that should have been Pluto’s he was getting chewed out the next time he went too far and popped into the void. He had finally found one of the Women he was looking for. Family. Aura was in the Sanctuary, he had searched for Syn and Deathstar and Aura like a hound. He had finally relented and low and behold Aura came back, She was in the training room this very moment. Three of the other doors opened to Reveal Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. Venus was out on the town and Mars was at work. No Surprise on either of those instances.

“Aura’s Home!” Abyss announced jovially.

“Where?” Mercury replied with an excitement that any of them typically matched.

Saturn shook his head at his brother’s lack of deductive reasoning, “Well that has a simple answer. You all should know the first place to look for her.”
Jupiter said nothing and simply took the lead making way to the training room.

The four immense figures marched down the halls, other residents squeezed out of the way or turned around and fled, it had been awhile sense any of them walked around with such purpose in their step.

Aura lived in the training room or so it seemed. SHe took opportunity whenever no body else was within the doors. SHe did such for two reason's one Aura typically turned the safety measures off for her training and so many other unused to Aura' strict training regimen might wind up seriously hurt, Many of sanctuaries mutants were fighters, few lived for that role. The other was that for Aura the experience was almost as much about drowning thoughts and worries, tossing them aside to move on.

Aura knew her opponent was a robot under the programmed shell, but the face of a man that should have been quite dead, hid it. Sayre, the entire reason she had ended up in Japan for so long. She had no idea exactly how much time she had been gone, only that the seasons had changed twice. Solkat had also been less then thrilled she left and had refused to go more then fifty feet from her, to the point where aura had started cutting up the rats she fed the skunk.

Sayre bot lashed two black cables at her, one knocked her sword away the other struck her Aura. Her aura held but she was thrown onto her back from the force of the strike. She rolled out of the way of Another Tendril, But formed her Aura on her foot into an Axe, which cut through the cable like butter. Aura was then Up on her feet and with a primal scream She charged forward and Impaled the robot, its illusion fading, as it dropped from her Aura blade.

Breathing hard Aura looked at the time, she was stunned to notice it had been nine hours since she entered the room. Looking down at her Aura she realized the reason the robot had fallen off her blade, was because Her Aura was almost spent, The thin Layer that now clung to her skin had been largely from the weapons she had made. Aura's suspishens were quickly confirmed, as she fell to her knees and threw up on the floor of the room. ....Damn". She noticed her clothing was torn and that her midsection was coverd in welts. A white scar could be seen starting at her left shoulder and plunging down beneath her tank top.

Jupiter entered the room and smashed the off switch and then tapped a few buttons. A bot wrapped in the illusion of a butler. began to clean up the room. " Kid you take working out too seriously sometimes." Coming from Jupiter that was saying something. He frequented the training room and workout room fairly often he was surprised that he hadn't come across the girl already if this where she had been hiding.

Mercury ran in and set by her side, he plucked the hair away from her face so she wouldn't get it in her locks. Vomit was nasty in general much less swinging around on your head. Saturn and Abyss strolled in leaving the other two to their helping.

"Aura, I've been looking for you, I trust you had a good purpose for disappearing but, you didn't have to do it on your own, whatever it was, you didn't have to do it on your own. I'm not gripping, I just care. I don't want to loose you too." His eyes traced the fresh wounds and the new scars a like, He thought he would be prying Mercury off of her and reminding him not to squeeze to hard. but the vomit was doing that job for him.

Her Aura had no solidness to it at all. She was grateful to see the red fingers sweep her hair from her face, as her over taxed body finished it's protest. She stood up shakily at first but she quickly steadied herself. "Lost track of time" she said looking to Jupiter. It was true she really had lost track of the time, it happened sometimes when she fought. How much time had she spent on those mental debates, she wondered.

"I chased a mental delusion onto a boat. He seemed so real this time.... Aura said then shook her head. "Before i knew it i was on a boat and far enough out to sea i could not see land. I wound up in a place called japan. Getting back proved difficult. At least until a human was kind enough to teach me Japanese" she said. In fact she had learned Japanese and out of kindness let the man go.

"It's strange, Sayre is dead, i recall my blade removing his head from his shoulders, Still when my mind puts his image before me....it's like the fact he's dead fails to process. The other odd thing is, i know i was close to him, but i can't recall his power or when i met him" she said which was odd for her. Aura almost always remembered what people could do, certainly those she had fought. The practice had been hammered into her. "It's good to see you guys again. Your the onlt people i have been close to who is not dead or dissopeared" she said with a smile untill the last part. She had missed the large red men maybe more then sanctuary itself.

Jupiter nodded without facing the girl. A grunt in reply said everything it needed to about what he thought about forgetting that you had been training for nine fricking hours. He wasn’t going to grip, but he was sure as heck going to keep a better eye on her.

Abyss nodded. “ I watched the papers and news, I didn’t see anything where you were doing your thing.” You know murdering the hell out of humans. “We need to get you a new phone. Keep it on you, and use it if something like that comes up again.”

Saturn sighed. “Aura, do you have any clues to those that disappeared , do you think that it might help to find out what happened. To help you process the real from the delusions?” Saturn wasn’t being harsh just matter of fact, it was how she did it, so he would do no less.

Mercury wiped one of his sleeves across her face and proceeded to claim the hug that he came for. She wasn’t spraying out vomit and that was good enough for him. “We are glad to see you too Aura. Where is your cat?”

She did need a new phone she thought to herself. "I tried to keep a low profile, once i realized my mistake, i started focusing on getting back. Phone got crushed under a lot of fish" she said recalling her journey. SHe had spent several days in the ship hold alone, before several tons of fresh fish had been poured into the hold. Aura never did find her Phone after that. She had none of the numbers memorized and could not read Japanese "I will keep it on me" she confirmed.

She was swept Into Mercuries embrace and accepted it, she smiled at Mercury and letting her eyes scan the room quickly, The striped cat was found laying a top a shattered robot. It had lost it's fight early on in her training. "She has been clingy" she said. She had been saddened by the fact she had not been able to bring the skunk with her on the unexpected trip, but it had likely been for the best.

"no, the people who dissapeared never appear in such incidents, always from back in the woods. Usually focused on Sayre, my greatest mistake. Perhaps the disillusions are the god's way of reminding me Sayre was on my squad, my second in command, he was wounded badly in combat and the humans were advancing. I knew my orders were to kill any who could not make it back, to ensure they could pass on no information. she said looking away. A moment later she continued. "I could not bring my blade down on him, i let him live and he was captured. Days later i watched a 167 people die for my failure to follow my orders. I found Sayre and dealt with him, but....." Their was little else to say. She had buried them each herself, which had been made for more disturbing when she had gone back and none of them were there.

“Ok. Good. Easy Merc don’t break her. Do you need anything else?” Abyss wasn’t sure how to take care of a young woman, particularly one of Aura’s caliber. He couldn’t buy her a pony and call it even. He was feeling like a failure to those that counted on him and he wanted, no needed to make that right. People that he watched over didn’t disappear in boats for months, they got lost called him and he fixed it. That was the way it was supposed to work.

With one last snuggle to Aura’s Head Mercury set her down and crawled over to Solkat. “ Hello Kittyface.” A red tail snuck over to the skunk and pet it on the head.

Saturn looked into Aura’s eyes. ‘Its not your fault, you didn’t kill them, someone else did. We should find that someone else and feed them some retribution.” Jupiter agreed with a resounding “Hell yeah.” The robot finished cleaning up the vomit and rolled away.

Saturn stared at Jupiter coldly.this was bigger than some random wrecking ball thing, someone had messed up one of their family members enough to have her chasing nightmares while she was awake. They needed to pay with blood. “I know everything was gone. But we will figure something out, if we have to find a mutant that can track the past, we will. We’ll get them, ok?”

Aura found in most situations some form of violence was helpful. Against her mind no matter what she formed from her Aura she could not address her mental state. At firsts he had been able to take her fractured memory and ignore it, but Sanctuary offered a lot of time to think, time she had never gotten in the woods. She had been trained to remember mutants she encountered and what they could do, so the presence of massive hole before the age of 13 in her memories and the fact she could recall the same situation many different ways, each seemed equally the real to her. SHe could not Answer Abyss's question because she had no idea what any of them could really do.

SHe looked back at Saturn a she told her she was not to blame. Others had told her this as well still Aura could only see it as cause and effect. Had she simply killed him, they all might have still been fighting today. "I....but, Had i simply killed him, they would never have found us and....Miracle, my first leader made it quite clear the mistake i had made, she screamed as beat me until i could almost feel the life leave me, only to heal me and repeat the process, worse she stripped me of command and ordered me to lead anything ever again. To this day i avoid leading things where i can to uphold that order. Aura said her voice growing more frustrated as she spoke. Orders could be rescinded of course, but only by ones current leader and Aura did not care to mention he defect to Lori.

"That might work, either that are simply wiping them from my mind entirely" Aura knew while she fell victem to these memories she was a less valuable solider. If that meant eraseing everything before sanctuary to remove their effect, then she was ready to do so. After all even if her soul was reincarnated with her freinds, unlikely now as it was they would no nothing of this she reasoned in her head.

"It was strange, The Humans had Helicopters and tanks but only ever sent men on foot with mortars and automatic rifles after us, as many friends as i watched die in that forest i always wondered, why they did not simply wipe the forests out to get rid of us" She said. It had long been a mystery. "Miracle never did tell us who we were fighting only that it would ensure a mutant utopia for future generations" she said choosing to leave out that she herself believed she would die in that goal long before it was reality.

Solkat responded playfully to the tail, having lived at sanctuary he skunk was use to most of its residence wondering around the building freely. Or it could have just been the nearsightedness but the skunk tried to bat at the tail.

“Miracle sounds cruel. Where you sound wise.” Saturn quipped. “Harming one of your own like that just solidifies that for me. You got bad orders, from a crummy superior, kiddo. I understand it hurts that their were consequences for your kindness, but you didn’t cause that, the people who did it caused it. When we go in and strike. People shouldn’t blame themselves for not being able to stop us, they should blame us for having the will to destroy them. in the same turn don’t blame yourself blame those that hurt them.” He wasn’t trying to argue with her, just get her to see his reasoning. Help her feel less guilty.

Abyss looked to both of them. “Lets try to work with the skills we have at hand, if we find someone that does either of those things then we can consider them.” his Crimson eyes went to the little lady. “and that is only if it is truly what you want.”

Jupiter walked over and shook his head, handing Aura a poweraid, something to rinse that nastiness out of her mouth. “ I Want someone to pay for it, we wrecked the labs that were holding us, I don’t think I could rest until someone pay for what they did to us, if it was that large of a force then there has to be a way to track them down. Though that probably answers your question about sweeping the forest, they didn’t want to be noticed. They were trying to work quietly.

Mercury laughed and dangled his talk for the skunk to play with as it liked, perhaps he was thinking too big when he looked for a pet.

Miracle cruel? The virgin thought plunged deep into Aura's mind, quickly she considered her life in the forest and her life here. It was true that Syn and lori were both far more tolerant of failure and in even with Lori and the work she did, Aura was never nearly as busy as she had been in the forest. "Like you guy's soon after my mutation came the humans caged me, Miracle and commanders got us out, still less then half of the Mutant children Miracle recruited less then half survived training and half of that lived longer then a few months against the humans" she said, the thought of Miracle as someone cruel almost felt blasphemes to her. Did it even matter how much she sinned anymore, she questioned herself?

"All i know of the Human forces is they were white skinned and favored automatic weapons and mortars and occasionally black and tan dogs, we use to call who got to kill and eat those. They carried no identifying marks on them at all, and Miracle did not allow for questions. Solkat...the girl, my cat is named for, was a Mutant who could control plants. She was prophet, the point is, she mentioned something about other Sects and that each of the ten gods had their own followers" she said wondering why she had failed to think of it before. Still Solkat had never actually said where these might be located.

"Things were simple in the forest if a human was there, you killed them. Here is so different, so complicated, every kill one has to worry about police or those fool x-men. In the woods, everything had a time a place, the occasional 2 day long lecture, here? Their might be nothing to do for days. It gives one so much time to think., to relive those moments. It's funny i can still recall when the idea of killing someone, even a human bothered me, then it was just routine" SHe explained. "Still if things had not occur as they did, i would never have met the order or more importantly, you guys" she said thinking aloud.

She took a drink of the poweraide grateful, the nasty taste was mostly washed from her moulth

“See, its inefficient, on top of cruel, those that didn’t survived could have been utilized in another way, you can’t run an operation with just soldiers. By those numbers, Miracle did more harm to the children then the enemy.” Perhaps it was because misery loved company that Saturn could say exactly what he thought with out a thought to how it might effect the girl, he thought it was true and he thought she needed to hear the truth. The fact was he would have had this talk with her long ago if Abyss hadn’t thought her mental state was too delicate for it, maybe it was, but could it get much worse than seeing people and ending up on a fishing boat in the haul. He didn’t thinks so.

Jupiter glared, at who he wasn’t sure but, someone needed a punch in the face, The humans, the other nine so called gods. “Then another place to start would be the other gods.”

Abyss swiped a stylus across his phone, the little stick made communicating in text on these things so much easier. “Was it this kind of dog, or this kind?” He first showed Aura a German- German Sheppard. The features were narrow and sharp. Then he showed her an Americanized German Sheppard. Broad features and an open trusting face. If neither of those proved to be the dog, then he would show her a Rottweiler and a Doberman. If those weren’t the breed he would have to obtain a book or something and find the breed, it would narrow there search and eventually give Mars more to work with.


Abyss looked to Aura. “Sometimes you may want to considered if their death is a nessceity, do they need to die, are they causing you more trouble than the police or the xmen might? I’m not saying you shouldn’t kill them, if it amuses you it amuses you, but take Lisa for example there are some that are worth keeping around. Jupiter and Saturn both looked a bit skeptical.

All of them then smiled to her in unison. “We wouldn’t have changed any of our pasts either if it means we wouldn’t have found you kiddo.” Jupiter tousled the girls hair.

Saturn simply did not understand, Miracle was taking her orders from the goddess and cruel or not they were simply pawns of the gods. Aura's mind rushed to justify things even as her mind sunk deeper into what she knew were blasphemous thoughts, if the gods wanted to be hard on them was it not simply to see what weapons would work best against humanity? "Casualties were very high, certainly among those destined for front line duty like myself. We were told our sacrifice would ensure the future mutant Utopia devoid of almost all human life, that because we fought today, our children would not tomorrow. " she said though she realized she was off topic a moment later. "Miracle believed a prophecy, that told hat mutants would grow more and more powerful and that one day a mutant would emerge and wipe humanity away. Those who died and followed their orders were to be reborn anew to continue the fight in a new body by the Lord of Souls. Those who failed to follow orders however, their souls were to be sent to the Lord of Souls, Solarrus where he would consume them snuffing out the essence forever. Aura said though she had a lot of doubt Saturn was going to say OK to that answer. It was fine, he could not understand, none of them could, the gravity of the problem.

"We never met any of the other sects, They could spread across the earth or all be in Canada for all i know. If Miracle communicated with them, i never held rank enough to know" she said unsure how they would find any of these people. A ray of hope pierced Aura's mind, the other sects might be able to commune with the nature goddess. If they could she might have hope of salvation yet.

Aura had abyss stop early, at the Americanized German Shepard. She recalled dogs that looked much like the picture, in fact she had eaten a good number of the beasts. "It took me three tries to learn to properly cook them" she said. Aura found most dog tasted rather similar, but then a dog much like the one Aura showed had been the first thing aura had learned to dehair and prepare.

"Humans are boring animals and they taste bad on top of it. you are right though, my actions, have made me easily wanted enough where police don't yell freeze first anymore. Personally i like fighting other Mutants better anyway, getting to know their powers and how to fight them, their weaknesses, it's all part of the game. I do tend to forget Lisa is human she admitted thinking to herself. As far as she could tell Lisa was certainly Human. Aura's conviction wavered a moment as the thought of this. Lisa was not a friend but Aura had also never felt the need to separate her head from her body wither. Unusual.

Aura slipped over to her things, and withdrew a very worn, somewhat blackened blade, which had dried blood dotted across it."This was a freind's, she had the power to detect an attack before it happened. The Humans first strike, landed a morter in her bed, the result was less then pretty. I train as i do to ensure this does not happen again, that next time i will be able to protect those close to me" Aura said honestly. She pushed herself to be stronger everyday for that reason, often hurting herself in various ways.

She smiled at Jupiter. "that means a lot" she said honestly to the abyss brothers. Aura may not have understood it but they had formed a deent well knit family.

“Interesting.well if it religious and the gods are prophesying a mutant take over we might be able to work with that in finding one of the other, sects.” Sect sounded cultish enough to seem appropriate with out bein offensive. Aura was mixed up with some mixed up people as a younger person. Saturn was curious, he was fairly certain thatAura didn’t realize that he wanted to hunt these people down and spill their blood all over the place, the way they were using young mutants was despicable. “Do you have anything from the old days?”

He looked at the dog, and wondered how hard it would be to track down who used german shepards a lot in their training and military.

‘I haven’t tasted either dog or human but I’m betting dog would be better, they’re certainly the better companion of the two.” Jupiter quipped ad the other’s questioned the girl. They were like hens clocking over a chick. The girl just vomited and they were drilling her with questions.

“we’ll be there with you ready to fight any foe that faces us. You don’t have to worry about facing it alone.” The brothers grinned down at the girl, she was a bit smaller than the rest of them, she didn’t have red skin or a tail, she might glow pink and have a blood lust that just couldn’t be sated at times, but she was one of theirs and tat was that.

"Maybe, Alpha s the goddess of the forest and we did base our selfs in a forest" she said though she could not say the other sects would be as literal and besides that some gods powers did not so easily correspond to a land type. Then Saturn asked a question, that turned Aura very pale. She even considered lieing to the closest people she knew. Aura has things of her past all right, things no simple soilder like herself should ever have lais hands on. Aura knew however, her silence sludhed face revealed her.She let out a sigh, they would not understand. "Yes.....A picture of me and the other girls and the Artifact i stole the last time i went to the forest. I fear these hands will never be clean of the act she said shaking her head. SHe had no wanted to mention it, simply because she was afraid of the consequence.

"Useually once a week or so, We would be told to hunt our own food for the night, or not eat. You learned soon that meat was meat, no matter how it tasted" she said with a shrug as if it were normal. "you know...the last fight was the first time the enemy ever used a sniper she said knowing it was off topic but the idea had not ocurred to her before. Even Aura was vulnerable to such fire without her aura up and most of her companions would have been to. From a pocket, Aura pulled out a rather beaten looking picture, in it were six woman, all other then a woman in a flowing white gown looked young, late teens. Aura was in front, one girl had the blade Aura had shown abyss and the others another had her arms around another female.

"I look forward to it, though i don't foresee any real fights in the near future" she said, though she smiled. " Though i do wish the larger once happened more often"[/color she admitted with a smile. She was glad the Abyss brothers were with her and trying to help her with the issue. She wa snot sure they could, but it was great they wanted to try. Aura hd never had a parent but she had to assume they were like abyss and his brothers, warm and kind, supporting no matter what and always eager to help.

“Your hands may never be cleaner than they are for performing the act.” Saturn replied.

Abyss picked up his brothers thought without missing a beat. It was easy to see at times like this that they had all been of one mind at some point long ago. “ We just have to make the means justify the ends. If taking an artifact can only be justified with an act of redemption then redeem those hands we shall. Not that I truly believe they were or anything but spotless.”


Jupiter looked as if he was truly thinking it over. “ I might have to ask you for your best recipe sometime, it might come in handy.” He then looked thoughtful at the last bit.”Perhaps it was third party getting involved while the dust was up and there was an obvious cover.”


Jupiter nodded his agreement. “You can come mess up the Russian mob with me sometime. I keep knocking them down but its like they are those stinking dolls they have, you knock one down and another pops up, and again and again and again…eventually I am going to have to go in there with a team and reek absolute death on them. just clear out the whole damn territory.” Jupiter had taken the russians on as a pet project it kept him from getting in too much trouble, it seemed the Nypd and the MRc was happy to let the pair attack each other..

Somewhere in the background Mercury dosed with a skunk sleeping on his chest, the pair looked peacefully and it looked comically as if the Skunk had defeated the giant.