We could have had all the luck in the world, but it would not be close to what we needed, for what happened next. I felt all our hopes and dreams rain down like meteors. The light was suddenly blinding and unbearably hot. It was a fool's errand to begin with and we beat the odds to get where we were. Now the cruel world played its cards, and we lost the game. I gave everything to get away, only to find myself forced to walk back.

Raven rushed from the room like wildfire. I moved as fast as I could after her. I was too late. The elevator left without me. I raced to over to the next minaret and rode that elevator down. I ran past the confused Ebony and she signaled Sunny, who signaled Dr. Hyde. He stopped Raven and held her until the rest of us arrived.

"Let me go! I have to save him! I have to!" She thrashed trying to break free of Hyde's grip. Tears streamed down her face, our strongest member reduced to tears. I could not help but feel bad.

"Raven," I said in a calming voice. She did not look at me, but kept staring at the road ahead. "Raven, I should have told you this before, but..."

"Don't say it," she hoarsely replied. "I don't want to hear it. I cannot hear it, Pirate. So don't say it, please." She knelt over, letting her hair cover her face. "Don't think I don't know, because I do. Once I saw him there, surrounded, I knew. Even so, I love him. He is hurt and captured, and I cannot leave him there. I would not be able to forgive myself. I will not let Cain take away another thing I love. He will not win this time. I won't let him."

I exchanged wary glances with the others, their expressions identical to mine; we were at a loss. I reached into my pocket and pulled out two explosives, forgetting there was a third. I held them out to Sunny and Ebony.

"Plant these accordingly, and take that whole base out once you take off," I ordered them. They gave me a stunned look. I turned to Dr. Hyde. "Let her go, we have to do this."

“We?" Raven rose up and looked at me with shock and remorse. "Pirate, you can't come with me. They need you here."

“But you need me more!" I shot back. She flinched at my directness, "We already lost Fei, she was my friend, one of my only friends. Raven, I have no one to go back to either. Everyone, I love, is standing here with me. You are my best friend, Raven. I won't let you go alone." I grabbed one of the lanterns from Dr. Hyde. He was not laughing anymore, he was highly upset by our decision.

"Vixie, there's no coming back from this. "

"I know," she hugged him tightly. "I will miss you, you stupid elf."

I stepped up to Ace. "I don't know what to say. If, if only we were under different circumstances, maybe we could have, I mean, we would be."

"I'm always at your side," he cooed. "And I'm going with you. I finally have something to fight for."

I blushed and could not find my voice to tell him no. A wave of sadness washed over me like a wave in a raging ocean. Raven gripped my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She held out her hand to Ace for one of his guns. He handed her one reluctantly.

"We'll be back. Do not take off without us, and we are escaping this place. Alive," she stated raising hope within them. I secretly held onto my doubts, but did not say anything.

I turned to walk back down the pass came up, feeling the lonely stares of the girls at my back.

"Wait!" A soft ringing voice whispered out to me. I halted and looked at the elf in disbelief. She ran up and grabbed my head. She stood on her toes and pressed her forehead against mine. "Tread carefully, sister, you are brave. You honor those you call friends." She blessed me and took a step back. She rejoined Sunny with clear intent of never speaking from the moment on.

I led the way back to hell. The whole time trudging back no one said a word about what the plan was from here on out. I was safe in my own thoughts, considering the chances of getting away unscathed. I stopped thinking about that, the chances were not in our favor. Instead, I began to think of home.

Whisper, my cat, rubbing my ankles for attention, the soft chirping of the birds outside my window, the TV on the news channel telling of another grim incident flooded my mind. Without reason, I recalled my dreams, the one where I tried to kill myself and the one where we talked in my kitchen. They felt more familiar to me now, and overpowered the memories of reality.

We arrived there faster than the trip took in the other direction. I faced the electric fence with a sneering, loathing feeling. We came so far to end up back here again.

I watched as the Solarite guards surrounded Grave and waited for the order to fetch the other prisoners. Cain stood right beside the boy, examining his guns in an arrogant, triumphant way. I assumed he expected to see Raven's bewildered and horrified face during roll call. Little did he know, she seethed with rage beside me.

I whispered to Ace, "I want you to evacuate the others. Get them out of here. Hell, send them into the forest. Just do not let them get into the line of fire." He nodded and stalked away to the hole in the fence. Raven stormed past him, I did not need tell her what she needed to do. I silently followed and began to breathe deeply.

We sneaked back in easily. Ace edged along the side of the nearest building. I scampered over to him. Raven stormed past us into the line of sight. She raised her gun and began picking off the closest Solarites one by one. Pandemonium erupted, as she caught them all off guard. Ace shouted a curse and began to give her cover fire.

"Go," he shouted as I froze where I was standing. "Go tell the others to get out. Show them how, now!" He charged as the firefight began.

I hesitated, watching my two friends fight, almost like dancing, against the Solarites. The way they dodged and counter fired was in itself elegant. I snapped out of it and quickly escaped into the dormitory.

I shouted at the top of my voice, "GET UP! GET UP EVERYONE! WE HAVE TO GO, NOW!" Sleepily, heads poked out of the rooms, their faces filled with fear. Everyone was stunned to see me, a human, not a Solarite called to wake them. They began to hear the gunshots and panic filled the air.

Once I felt everyone was awake and alert, I called for their attention. "Now there is an electric fence out there, designed to keep us in. However, there is a hole in it, big enough for you to escape. I need everyone to pair up and on my signal, each pair makes a straight shot to the other side. Do you hear me?" Harsh murmuring answered me that they reluctantly listened. No one wanted to try.

"Why should we listen to you!" Someone called out to me.

I squinted at the crowd. An unfamiliar feeling of anger and annoyance rose up in my chest. I took a step back and flung open the front door for them to see the battle outside. Raven and Ace held down the enemy pretty well.

"Do you see them?" I asked the crowd, anger rang in my voice. "Two people, two people, who were held down so long by suppression now stood up and fought for their lives, their lives, their FREEDOM! I offer you a chance to escape, to get out of here, so you can do the same. Don't be so dense to turn this offer down, it won't come again."

Silently everyone grabbed their partners and lined up, waiting for my call. I directed each pair toward the hole and sent them running to it making sure they made it before sending the next. The crossfire caught those who did not listen to my instructions. Grief filled me and pushed me further to make sure everyone else got out successfully. Soon they were gone and only Raven, Ace, Grave and I fought the Solarites.

I spotted Grave by the sun stone, chained down like a catalyst. Ace fended off what was left of the guards, as Raven fought her own personal showdown with Cain. She picked up a spare gun from one of the bodies, but looked roughed up, with her right shoulder bleeding badly and a slight limp in her step.

I took a gamble and ran straight through to Grave. Shots whizzed by, grazing my skin and hair. I reached him with minor cuts and scrapes. I shook him to see if he was alive.

"Grave... GRAVE!" I shouted in his ear. He stirred awake.

"P-Pirate?" He replied weakly. I hacked at the chains. "Wait. Stop, Pirate, I, I set off those explosives, I killed Fei, to save my own skin."

“Yeah, I know," I replied woodenly, my voice was quite hollow. The chains did not budge. I searched around and found a spare gun of another fallen Solarite. I hastily picked it up and aimed at the chain at pointblank range. I fired and blew the chain apart. The recoil threw me back a few feet.

I tossed the gun aside and helped Grave to his feet. I checked to make sure we had a clear way out.

The lingering Solarites pushed back Ace. Raven exhausted her last bit of energy. She still faced down Cain in the heat of battle. It seemed almost a victory. We were beating the odds, no, we already beat the odds coming this far. Then, Raven fell.

Cain got close to her and used two of his hands to hold her wrists, and with the other two, he shot her in the heart and in the head. She fell with a gasp and collapsed at his feet, not moving, and cold. I screamed her name with all the agony and pain I held back, knowing it will not bring her back.

Cain turned to us and I backed up, still supporting Grave, until I felt the surging heat of the sun stone directly behind us. I watched as he came behind Ace and whacked him in the back of the head. He carelessly picked him up and threw him at my feet.

A chill ran down my spine as I faced my fate. Tears formed in my eyes as I searched for Grave's hand. I brushed my pocket and felt something hard.

Cain began to address us,"so I am safe to assume that you, girl, was the one to plan out this, this attempt?" He was furious. I could not see his face behind that mask, but I heard his voice riddled with rage. My fingers crept closer to the object in my pocket, subconsciously aware of what it was.

“Guys, guys I just wanted to say,” I silently began.

"In human tradition," Cain reloaded his guns calmly, "that you would receive one last request to say some final words." He aimed the guns at me and Grave.

“I’m, I'm sorry for, for everything.”

“However, I am not human." I touched the item in my pocket and grabbed hold of it tightly.

“Goodbye.”

In a blur, I took out the last of the crystalline explosives and almost as if in slow motion, I saw the bullet come speeding toward me. I, surprisingly, was faster slamming the crystal into the sun stone.

*******************

She watched in the distance, as the stone erupted in an explosion that swept her off her feet. Sudden darkness covered them as if someone had flicked off the light switch. The only source of light was the fire below where her friends once stood, and the dim hue of a dying lantern filled with sun stones.

"Ebony!" Sunny whimpered. Ebony turned to her crying friend and hugged her tightly. She too, cried uncontrollably.

She turned to the others, they secretly followed the trio and gathered the scared prior prisoners. The elf tugged on the harpy's shirt to direct her attention to the solemn group behind them.

"It's our time..." She murmured. She then repeated it louder so everyone could hear, "IT'S OUR TIME!" She started to shake and Ebony placed her hand on her to soothe her. She took a deep breath.

"They started something, something amazing, something beautiful! I had a taste of that beauty once. I had nearly forgotten it, just as all of you had forgotten it. I want it back. The Solarites, they had thought they had stripped us of that beauty, and replaced it with something hideous. Now they intended to crush us... like bugs, like any other undesirable thing they saw. It is about high time we return the favor. I will not let this moment be forgotten, or ignored like a tree falling in the middle of the forest when no one is around, no. Their sacrifice will be on the lips of every creature on every world. We will make every Solarite fear us, because if one human, one creature can do that!" She pointed to where the sun stone once stood, "then what can five do, what can twenty do? On the other, hand maybe a hundred! But I know what I can do, and I can fight!"

Hope surged through the crowd along with shouts and applause. Anger and frustration seethed through from the many years of forced labor and suppression.

"Now starts the revolution, and so begins the change," Ebony mumbled under her breath so only Sunny could hear.

She put her arm around the elf's shoulder and hugged her.

**************

I lay flat on my back, pure silence surrounded me and oddly, I was at peace. I opened my eyes to see fuzzy outlines of two figures above me. Everything was white behind them, white and endless. I blinked away the fuzziness and focused on my two best friends.

"Pirate!" The one bear hugged me, her strength still imminent. "Oh, I have so much to tell you! I can't wait to share it with you all!"

"Fei? You're alive!" I cried then stopped. "Oh"

"Yeah, I knew humans weren't that bright," Raven snickered in the background. I stood up and hugged her tightly, remembering the sight of her falling to the ground like a lifeless doll. "Yeah, yeah okay!" She shrugged me off once she saw I was not letting go.

"Hey! Can you hurry up? We have to move on now!" Grave's voice shouted at us.

"Coming, darling!" Raven ran to him and embraced him. They held hands and walked to a door. Only a door, everything else was a void of white, until I looked down and saw the universe.

I saw Ebony and Sunny leading the others to a safer place. I turned and saw earth, then a ripple ran through it. I saw a neighborhood boy stroking Whisper and giving her a new loving home. I smiled as Fei looked down with me.

"That was my home," she pointed to another planet. It showed a snow covered city filled with nature and a large family similar to Fei. They were spending a day in the snow.

"Is there anyone else to wait for?" She asked me. I looked at her and contemplated on the word 'wait'. As I thought, I realized, she waited for us before she could move on to the beyond. I shook my head and grabbed her hand.

We walked to the door where Ace, Raven and Grave stood. I sweetly kissed Ace and held his hand too. Grave hesitantly looked at Fei. She wordlessly assessed him, then punched him in the arm.

"You’re forgiven," she sang sweetly, grabbing his hand. Grave rubbed his sore arm and Raven smoothly slid her hand into his.

We all faced the door, and together crossed through the threshold into the beyond.

The end... for now.