Dark Angel


They were fifty miles from the mall, but Sean kept checking over his 
shoulder for any sign of Aaron following them.  He had no doubts in his
mind that they would be found, but he wanted to get some distance 
between them so he could figure out a plan of action first.  Finally he
decided they should just get out of sight for the time being.  He 
motioned to Mewtwo to drop to the trees below.  Once down, they 
collapsed against a tree and tried to catch their breath.

"So..." Sean started, "How's things?"

Mewtwo looked at him and snorted.  "Why do you keep tormenting me?"

"Excuse me?"

He sighed.  "In the last two weeks, I have been forced into a game that
you and your...*friends* have started for the sole purpose of killing
each other.  Personally, I wouldn't mind if you all were dismembered
and killed, but now you've dragged me into it, so I am a tad upset 
about it."

"Heh.  I can understand that."  He stood up, then reached up to one of
the branches and picked an apple.  He didn't eat it, however, but 
instead just tossed it back and forth.  "You know what the Agency is?
I don't think I ever had a chance to explain it."

"No."  Mewtwo was just barely interested in this conversation.  Luckily
for him, it kept him awake.  He would rather not be asleep, lest Aaron
decide to attack them.

"The Agency is a group of specially trained, genetically engineered
super-beings.  For as long as I can remember, our main mission has been
to keep the demons from destroying everyone and everything in this 
universe.  Usually we're very careful about not being seen or noticed,
but lately more and more people are becoming aware of our existence.
It's been kind of a problem for us."

"Hmph..."  Mewtwo was quickly losing interest in the conversation.
Nowhere in the explanation was a reason why he should be included in
their games.

"I don't know, maybe it's these weapons we've been getting lately..."

Mewtwo decided to indulge him.  "What weapons?"

"Well, somehow, we've been finding various weapons that are far more
advanced than *anything* we've ever discovered.  The gun back at the
mall?  That was something I found half-buried on a remote planet.  I
never told anyone about it, but I always kept it close."

Mewtwo thought back to that particular gun.  It had power, yes, but
the recoil in it had just as much strength as the actual blast, so he 
didn't consider it a very useful weapon.  He had dropped it before
flying off, so if Aaron was alive, he might now have it in his 
possession.

"Another thing is this remote I found.  It can stop time for a minute,
and again, it's beyond anything we've developed."

"If what you say is true, isn't it possible for these items to be left
by a more advanced race?"

"There isn't anyone more advanced than us.  We've traveled all over the
galaxy, and we're definitely smarter than anyone around.  Even the more
developed civilizations haven't even imagined some of the other things
we found."

Mewtwo had now officially lost interest.  It was a nice story, but it
was Sean's problem, not his.  His only interest now was finding a safe
place to stay for the rest of his life, however long that may be.  He
was beginning to have serious thoughts as to his longevity.  He was
full-grown at three months, and although he hadn't completely matured
mentally, he was very worried that he would have a short life, made
even shorter by these damned Agents.


In the air above them, Aaron floated in midair, preparing to attack.
He couldn't beat both of them, especially not Mewtwo, not now.  Then
again, who said he had to fight?

On the ground, Sean was starting to get edgy.  He kept expecting Aaron
to jump out of the bushes and kill him, but he just told himself he was
being paranoid.  Then a powerful boot kicked him in the back of the
head, and all he knew was darkness.

Mewtwo saw this attack, saw Sean fall to the ground, and saw the 
attacker.  Aaron.  "Sorry, asshole, but I'm outta here!"  Before he
could react, the Agent picked up Sean and flew out of the forest in a
burst of energy.  Mewtwo tried to follow, but by the time he had risen
above the trees, all he could see was the general direction they had 
gone.  He flew after them, telling himself he was involving himself in 
the wrong fight.  Then again, he didn't like Aaron.

***

Sean awoke to find himself in a dark room surrounded by Agents.  No, 
they weren't Agents...they were too stupid-looking, and not as strong.
Most likely they were trainees sitting in on an interrogation session 
that Aaron would undoubtedly be holding.  He tried moving his arms and 
legs, but he quickly discovered he had been kept still by a number of 
steel manicles.  Ordinarily he would have no problem breaking them, but
these had been reinforced and enhanced.  Standard torture rack, a cross
set on a circle of metal.

Sean watched the trainees mill about the room, checking machines and
data padds.  He glanced to the right and saw Aaron walk in through a
large steel door, then when he noticed he was awake, walked up to him.
"So, our guest has come to his senses."  Aaron motioned for one of the
others to hand him a padd.  "Let's see, one count of treason, one count
of delaying an official investigation, one count of cavorting with the
enemy, and one count of leaving an Agent to save your own sorry ass."

"What?"  Sean didn't recognize the last one.  "What the hell are you
talking about?"

Aaron frowned.  "You don't remember?  You don't fucking remember?!?!"
He held up his fore and middle finger and pressed it to Sean's 
forehead.  Suddenly, tiny lightning bolts appeared and arced around his
fingers, hitting Sean with their power.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!"  It was like getting stabbed in the gut and 
having the knife twisted.  Aaron had hit the exact spot in his brain 
that controlled pain.  He made it last for a few seconds to make his
point, then mercifully, the pain stopped.

"Three years ago, you fucking left me on Kaldra for the demons, you 
fucking prick!"  Again, pain, pure and undiluted.  "You fucking left 
me!"  Aaron listened to Sean scream for a few seconds, relishing the
sound, then finally pulled his fingers away and let him recover.
"Well?"

Sean was pretty out of it.  He didn't even look up for a few moments.
"I didn't leave you, I was called back and I thought you were already
gone..."  He tried to keep his head up, but it was proving harder than
normal.

"Wrong answer."  Screams filled the room again, and now the trainees
were very frightened of their leader.  "I'm the most important Agent
in the whole organization!!  Did you think you could just get away with
it?!  Well?!?!"

The pain subsided for a moment.  "I...I didn't..."

"Bastard.  You can't even admit it."  Aaron punched him with all his
strength, breaking his nose and letting loose a stream of blood.
"Time to die, Seanie boy.  You left me for dead, but I survived for 
just this moment, when I could make sure you would suffer just like I
did!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!"  There was no way he could withstand this much 
pain!  He had to hang on, if only to drag Aaron's shit-filled carcas
through Hell and back...  Then it became too much...the pain filled his
vision like a bright light, covering his eyes and shielding him from
the cold reality that he would soon die.  He tried to keep his eyes 
open, but the light was so bright...too bright...he would go blind...
no, he couldn't...it was so bright...slowly, but surely, his eyes 
drooped down, and darkness engulfed him.

***

Mewtwo floated in the air above a small wooden house in the middle of
nowhere, arguing with himself whether he should even be here.  He could
sense over two dozen people in there, and if they were anything like
Aaron, he didn't stand a chance.  But his reading of Sean was bleak,
almost undetectable.  He had to hurry if he was to save his life.  Then
he blacked out, and when he woke up, he was in another place entirely.

***

Sean didn't open his eyes at first.  He let his other senses figure out
where he was first.  He heard a surging of energy all over the place,
near and from very far away.  From under him he felt a tingling feeling
through his boots, so he was either standing on a live electric wire,
or someone was sucking on his toes.  Finally he opened his eyes, and
the sight that greeted him was beyond anything he had ever imagined.

***

Mewtwo opened his eyes as quickly as possible, trying to get a bearing
on where he was.  What he saw was certainly not of this world.  He was
standing on a giant blue sphere overlooking a blue universe filled with
other spheres of blue-white.  Some of the spheres were connected with
blueish tunnels that had tiny flashes of white light going between them
occasionally.  He looked around and saw he wasn't alone.  To his left
was a figure dressed in black, and to his left was Sean.

"Mewtwo!"  Sean noticed him before he even saw the rest of this strange
dream.  The strange universe was second.  He noticed the black-clothed 
figure third.  His first impulse was to fight, thinking it was Aaron.  
For some reason, he was feeling great, with no residual pain from his 
torture at all.  Hell, he felt like he could take on ten Aarons.

"Who are you?" Mewtwo called to the strange figure.  Upon hearing this
question, he/she/it walked up to them until it's face was visible.

"Holy..."

It was Sean.  There were visible differences, yes, but for all intents
and purposes, this newcomer was Sean.  Mewtwo could see three distinct
differences in him.  One, he was younger by about two years; he was
maybe fifteen or sixteen.  Two, his hair was dark brown instead of 
blond, and his eyes were blue rather than brown.  Three, he was much
smaller than Sean.  The real Sean was built like a linebacker, which
was to be expected if he was genetically enhanced.  The second Sean was
rather thin, but he still looked like he had a lot of muscle on his
bones, and he was only five-and-a-half feet tall, somewhat short for
his age.  But the face...it was identical.  Completely, even with the
age difference.  But one thing that Mewtwo noticed before all else:  He
was unable to read this boy's mind.  It was like he had erected a 
mental wall around his brain, letting only a minimum of information 
through, for example, his emotions.  Mewtwo could sense a very playful 
attitude toward their current predicament.  He was having fun for some
reason.

"So, how've you two been?"  He spoke, with Sean's voice, as both of 
them had expected, but neither of them truly prepared for.  "Nice to
see you both."

Sean spoke first.  "Who are you?"

Sean 2 smiled.  "I'm you.  Well, a more accurate description would be
that you are me."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain later, don't worry."

"Why have you brought us here?"  Mewtwo asked.  "Where is 'here?'"

Sean 2 made a wide sweep with his arm like he was showing off a famous 
landmark.  "This...is Existence.  Capital 'E', by the way, because 
after all, it is a proper place name.  See those spheres of light?"  He
pointed to one of the billions of spheres.

"Yes?"

"Those are worlds.  And I don't mean planets, no.  You can look in the
dictionary and see that I'm right.  Each one is a complete universe; 
trillions of worlds, each with galaxies, planets, and millions upon 
millions of species.  You've heard of Earth?"

"Of course."

"Well, in almost all of these worlds, Earth doesn't exist.  Hell, over
there-"  He pointed to a sphere above and to their left, "That's 
Cornolis Prime.  It's called that because if you enter that world 
without programming a specific location with a portal generator, you'll
get dropped off on the main planet of the Cornolis system.  Oh, wait,
all this means shit to you guys, right?"

Mewtwo didn't answer, but Sean did.  "Who are you?" he repeated.

"Call me Vincent.  That's not my name, rather it's the name I've 
chosen for this particular mission."

"Mission?"

"Yeah, I'm an Agent.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  I'm from the real
Agency, the one that's not filled with genetically enhanced killers.
We're not enhanced, but specially trained to assimilate into any 
situation.  The real Agency is really a spy organization, in a way.  We
send our Agents to worlds where there's something wrong, we then
investigate, and if we can, we fix the problem with a minimum of 
publicity.  You wouldn't believe the things I've seen..."  Vincent 
seemed to stare off into space, looking at something that was visible 
only to him.

"What does that have to do with us?"  Mewtwo was still trying to find
a hole in his mental armor, but he was too strong...

"With you, nothing, yet, so you can go."  Mewtwo disappeared in a flash
of light, leaving Vincent alone with Sean.  "You, I have three things I
need to take care of.  One, that's my gun."  He held out his hand, and 
the gun in Sean's coat rose up into the air and shot over to Vincent's 
hand, hitting it with an audible *smack*.  "Two, that's my dagger."  
Once again, the dagger held in the sheath at his side was sent flying 
through the air to Vincent.  Once both weapons were in his hands, they 
began to change.  The gun, whose dark grey alloy covered the weapon, 
changed to pure black, and the barrel expanded slightly outward.  The 
dagger was a much less obvious change.  The blade, whose width was less
than half an inch, expanded to a little more than an inch and became 
double-edged.

Sean just watched in amazement at his remarkable power.  No Agent he
knew had yet mastered telekinesis.  "That's...the Athame..."

"No, it's not," Vincent replied, slightly annoyed at the name.  "It's
just an ordinary dagger that was blessed by a wizard friend of mine.
And yes, I did say wizard.  We have magic as well as technology on our
side.  Gives us the best of both worlds.  Oh yeah, number three, I need
your permission."

"For what?"

"To save you.  Under some rule of Agent conduct, we can't interfere
with the events in an underdeveloped world unless at least one member
gives us explicit permission to help."  He put the gun away inside his
overcoat and reached around back and placed the dagger in his sheath.

"So, you need some help?"