Fights and Battles

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

11/18/96:

Time, it seams, has a tendency to go slightly sideways at
times. I know that may sound a bit silly, but it's true.

The last few days have take on a style of that, I had spend
most of them trying to fix up all the still growing problems
with the ship. Not that it's to much of a problem, I say am
at least half way do with it. Though every time it looks
like I might be able to take it out on a test flight,
something else brakes.

Not to mention that I still hadn't decided on a name for it
yet, and I was going to need one for the ship registry on
Prid. It wasn't only that, I also had to register the ship
in a special registry as I intended to fly it though the
megafolds. Mostly because I didn't want to spend two months
getting to the next system over from Prid.

So, after spending my time fighting more broken equipment
then I want to think about, I finally decided that getting
almost nothing done was enough work for the day. Thusly, I
pulled my self out of the mess inside the ship, cleaned up,
and decided to head back to the house.

I got about ten feet outside of the repair bay, when I ran,
literally, into Page. Neither one of us was looking where we
were going, she was reading over something on a padd, and I
was still in a bad mood from all the problems I've been
having.

As we detangled from each other, I bent down, and picked up
her padd. Handing it back to her, I sighed. "Looking for me
I take it?"

She nodded, licking her lips, and stick the padd under one
are. "Afraid so, Rachel sent me down to get you."

I brushed her off, "Sorry, I'm not exactly in the mood to
talk to anyone."

"I noticed." She grumbled, crossing her arms. "But she's
about to start the first of many negotiations with different
representatives that used to form the Council."

I shook my head. "And she want's me to be there, nice."

"No," Page said, "the representative does." She pushed the
padd into my hands. "This is the information you will need."

I looked over the padd, then tried to hand it back. "Sorry,
there is nothing I can do to help."

She frowned. "Fox, I'll put it to you this way, you have to
be there, or nothing will happen at all."

I grabbed one of her paws, turned it up, and set the padd
into it. "Sorry, NO." Then I started down the hallway.

"Damn it Fox!" She yelled as I walked away. I was glad the
hallway was empty, or this argument could have been
embarrassing.

"This is more important then you know!" She again yelled.

I stopped, and slowly turned on my heal, looking back at
her. "How, how can my presence at a meeting that I can do
nothing in be important."

Page put her paws on her hips, staring hard at me.
"Because," she explained, "If you don't show up for this
meeting, there won't be any more meetings at all. There will
be no discussions, no deals, no anything! The Council will
be entirely gone, and we'll have to start over with
everything we've tried to do."

I grumbled under my breath. "It's not like the Council is
the only form of government in the multi-verse."

"Just the only one that's lasted longer then fifty years.
We're something that's stable. We may not have been the
largest governing body out there, or had the biggest
military, but damn it, the Council has held together more
world, treaties and alignments just by having the level of
respect that it has."

I sighed. "And if I don't go to this meeting, this all will
collapse, and the multi-verse will fall into anarchy,
right?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet. But how many petty little
dictators will pop up, and decided to take a land grab
through the folds, how many--"

I cut her off. "How many places can you stick your nose into
other peoples business."

She growled, low and deep, almost under my hearing. "Fine,
just fine. If you want to see everything built up here fall
into dust, you just march right back to your house, kiss
Oriana goodbye, go to the nearest fold, go home, and NEVER
COME BACK!" She nearly screamed the last part, throwing the
padd down onto the hallway between us with enough force that
it shattered, spreading it's internals all over the floor.

I raised an eyebrow, the casing of the padds where amazingly
tough, she had to throw it massively hard for it shatter as
it did. "You think that how ever many verse the Council
represents all depend on it to keep there own problems in
check. If you do, you really have another think coming."

Page slummed a bit. "You don't care." She said in pure
amazement. "You don't care how many wars we've stopped. How
many lives we saved. You don't care how we've changed
peoples lives for the better all over the multi-verse. How
we've helped struggling cultures reach the starts, or gave
them that little push to get there on their own. All of that
means nothing to you."

I shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Remember, before I was
exiled, I saw some of these placed, the ones you didn't
help, the results of the wars you didn't try and stop. I've
seen people dead from your inaction, as well as your action.
You think the Council can just play god with other peoples
lives, with no consequences to your own. I've seen the dark
side of all that you've built up. At times, I wasn't sure it
was worth saving."

I watched as Page took a deep breath. "Fox, the Council only
get's involved when one of the member-verse are involved, or
someone there allied with, and only if we're asked to help."

"What about when it's one of the member's that are doing the
injustice, and who they are destroying are calling for the
help. You turned a death ear to them."

She paused, she was actually shaking. "We all have are
problems Fox."

I nodded.

Page stared speaking again, slowly each word seeming to take
all her strength to say. "Go home Fox, go back to Earth and
stay there. Or go somewhere else that has never even heard
of the Council, but what ever you do, don't come back."

"You think I would do something like that?"

She tilted her head a bit. "No, not you. You would turned
your back on the Council, even after nearly dieing to save
it, but you would never stop using your powers as a natural,
and you would never willing keep away from your friends."

I nodded again.

She continued. "And what about them. There are still a few
shards of the HammerHeads still out there, you think with
out a massive effort to stop them they won't just grow
again, and I can assure you, every one you care about will
be killed when they do."

I slowly started to clenched my teeth.

"And what if the impossible happens? What if the universe
shifts and another fold forms on Earth, and someone can use
it, or uses it to get there. Or, gods forbid, a Council
probe show up in your system. What will you do then, abandon
your home--"

She had more to say, but I didn't let her continue, as I
smashed my first into the wall. "I will not leave Earth
willingly."

She gave me a small smile. "You may as well have to. Will
all the travel you have there and back, don't you think,
sooner or later, someone will notice. When they do, they
will find Earth. And if you leave now, you will be forced to
leave again, are you willing to do that?"

I shook my head.

"Good, now you go see Rachel, and go to the meeting, and how
ever many more you need to be seen at. They all want you
there because of what you did. With so many of there ranks
turing up as members of the HammerHeads, there scared. They
have decided, as a whole, but each separately, you need to
be there, as a reassurance, maybe as a guide, but mostly to
be seen. Do you got that."

I sighed, and nodded, then slowly turned and started walking
to Rachel's office.