Please bear in mind that I'm fully exploiting the rights to stretch, bend, or break a character's age, my excuse being that this is an Elseworld story. Oh, and be warned that NONE of the romantic relationships in the canon universe survived the transition. What was that? I can't hear you, tum tee tum tee tum... *g*

Basic disclaimers in Chapter One. I love feedback, won't you send me some? *Pleading Kitten Eyes Look[tm]* I'd like to thank my beta readers for their corrections and much-needed ego-boosts. :)

This is for you, Leary. I hope you'll like it (you'll know what I mean soon enough ;).

"Soddin' typical."

"Mon ami, Remy jus' sell de news, not make dem."

"Wisdom not your 'mon ami'."

"More ale, cher?"

Pete grunted his thanks, already turning the information inside out in his mind like a cat examining a paper bag. In truth, he bore more than a little resemblance to the alley variety -- tough, cynical, and scruffy. Not to mention extremely vicious claws, or in Pete's case, throwing daggers.

Had Remy been any other man, he would have dismissed it as Genoshan propaganda, but the tavernkeeper and former thief had a reputation as an honest informant. Pete would die of disbelieving laughter before trusting him with a grain of gold, but the dark-haired Wisdom -- as Avalon Castle's spymasters are called -- trusted his "goods".

Plus, Remy was nearest person he could call a friend.

"How d'you know your little canary's telling the truth? He could've been lying about deserting the army."

The man sitting opposite him shook his head. "Remy been wit' de wrong kind of people long enough to get a feelin' 'bout dese t'ings. You know I won't sell lies t'Stormy."

"You still pining after her?" Smoke swirled around the Wisdom as he stubbed out his cigarette.

"Tell me somet'ing, homme, have you gotten over your petite sorciere?"

"Bugger. Off." Pete glared at him over the mug of ale, eyes narrowed. "I'm not the one in love with the High Queen here, mate. The happily bloody well married High Queen."

Remy's answering grin was as bitter as bile. "Quel dommage, non?"

Not many knew the secretive journey the then Lady Ororo had had to make from the deserts she ruled to Avalon for the wedding -- under disguise and struggling with her own barely-controlled magick. It was necessary, in order to fool the assassins and dark mages who plotted her downfall, but the perilous travelling itself nearly killed her.

Along the way she met Remy, himself on the run from assassins. He taught the poorly-dressed woman, whom he took to be a noblewoman fallen on hard times, how to survive in his vastly different world of the darker side of society. The lanky man even saved her life on more than one occasion, and she bound herself to him with a deep friendship he was only too willing to accept. She was beautiful, intelligent and warm, and he was alone. It was no wonder that he....

Remy's disconcerting ember-on-coal eyes, the legacy of some unknown elvish ancestor, became slightly misty as his mind took an oft-traveled road down the past. The Wisdom watched him intently, feeling the weight of their shared secrets. Pity grew in him, but was ruthlessly uprooted moments later by the first-hand knowledge that Remy was not the only poor bugger kicked in the balls by love.

"I'll see meself out. The High Queen'll not be pleased with the news, but she'll 'preciate the warning," said Pete, snapping the other out of his reverie. "Same time next week?"

"Oui. Start payin' your tab, mon ami."

"Wishing for three-eyed dragons to jig down and bring you cartloads of virgins, are you?"

The tavernkeeper sighed dramatically. "An' dey wonder why Remy's not makin' any gold."

Pete stepped warily out of Gambit Tavern into the bustling street. Market day, he knew, was the best time to conduct business with Remy. No one noticed a nondescript thin man in a ratty cloak among the many built and dressed like him. Best of all, he could easily blend into the crowd, throwing off the various spies who regularly loitered around the tavern.

As he walked past the well-stocked stalls, he passed a tall, muscular man with long blond hair tied into a ponytail. The man's plated armour, polished to a high sheen, gave him an exotic appearance, as did the elaborate helmet he held under one arm. Automatically, Pete's eyes tracked him from head to toe, and filed him under "samurai, star-shaped tattoo and double katanas, not my kind of trouble, better warn the Guardians" before being lost in the midst of enthusiastic buyers.

"Is there not a place where I can stay for the night?" asked the stranger to a stallkeeper, who paused in the act of stirring a bubbling concoction.

"We-ell," she began. "Them mysterious samurais from a faraway land usually bunk at Yashida's. Understanding people, they are. Even have a yard for duels and gives a fruit basket for the loser. But it's full up at the moment -- they say there'll be a war, you know. Have some of this stew? You'll want to try Piotr the blacksmith, then. He rents a room to adventurers in search of magic gems, but there's not many of 'em nowadays, more's the pity. He might take you. 'Course, you have to watch for that temper of his."

The samurai blinked, trying to digest the rapid flow of words. "Thank you, good mother. I must take my lea-- Za's Vid!" The last was punctuated by the sound of clattering pots as he regained his balance with less grace than usual, glaring at the receding backs of a pair of teenagers who nearly bowled him over.

"Did ya see the guy's face?" giggled one of them, a black-haired maelstrom of restless energy.

The other merely grinned, and pushed his golden hair away from his face. "Not as good as Monet's face will be when she finds out you're gone," he teased.

"Pfft. I'm her 'prentice, not her slave!" she answered, waving a hand dismissively. "'Sides, Frankie, don't tell me you got permission from Her Iciness." She leapt over a small cart, ignoring the owner's angry yell.

"Two words, Jubes: Sir Sean."

She skidded to a halt, nearly tearing his arm off as she caught it in a vise-like grip. "Yer kiddin' me. After that juice incident?"

Franklin nodded to his fellow apprentice. "I'm not going anywhere near her for the next couple of hours." His blue eyes, the same bright colour as her own, lit up with mischief. "So... what do you want to do?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Everything!" was Jubilation's answer, the same one she gave every single time. "But first, let's eat! I'm hungry!" She dragged him off to one of the stalls they frequented, which sold spiced meat buns.

"You know what they put in these things, right?" he said conversationally as he devoured his second bun.

Jubilation snorted around a mouthful of minced meat. "Puh-leaze. Who cares? Yer beginnin' to sound like Monet." She struck a pose, quoting, "Jubilation, your manner is most unbecoming for someone who is to be a mage. To dine with kings, you must behave like one." Her face turned dreamy. "I'd rather sit in the same table as that cute squire. Whatta hunk!"

Her companion nearly fell off the barrels they were sitting on, his face red with laughter. "Yeah, right. As if Sir Logan would stop working him long enough for him to even notice you." He adroitly avoided her playful whack, only to be pitched painfully to the ground as his movement unbalanced the barrel.

But before she could taunt him, another voice cut in, booming over the noise of the marketplace. The two thirteen-year-olds turned around, Franklin dusting the dirt off himself as he did so.

"Cripes, it's that nutcase again," Jubilation groaned.

The "nutcase" was one self-styled soothsayer, Stryker. He was standing on a makeshift platform in the middle of the market, a picture of calm in the midst of chaos. Dressed in a voluminous robe of white and carrying a worn book of his sermons, the gray-haired man looked like a kindly grandfather.

Until one looked into his cold eyes, and saw the burning fanaticism there.

"For centuries, this fair city has been the birthplace of our fathers' fathers. They have toiled and wrought for their legacy, shed blood to protect it from invaders, keeping it pure from the demonic influence that was the bane of the world outside Avalon's walls," he intoned.

"Inbred, ignorant, and prejudiced," Franklin translated under his breath, and his friend rolled her eyes in agreement. Around them, some people ignored the speaker and went about their business, but many stopped and listened. To the two apprentices' apprehension, a few even nodded at Stryker's words.

"But now, look at the rot within us! Ever since the gates were opened to the only too willing demons and hellspawns, we, the true inheritor of Avalon, were pushed aside in favour of these unnatural creatures! Look at the elves with their nightmare eyes, and the mountain folk with their wolves' pelt -- could they have been born from the blessed Mother-Goddess' womb? Answer me! The goblins and trolls -- what place have they in the true order of the world?"

"Gee, last time I checked wolves ain't blue," muttered Jubilation, glaring the robed man.

"And even our High King, the protector of Avalon, have betrayed us!" Stryker paused, looking around at the assembled townsfolk with fervent eyes. "He had the pick of chaste noblewomen,--"

"Now that's an oxymoron," sniggered someone in the crowd.

"--pure in heart and lineage, but who did he choose? A pagan queen from the deserts, whose bloodline is suspect, and who wields power than can only come from Chaos herself! Can you truly say that you are safe from her dark machinations, which even now may threaten us all?"

"Balderdash," said an deep feminine voice from the back. A tanned, bony woman pushed her way through the crowd, disapproval radiating from her stern expression. She put her hands on her waist, glaring at Stryker and the others. "The High Queen's a fine woman, or so help me, I'll eat my shoes and crawl all the way home. Why, just three years ago there was a drought back at my village. All of us thought we'll starve to death, our crops dying round us even though our babes' tears could well drown the fields.

"Then comes the High Queen, promising that she'll let none of her people die, no siree. We thought she was just feeding us lies, trying to make us feel better. But she wasn't." The woman took a deep breath, smoothing down her faded dress. "She spent three days in the forest, she did, saying she needs to talk to the Goddess. When she came out she could barely stand, the poor thing, looking like she hadn't eaten a bite all the while. But the rains came that very evening, blessed be the Mother of us all. If it wasn't for High Queen Ororo, my boys would be dead."

Addressing Stryker directly, she said, "I'm no scholar, sir. But I'm a pious daughter of the Alara, I am, and I know when someone's done me kindness." She spat at his feet. "And I know when someone's telling lies. You all should be ashamed of yourselves, hearing this sort of rubbish."

"Aye," said a burly-looking man, leaning against a cart loaded with potatoes. A young woman stood beside him, who by the strong resemblance between them could be either his daughter or sister. "Remember Bastion and his Sentinels? Them 'demons' and 'hellspawns' died for us. Protecting us, even as bigots like you were running after them with pitchforks and torches."

He put an arm around the shoulders of the young woman. "My daughter here, she was hunted by a Sentinel 'cause she happened to have a little magick. Not hurling fire or something, just able to coax the flowers to bloom better. Would you kill her for that? But oh no, this Sentinel though she should die.

"There I was, trying to hold the bastard off with with my da's rusty sword. Just as I thought I was going to die for sure, the Sentinel's head went flying off his shoulder. And behind him was that elf knight, looking mighty pissed. I'm telling you, if I thought she wouldn't clock me, I'd kiss her then and there. She even sent a couple of men to help us rebuild our home." The farmer smiled at his black-haired daughter. "But she already done more than enough for me."

The crowd's murmur became louder. "They ain't so bad" and "Hah! 'Demons'?" rippled through them, drawing nods of approval and hostile looks towards the white-robed man. Jubilation nudged Franklin urgently, pointing towards a small group of people who had broken off from the crowd. They were still listening to Stryker's fiery rhetoric, even though it was nearly drowned by the cacophony of voices. More troubling was the fact that anyone who looked at them knew they believed him.

"Guardians coming through!" the meat buns seller suddenly shouted. Several people immediately and discreetly vanished. The mages' apprentices, more attuned to the presence of the beings around them, had already scrambled for a darker corner of the stall. They had no wish to be dragged back to the castle, especially by the city's protectors who thought them no more than a nuisance.

The dark-skinned commander of the Guardians looked ready to chew, maul, and generally do nasty things to any who presumed to block his path. Whispering among themselves, the crowd parted, trying to keep as much distance as was safe from the armed men and women (defined as "about as far as the crow flies, if you're very lucky") without missing out on the potential gossip fodder.

"Bishop's ma-aaad!" whispered Jubilation in a sing-song voice. "Can't wait to see what he'll do to that nutso."

"By the power vested to me by High King Magnus and High Queen Ororo, I hereby arrest you, Stryker, for disturbing the peace and causing dissent among the people." He clamped a hand on the soothsayer, formality gone but grimness staying for tea and biscuits. "Play nice and maybe we'll get a puppy for your cell. Now walk."

Stryker, shaking himself out of his shock, raised a fist towards the crowd. "My voice may be silenced, good people, but the truth shall prevail! May we all not be destroyed before--urk!"

"Beatrice!"

The Guardian endeavoured to give an innocently repentant grin, casually lowering her arm. "Whoops! Sorry, there's a strange breeze blowing around today. Snaps my hand up just like that."

Bishop hoisted the unconscious man onto his shoulder distastefully, shaking his head. "As I suspected. Your technique did seem a little off."

"I'll try to avoid strange breezes from now on. Really, I shudder to think what this will do to my reputation."

His rejoinder was lost in the background chatter as the market, already absorbing the event like a sponge, resumed its business. The crowd dispersed, most congregating in food stalls or taverns to dissect Stryker and his arrest over drinks. The two apprentices crept away unnoticed, their young minds buzzing excitedly.

"What do you think--" Franklin began.

"Will happen next?" Jubilation finished. "Beats me." She shrugged, half-heartedly kicking a pebble. "Seems to me that High King Magnus shoulda, like, stopped him before now. I mean, some people actually bought the loony's story!"

"They say there'll be a war, you know. Maybe he's too concerned about it to bother about Stryker," he answered seriously, catching the pebble with his foot and kicking it back towards her. "And the High Queen's having a baby, so she can't command the army with him. I'll bet he's worried about that, too."

"I guess," she said reluctantly, not quite convinced. But the stalls were beckoning to them too temptingly to pursue the problem any further -- at least for the moment. She kicked the pebble away, watching it land near a stall which was her personal favourite. "Hey, wanna go get some nougat?"

A hand fell on her shoulder. A well-known voice said, "You may not."

Jubilation and Franklin gulped.

"Aw, jeez," she muttered.

Glossary:
[1] "Petite sorciere" = "Little sorceress".
[2] "Quel dommage, non?" = "What a shame, no?"