“What? Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Deona heard on the other end of her phone. The other person sounded rather excited, “There are three possibilities. I heard from the Maguanac that there’s some kind of race going on, with the intent of finding food. Where the race started from, though, is unknown.”
“What’re the other two possibilities, Quatre?”
“I saw a strange sentient car on a mission along with someone that a lot of women would swoon over. You know... tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed... a real heartbreaker.”
She laughed and teased, “You’re more the heart-breaker, you know.”
There was a bashful laugh before he replied, “Now, I’m nothing much that’s concerned...”
She chuckled, and then continued, “Seriously, though... sounds like Michael and Kitt. We could try them, but it’ll be next to impossible to try tailing them, and you know why.”
“Tailing Devon Miles is out for similar reasons,” he replied grimly, “The other possibility at this time...”
As Quatre continued talking, Deona’s eyes lit up with excitement. She said, “That’s the one we’ll take, then. Where?”
“I’ll e-mail you the information tonight. Deona, you know I very rarely ask you for a favor...”
“Quatre, you’ve never asked me for one. What’s up?”
“Well, I have obligations of my own. Not just to the other pilots but also to peace and the Maguanac. If it weren’t for those, I’d go with you on this quest. But if you ever find the Secret Lair, would it be all right if I come and visit you sometimes?”
She smiled and replied, “I’ll talk to Moonbeam about it. I can’t promise that she’ll allow it, but I will ask her. That I promise.”
There was a smile in his voice as he replied, “That’s fine with me. By the way, I’ve heard a strange rumor about a girl you know.”
“What does she look like?”
“Teenager appearance, short blue hair, garnet eyes, shapely figure. According to the sources, she’s looking for some baby named Adam.”
Deona gasped and turned pale. She knew who that was just by description: Ayanami Rei.
She replied, “If she is here, you might want to get off the planet, stat. Her presence could get... very unpleasant.”
Very unpleasant was an understatement. The last thing she wanted was to find the Lair in time for Third Impact to happen to this version of Earth. While she thought it would be a sight to see and experience, she wasn’t ignorant to the consequences.
‘I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye,” she said and hung up before turning to her original muse and Rogue.
After her strange dream where she met an alternate version of herself, she had decided to give her original muse a name, like she had for the newcomer. Since he often acted like a certain, mischievous boy from Never-Never-Land, she named him Peter Pan, or when she was in a bad mood, Pan.
Now, she said to both of them, “Okay, you two. There are three possibilities, but the most viable one is a group that has a muse in it, one that doesn’t belong to them.”
Pan and Rogue looked at each other with concerned looks. A group with a muse in those circumstance meant that it was kidnapped. What Lair denizens were doing with that, they certainly didn’t know…and didn’t like.
“Can you two tell where other muses are at and track them that way?”
Pan started to nod, but then said in his chattering way, I can. Keep in mind; once we’re in a certain range, he’ll be able to pick me up. Unless we’re sneaking up on each other, we don’t mask our presence.
She nodded and replied, “We are sneaking up on them. Listen, we can’t do much until Quatre sends the information tonight. Rest up and get ready.”
The two muses nodded, although the human didn’t see Pan give Rogue a suspicious look.
~*~*~*~*~*~ “Who would have thought that the very first place I went searching would be the way to finally find the Lair?”
Pan shook his head, as bemused and surprised as Deona.
The last time the human woman had been in African countries, it had been the middle of summer. Now, in the first touches of spring, the area of the world wasn’t so hot.
From the time that she had received the information in Hong Kong up to now, the two muses had been arguing…in their own language, of course. It was a source of irritation, on par with the kind she had been undergoing in the first stages of the search for the Secret Lair.
According to Quatre’s information, the group would be heading somewhere out of the country and were staying in a city.
“If we’ve got any chance of being the tail, now’s the time,” she said quietly and turned... just in time to see Peter Pan screeching at Rogue.
“Settle down, you two!” she added, tone firm and harsh, “what’s gotten into you?”
Pan changed from the muse’s language to human as he chattered, This charade’s gone on long enough.
“Charade?”
Rogue blinked innocently.
You reveal who you really are right now or I’ll tell her everything myself.
“The hell..? Pan, have you drunk the local water or something?”
Pan shook his head and Rogue made sounds of innocence and confusion at the male muse’s claims.
“Rogue” isn’t a muse! She never was!
That made Deona’s eyes widen with surprise as she looked to the subject of Pan’s anger.
“If she isn’t a muse, then who is she?” she asked carefully, “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck—”
This is no “duck”, mistress. This is an imposter!
“All right... before we go on, we need to settle this here and now. Rogue, I highly dislike lying. You’re going to answer me truthfully or so help me, I’ll leave you behind right here and now. You hear me?”
Rogue actually slumped as though dejected and cornered. When she spoke though, everyone was in for a surprise.
“There’s no need to interrogate me,” was the reply…in a rough, male voice.
“You’re a guy?”
“Rogue” dropped to the ground and became a liquid mass... a golden liquid mass.
Her eyes went wide. When a muse shape shifted, they were still silver in color. This was the first hint that Peter Pan was right.
The golden mass then began to gather, growing taller and changing shape at the same time until it seemed to resemble a tall humanoid.
For some reason, the sight before her was looking very familiar.
Pan seemed to relax, though he also had a very triumphant expression to him.
She nodded to him and then turned back to the golden mass, which now was taking on the more definite features of a person. When the change was complete, her mouth dropped in shock.
Before her was a very familiar person, wearing a brown 2-piece uniform. His (yes, it was a man) face seemed, somehow, unfinished, and he had a flat-looking nose. His hair, dark brown and short, seemed almost plastered to his skull more than anything else.
Yes, Deona knew who it was.
“Odo?!” she exclaimed in near disbelief.
“Yes,” he replied, the voice stiff rough, “I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that you know who I am.”
“What’s going on here?” she asked, tone apprehensive.
“I assume you know that after the Dominion War, I left for the Founders’ homeworld in order to cure and teach them.”
“Yeah, I do know that.”
“In the dimension I originally came from, I accomplished that. An old friend of mine from Deep Space Nine suggested that I go with you and help find this... Secret Lair.”
“An old friend of yours? Anyone I know?”
“Yes,” he replied, sounding as though he was irritated she hadn’t figured out who it was, “Guardian Dena.”
Her eyes widened with this, but she nodded. “I know who she is,” seeing Pan’s “jaw” drop and eyes bug out in puzzlement. She continued, “What was all that with chaos, then? You’re not a muse, but you were able to control—”
“That was staged,” he admitted.
That shocked her.
“Staged!”
“He helped to stage that ‘encounter’ for the purpose of running into you.”
Deona shook her head in amazement. The entire bit of finding chaos under the influence in the Pyrenees Mountains had been set up. She was going to have to have a word with him the next time she saw that guy.
“So you’re here because Dena suggested you come?”
“This Secret Lair, when we find it, probably would need more help in the security department. It’s only sensible that I come along and offer my services to the proprietor.”
The young woman shook her head in amazement again before she said, “It makes sense... but Odo, you should have come up front with me about your identity.”
“That was before you met Dena while we were in Tokyo. You would have been resistant to the facts then.”
“I probably would have at that.” She sighed, then added, “All right, we’ll continue on as before. We might need to change the plan, though. After all, the two of you can change your shapes so that you’re not conspicuous but it’ll be a bit rough for me to be hidden. I can probably manage—”
The constable barked a laugh and said, “I left an item in the hotel where the group is staying that I brought from the Gamma Quadrant.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a personal cloaking device. It’s not exactly on par with what the Jem’Hadar use, since their ability is in-born, but it’s close enough. I also left some of what you 20th century humans would call ‘batteries’ for it.”
She nodded quietly and said, “In that case, it’s time we begin our own Shadowy Flight!”
Odo looked confused, but Peter Pan merely laughed with glee.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Once Deona, Odo and Pan secured a room in a hotel, the young woman and the muse left for their room while the shape shifter went to get the items that he had mentioned before.
“How long did you know about Rogue being Odo?”
Pan merely shook his head in a spiteful manner, having switched back from the serious self back to his usual mischievous manner.
She groaned and said, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t tell.”
He cackled with glee at the statement.
“Yep, you’re back to normal, all right.”
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“Odo.”
She got up from the bed she had been sitting on and quickly opened the door. As soon as she did, he came in, holding a bundle, wrapped in a towel.
When she closed the door, the shape shifter unwrapped the towel, revealing a strange, brown and gray-colored square box with a few lights and a couple of switches. On the back of it was a clip, almost similar to what she would see on walkmans but from the look of it, this clip was much sturdier.
Along with the odd box were four somewhat thick, cylindrical rods that seemed to be filled with some fluorescent liquid.
“This is the battery?” she asked, pointing at one of the rods.
“Yes,” he replied, “Each one lasts, at the most, a couple of days, but I’d rather you not ‘drain them dry in one shot’, as you humans put it.”
“In other words, use them only when you need them.”
“Precisely.”
Deona nodded and thought, “If they take a plane somewhere, you two could always turn into luggage or something and then I can hide in the cargo area.”
“That would work for while we’re in transit via aircraft, but after that, then what?”
“That’s when I’d most likely start seriously using it.”
Pan looked a little skeptical while Odo nodded, face eternally stoic... at least to her mind.
“Quatre’s going to be sending some information in a little bit about the flight schedule and where they’re departing from,” she said, “Until then, we may as well relax a little…and get something to eat!”
Odo made a face and grumbled, “Just be sure to know what you’re eating, some of the delicacies here are bugs.”
The young woman gulped and looked a little sick.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Deona went downstairs into the lobby, planning on seeing if she could get a good seat at the restaurant - if she could find it, that is.
My journey got started in the summer. Now, over six months have passed, and if this all pans out, the journey will be over soon. We’ll have finally found the Secret Lair that Peter Pan whispered about but wouldn’t tell me where it was. Now after we find it, all we’ll need to do is introduce and explain ourselves—
The young woman was deeply into her thoughts enough that she was jolted back into reality when she felt something collide into her…causing both to fall to the floor.
“Ow...” she heard the other person, a woman, groan.
“Oh, I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to run into you,” Deona replied and got up, then held out a hand to the other person. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll live,” she replied and took the proffered hand as she got up. “Safari heat get to you or something?”
“No,” was the reply, “I was thinking about some stuff while looking for any restaurants in this place.”
“Same here, about looking for some food. Who are you, anyway?”
“Name’s Deona... Deona Lindholm,” she replied, “How about you?”
“Me? Folks call me Knightshade, or Shady for short.”
Deona tried not to react to this. She had heard of Knightshade, all right, back before she had gotten started on this journey. She knew the woman from talking to her on several e-mails, had even heard from Kitt that she had been in the area, but this had been the first time she had actually seen the person.
Shady, however, looked at her carefully. “Wait a minute... Deona Lindholm? You the same woman that I’d talk to on e-mail?”
“In the flesh. First e-mail I sent you was about Knight Rider fanfics.”
Shady grinned and before Deona knew it, the young woman was being bear-hugged for a moment.
“Let’s go look for something to eat while we chat,” Deona said.
“Yeah. I haven’t heard from you in months. What’re you doing here in Africa, of all places?”
For a moment, she didn’t know if she should outright tell Knightshade the truth or not. This was a friend of hers…and definitely a denizen of the Secret Lair.
This was also the group that she had decided that she, Odo and Peter Pan would be tailing.
“I’m seeing the world,” she merely answered, “After my muse took off on me some months ago, I thought I’d go see whatever it was he found so interesting. How about you?”
“Well, I’ve had muse troubles of my own,” Shady said as they walked down the corridors, “One got stolen and once we recovered it, the muse decided to have me go to Kenya. And I got carried away... literally.”
Deona groaned at that, “Muses. Can’t live with them, can’t write without them.”
“Got that right.”
She knew if Pan had heard that, he would have gone on a rampage.
~*~*~*~*~*~ Later, when she returned to her room, Odo told her, “Quatre called while you were out. I explained who I was and what was going on. It took a bit for him to accept it, though.”
She nodded and said, “What’d he say?”
“The group we’re following will be leaving in the morning out of the country. Their names are—”
“Knightshade, Vespurrs, Pheral and Tomy,” Deona completed.
“How did you know?”
“I ran into Shady in the lobby, trying to find some food. No, she knows nothing about what we’re doing. As far as she knows, we’re seeing the world.”
Odo hmphed at that.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re actually having fun ever since you revealed yourself.”
The shape shifter snorted and replied, “Just because you know of me doesn’t mean you actually know me.”
“We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”
“Maybe.”
Deona merely laughed at that.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The next day, the trio of travelers set their plan into motion. Odo and Peter Pan changed into a pair of human children that had resemblance to the young woman. As far as anyone knew, a woman and her two children were traveling out to the airport to go home.
Once they arrived, Deona went into a bathroom with the children, muttering about why they hadn’t gone to the bathroom at the hotel when they had the chance, just as any mother would.
“All right, time for Phase 1,” Odo said, once the coast was clear, “Pan and I will change into luggage bags, marked with the proper tags. The plane the group is boarding will be leaving from Gate 5. As soon as you get there, activate your cloaking device and get to the cargo area of the plane. Stay there, cloaked, until I say otherwise. I’ll make sure that we get off at the right destination.”
Deona nodded.
Now, she shivered in the cold and somewhat cramped cargo area as she thought about the conversation in the bathroom. They had managed to get aboard the airplane without any hitches, which surprised the young woman. Although, what puzzled her was that Odo had cautioned against draining the packs dry, but had told her to stay cloaked in the cargo area until he said not to.
My birthday... it won’t be until May 14th. It would be nice if it comes along, seeing me, Odo and Pan at the Secret Lair. I wonder what the place itself is like; how many people are there, how many characters are there, and which ones. Will I still be able to write whatever I want, in whichever fandom? Will I be able to keep my promise to Quatre and ask the proprietress if he can visit sometimes?
Questions like these plagued her mind, and she would feel her heart leap into her throat every time that they would switch planes, while she would catch little catnaps during the flights... and even when she heard footsteps coming to the area where she was hiding. After all, there was the off-hand chance that a battery could go dead at the wrong time.
Sometimes she would hear, in her mind, a song that she had heard a few times before. A very haunting song that came from an Anime called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The song was called “Beauty is Within Us”.
There had been a few times when someone would walk a little too close to where she was hiding... and when that happened, she even would stop breathing.
Finally, a day and a half after they had left Africa, she heard very certain footsteps enter the cargo area of yet another airplane -- footsteps that seemed to belong to a steward -- and this time, the footsteps went directly to where she was. She almost panicked and reached for her device to knock the person out when she heard the steward speak... with Odo’s voice.
“I wouldn’t do that. We’ve arrived at the destination. Now it’s time for Phase 2.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
On a mountain path, Deona found herself very glad that even though all the mountains she had visited turned out to be the wrong ones, it gave her plenty of experience with climbing and moving around on them. Ahead of her were Knightshade, Tomy, Vespurrs, the muse and the others. Odo and Pan had taken on the forms of a big, white dog and a little silver cat, respectively, and were walking with the Lair denizens. The young woman was walking behind them, cloaking device up and running. The traveling had also given her experience in walking quietly, experience that had added to what few skills she did have in that field.
How those two managed to not cast suspicion at the concept of a cat and dog traveling together, I will never know, she thought as she walked on, especially since one of them is a muse, and they’re very close to each other.
Whenever Shady’s group would stop, so would she, and the same applied to whenever they were walking. After all, it wouldn’t do for them to separate now…not when they were so close to their final destination, the goal of this months-long journey.
Now…two days since they had left the airport and entered the mountains, she heard Shady, in front of her, say the words that she had envisioned herself saying.
“Well, we’ve finally made it.”
She looked up and saw a large, arch-like opening into the side of part of the mountain, just a short distance away. She gazed at the entrance, as well as at words that seemed to be part of the entrance itself.
MOON’S SECRET LAIR. We did it, we finally did it! She was crowing inside, we finally made it here!
That was when she noticed noise going on inside. It seemed that they had set off alarms, after all... either the animals had, or someone had been able to detect her through the cloak.
The dog and cat that had been with Shady’s group immediately left them and went straight to Deona. The jig would soon be up, if it wasn’t already.
The animals looked at her questioningly, as though asking what to do.
The young woman took a breath and said, “We wanted to not be caught until we got here, anyway. We reveal ourselves as soon as we get a welcoming committee.”
The animals didn’t reply, but they did stay where they were, as though agreeing.
We’ve finally made it, Deona thought as she reached for the cloaking device, ready to turn it off, Now, we face the future without running.
~*~*~*~*~*~ The End..?