Omen
by Wusai

Disclaimer. Hunter x Hunter belongs to the great Yoshihiro Togashi.
Claimer. I own my ideas; hahaha.
A.N. The title probably has nothing to do with the fic… I'm listening to Xenogears music right now, and that's the song I'm listening to. d00d, Yasunori Mitsuda r0xx3rz.
Note. The 'faemier' mentioned in this chapter and further chapters is not an actual creature. I didn't want to name them familiars, or name them daemons… so I combined the terms. Just so you guys won't go looking up what it is. And if you do, and if there's a result, do tell me! O_O!
Faemier. pronounced fah-me-air. That's spelled out in English phonetics.
Note Two. The Genei Ryodan will be called the Phantom Brigade. Why? 'Cause I said so.

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Part I

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Power. Most crave it, few have it, and some are out to destroy it. Of the few who possess it, there are those who use it nobly, and those who abuse it. Those who use it nobly are beginning to diminish, and at a rapid rate.

The ones who own Power are rulers, kings and queens, members of royal families. Those who crave it are the average villager, though some crave it more than others, and some give little thought about it. Nonetheless, they who give little thought about it are no different than they who crave it; they still want the invisible Power.

And those who are out to destroy it?

Of course, they are not out to destroy Power itself. Every person wants Power; no person is born without that everlasting craving. They are the ones who are out to destroy the kings and queens, to destroy their reign, to earn freedom. However, not all see their acts as noble; many consider them evil beings.

"King Nostrad, here are some more forms for you to sign," said Kasani, the servant. She set down an enormous stack of papers before the king, a man with graying hair, many wrinkles, and an expression of uttermost unhappiness written on his face. He picked up a pen and sighed as his eyes scanned over the tiny print on the paper. Kasani bounced down the hall.

"Princess Neon, these people want their fortunes told," Kasani informed Neon, in a seemingly forced happy manner, as she plopped down an even bigger stack of paper down in front of the young princess. Her baby blue eyes widened, if possible. Her lower lip began to tremble as she counted the papers.

"Ka-Kasani…" Neon stuttered, "There are three hundred seventy-six papers in this stack. That's seventy-seven more than last time."

"I know! I noticed, too!" Kasani exclaimed, happily. "Your fame is finally spreading; I never thought it would take so long!"

"…Yes, I suppose so," Neon said, and sighed. Nothing she could say would ever change Kasani. She picked up a pen. "Lovely Ghost Writer!"

Kasani watched with interest as Neon's baby blue eyes turned dull and blank, her faemier, a rabbit, mirroring her expression, and watched the green ghost clamp itself onto Neon's hand, moving it by itself. She brushed a stray lock of dark brown hair out of her wide, round, black eyes. Moments later, Neon dropped the piece of paper that she was writing on, and Kasani quickly picked it up. She set it on a tray, which was on top of Neon's counter. Again this process repeated, until all three hundred seventy-six fortunes were told.

"Yay! All done!" Neon exclaimed, happily. She threw her arms up into the air so enthusiastically that her long, pink hair jerked out of the loose bun it was in at the back of her head. Kasani sweatdropped, and picked up the tray, hugging it close to her chest.

"All right then, Neon-sama. I'll take these fortunes back to King Nostrad, and you can do whatever you like. Is there anything you want? Maybe the king will get it for you!" Kasani said, and Neon's big, blue eyes gained a thoughtful look.

"Hmm… I need a new journal. But not just any journal! It has to be from the eighteenth century or earlier! Here, I'll write it down for you… I know how forgetful you are," Neon offered, excitedly. Kasani nodded, and Neon messily scribbled down the information and handed it to her.

"All right, Master Neon. Have fun doing whatever you want to do!" Kasani shouted, jubilantly, as she ran down the hall. "Oops!"

Kasani bent down to pick up the papers she had dropped, and picked them up slowly. She looked both ways down the hall before pulling out something from underneath her sweater.

She raised the necklace to her face, making sure the inverted cross pendant was before her mouth. She momentarily released her forced, jubilant bubble, and became more serious, her true personality.

"Can you hear me?" she mumbled, then raised the pendant to her ear.

"Of course I can. The king seems to be under a lot of pressure, no?"

"Yes. Neon is also under quite a bit of pressure. I think the time will be soon."

"Hmm…"

Kasani winced as she heard the scream of some torture victim in the background.

"We should wait for a little while, hm? At least until the others come. That way we can have more fun."

"I dunno… who knows how long they'll stay under pressure?"

"But still—" Another scream in the background. "This job is getting boring. They never bring in any fun prisoners."

"…You sadist," Kasani joked, and picked up the last paper. "Well, I shouldn't talk to you any longer, or else someone might notice me mumbling to myself. I'll contact you again later."

"All right. Bye."

Kasani tucked the necklace back into her sweater, and bounced off back to King Nostrad. She set the tray on the table marked 'to be sent out', and handed the slip of paper to the king.

"Neon wants a… what was it again? I forgot… Anyway, it's on the paper," Kasani said, then bounced back down the hall. King Nostrad sighed again, and signed his last paper. One would think that every time he sighed, he gained a wrinkle or another white hair. It was truly possible.

Kasani peeked into another room, and she smiled.

"Found you," she said, and strode to the girl's side. The girl paused her sewing, and looked up.

"What do you want, Kasani?" she asked, irritably. "I'm a bit busy."

"Xin wants to wait a while before we launch the… plan," she began, an edge of seriousness to her voice. "I want to launch the plan now, since we don't know how long their pressure will last. What do you think?"

"I'm not sure. Both sound reasonable… Is three of us enough?"

"Why are you having doubts, Margaret? After all, you are the most confident out of us. Shall we toss a coin?"

"That's fine with me. As Xin if it's ok with him."

"Margaret says she thinks both plans are reasonable… We should decide when to launch the plan with a coin toss."

"Fine by me. Spider."

"Web. It was…"

"Spider, no?"

"Yes. All right, we'll wait for a while. The rest are coming soon, I suppose?"

"Yes. Patience."

"Right. We'll wait… though I don't want to. I'll be off now."

"Bye."

"Same."

"So I suppose I can work in peace now?" asked the blue-nette.

"Yes. I'm off to clean the palace; see you later."

"'Kay. Bye."

Kasani bounced down the hall again, and picked up the cleaning supplies. She proceeded to clean the palace as she said. About an hour later, she walked outside with a bucket of dirty water, and threw the water out in an arc. She turned, and was about to walk back inside, when she heard a rustle behind her. Curious, she turned to the source of the sound, but there was nothing. She shrugged it off, and turned back to the doorway, only to have the barrel of a gun pressed to her forehead.

Then, there was the sound of a gunshot.

:·~§~·:

Phinx absently stroked his golden scorpion as he spoke with the leader, Kuroro. The cold ocean winds blew, gently tossing the small boat from side to side, sending it rolling over the waves in a most unpleasant manner. Sheets of rain seemed to want to drown the boat, however, the passengers shrugged it off, as though it were only a light drizzle.

"We'll be there soon," Kuroro said, his normally gelled back hair hanging loose, framing his face, making it seem paler than it normally was. At that moment, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, followed soon after by a roll of thunder. Then, an enormous gust of wind; the boat nearly turned over.

"Ugh…" Ubogin groaned, his face a sickly shade of green. He ran over to the side of the boat on large legs, covered by pads of fur, and vomited.

"Hah! Who would've thought that our so-called 'strongest' member was weak against the sea?" exclaimed a loud voice that could only belong to one person: Nobunaga. The solitary person having a louder voice was Ubogin, who proved it with his response:

"Shaddup, ya bastard!" he roared. Immediately following his retort was another wave of nausea, causing Nobunaga to laugh louder. The miniature bear cub at Ubogin's feet growled menacingly, thus quieting Nobunaga. Or rather, temporarily quieting him.

"It's lucky we escaped on time," Franklin, a large, frightening looking man commented, "or else Coltopi would have been caught."

"Mm," Coltopi replied as he made a copy of a wooden crate for amusement. His face was covered by long clumps of blue green hair. While everyone had some sort of animal at their side, Coltopi didn't. Not even a flea living in that forest of hair.

"I hope Shizuku, Machi, and Feitan are all right..." Franklin said to no one in particular.

"Feitan?" Phinx snorted. "He'd be a torturer at that castle for sure. Everyone'd be too scared of him to even notice that he doesn't have a faemier."

"True, true. But what if the king decides to have an inspection?" Franklin replied. From the way he said 'king', one would think that he didn't bother capitalizing it when he wrote it, even though that was a rule in their spelling and grammar.

"He's fast enough to escape," Phinx said.

"Has Paku delivered the message to Shizuku?" Shalnark asked, changing the subject.

"Most likely," Kuroro replied. "She left three days ago…"

"Ah! I see the shore!" Nobunaga yelled.

"Wonderful," Ubogin muttered. "Wish the storm'd calm down."

"Stop whining," Nobunaga ordered.

"I wasn't."

"You were."

"Wasn't."

"Were."

"Wasn't."

"Were."

"Be quiet, both of you," Kuroro commanded, calmly. With that simple command, the two loudest members of the Phantom Brigade quieted down. However, there was still the occasional whisper of 'wasn't' or 'were'.

The small, wooden boat stopped at the shore moments later. The Phantom Brigade disembarked the boat, with Ubogin walking rather shakily. Once they made sure they had everything, Kuroro opened up the book he carried at his side, and flipped through the pages. Oddly, the ink in the book did not seem to be affected by the rain.

Once he found the thing he was looking for, he said the name of the skill.

"Sphere of Fire," he said, extending his palm. A, surprise surprise, sphere of fire appeared on his palm, and he pushed it toward the boat. Once the fire landed on the boat, it erupted into a raging fire, consuming the boat hungrily. The people on the other side of the lake would never know what had happened to them.

:·~§~·:

"You could have just told the plans to me…" Kasani mumbled, rubbing the place on her forehead where the bullet had hit.

"It would have taken too long, and someone might have heard," Pakunoda, the woman standing before her, replied. "Also, you might've forgotten. At least this way, you'll have the memory… for a while…"

"True, true…"

The sky above them had turned dark for a while, but the clouds were slowly beginning to part.

"Looks like they've arrived, since the lake always has a large storm when someone tries to cross it. The storm's so large that the clouds can even cloud over the sky over here," Pakunoda commented.

"I know. Geography was my best subject in school, surprisingly. Don't know why I can remember that stuff and forget that I'm right handed…"

"But you're left handed."

"Agh. I forgot. Oh, but make sure your faemier is visible. The King does inspections of visitors that he finds on the castle grounds."

"All right."

An amber colored cat appeared on Pakunoda's shoulder, batting at her hair.

"What about you, Shizuku? Don't you have to have your faemier out?" Pakunoda asked, looking over Shizuku.

"No. The king trusts his servants," Shizuku replied.

"What about Feitan? How did he slip through?"

"…I forgot," Shizuku replied, sheepishly. Pakunoda sighed.

"Oh well. That's not important, anyway. I'll be meeting up with the others, then. We'll meet up later, then," Pakunoda said, then walked away. Shizuku picked up the bucket, and slowly walked back inside.

"They've arrived," Shizuku said to the blue-nette when she passed the room she was sewing in. The blue-nette, Machi, nodded.

Now I only have to hope that the plan will be successful…

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A.N. First chapter done! ^_^ More on faemiers in future chapters.
~Wusai