Title: Journey

Author: eMu

Summary: For anyone familiar with my older Weiss work, this is a Schwarz-centric (ain't it always?) more serious look at the little universe I created with my partner Chikin.

Rating: M fo' language and non-explicit bad stuffs

Prologue

What are you doing?" Schuldig asked. His fan fiction author and thusly Goddess eMu was parked in front of a computer screen. This was hardly an unusual occurrence although it often foretold bad things for him. Or at least it did in the old days, when she actually wrote Weiss and Schwarz fan fiction. Then the wench had started college and there had been a decrease in the amount of fan fiction she wrote.

"Reading." eMu answered. She didn't deign to look away from the screen. She was more than used to being nagged by her more needy fully-developed character voices. True to form Schuldig put one hand on the back of her chair, bent over, and read over her shoulder.

"Fan fiction, huh? It's been awhile Chicky." Schuldig observed. "You know, I kinda liked it when you didn't read other peoples' fan fiction about me."

"Why? I thought you were vain." eMu observed.

"Exactly." Schuldig scowled. "Those assholes you read about are completely different assholes than how I really am-"

"Schuldig, you're a fanon version too, you know. I'm not Takahito Koyasu. His version is the real you."

"Yeah, well regardless, when you read that shit you made me and the Weisslings and the guys spend time with their-" And he said it like a dirty word, "versions, and they were always screwing each other-"

"You're screwing Yohji, Omi and Nagi are screwing each other, and Aya and Ken are screwing each other." eMu pointed out. Schuldig ignored her.

"And I was always a serial rapist in their universes. Why is that, anyway? Since when have I cared about Aya enough to want to fucking rape him?" Schuldig wasn't reading over her shoulder anymore, but now stood defiantly next to the computer, a look of outrage on his face.

"We've gone over this." eMu looked bored. She wanted to continue with the fanfic she'd found, which, though not excellent, was at least readable. "A lot of the fan fiction out there is an excuse for kinky sex, and your series is about a bunch of pretty boy assassins. There is going to be rape fan fiction out there, and you're more likely to be the rapist than the victim with your personality-"

"But why?!"

"Look, if it makes you feel better I can pull up that fan fic where instead of raping Omi he rapes you." She offered. That at least stunned him into silence, and she was able to read another full paragraph before he started shrieking and spitting from horror and disgust. "You know, you look like Daffy Duck when you do that."

"Please tell me I'm not being raped by anybody in the story you're reading now." He begged.

"No, no rape." eMu assured him. "I don't actually go searching for those fics. People just like to sneak non-con sex into their stories for some reason. Anywho, this one is about a completely consensual late night hook-up between you and Yohji. Sound familiar?" She teased.

"Let me see that." Schuldig elbowed her until she got out of the desk chair and took her place in front of the computer. He scrolled through the fic, his scowl occasionally deepening, and occasionally muttering under his breath in German or Japanese, knowing eMu couldn't follow it.

"Well?" She asked, when he appeared to finish.

"Why was I smoking? I don't smoke."

She rolled her eyes. They'd discussed this one almost as much as the raping, which amused eMu on the few occasions Schuldig wasn't being whiny and annoying about it. Why cigarette smoking bothered her fanon creation to the same level as being a disgusting rapist was lost to her.

"Schuldig, people make you a smoker because they haven't put the same pathetic amount of energy into developing you as I have. Well, most of the time that's the case anyway, sometimes developed versions of you smoke too. But anyway, they make you smoke, because Yohji smokes, and when people don't feel like taking the time they should to create you they just make you an evil Yohji."

"Evil Yohji?" Schuldig repeated incredulously. "He kills people too! And he's a total whore! He's doing this shit voluntarily, I'm enslaved. How the fuck does he get to be the good guy?"

"Because he's presented as a protagonist in the canon material and you're an antagonist. Get it?"

"Look, I've never seen a single episode of that pathetic show where I smoke, or a single panel in the mangas you actually bought from Japan even though you can't read them, or any of those weird pictures. I don't smoke." Schuldig whined.

"Can I finish reading the story?" eMu asked.

"It ends with me crying and Yohji stroking my hair promising we'll get out someday." He said with a look of heightened disgust on his face.

"Well if someone's going to have a post-coital cry-fest I think they picked the right assa-"

"Fuck you if you say it!" He snarled. "I'll surrender the chair if you make me a promise."

"You know none of my other characters insult me this much. I mean, Yohji's a little whiny, but Omi comes in here and he asks me how I'm doing, and sometimes he brings cookies-"

"Yeah, because I have so much in common with freaking Omi. Do you want your computer back or not?" And at this he held eMu's can of iced-tea threateningly over the keyboard.

"Okay! Okay! What's the promise?" She yelped.

"Write something better than this." He motioned to the screen. "Write something about us, and post it, and make it freaking realistic this time. Less homegrown pets, hamster conspiracies and Grau, and more of, like Rosenkreuz, and like how we found Farf, and maybe actually get to us offing Ouka because that's the kind of thing people want to see?"

"So you want me to post something about the 'real' you, even though you're a complete fanon creation as well, you're just a different sort of fanon?" eMu asked.

"This shit's insulting." He motioned to the screen again, and he looked frustrated. "How would you like it if people wrote this stuff about you?"

"People said shit about me in high school a lot. I thought it was funny. People thought me and my brother were orchestrating a school shooting."

"Whatever. Are you writing it or not?"

"Fine. But I'm starting at the beginning this time." eMu stated.

"Whatever. Wait, does that mean I get a pre-Rosenkreuz origin?" Schuldig asked, trying badly to conceal his excitement at this prospect.

"Sure." She said with the sort of smile that hinted there was a condition involved.

'Eventually…' She thought to herself.

Chapter One

'How much longer am I going to be playing human pretzel?' Brad wondered silently. He'd advanced to Intermediate-level training at the Rosenkreuz facilities for Psychic Resources, and was regretting it almost as much as being abducted by the shits in the first place. The first training exercise his instructors had placed him in was something dubiously labeled 'box training'. It involved being folded into a position that would make a star contortionist proud and locked in a lightless black cell the size of a mini-fridge for hours on end.

The enclosed, dark environment was theoretically supposed to create a separation from reality that would encourage visions. And it had, he'd Seen a lot. However, he was now in so much pain that every time a vision started, an ache would bring him back to the present, in his tiny box.

He was lucky, he thought with a hint of irony, not to be at all claustrophobic. One of the other precogs had been, and when she'd begun cell-training it had told horribly on her. They kept her in the boxes for days at a time, and after the first week of it he'd seen her in the cafeteria. She had been inhumanly pale, with shadows under her eyes, and her movements were…different. Even when she looked at someone, her focus was never really on them. She was Seeing things more than anyone else in their age group, but she still had no control over it, so they had her go back into cell-training. After two months of it he'd seen her again, and she looked healthier. She wasn't claustrophobic anymore, and claimed to be enlightened. Enlightened about what she wouldn't say, but it had clearly come from some far-ahead vision she'd had. He thought she was just insane.

He was beginning to worry about his own sanity. It was hard to keep track of how long he'd been in the box. Such was the nature of the exercise. Visions were disorienting to one's sense of time. A vision of an entire day could go by in a matter of seconds, and if one was going to make use of one's talent in combat situations one had to be able to keep oneself oriented. And he'd already Seen enough to know he'd be in combat situations.

His eyes were going out of focus, which he could tell by sensation only as there wasn't enough light in the cell to actually see anything. The sensation meant another vision was starting. He encouraged it on as best he could, taking any distraction from his current discomfort he could get.

Suddenly he was older, taller and thankfully standing erect in the open air. He glanced down and saw a pristine white suit, pretty much the reverse of the rags he wore during his training in Rosenkreuz. So he was apparently doing better. There were three other people standing near him at various angles, but they were all blurs. Not because he wasn't looking at them, but because they were poorly defined. This vision was fluid, he'd Seen it before, but it tended to change with every viewing. Meaning the slightest change in the present could keep this future from ever happening.

He'd been planning for this one even before the Rosenkreuz Scouts had taken him while he'd been walking home from school. He'd first seen visions of the psychics' barracks when in kindergarten and spent most of his elementary school years looking for a way to avoid it, finding none. By middle school he'd settled on a vision where only he was taken and not his younger brothers as well, and from then on he'd been looking for his escape.

What he'd pieced together so far was that he'd need to advance quickly and he'd need to surround himself with a loyal group of complimentary talented and like-minded psychics. The best way to do this seemed to be to become the head of an assassin team, which the Organization had a tendency to sell for profit. He'd do much better trying to escape from some secondary organization like Esset than from Rosenkreuz. If he was quick in a matter of five years or so he could be at Esset, pulling the strings to bring this very vision into being, in which he and his loyal team killed the elders of Esset and finally earned their freedom. From start to finish his master plan would take about fifteen years.

He could see the Esset elders, two old men and an old woman, all marveling at just how powerful his team had become without their notice. Brad was speaking to them, but he didn't follow what he said: some of the blurs next to him had become more defined.

Standing just next to him with her deceptively slender arms folded was a slender woman in a white traditionally cut Chinese dress, her waist-long black hair tied in a rope-like braid. Her eyes looked bored, but the grin on her face hinted at the pleasure she took in the elders' discomfort. He recognized her. This was Sylvia, a telekinetic with mild telepathic prowess. She was a few years younger than him, but they got along well and had done some combat training together. She was good.

The blue on his other side also came into focus. He recognized his roommate, Alex. Alex looked much less confident than Sylvia, in fact he was almost trembling, and Brad momentarily questioned the necessity and usefulness of having two precognitive assassins in one group, especially considering Alex's low level of talent and Brad's incredibly high level. In fact, he'd never really expected for Alex to live this long. How Alex had managed to complete his Rosenkreuz training had probably depended completely on his roommate's manipulations.

Brad was suddenly distracted by Sylvia placing her hand on his arm. He glanced at her, trying not to let his surprise show. They were supposed to wipe out the Esset elders. Then they would be free. Why was she stopping him?

"I'm afraid this isn't in our best interest Brad darling." Sylvia purred.

"Excuse me?" It was quite clearly in all of their best interests.

"S-Sorry Brad. She knew, she was, like, in my head and she made me tell her what I was Seeing and what we were planning together. I'm really s-sorry." Alex stuttered.

Sylvia shot him, and he crumpled to the ground. It was as simple as that. She was always very detached when she worked. She never even moved her gaze from Brad's face. "Of course the Rosen won't really mind that these three fools have been dethroned. That's why we let you take your game as far as this. You're talented, Darling, they're all very willing to instate the two of us as the new heads of Esset. If you're interested. Or do you still want your freedom so badly?"

He took a compulsive step back from her. Everything was so wrong, this wasn't how the future was supposed to turn out.

Sylvia read from either his horrified expression or his surface thoughts that he wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of ruling over Esset. She raised the gun again, a saddened expression on her face. It only lasted a moment, before she again became the cold, precise assassin again. "I'm sorry it has to be like this then Brad. You're too much of an idealist. There isn't any freedom for us, just better positions in the game."

He was in the cell again. The horror he'd felt from the vision had jarred him from the receptive state necessary to see it.

He rethought his strategies again. He'd only recently toyed with the idea of keeping Alex around. He had sympathy for the kid, as he truly was a nice person. Alex wasn't cut out for a life in Rosenkreuz or Esset at all, and it showed. In a matter of months he would either snap or be 'weeded out', unless he had someone to help him. Brad had thought about helping him, mostly out of pity but also because in his old life Alex would likely have been a casual friend. They had some of the same interests, and Alex was a talented musician. If they were in high school together, Brad probably would have been envious of him. But musical talent wasn't important in their new world, and Alex would probably die.

Then there was Sylvia. Sylvia was involved in most of his visions. She was talented, she was ruthless enough to advance, and they got on well…but this had scared him. He needed a talented telepath to form an assassin group, and if he wanted to get traded off to Esset in four years' time, when an opportunity he'd glimpsed in a vision would arise, and be leader of his team at that time, then he would need a prodigiously talented one. But Sylvia was a prodigiously talented telekinetic with some telepathic ability, apparently enough to keep tabs on her teammates. Clearly she wouldn't work out. But if it wasn't going to be Sylvia, then who?

It was a risky move to force another vision about mutiny and overthrow in such a short period of time, but frankly he didn't much care. If he was going to spend an untold seeming-eternity folded into a shape completely unnatural for the human body, he was going to distract himself, and he wanted an answer to his questions.

He worked himself into the receptive state once again. Calling visions was similar to meditating, and with enough practice the visions became less random. Still, he was attempting something tricky for an amateur. He had a certain amount of knowns, as he was looking for a time period, location and specific event. But he also had unknowns, as he didn't know any of the individuals necessary to bring him to that place. This was what the precogs were developing their talents for, this scenario. To be able to figure out which pieces of the present needed to be manipulated to bring about a desired outcome. There are several ways to see the future, but to see something one could exact influence on, to be truly able to be guided from it, that was the challenge.

After long minutes, or maybe hours, it was still hard to tell at his orientation level, a blurry picture began to form. He saw himself again, the same age as before, in the same white suit, and the blurred figures were behind him again.

So far so good, no members of his team were committing mutiny. The blurs all seemed just as happy as he was to be there. 'But who are they?' He was straining himself to his breaking point, but the blurs weren't any more distinguishable.

Wait…wait, the one to his left. The blur was shorter than him, and the shape of the head…the blur had long hair? Yes, that was it, long hair with an orange tint…that was the most he could make out before another sharp ache jarred him back to reality.

He was back in the cell, and now covered with a thin layer of perspiration. It hadn't told him much, but he at least knew to keep his eyes trained for a long haired red head.