Raven's Legacy

Disclaimer: I don't own a dern thing.

AN: Last chapter, I hope you guys enjoy the semi-happy ending! After such a long wait I hope it meets your expectations... Note that this won't be focusing on Raven and Ryss quite so much, because there's actually sort of another pairing in here, as impossible as it is... But anyway, Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Five – Epilogue

Five Years Later

"Hey, Old Man! Where are you?"

"Who's an old man? I'm not answering to that, Twerp."

"Whatever. Anyway, Mom says dinner's ready, you better come down before she comes searching for you herself."

"I'll come when I'm good and ready!" Raven snipped back, hardly glancing to the teenager around the Zoid he was currently working on.

"Alright." Sevlin shrugged, his eyes closed as though he couldn't care less. "I'll just have to send the secret weapon after you."

"Do whatever you want, I'm not coming until I'm done," Raven called back offhandedly as he tightened a bolt and looked up to see his Organoid asleep and perched atop the Zoid. "Shadow get up and lift the claw five clicks to the right."

Shadow growled and obeyed as Sevlin waved his hand dismissively and made his way out of the hanger. "You asked for it..."

Raven grumbled incoherent curses under his breath, muttering something or other about "know it all twerps" and then went about his work as usual.

Moments later the maverick was disturbed once again, only this time by a smaller voice. "Daddy! Daddy where are you?"

Raven glared at the open compartment of wires and bolts in front of him. "I'm not meant to get this finished, am I?" he thought and set his current tool down with a clank before craning his neck around to see the child standing there, one hand waving while the other held a stuffed toy as it dangled and dragging on the floor.

The young child's blue hair was only more accented by her bright, turquoise eyes under the mop of her messy dark blue locks, all of which seemed to be framed around a timid smile.

With that, Raven's sour mood was promptly softened and he allowed a genuine smile to work over his features before grabbing the descention cable and lowering himself down. Upon touching down, he knelt to her level, tipping his head in a gentle expression that was so unlike him. "What is it princess?"

The girl timidly brought her toy up to her face, mumbling her answer into the stuffy. Her bright see green eyes regarded him eagerly.

At this point Raven didn't need to understand her words, and instead he held his smile and gave the girl's chin a light chuck before picking her up and started out of the hanger. "Let's go eat then."

In the dinner room of their Guardian Force apartment, Raven walked in, Sarah at his side, who announced their return with glee. Ryss smirked in response, not even bothering with a greeting. "Sarah 19 - Raven 0."

"Hardly." Raven rolled his eyes and sat down as Sarah ran off to another room, spouting something or other about toys.

Ryss sighed and placed a hand to her forehead, exasperated. "Sevlin would you-?"

"Got it," Sevlin said and followed after the child. Upon finding her he scooped Sarah up in his arms, toys and all, and after returning, plopped down at the dinning table with the girl in his lap, his head resting on hers affectionately. "Does Sarah love Sevlin?"

Sarah's face contorted into a ridiculous smile and answered most contrarily. "No!" Even with such a denial, the girl made no attempt to leave his embrace, but kept playing with her toys on the table.

"But Sevlin loves Sarah," the teenager stated, nuzzling her ear cutely in hopes of making her squeak with laughter, which it often did, with no exception at present.

After a fit of giggles, Sarah pushed his head away in all the seriousness a five year old could muster. "No," she answered, as though the statement needed correction.

"Yes he does," Sevlin insisted.

Ten Years Later

Gunshots erupted through the air on the training grounds of a Guardian Force Base. Targets were peppered by the bullets of some, the edges were punctured by many, but the red center was hit by few.

In other words, it was morning target practice for some GF new recruits, under the command of a certain coal haired colonel no less.

In an observation room not far off, a young teenager watched from the window, with anything but patience as a brunette beside her watched multiple terminals, as was her job as a navigator. "Their almost finished."

The teenager nodded eagerly in response.

Back outside, the target practice had ended, and Raven had begun his spiel about their lousy progress, with Sevlin, a lieutenant now, stood beside him, his arms folded casually. Raven gave a cant of his head to Sevlin, his eyes full of annoyance. "Lieutenant, do me a favor and show these maggots how its done."

Sevlin nodded with a smirk and drew a firearm from his holster, then proceeded to unload a round of perfect shots upon a fresh target.

Raven folded his arms and nodded with approval. "Now then gentlemen, that's how it's done. Learn it. Live it. I could care less if you love it." The colonel had only just dismissed them and turned to Sevlin when the lieutenant was over taken by a hug from a blue haired teenager.

Back in the observation room, where the said teenager had previously been waiting, Terra, the navigator looked around frantically for her assistant, only to see that she was outside already. "What?- Sarah what are you doing out there?! You have training in five minutes!- Ugh... Ryss is gonna kill me!"

After running up to and embracing him as though he were her true brother, Sarah was ignorant to the snickering and snide remarks directed towards her from the new recruits, as well as the glare her father was pinning on each and every one of soldiers that involved themselves in the activity. "Sevlin you did great!"

Sevlin chuckled a bit, trying his best to ignore the new recruits as he returned the hug. "Hey Sarah, thanks, but shouldn't you be-" Raven cleared his throat and Sevlin's sentence was abruptly cut short as Sarah turned and gave her father a fierce hug as well.

"Sarah, how many times have I told you not to interrupt me when I'm working?" Raven questioned, but the inquiry was received more as a light reprimand than a question."Or rather, how many time have I told you and yet still enjoy it?" he thought afterward with a smirk, one that did not go unnoticed by his daughter, and she promptly returned it with a knowing smirk of her own.

"Enough to encourage me even more," she replied smartly.

After cupping her chin and pressing his forehead to hers, Raven sent her on her way for her training, her training for the future. "Go on, you're mother's probably waiting for you."

"I know." Sarah sighed with a roll of her eyes. "My training for the future awaits," she said and departed, waving to both men as she did so.

Turning back to his trainees, Raven growled. "Well, since you all seem to be so lively, I've changed my mind. Now you get to do ten laps around the base track," he ordered, and his subordinates all groaned outwardly, only to get the lecture from the colonel in return. Meanwhile Sevlin continued to watch Sarah go with distant eyes, eyes that longed to follow her, even as far as the time unknown to him.

--

"I've trained my whole life for this purpose, I'm not turning back now!"

"So that's it then, you're really leaving us."

"Mom and dad are out there right now, fighting so I can do this!"

"No Sarah, they're out there right now, fighting for what they believe in. This, what you're doing right now, is your decision. You need to make sure this is what you want, and not just some responsibility that you've been wrongly charged with."

"Sevlin, I can't be selfish about this. Vega, in the future, he needs me," Sarah explained sadly. No, she didn't want to leave her family and everything she knew behind, but her choices were few, and although the disease that had plagued Vega was not yet apparent in her, there was always a chance that it would show up, thus she needed the vaccine in the future as well. It had all been planned out to the T; she couldn't changer her mind now, why didn't Sevlin understand that?

The problem was, Sevlin did understand. It was the acceptance that he was having a hard time with. As explosions and roars of Zoids could be heard outside the two of them looked to the capsule that held Vega captive in his deep sleep. Sarah would soon join him in slumber inside her own hibernation pod.

A battle between the Guardian Force and the Tainted Menace continued outside the hidden chamber, just as Sevlin fought a battle inside himself; he didn't want her to go, but at the same time, he knew he couldn't stop her. "Sarah, I'll never be able to live with myself if I let you go without telling you first!-" Abruptly he pulled her closer and kissed her lips tenderly, surprising her into shock no doubt, only to break away in order to fit her with an oxygen mask. "I love you, and even if you don't understand, it doesn't matter. Your destiny is different from mine, it always has been..."

Sarah stood there in utter disbelief and shock, even as Sevlin gently pushed her into the hibernation pod, she couldn't seem to comprehend why he had waited so long to tell her. After all she had only ever regarded him as has an older brother. She didn't even know how she was meant to respond, she wasn't even sure of her own feelings anymore.

Realization and the severity of the situation finally hit her, and although the sedatives were setting in, Sarah began to truly feel panic rise in her chest. "Sevlin, come with me, don't make me do this alone!"

As much as he wanted to, he knew he couldn't and he stepped away from her, pushing the initiation sequence and causing the pod to close. "We can't be selfish about this Sarah," he recited back to her with a smirk that held a mirthless humor. "Besides, you don't need me, you don't need anyone," he told her sternly and returned to the pod, pressing his hands to the glass to match hers in a symmetry parallel. "Be strong Sarah."

Sarah had unintentionally begun sobbing, wet tears dropped in a constant stream as they fell to mix with the serum that had already filled the pod halfway. "And don't forget me," Sevlin added, causing Sarah to shake her head in agreement.

Sevlin stepped through the doorway of the chamber and hit the key pad code, thus making the blast doors slam shut and lock, only to be opened from the inside, when Sarah's capsule would automatically disengaged its hibernation sequence in the future, on the exact date it had been programmed with.

Sevlin marched for the final exit, his heart broken, and his purpose fulfilled, he had little to live for aside from assisting his foster parents in the never ending war of which humans created with themselves time and again.

His love was one fated to be lost with the closing of a door. And an eternity that separated them forever...

--

Centuries Later...

"Are you sure about this Ma'am?"

"I said it didn't I? I've been preparing for this for five years. Don't question my orders again. Now do it," Sarah snapped, her arms folded as she looked upon her baby brother's hibernation capsule. "Five years... and a millennium..."

"Y-yes Ma'am!"

As the scientist scrambled to initiate the waking sequence, lights all across the terminal lit up, as did the green hibernation pod...

"Wake up Vega, it's time we carry on the legacy left to us."

Fin

AN: Yes Raven is(was) a colonel, I bet you're all happy about that. (grin) Anyway, I admit, this wasn't my best chapter, but I was having a hard time with it, and I just really wanted to finish this story after...what, four years? Anyway, hooray! It's finished, my thanks to everyone that reviewed and stuck with me all this time. You guys rock!