They all had gathered for the twentieth anniversary of defeating Arago. The five troopers drove out to the same place by the lake like they had before with less beer than before with the old jeep. A couple of them were graying, one was brave enough to just shave his balding head, and one tried to hide the gray hairs. Except for Seiji. He was just lucky to still have a full head of blonde hair, and he teased them all. At one point in the trip, Shu and Touma were comparing bellies. While Shu looked more like his Uncle Chin, with the bald head and round belly, Touma looked like he could get rid of the beer belly, just choose not to. But then again, Touma was enjoying his single life as he and Carla finally decided to call the marriage quits after fifteen years and two kids. He often brought up that he and Ryo should hit the clubs, but was quickly reminded that thirty-six year old men would probably scare off the 'young' people where Touma wanted to go.

"It makes me sad. My little girl has no interest in science and math anymore. All she talks about are boys and shopping." Touma complained in the ride over, "Poor old Papa isn't important anymore."

Seiji snorted, "You gave her the choice of going to California over coming here. It's your fault."

"I wasn't going to leave her in Seattle by herself. She might 'go out.'"

The other three were now openly laughing at him.

"Oh shut up Shu. Just you wait until your herd of kids get older. And you two," he pointed to Shin and Ryo, "You two can't talk because you two don't have kids."

"And?" Ryo asked.

"Touma's sad that Kimberly is growing up." Seiji then wiped away an imaginary tear.

"What about Tom Jr.?" Shu asked, laughing.

"He's fine. I'm just worried about Hector trying to get him into some gang."

"Told you that you should have just moved back." Seiji mumbled.

"Neh neh, I told you so, neh neh."

Seiji sighed, "You know, I think your children act more like adults that you do."

Touma flared up, "I didn't get to live my childhood." He calmed down a bit, "So I'm going through it now."

"That's so sweet. I'm really happy for you."

"Watch it, Fishboy. I heard the sarcasm."

Seiji finished, "Except, that you've been this way since after school."

"What is it; pick on the genius day?"

Ryo spoke up, "If you were a genius, you'd come up with better comebacks."

"Okay, Mr. I-still-have-dial-up."

Ryo turned to Shin, "See?"

Shin nodded.

After setting up, the five troopers stood at the dock that was recently built. Ryo gave his short speech, in which the other four cheered after.

"Oh, we forgot something." Touma said before pushing Shin, "Fishboy belongs in the water."

Falling over, Shin grabbed onto Touma's sleeve pulling him with. Touma and Shin popped back up. Touma then proudly showed that he had saved his beer. His achievement fell apart when Shu and Ryo jumped in on top of them.

"Seiji, you coming?" Shu yelled.

Seiji crossed his arms, "No."

Now that the fun was ruined by a one each Seiji, they started to get out. Leaning over the side of the dock, Shin let out a long sigh. Looking back over the lake, he saw the reflection of the sun setting. He also saw that an old friend was standing on the water. Looking back at his friends and seeing that they were busy harassing Seiji, Shin took the chance to swim towards Lir.

"Greetings my young friend." Lir said.

"Hello."

"It's been a long time. How's the married life since you both now live in Japan?"

"It's going fairly well. We're happy."

"Is everything going how you expected it?"

Shin thought about it for a moment before answering, "It is. I wouldn't change a thing."

"Good." Lir grinned, "You better get back to your friends before they realize you're missing."

Shin nodded before returning. Lir continued to grin.

"Ah, it's good to see that bad deeds of mine can sometime lead to happiness of others. Suiko is complete with this bearer." He said, talking to the spirit next to him.

"Yeah." Ryuusuke smirked.

"Water is supposed to flow. Shin flows well with what is given to him. Sure there were some bumps in the way, but sometimes water becomes frozen when it gets cold. Well, to unfreeze it, you have to add some heat. Unfortunately for you lad, there was some depth to this iceberg and you were the exact amount of heat to get Miss Gabriella to go to Japan to get it flowing again. "

"You're an evil bastard."

"Not evil, just looking out for Suiko."

"I still call it evil." He said, messing with a deck of cards.

Laughing, they left the five troopers alone to celebrate their old victory in good spirits.

Long Author's note…

So, in case anyone is curious, this story was originally supposed to follow Rowen. Earlier last decade when the cartoon was on Cartoon Network, I came across a picture with him, his parents and a freaky hooded character. Not knowing anything about it, I was going to base a story on it with Rowen and Cye going to save his parents. Well a decade later I find out that it was supposed to come with one of the drama CDs. So then it turned into now Touma being forced to go with his father to the Soviet Union and him falling for a girl and then going to save her after he finds out that he and his dad were not brought there to help with space rockets, but so that the USSR could take Tenku and own the west. The Soviets then use the girl and his dad as bait and Touma freaks out on them and starts to follow the kidnappers to save them. Then he finds himself not only saving them but fighting a strange spirit/demon. But then reading into history, the Soviet Union was kinda falling apart at the time I was going to set it. So I moved it to Touma going to Florida and instead of a Russian girl, she became Cuban.

Meanwhile I had another idea of Shin going into the Coast Guard and messing with Fionnuala. It was going along the lines of what I wrote, but from Touma's view and then them meeting up to help each other. Well, I couldn't get Touma's story started and instead made it from Shin's view, and changed Touma going to the USA as a college student and the Cuban girl then became Carla.

There were a lot of other plans as well. I was going to send Shin to a lot of places before deciding on Somalia. First I was going to send him to Kuwait, then Bosnia, but decided that Somalia was just better for him because of age. So that's all part one.

Part two just kinda came out of nowhere, and it wasn't really going to be as long as it was, but then I had plans for a part three, which I decided to kill because I kept coming up with different story plots, and I didn't feel like sending Shin back into a combat zone. I felt like I'd lose readers because of emotions and people being sick of non-armor fighting as it would have taken place after 2001.

It was fun to write something besides Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I think Sokka showed up in Touma a lot, and I think Zuko showed up in Seiji too. Oops.

I do have two plot bunnies gnawing on my brain. The first one that I kinda started is a 'what if.' Pretty much it's what would have happened if the Ronins couldn't get Rowen out of space in 1988 and instead got him out in the year 2040. I made notes so I wouldn't forget what I direction I want it to go.

The second one is a crossover with Elder Scrolls, because I love those games and it just random popped into my head one day. I have a tendency of making someone from some cartoon into my characters. I have some notes on it and a basic plot, but I have to make myself research the world a bit.

So if either one sounds cool to post first let me know. And thanks for reading my longest fanfic so far.