A/N: This is just an intermission; I will upload the newest chapter when I finish writing it. My beta didn't go over this, so its kind of crap but oh well I guess.

They knew the second it happened, their leader, their only hope, Sir Aaron was dead. Crystalline blue eyes welled up with tears when his presence vanished from the world. The last remaining Aura guardians looked at each other, their eyes reflecting their hopeless, desperate despair. Those hunters, The humans who loathed the aura guardians and all that they stood for would surely hunt them down and kill them like rabid dogs. Them and those that they had been tasked to protect. Aaron had been the shield and the sword of the dwindling guardians and now he was dead.

Finally a young man newly introduced as a full guardian spoke up hesitantly voice somber. "What do we do now? Master Aaron is dead. But we still have the apprentices and sensitive's to protect." The others gave quite mutters of agreement locking up the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm them. They could mourn later, if they lived that long.

"You are correct Velius." A woman in her early twenties replied moving toward the front of the crowd easily. "Now is not the time for mourning, that can come later. For now we have to think of the children. With Aaron dead they are our only hope." She gave a self deprecating smile "I doubt any of us will be having children." Mirthless chuckles greeted that statement while Velius stared at her in confusion.

"Most of us are too old, and those that aren't...well I doubt we'll make it from Rota alive. Our tells are a bit too obvious." She saw the confusion still plain on his face and snorted.

"Our eyes, Velius." Understanding dawned on his face and he blushed in embarrassment. At seventeen his eyes hadn't moved out of the realm of possibility being a light sapphire, while anyone over age twenty in their order could not be mistaken for what they were. "That's why I suggest that we send them away, smuggle them out of Rota." The others shifted uneasily throwing each other cautious, hopeful glances. If the children survived they could live on.

It was Velius that spoke up though "Lady Alice...They're just children. They would never make it out alive." Alice gave a forceful nod spilling brown hair over her face and shadowing the blue eyes that doomed them all.

"That's why I am sending you with them, Velius." She watched his pupils blow wide and the blood drain from his face with no small amount of pity. But she would do whatever was necessary to ensure the children's survival. The others in the room where looking thoughtful, even hopeful as they stared at Velius. With his ash blonde hair and blue eyes he looked nothing like what aura guardians usually did. Nothing like his brother, who had been the face of their Order.

"Why me?" his voice was desperate, thick with emotion. She smiled at him, pity gracing her unnatural eyes.

"Because you look nothing like us, And I would like one member of Aaron's family to survive. Besides-" here she grinned vicious and wolf like "No matter how young you are there's power in your blood. And you're the only one of us that can pass as a normal human. It's up to you to make sure the Aura guardians live on. We are the protectors of the balance, if we all die so does the world."

He finally nodded despair hanging about him, but also hope. If this went well then at least some of them would survive this mess that their lives had become.

"Very well, when do we leave?"

She smiled brilliantly. "Tonight."