Ames:

There was a raindrop and a spark of fire who meet by accident as they fell to the earth.

All their lives they had been told never to touch each other or they would destroy one another.

The fire gave light and warmth but it also burned and destroyed. Water smother and drowns, yet it is essential for life.

The flame and the raindrop wanted to touch each other. When they did collide they did not die, they became smaller then eventually became one.

Their relationship only wired because of two facts. The fire destroyed everything while the water created something new. They became smoke, bonded together forever.

I have heard this story before from Azun. When I was four and he tried to be a brother, he failed.

I watch on my computer screen the old footage of when Nathaniel was eight and Azun was seventeen. Azun was tucking Nathaniel into bed, and as usual, Azun was telling his brother a bedtime story.

"Thaniel." Azun laughed. "Let me tell you a story about how the sun died each night so that the moon may live."

"I didn't know the sun and the moon were alive." Nathaniel smiled, fixing the sheets around him.

"They are very much alive." Azun lied. "The sun and the moon are lovers. They constantly chance each other around the earth, searching for one another, always missing each other by minutes. They rarely get to meet."

"What about in an eclipse?" Nathaniel asked, pulling a stuff animal under the covers with him.

"I'm getting to that." Azun sat down on the bed. "Every once in a while they meet up, and they kiss-"

"Gross!"

"Not gross." Azun ticked his brother. "If it is so gross, why does the world stare in awe at their eclipse?"

Nathaniel thought about it for a moment, unable to come up with an answer. Much like how I couldn't come up with a weakness to my older brother. No footage of his history was getting me anywhere. I turn off my screen in frustration and walk over to my mirror.

Well Azun and I haven't always had this bad of a relationship. But I know I will be happy with him dead, because that who I am.

Azun always told me to listen to my heart, to be who I am on the inside. I want to see his insides on his outside. I look at myself in my bedroom mirror, what does he mean by what is on the inside? Larkin sits on the bed behind me, fiddling with my duel gun I gave her.

I fiddle with my necklace, its shiny, like me, a diamond in a family full of silver coins. My family are all idiots to underestimate me. Azun is a fool to even think about dueling with Larkin, who has perfect sight and can hit a pencil eraser from a mile away.

Azun is dumb, he will chase anything that is thrown at him, like a cat with a laser pointer. This will bring death upon him. I glance at my watch, thirty minutes.

"Lets go Larkin." I tell my sister as we head to the door and into the elevator. My hand still fidgeting with this necklace.

We arrive in the woods behind our house, in a spot we agreed to meet.

"Ames, Larkin." Azun greets us as he leans against a tree.

"You can get out of this easily if you tell everyone you take back your word about Mike and Luke." I warn him, knowing he will ever back out if I call him out.

"I can not do that."

Azun is having troubles with his gun, he has it loaded weird. What a terrible way to load it, he is not as good at duels as he used to be. I have to give him credit for all he has done, I have seen his performance in duels before and I am quite impressed, but Larkin is better. My necklace glitters, casting a glow onto a nearby tree.

"Ok then, you have your partner I presume?" I ask, trying to distract myself. This was my first duel that I am a key player in. I have only watched duels before, never been in one or a partner in one.

"Destan." Azun points to my younger brother behind him. "Larkin I assume your partner is Ames."

"You are correct." My sister states. "You bring your pistol?"

"Of course." Azun states.

It's dawn, the sun is barely breaking this part of the galaxy. We only had an hour till someone will have realized we left the base. Azun walks over to me, he takes me away from the other two, so we can talk in private.

"If I happen to lose the battle." Azun hands me a note. "Give this to Nathaniel."

"I will assure that this gets to him." I promise, shoving the note in my pocket. I don't lie with a dead man's last request. "Can we agree that duels are kind of dumb?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you just take back your words?"

"I can't."

"Do you know that you killed thousands of people? Then you disgrace our generals."

"Yes, but they have no right to control us like animals."

Azun and I walk back over to Larkin and Destan. Larkin and Azun go back to back. In ten paces I will have lost a sibling. In ten paces there will be a dead body with with blood on my hands. In ten paces my life is going to change. In ten paces a body will lie dead. Ten paces. Ten heart beats. Ten seconds.

My necklace dazzles in the small light of the sun rising, usually sunrises symbolize new beginnings not endings.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5." Dustan mumbled, he counts as my sibling take steps away from each other. "6, 7, 8, 9, 10."

I hear the guns go off. I won't tell this to anyone, but Azun is a terrible shot for all I know and Larkin has perfect eyesight thanks to her gift. He will die and it will never satisfy my heart as I watched the bullets move.

I have made a mistake. It wasn't a fair fight.

My world moved around me in slow motion, the bullets shot from their guns, Azun's went right over Larkin's head. But Larkin's sailed right at Azun's chest. Hitting him straight in the heart. I saw my brother fall, his back hitting the ground and his gun falling from his hand. He gives up the ghost.

"Does he surrender?" Larkin commanded, her voice echoed through my head.

"You shot him in his torso." Dustan raced over to Azun, the world was spinning. "Of course he surrenders."

"Then I think we are satisfied." Larkin turned to me, cocking out the billets in her gun, no sympathy in her voice. She is a deaf and blind soldier, she cant see that what she did was wrong. "Are you okay?"

I blinked, my vision sharpened, my ears snapped. I could finally see what had happened. I soak it all in, I wish I didn't see what I saw. There was nothing anyone could do. Azun was gone, beyond this world.

My brother had died.

Larkin shot him in the heart.

This was all my fault.

"What are we going to do?" Larkin whispered to me. "I didn't mean to kill him."

"Where were you aiming?" I snapped.

"I wasn't. I was trying to give him a chance and he threw it away."

"We gotta do something, if Dad or Luke finds out that we are responsible." I couldn't finish that thought.

"I don't want to even imagine."

I walked over to my dead brother's body. Dustan knelt beside him. I scanned over Azun, his suit was stained with his blood on his shoulder.

"Azun." I said, my voice was shaking, this was a mistake. "Please don't leave me alone, you are all I can trust... I can't stand up to Mike and Luke alone... please don't leave me. Please don't leave me Azun."

His eyes were closed, like he was sleeping. If only he was sleeping, but his chest wasn't rising.

"Dustan." I eased my way into this conversation.

"Luke is going to kill you when I tell him what you did." Dustan snapped. "You are so dead."

"Dustan!" I hissed. "Are you going to help us? You were just as deep into this as we are."

A long pause. I don't know what he is thinking.

"There is a bridge about ten minutes away from here, just out of town." Dustan stated. "The river that runs under it will erase everything, if we can just remove the bullet."

"Are you suggesting we fake a suicide?" Larkin snapped. "That is punishable by death or worst we could be banished to Earth."

"Yes." Dustan breathed heavily. "Yes I am."

I nodded and dug my hand into my brothers shoulder, his warm blood filled my palm as I searched for the bullet.

"I will do what I need to do." I said to Azun. "I will stand up for freedom."

I could feel his muscles, soft and squishy in my fingers. I could feel my siblings eyes glaring on me as I searched for the evidence. At last my fingers closed around the sphere, I pulled it out. Larkin snatched it from my hands, tossing it out into the forest.

Dustan and I lifted Azun's lifeless body onto our shoulders as we dragged him down the path to the bridge. Larkin dusted our tracks as we went, like anyone would care to trace our tracks. Dustan and I lifted Azun's body over the bridge rail, his shoe clanged against the rusty old metal that hadn't seen a person in decades. We watched as his body fell into the river, disappearing into the water without a trace. He was gone, forgotten, the only memory was with us three.

And as far as the world knew...

Azun Watcher Zodiac had committed suicide.