AN: Ok, peoples, here's where I pour on the sci-fi. It gets kinda confusing, so be warned. But, as always, enjoy!

Part Three

It was the same dream, over and over. Heero had Relena safely in his arms...then darkness. She fell away from him and he was left alone with the figure in black.

On this night, however, the dream was different. It had started out the same, and Heero was left standing in front of the figure, but then the darkness began to fade. A white fog encircled them, and the trees with the autumn leaves grew bare and soon disappeared, their skeleton of branches swallowed by the rising mist.

Heero felt himself grow calm. He then had an eerie feeling he wasn't dreaming any longer. He collected himself and spoke to the dark phantom that seemed to float before him, waiting for him.

"Who are you?" Heero asked cautiously.

"I have no name," the figure answered him.

"What do you want?"

"Want...want..." the voice seemed to mock him.

"You're giving me these dreams, aren't you?" No reply.

"Damn you!" Heero paused at the silence which followed. He then thought of the note in the arrow and the phantom's warning about Relena. "Why can't I see her?" Heero asked bitterly.

"It is the way."

"ARE YOU MY ENEMY?" Heero shouted in confusion and frustration.

"Who are your enemies?" the voice echoed back like it was speaking from his own heart as the dark figure drifted away.

Heero flashed back into reality with a shock. He was dripping in sweat. He looked at his clock. It was midnight. He couldn't stand to stay like this any longer. Maybe if he left the Palace, left Relena, the figure with the haunting voice would leave him alone. If he wasn't around the princess, he would ensure her safety as well. Though feverish and dizzy, Heero lifted himself from his bed and began packing his things. As he was throwing clothes into his bags, he found the stone from Europa. He looked at the infinity symbol, cursing at it. He clenched the stone in fist, hoping it would break into a million pieces and rid him of his nightmares. Yet it remained.

"It's a talisman, you know," a voice interrupted Heero as he gripped the stone.

"What?" Heero looked up to see Relena, leaning against the frame of his doorway.

"A talisman," she repeated. "It's a stone or object with engravings said to possess mystical or supernatural powers, which it gives to its bearer. I was talking to Quatre about it. You know, he's into that sort of stuff."

Heero grunted a reply, deep in thought. But Relena was sure she saw his eyes narrow at the mention of Quatre's name. She knew how jealous he could get. The princess looked around the room. Various articles of clothing were scattered about him, and his travel bags were out as well. Then she looked at him. God, he looked awful. He usually looked so beautiful and placid. He was now sweaty and clammy, dark circles under his eyes, his hair in messy knots. He looked like he hadn't had a good sleep in ages. Everything about him seemed weary, as if he were fighting an endless battle, one of those dangerous internal battles that a person must face alone.

Heero threw the talisman in his bag and continued packing.

"You're leaving again?" Relena asked this like a question, although she already knew the answer. She tried to be strong.

Heero looked at her and hid the hurt inside of him. "What are you doing here?" he asked harshly.

"I was thinking about you. I'm worried about you, Heero." She stood silent for a time, then went on in a very quiet and concerned voice, "What's happening to you? You're avoiding me. You're isolating yourself. Something is wrong."

"I'm sick. That's all," Heero stately bluntly. He zipped up his bags. He was ready.

"And that is the reason you give me for ignoring me? That's the reason I stayed up all of those nights thinking of what I did wrong to make you hate me? Why do you always change so suddenly? I thought I had finally found you. I thought I had found the real you. Obviously I was wrong." She was angry.

"..."

"So you're leaving?" Relena asked again, as if to make sure what was happening was actually real and this wasn't one of her nightmares.

Heero walked towards the door determinedly, brushing past the girl.

"But why?" Relena asked sadly, tears now pouring down her cheeks.

"Because I love you," he replied in a tortured voice and started walking down the hollow hall.

"You said you'd protect me," Relena wailed after him, "No matter who the enemy was. You promised." She reached out her hand and clung to the sleeve of his shirt.

"And I told you before, I never break a promise," he replied coldly, and pried Relena from him. Heero turned his back on the desperate girl, who had now collapsed on the ground, and again began to walk away from her. He was determined not to look back. Heero winced at the princess's cries echoing down the vast hallway, causing him to walk even faster. "If only she knew this is the sole way to protect her," the solemn boy thought to himself. "If there was just some way to make it easier on her///" But the poor young man could think of no other way. It was killing him that he had to leave Relena with no explanation, but it had to be done. There was really nothing he could do. As Heero walked out of the mansion and into the darkness of the night, for the first time in his life, he felt completely powerless. It seemed that the Perfect Soldier had finally been defeated...for now.

Heero now stood in his old apartment. Throwing down his bags, he flopped on his bed, sitting over the edge with his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands as his fingertips ran through the messy brown locks which hooded his face. "Why?" he thought to himself. "Why now? Why the shot? Why those dreams? Why that letter? Why do I always have to be tortured just when I think I've found happiness?"

"Because all of your life, you felt like you've been searching for something haven't you?"

The voice came out of nowhere.

Heero sat up with his back rigid. That voice, it was the same one from his dreams, his nightmares.

"You're all alone now, hanging in the balance between mankind and perfection."

"Who are you?" Heero's voice stung with harshness. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"I am..." the voice faded. An eerie blue glow filled the bedroom. A bright field of light appeared before the bed on which Heero was sitting. Out of nothingness, a figure began to appear in a swirling of air. It came to him as the same dark clothed phantom in his dreams, however, this time, the massive cape which had previously completely engulfed the figure now rippled off in the currents of air. Afterwards, there, in front of Heero, stood what looked like to be a human being, except this creature had skin of an iridescent pale blue. Its hair was a glittering snowy color, and its face was the same as a man's, except where the eyes should have been, there was a white light glowing from behind delicate eyelids. The mysterious guest was clad in a dark outfit of what looked like a warrior, as Heero noticed it carried a bow and arrows and had a sword resting at its side. But as Heero sat in awe of the figure before him, a familiar symbol caught his eye and he saw a large silver amulet in the shape of an infinity that the creature wore around its neck.

The bluish being gave a slight bow and began to speak in a soothing voice. "Why?" it repeated Heero's question as it stretched out the syllables of the word. "I knew you were going to Europa, Heero, so I planted the gemstone with the seal of My Kind."

"That damn stone," Heero thought. "That was what started all of this."

"I wanted to see if you were ready to face your future," the creature continued. "I wanted to know if you could hear the silent call of the talisman's mystery, which sings aloud to Us, yet falls upon the deaf ears of humans. You answered its call when you brought the stone back to Earth. I knew then you were ready to see me."

"What could you possibly know about me?" Heero spat, not really wanting an answer.

"I know everything about you," the creature said, "things you yourself do not know."

Heero sent his look of death towards the bluish figure.

"I will tell you what I know, but you must believe me," the figure told the young man. "Believe what I am about to tell you, even when you think you cannot."

Heero gave a nod and in its cerebral voice, the creature slowly began.

"You were never born. You were made. Yes, you may have had parents, but when you were just a fertilized egg, you were taken from your mother's womb and placed into the care of the Creators, a group belonging to a top secret genetic engineering project."

Heero sat baffled. He was never really born? Did he even exist?

"Your genes were rearranged into a pure and perfect code according to your purpose. You, Heero, were bred for the battlefield. Based on that fact, you were genetically engineered into a machine, given the brains and body of a soldier. Your mind was accelerated for attack plans, reaction times, and decision making in battle. They perfected everything to make you a Perfect Soldier, disregarding emotions that weren't needed for battle. They did not realize the repercussions of this error. By not engineering emotions into your flawless mix, that void grew into a fatal imperfection. Basically, you were a killing machine, perfected in body and mind, but left in the dark as how to show and deal with your emotions, knowing no more about your feelings than would a little child."

Heero's mind raced, eager to absorb this information about his unknown past, yet his face, as always, showed nothing.

"You might have been fine if you had real parents, teaching you about love and how to interact with others. But you were kept in the care of Odin Lowe, an infamous assassin, who taught you only of killing and coldness. You were then handed over to Dr. J at the beginning of Operation Meteor, and your training with him further isolated you from a normal childhood. Predetermined to be a military genius, battle exercises came easily to you. Then you were introduced to the Mission. The Mission was your life."

Oh, the Mission, the Mission....the thing that controlled his entire life, the thing that was his purpose. Heero didn't need to be told any more of that. He had become aware that he was just a puppet long ago.

The voice went on, "You see, in all of this time, during all of the killing you were exposed to, you had been taught to feel nothing. Maybe they were trying to protect you, just a mere boy, from the harshness in which you lived your life. In reality, you knew nothing of Love or Hatred. Actually, at this young stage in your life, you were not callous, as some view you today, but rather, simply ignorant.

"All of this changed on your first real mission, when your plan to destroy a Mobile Suit base went awry and the housing complex next to the base burst into flames. As a result of this error, innocent lives were lost. You went to survey the damage and you found the dead body of a dog you had seen earlier with a little girl. When you saw the torn and tattered fur, the life which had been taken away by your hands, you felt something for the very first time. You experienced feelings of guilt, sadness and pain. As you brought the puppy's lifeless body back to Dr. J, the scientists working on Operation Meter were finally faced with your greatest error. Your Creators did not realize that the deepest part of being a human is to possess feelings and emotions. How were you expected to be a killing machine when they ignored your very essence? The scientists then took it upon themselves to alter you again. Dr. J was ordered to bury these new emotions or even erase them completely. The fools! Did they not see they could never suppress the raw elements of human nature?"

Heero was shaken with memories of the little girl and her dog. No matter how hard the scientist tried, no matter how cold and unfeeling they made him, they could never erase those painful memories or the feelings that came with them. No, he would be left to suffer because of them for the rest of his life.

"This is your story, Heero. This is the truth. You were never a human in the eyes of the scientists who built you, who made you what you are today. They used you for their own purposes, then left you to deal with their mistakes all by yourself. I'm different, Heero. I've been watching you. I see great things in you. I want to help you. You can finally be released from this life that has kept you in agony. You can benefit yourself and the whole human race if you agree to come with me. Heero, you have strains of immortality intertwined in your mix of man and machine. You see, some codes the Creators formed were so perfect that they discovered the key to everlasting life, so to speak. That is why you have been known to cheat Death time and time again. This immortality is the thing that brought me to you. Don't you understand? Part of you is of My Kind."

"How do you know this?" Heero looked at the figure through narrowed eyes.

"I can see into your heart and the essence of your soul with eyes you never even knew existed. I can see your pureness and your light and I have chosen you to accompany me."

"And where is it we're going?" said Heero, with a hint of impatience in his usual calm voice.

"Into the Beyond."

"And what if I refuse?"

"One does not refuse such things as these," the creature said ominously.

Part Four

Relena again found herself glued to a chair by Heero's side, as the young man lay in a comatose state in the hospital.

Fearing for Heero in his feverish condition when he had left the Palace the previous night, Relena had called Duo to check on his friend. Because no one had heard anything from Heero, Duo assumed he was in his old apartment, and possessing a spare key, decided to stop by. The braided pilot knew something strange was happening from Relena's worried expression when she had called him.

Duo found Heero lying on his bed. He appeared to be sleeping, but spoke and tossed vigorously in his sleep, like he was in a dream, but Duo could not wake him up. Rushing Heero to the hospital, he was immediately handed over to Sally's care. She managed to bring Heero down to a more stable condition and sought desperately to rid him of his fever, which was now growing to a dangerously high temperature.

Relena came to the hospital as soon as she heard Heero was there. And now she sat next to him, holding his hand. He often whispered incoherent words in his sleep. Every so often, she would she him wince and could feel his grip on her hand tighten.

"Relena," said Sally in a grave tone as she entered Heero's room.

Relena tore her eyes away from Heero to speak with Sally. "Have you discovered what's wrong with him yet?" she asked hopefully.

Sally exhaled a long, deep breath and pulled up a chair across the bed from Relena. "At first we thought he may have gotten an infection from his injury, but Heero's shot wounds seem to be healing beautifully. However, he just can't seem to shake this fever. He's had it on and off for the past few weeks, and now it's getting worse. The problem is, we don't know what's causing it. We're actually not quite sure what is happening to Heero. His mind is experiencing high levels of activity, but he seems to be getting weaker. The only thing I do know is that..." she trailed off.

"What?" Relena asked impatiently.

"Relena, he's dying."

The princess sat silent and still, her eyes staring at the ground. She was trying to believe what she had just heard. Her heart wouldn't let her.

"You've got to understand, we're doing everything we can," Sally tried to comfort Relena. It was almost as if the doctor could see the pain oozing out from the girl's crushed heart onto the floor. "I--I'm sorry," Sally stuttered.

"Leave me," Relena managed to get out in a barely audible whisper. Sally complied.

Relena directed her attentions back to the struggling dreamer who lay before her. Her hands shook as she touched his sleeping form and her vision grew blurry from the tears flooding her eyes.

"Why won't you wake up?" Relena choked on her words. "Please, wake up."

Fresh, hot tears fell without restraint as the princess threw herself on Heero and held him tightly in her arms.

Sally stood leaning against the closed door to Heero's room. She clinched her fists tightly as she heard Relena's painful sobs through the doorway.

Noin walked up from the lobby. "She took it hard, I take it," Noin said solemnly.

"More than you know. I think my heart just broke back there," Sally said shaking her head.

"I'll tell her we're going to bring Heero back to the Palace as soon as she calms down," said Noin as she and Sally walked down the hallway. "There's really nothing more we can do for him here."

<><><>In Heero's Dreamworld<><><>

"Before you told me of my past, I asked you who you were," Heero told the figure in front of him. "You never answered my question. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me exactly who or what you are."

"I am a child of the moon. I am the Bringer of things. I am the Seeker. I know all that is unknown."

"Do you think yourself a god?"

There was a pause. "No...but I am higher than you."

Again, Heero gave the figure a look that meant it needed to explain itself.

"I have come to you in the form that most resembles your kind so that you will be able to understand me. I have chosen to look like a soldier so you may feel comfortable around me. In reality, I do not look like this. I do not look like anything, but yet, I still exist. These things are hard for humans to understand, as they have always been taught that 'to see is to believe', so I will try my best to tell you what I am.

"There are things beyond Life and Death. There are things beyond Heaven and Hell. I am one of those things. You can be, too. Your kind was always meant for greatness. Both of us came from a common ancestor. But somehow, as these things often go, we evolved into the Higher Beings that we are today, and you were left to roam the Earth. You humans still had much to learn, you still have much to learn. But it has always been prophesized that when the time is right, there would be one, the One who would come to lead the humans into greatness. The One would be both mortal and immortal, both innocent and tormented. With the help of Our Kind, they would transform into a Higher Being and open up a gateway for all humans to pass through so that they may enter into the Beyond."

"The Beyond?" Heero asked.

"That is the symbol of Our Kind. That was the symbol on the talisman. An infinity, I think you call it? To you it means Without Limit. Really, it is something different. The Beyond is an everlasting cycle that exists always. It is a constant stream of energy, of souls, of forces, and of knowledge. It is the balance that streams throughout the universe. It is the universe. It is everything and nothing at the same time. The Beyond is something humans are still incapable of understanding, and thus they are forced to keep on living as they do now, so that they may continue learning. Yet they never understand, and so are still only human."

"And you think I am 'The One' that you are looking for?" Heero asked the Seeker.

"Yes, but we will find out very soon."

"I think you are seriously mistaken," Heero told the supernatural being, then thought to himself, "Humans still have way too much to learn before they will ever be able to comprehend something as great as what this 'Seeker' calls 'The Beyond.'"

Ok! Well, that's it for parts three and four. Comments would be greatly appreciated. I really would like to know what you all think of the supernatural elements in this fic. It's really different from stories I've written in the past, so I don't quite know what to think of it. Well, that's it, I guess. Thank you for reading!!!!