A/N: Well, here it is sports fans! This one might be on the short side compare to my other fics. Still, I hope you enjoy it. A little bit of housekeeping before we get started. First, I've enabled the anonymous reviews for those with no log in. I'm looking forward to hearing from people who aren't subscribed to the sight, but abuse of the feature for flaming will get it disabled, so keep that in mind. Second, I don't like the idea of requiring a certain amount of reviews to update, however I'll let you know that the more reviews I get, the quicker I'll probably end up updating.

And a note for new readers, this is the third in a trilogy, so if you want to understand what is going on, I would suggest reading The Wolf of Sector Y, followed by An Old Friend's Request.

All original characters, locations, and themes are copyrights © Fira Astrali, all others are copyrights© Nintendo. Now that the formalities are over, enjoy!

Grass crunched and shattered like glass under Wolf's feet. He walked slowly, not sure where he was. He was standing in a clearing filled with the crystal grass that broke underfoot. It was sheltered by glass trees with small, heart-shaped leaves. The trees spouted an occasional air lily from their trunks. Every piece of 'vegetation' rippled gently in a wind Wolf couldn't feel. The tiny gust made the leaves rub against each other and sing. The sky above was pitch black without so much a star to light it, while the soil beneath his feet and everything that grew out of it was glowing with an unnatural, powerful light. It was like the world had been inverted. He reached out for a nearby hanging flower, wanting to understand the strange place.

"Ah!" he hissed, and snapped his hand back protectively. A thick trickle of red ran from his finger where it had made contact with the flower's razor sharp petal. Some of his blood stayed on the flower, glistening like dew. He watched it, incapable of tearing his eyes off of the single red drop. It hung on the very tip of the petal like a tear. Then, with a sound like a far-off bell chime, it dropped from the tip into the infinite space of light beneath Wolf's feet. The blinding light that came up from the soil seared him out of his trance, and he stumbled back away from the plant. He cradled his pricked hand, which was bleeding much more than it should have.

He was so preoccupied with his injury that for awhile he didn't notice the small noise that could be heard within the stillness of the forest. When he finally did hear it, his ears pricked up to determine its source. It sounded like tiny pebbles bouncing off a larger rock. Something about the noise compelled him, like the drop of blood left on the petal, and he found himself following it.

The sound came from beyond a small field of shoulder height grass that blew in the wind, making a sweet sound. He could see the blade sharp edges that each stalk had, but in him was a powerful, irrational feeling of need to find the source of the stone sound, and so he walked into the grass without hesitation.

The glass grass was merciless. Wherever it touched, it sliced through him like he was made of water. The thick clothes and space-worthy fullsuit he wore on missions offered no protection. He could feel his blood spread over every part of him, but he refused to stop. The pain seemed so close and biting, and at the same time so unimportant. The spellbound feeling held him tightly. He had to know what was beyond the razor grass.

Suddenly, he stepped out of the field. There was no slow drop off of grass, it simply ended. He was again confronted by tall crystal trunks, but these had no leaves. They look to be completely dead, the light in them only a tiny glimmer compared to the brightness of the trees on the other side of the field. He could see little wisps of shadow curling in an out of the trees. He could hear them talking, lamenting about their sad lives, when at the same time they possessed no mouths to speak from. Hollows that were meant to be eyes turned on him, regarded him for a moment, then floated aimlessly away.

Wolf felt an incredible desire to turn back, to go back through the painful grass just to escape such an awful place, but the rock sound could be heard louder now, and his desire to know won out over his fear. His feet started forward, seemingly of their own accord. They led him to a sheltered spot where the dead branches intertwined overhead to create a thick canopy of glass that locked out the black sky and gave a little more light to the secluded place. Here the short grass shimmered with a little more life, and a large boulder sat in the middle of the clearing. It was not made of glass, but true stone. Sitting on it, with her legs pulled up under her chin, was a small human figure with raven hair. Even though she was facing away from Wolf, he knew she was a girl. She was picking up a handful of pebbles and dropping them onto the rock.

"Hey!" Wolf called to get her attention. She stopped her pebble dropping and turned around to look at him. Wolf gasped when he saw her face. "Sloan!"

She smiled when he recognized her. She looked healthier than he had ever seen her. Her gauntness was gone, and her clothes were of better quality than Wolf had ever seen her wearing. Her hair was long, flowing over her shoulders. Nowhere on her body was the mark of abuse, recent or past.

"Sloan, I was so worried…"

She answered by holding her hand out for him. "Daddy," she said.

Wolf didn't pause to think of what she had just called him, he walked forward, eager to take her hand and lead her back to where she would be safe. His hand touched hers. A gunshot went off in his mind. A young girl screamed.

Oh god, Kia. Memories of death and blood filled Wolf's mind. A young dead because of him. He'd never let that happen again, no matter what. He wrenched his hand away. Sloan's broad smile faded a bit.

"Daddy," she said again, holding out her hand with a bit more urgency.

"Don't call me that!" Wolf snarled, pretending to be suddenly angry. "I'm not your father!" I have to protect you. If you come with me, you'll die.

"Daddy!" Sloan held out both her hands for the retreating Wolf.

"Never! I'm not your dad! You're not my problem!" Here you'll be safe, you've got to stay away from me.

He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. He turned around, ready to confront Sloan again. But the creature that stood before him now was not the healthy little girl that had been sitting on the stone. Her head had been shaved clean, and she was dressed in a ragged military uniform. Every visible limb was covered in cuts and festering sores. Her eyes with completely pale blue, like a Hunter's. She held a long, serrated knife above her.

"Wolf," and with all her might she brought it down on Wolf's head.

Wolf cried out in terror, but did not stay unconscious long enough to feel the knife. He jolted from his nightmare, body covered in cold-sweat. He looked around the room he had been given, to make sure the Sloan of the dream had not followed him into reality. Automatically he reached for the bandana lying on his crude bedside table. It was the black one with the skull and crossbones decorating it, the one that had once protected Sloan's barcode from prying eyes. It had been the only trace of her that searchers had found in the three long, agonizing days since her disappearance.

Hauling himself out of bed, he crossed the small room, dark due to the lack of windows and the single yellowed bulb that was its only illumination, and turned on the sink. He ran the water for a time, until some of the brown colour faded from it, then splashed it on his face in the hopes of erasing some of the images from his dream. He grabbed his black t-shirt from the foot of the bed and slipped it on over his ragged head. He didn't both with his coat, despite the late night chill that still hung in the air.

As silently as he could, he descended the several flights of creaky metal stairs it took to get to the ground floor. As this warehouse had been retrofitted by illegal immigrants, the original stair system that provided only one extra floor had been torn down in favour of more floors close together. Then, somehow they had found the materials to section the floors into many small, squat dwellings that were about the size of the average bedroom. They conducted their entire lives inside the little abode. In the wake of the emergency move, some families were actually sharing these tiny apartments to make room for the children to occupy the ground floor.

Wolf's private room was on the highest floor and considerably nicer than the average, even if it wasn't any larger. It had a real bed, running water, and a door instead of a sheet of dirty cloth or tarp. He found it extremely uncomfortable sleeping there, surrounded by what the locals would call luxuries, and desperately wanted to get back to the Nicell. He had only stayed at the warehouse in the hopes that he could be there when Sloan would come back. Now the 'when' was starting to become an 'if'.

Wolf heard coughing from one of the small rooms nearest him. Pulling back the curtain, he found Xannon bent over one of the more sickly children, giving him water via a damp cloth. The little fennec's body shook with an illness he had been fighting for days, and every time Wolf saw him, he seemed a little weaker. The worst part was that he was not the only case. Quite the contrary, in fact. Over half of the kids rescued had come down with some sickness or another, the severity dictated by the strength of the child or lack thereof. The warehouse was not nearly as clean as the one that Xannon had left, and so disease ran rampant for all the inhabitants. Some of the locals tried to help heal the children, but they knew that their presence would only make it worse.

Xannon glanced to her left and noticed Wolf watching her.

"The searchers came back awhile ago, but you were asleep. I haven't seen you sleep so soundly in days, so I decided to leave you," she told him without looking up from her work. Wolf thought of his nightmare, but said nothing of it to Zindi.

"I figured as much." There was a pause. He didn't bother to ask if they had found anything. If there had been even the faintest trace of her, Wolf was sure that Zindi would have woken him. He turned and began to leave the room, only to stop at the threshold. "I'm going back to the Nicell in the morning," he said casually. "I thought that maybe we could find some clues, the tracking system on the ship is pretty good, and the AI is pretty smart, she'll…" Wolf's voice trailed off. He heard Xannon pause for a moment, then the boy whined for more, and she continued with her task.

"I suppose that might help, but it's already been three days, Wolf, I don't think…" another stop. No one seemed to be able to finish their sentences. "These children need to be moved again," she told him plainly. "They can't survive like this. They need to go somewhere else. I was thinking Elise, that planet is just on the edge of the Red Zone, so the Outlanders can help them there. I know people who are sympathetic to our cause, they will give us a ship, but it won't be big enough for them all."

"We can always use the Nicell, but what about Sloan? We need to find her before we leave," Wolf urged. Xannon sighed and turned away from the boy for a moment to face Wolf.

"These children are dying. They need to be moved. Now. I'm sorry, but Sloan is probably long gone by now. Whether she was captured by slavers or Red Generation, I would be amazed if she was still on this planet." She looked sadly up into his eyes. "I'm terribly sorry, Wolf, but mistakes were made, and now she's gone. You're going to have to let her go."

"No!" Wolf's cry echoed around the makeshift apartments. A quiet buzz of whispers and the poking out of heads from behind cloth-doors started as locals tried to find the fool was that was screaming his head off at such a god-forsaken hour. Wolf ignored their muttered protests, continuing to look straight into Xannon's eyes. "I'm not going to give up on her just like that. This is my fault."

"She was very sick, Wolf, she could have had a break-"

"No, I did this, I drove her away. Now she's in danger, I know it. It's my responsibility to find her, and I will."

"I don't think you can."

"I will." And with that he turned and left the little apartment. Xannon followed him only to the threshold, calling after him.

"Boolie is a big system, by the time you search all the planets she might be on, it will be too late!"

Wolf did not answer her, he just kept on walking. He was right, he had done this to Sloan, and he had to fix it. But Xannon was right, too, the children wouldn't last where they were now. He was on a deadline, and had no leads, and with every passing second, Sloan's precious time was slipping away.