//------------------------------// // Why Chosen // Story: Three More Things! // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// As everyone gathered their wits and the Magisters started to get control of themselves, several nondescript black vehicles drove up, led by a black 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria. Men and women in matching black suits and wearing dark sunglasses poured out of the vehicles, immediately arresting the Magisters and taking them into custody...save for Michael McDoesn'texist, who seemed to have vanished. Out of the Ford only two men stepped out...and as much as Jade hated distinguishing people this way, they were deliberately so similar that on sight she could only think of them as being old and white and young and black. The older one stepped forward and removed his shades, unfolding an ID in front of the group. "Archaeological Preservation Society...Division 6," he greeted calmly. "I'm Professor Jones, and this is my partner Dr. Croft. We'll take care of things from here." Jackie took the badge he was offered and examined it. "...I didn't know there was a division 6..." he murmured under his breath in surprise. "...then again, I only learned the APS was global last week..." "Right," 'Professor Jones' commented dryly as he took the badge back. "Look, the energies of that discharge have left the site a little unstable, so I'm going to need most of you to step back a ways while we work on the cleansing. Dr. Croft, please escort this group away." When this got no response, he cleared his throat. "Dr. Croft!" "Oh, right, that's me," his partner muttered as he moved forward. In a more normal level of voice, he instructed, "Alright everyone, let's move along and I can explain exactly what just happened..." To Jade's surprise, Alucard, Hsien Ko, and Anderson calmly led the group to follow the man. However, the older man grabbed his partner as he went off. "No neuralizer," he instructed calmly. "What?" the younger man demanded in shock. "Why not?" "Those that aren't from allied organizations with security clearance are either non-human or have a divine blessing," the older man pointed out flatly. "It wouldn't work." "Then what's the point of a cover story anyway?" the younger man demanded aggressively. "And how come you got to be Jones? I'm J!" "When you're senior partner, you can get those answers and pick the pseudonyms, Slick," the older man answered calmly. The younger man made several angry faces, then turned and stormed off. Hsi Wu started to turn to follow the group, but paused when he saw Jade wasn't moving. "Jade?" "I need to stay," she stated firmly, pulling the hood of her robe up. "I...I don't know why, but I do." "You're right about that, Miss," the older man confirmed calmly as he knelt down to her level. "Generally the Chosen One is gentled into this...but you seem to have a good handle on this. I suppose you want answers." "Starting with who you really are and ending with what's going on, yeah," Jade pointed out a trifle waspishly. Nodding, the man pulled out a different ID. "I'm Agent K, of the MIB. My organization monitors and regulates extraterrestrial traffic on and around the planet Earth until such time as humanity and the other races of the planet are ready for official first contact...and the races of non-terran origin are ready to deal with humans in an official capacity, which is the bigger hurdle these days. I take it you and yours are responsible for the reality ripple and history shift that made that change recently, as well as making us a little more official with sponsorship from The Triumvirate?" Jade blinked for a time in surprise, then nodded. "That's made the job easier and a lot more complicated, so I'm not sure if I should thank you for that or not. "As for what's going on...there are only two things anyone knows for certain about Stonehenge, and those things are kept to a very strict 'need-to-know' basis by The Triumvirate which basically boils down to 'if you aren't in the know, you don't need to be'," Agent K continued. "First is that Stonehenge is somehow older than the sun-" "But I thought the carbon dating put it at-" Jade began. "Deliberately faked to keep the secret," K pointed out flatly. "The second thing known for sure is that the first Chosen One awoke as the Chosen One after sleeping inside Stonehenge, and that was before mankind had developed language. So there's a direct connection between Stonehenge and the Chosen One." "So...what does that mean, exactly?" Hsi asked carefully as Jade reeled, remembering that flash of awakening in a circle of stones understanding the concept of self for the first time, a memory from the first Chosen One. "Magic as we understand it couldn't exist in this area before the sun, the fields just didn't work," K explained calmly. "And it obviously wasn't built by anyone born of Earth. As such, it's under our jurisdiction. It was finally determined that whatever it does do, it's in no way harmful to the planet...so an investigative team used the Brotherhood of Magisters to activate it to find out what it really is for. There are structures like Stonehenge everywhere in the universe that there's civilized life...and all of them are older than all civilized life known in the universe." His eyes got hard. "Each world that has one also has some equivalent of the Chosen One, though they serve different roles on each world." "And so Earth's the testing ground to see what it-" Jade froze as she felt the touch of a powerful mind. A massive disc seemed to descend from the sky, visible only to those standing within Stonehenge...and lights and sounds echoed from it in a pattern. Jade felt her mind open up as something beyond her ability to understand or even begin to grasp attempted to make direct contact with her, and the world around her faded from her awareness, with only the faintest touch of Hsi's mind keeping her from losing herself completely.