Title: Pearl of Great Price Author: Kat Solano Email: orchydd@hotmail.com Rating: PG-13 Keywords: Action, Clan Denial admirer Characters: DM, M, J, RR, lots of OFC's to be explained below Summary: Duncan MacLeod has lost his soulmate, his son and more friends than he cares to count. He doesn't want anything to do with the Game, with anything to do with his old life and so he returns to Seacouver to close that chapter of his Chronicle. But trouble/adventure always finds the people of the Clan MacLeod. Okay, for the curious, this story is going to get a lot more involved later on. My corner of reality is a multiverse, which means that there are parallel dimensions. Lots of 'em. So just to help everyone who don't follow convoluted thinking as well as I do (it takes lots of practice so hand in there! I believe in you!), here's a short explaination. The entire Underground series comes in 3 parts from 3 points of view: X-Men, Gargoyles, and Highlander: the Series. Not everyone is a fan of all three of these so each line of reality can be read separately without losing much. If you want all the bitty details, you can go to my homepage and read 'em all. The Underground is an organization in charge of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. They are based in a place called the Aerie; people who live there are also called Aerenokt. Their main duties are to keep the time lines relatively straight (as in keep the paradoxes from happening) and keeping the Balance (don't ask, it's complicated and will be explained later on in the story). The Sovereigns that are ruling now are humans: The Emperor (Lucas/Darcfyr) & Empress (Kay/Stiletto) & the Triplets (Joyce/Yntenz, Jean[pronounced Zhan]/Jetblayd, Remy[from X-Men]/Hazzardd). The Xeno Core is one of 3 Core Warriors, the elite & most trusted of the Underground. Everyone in the Aerie use several code names because (1) it's a comic book convention (2) it protects their true identity from the poeple in the black hats (3) names = power; therefore the more names you use, the harder it is to figure out your True Name and do all sorts of Bad Things to you and yours. because of that, poeple who have a lot of power in the Underground tend to have lots of names. The codenames will be evident as the story progresses but just in case you get confused, here's a list. WARNING: this list will have SPOILERS for this story. Jetblayd: Manic; Terken Cnight Zwaard; Joaquin Rayne Demi; Beauregard Jean Tyrante-DeMi; Albuc'ier Ffayzz: Wave; Leialoha Ebenezer, Mikala Bennec Rydr: Noel MacLeod, Contact, Jack Terrin, Richard Ryan Stiletto: Blade; Syssion; La Lunetica de Noche; Kaytylyn Phoenix Turner; Tuk'ton Darcfyr: Wildfire; L'Ombre ab Soleil; Lucas Beauregard Demi; Wildfire; Claidbre And finally, some punctuation that I use: ::Speech between double colons are thoughts or telepathic:: :~:Words between these are telepathic speech on a wavelength accessable only to the Sovereigns:~: <Words between arrows is Underground Speech> This is my first Highlander fic though the Universe has gone on for quite some time in X-Men and Gargoyles. Hopefully, this'll integrate well. Oodles of thanks to Jen, my beta-reader, for bearing with strange punctuation and even stranger spelling. Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Duncan MacLeod, Richie Ryan, Joe Dawson, Methos, Connor MacLeod, and the various other mortals & immortals recognizable do not belong to me; they belong to Panzer/Davis and Rysher. I am a great admirer of Clan Denial so Season 6 and all that blatherskite never happened. On the chance that I may mention them, the Gargoyles belong to Disney & Buena Vista TV and the X-Men belong to Marvel Entertainment. The few people that DO belong to me are Jean, Joyce, Kay, Luc, Rowan & everyone in the Underground. Phew... if anything I resisted starting this line just ‘cause of the disclaimer _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.