Disclaimer: Ok, I have worked on this plot since 2nd grade, and I will be supremely ticked if someone steals it. This is mine, and no one else can say otherwise. _ I am desperate for reviews! I'll even take a flame, just as long as they review! : P

Warnings: Ok, this story is pretty tame in the first couple chapters, but it will get ugly further down the road. Very ugly. Which is why I have labeled this fic as PG-13.

Summary: Crossing into the hands of Destiny and Fate are only the first steps. Have fun! ^_^

Prologue: End of the Beginning

Year: 3296

Location: Earth:

Government Facility no. 481-269

The latch to room 269 clicked softly out of its notched cradle as the key turned inside the intricate network of locks. Stiffly, the handle turned and the looming metal door swung open with an ear-piercing creak. The small room was bathed in a white light that seemed to radiate warmth in the cold darkness. Incandescence shone off of every piece of machinery and illuminated the hundreds of buttons and knobs of the metallic contraptions. Light even reached a molded red chair that seemed to shrink away to the farthest reaches of the room. Sitting in the chair was a man in his mid- forties with large glasses that exaggerated his eyes several times their normal size. The fuzz on his head was so thin that his scalp could be seen with ease, and his hairline was receded to the point where a frontal view of the man would reveal no hair at all. Some of Beethoven's compositions trickled softly from the speaker sitting on one of the machines; Beethoven was the man's favorite composer. He craned his neck upwards, as a worshipper would for a god, to a radar screen that revealed two small dots moving steadily across a void of nothingness. The man blinked away the tears that had welled within his eyes.

" ," the man asked the leader of the people that had entered his secluded domain, "I suppose the Council ruled the decision in your favor."

"The Council has pulled the last of your funds, Bill. You are to shut down operation Facsimile as of five minutes ago," Frank stated with arrogant victory in his voice. The heads of the people behind him nodded in agreement, but Bill just grunted in frustration and looked down at his feet.

"The Council doesn't know what they're doing." Bill mused, "If I shut down operation Facsimile, then what will become of Earth. What will become of us? And our futures," Bill looked up at the dots moving across the radar screen again, "what will become of them?"

Frank stepped over to the red chair and savagely spun it around. "That's what you want to know? 'What will become of them?' My God, Bill! You actually care about those-those things as if they were human! You must need new glasses, you decrepit old man, because those things you sent into space are only animals-just a pair of a couple of cats and dogs. Any sane person can see that, so why can't you? "Are you so blind to everything but Facsimile that you can't see that you're washed up? Your funds were never much to speak of in the first place. There was never enough to even sanitize the equipment that was used for those ships. Your crews left one by one a long time ago, and now you are alone, Bill. So why do you keep punishing yourself? You're just wasting your time! The government wants to restore Earth, not find another. So you see-It's over. You're done. Your operation has been deleted."

Blinking furiously as tears streamed down his face in rivulets of sorrow, Bill stared directly into his rival's fiery eyes. "You're wrong, Frank. I still care about this operation-it still has so much potential! My facility may be mere garbage compared to that of your Water Sprite operation, but that doesn't mean Facsimile can be tossed aside."

"Garbage is meant to be tossed aside, you fool!" Frank screamed.

"Wrong!" retaliated Bill. "One man's trash is another's treasure! I've spent my entire life on this operation, and I will not give up on it yet! We humans have brought Earth to the brink of destruction with pollution and crippling warfare. This planet is beyond the renovations of your Water Sprites. Most of the ice caps have already melted anyway, and there is nothing your sprites can do for that. All they will do is clean the planet, like good little housewives. They will never be able to fully repair the damage-no one will! That's why I will continue searching for another planet fit for the immigration of humans until the day I die!"

"Really, Bill!" Frank snapped impatiently, "Do you truly think that those little doggies and kitties you sent into space will ever find a planet similar enough to Earth? I'm sick and tired of this-we all are! It's over! Accept that operation Facsimile has failed, and-"

High-pitched notes beeped erratically from the radar screen, interrupting Frank's would-be rant, and Bill abruptly jumped from his chair to attend to the main computer. Above the men's heads, the radar screen displayed the two dots sitting in an idle position above a larger dot that seemed to engulf the other two. The buttons and knobs of the numerous machines each blinked rapidly in their own patterns of recognition as Bill's fingers flew across the keyboards.

"Yes! Yes! Ha, Ha!" Bill exclaimed childishly with the reflection of the radar screen in his glasses. "It happened! It really happened! The carrier vessels have located a planet suitable for the immigration of humans! All I must do now is to assist the landing of the vessels and- Ahhh!"

Bill ducked quickly as Frank swung the molded red chair at the main computer. Both objects connected with an almighty crash, scattering splintered glass about the small room. But Frank didn't stop with only the main computer. He continued to demolish the entire network of computers and machines by swinging the red chair around like an immense club. Bill could only stare on in utter disbelief as shards of glass and metal rained down from above. Tears flowed freely from his eyes as his life's work was destroyed. It was ruined and completely annihilated by a man-no, a monster- -with a chair. How could something so great be so utterly fragile? How could one being be so animalistic?

The group of people that had come to facility 269 with Frank rushed to the beast that was ravaging the small room. They pried the chair from his grip, but the damage had already been dealt. The machines had been smashed to the point where they could be used for nothing more than scrap metal. Bill sunk to his knees and stared into the space where his computers once were. His expression was contorted with sorrow and rage while tears continued to slide down his face.

"There," Frank said, his voice teeming with exasperation, but complete with triumph, "Operation Facsimile, terminated."

So, how was it? I really hoped that all of you readers out there enjoyed the prologue, but if you thought that this was good, just wait until you see what I have down the road for you! THX FOR READING! PLEASE REVIEW! ^_^