The young man was tired, he could tell that much easily when he first started to stir.
His body refused to move according to how he willed it, his eyes heavy and unable to open.
Maybe he'd rest for a little while, he thought to himself.
Yet, despite this thought, something obviously wasn't right.
He tried again to move his body, yet the attempt was vain, for the most that he could manage was a small twitch of his fingers.
As he tried over and over to move, the boy found himself gradually waking up, his senses returning to a gradually growing strength as this happened.
Even before he opened his eyes, Haseo knew that he wasn't lying on the bed in his room, or on the desk of some random library he chose to use, as was his habit when studying somewhere for a test for a long period of time.
As he regained his ability to feel, he began to realize he was lying on something much less durable to push against his skin than any bed or table.
Haseo was lying, head resting on his cheek, on sand.
His mind still somewhat sluggish, he slowly lifted his right hand, it still very heavy with what he could only guess was tiredness, and pressed his palm against the movable ground he knew his place of rest to be.
Finally, the boy's head rose up, a gradual lift, likened to that of the sun rising over the horizon, steady but slow.
When his eyes started to open, his crimson eyes looked around himself, questioning for a moment where he was, there being no wind where he was, him breathing out several specks of sand from his nose, wiping what was on his cheek off.
His expression changed from tired to surprised in a matter of a moment, all tiredness leaving Haseo's body, replaced by a cold, searing panic.
He had been lying in the middle of a desert, there being no trails to follow, no hints of where he could go to find help.
He breathed a short moment after looking around again.
Calm down, he told himself, closing his eyes, bringing a hand to his forehead as he tried to support himself on it, forcing himself up onto his feet, balance unsteady but still there.
All he needed to do was use his phone to find a signal, he decided.
He thought this only to realize something else.
He was wearing gloves.
He removed his hand slowly from his forehead and looked at it, knowing very well that even during the coldest of winters that he never wore gloves, yet still found a black piece of cloth wrapped snugly around his fingers and palm.
As he looked down from there, he took in the metals that came up in ripple like waves up the length of his forearm, him noticing the same went for his left arm as well.
As he looked down at himself, Haseo found he was wearing clothes that consisted of either white or a very bright shade of gray, a shirt with a slight cut up his belly and his shoulders having some type of yellowish padding around them.
He moved his shoulders and found that they could bend, then went back to looking at himself, him now having baggy pants and multicolored shoes.
"What the hell?" He asked himself out loud, looking back at his hands again.
He looked around himself, eyes looking again in a hope he knew to be vain for a trail.
When, needless to say, he found none, Haseo sighed to himself, looking around as if the desert could tell him what to do, where to go.
He couldn't be anywhere near home, as the city of Tokyo wasn't exactly known for its rural atmosphere, yet he couldn't fathom where he was.
It didn't occur to the boy to question whether he was still logged into the RPG, named "The World," at first, since his appearance was extremely different from what his character had once looked like.
As compared to the black, red and purplish gray colors that would adorn his character from the game, the white, yellow and light gray came as a stark difference, his look now being immensely less demonic by any normal standards.
Haseo's first thought was that he'd, for whatever reason, gone to some field trip somewhere that was near a desert, in which he'd been left behind.
But seeing just how articulately made the cuff like metals that were tightly wrapped around his arm were, Haseo threw this thought aside quickly.
There'd be no way that he'd be stupid enough to stray so far from the group to be left behind, let alone with this kind of get-up on.
Knowing this, he knew that the only other alternative had to be The World.
As he forced himself to remember the most recent events in The World, he found himself recalling his one time ally Ovan activating a power deep inside of himself, a power he needed Haseo to use.
The "Rebirth" program was what Ovan had called it.
Haseo scowled, looking around himself again.
Haseo remembered being caught up in the main blast of the Rebirth, and he had a brief time to speak to the embodiment of the powers he held within his own player-character afterwards, something Haseo somehow knew to be named Skeith.
Skeith had, after Haseo had talked to him for a while, chosen to stay with him, and after that...
He grasped his head, trying to reach out for some memory, any memory, that might've come after Skeith had chosen to stay with him.
But there was nothing.
All he could draw from his brain was further darkness after being engulfed in a bright light.
Haseo looked at his hands again, then looked at his new appearance.
It was only at that moment that Haseo truly started to question if he was in The World or not.
Was this a new type of Job Extension for him?
He pushed his hands forward, trying to concentrate a short moment, before he felt a weight fill his hands, a white gun in each of his hands, a golden blade curving down from just in front of where the triggers stood.
In curiosity, the boy pushed the weapons forward, subconsciously trying to push a button in his mind, yet finding his body didn't move to it.
As nothing happened, Haseo looked at the guns again, them disappearing, him reaching up and trying to grasp his M2D system headgear off of his head, only to find it wasn't there.
Realizing this, Haseo didn't panic.
Based on what he could deduce from these facts alone, he was definitely still in The World, but his first guess as to what was going on stemmed from his memory of having his mind trapped in the RPG, him and many other players being a part of what he and his cohorts called the AIDA Server.
He looked up in thought, knowing that if he really was in some form of the AIDA Server...
He scoffed, looking back down at his surroundings, "Looks like your whole plan with the Rebirth failed Ovan." Haseo said, him giving a scowl.
After all the crap Ovan put him through, when the plan came to the moment of truth, it had failed.
The existence of this AIDA Server only proved this.
He glanced around himself once more, then tried to toggle the map he had in The World whenever he'd go to an Area there.
Nothing popped up to show him the way he may have wanted to go however.
Realizing this after a few repeated failed attempts, Haseo only chose to start walking forward, the sun being veiled in the skies by dark clouds, his feet scraping around in the sand as though it was a hot snow.
The lack of the sun made Haseo feel cooler than what was probably to be expected of the desert, so he tried to bask in the time he could take advantage of this in his walk.
It'd be best if he covered the most ground by going in one direction.
He should've been able to reach some place if he walked there, or at least reach the edge of the Area.
This thought was the only thing he had to cling to.
The sad truth of the matter however, was that Haseo wasn't even inside of The World, let alone any of its many Areas.
But of course, nothing came to deter the boy's belief that he was still inside of The World.
This was the case until Haseo suddenly stopped, ears picking up the faint sounds of what seemed to be a mixture of an explosion and screaming, eyes soon identifying a ship falling out of the sky, it being on fire.
"What the hell?" He questioned as he watched it fall.
Since when were aerial ships used in The World?
When it crashed down onto the sand, the ground rumbled, and the boy's eyes widened, before he instinctively started to sprint, the cries of pain and agony coming so clearly to his ears that it put a perfectly clean window to shame in transparency.
He found himself running much more quickly than he knew himself to be able to, him never growing tired despite the countless seconds it took for Haseo to reach the fallen ship.
When he did reach there, he found, to his immense horror, small people with rather high pitched voices on fire, the few that had survived the crash screaming loudly.
He moved quickly, him reaching out to the first person he could reach out for, but him visibly hesitating when he found that the person he tried to help was already being eaten alive by the ravenous flames, the cries of the dying reaching a painfully loud height before they abruptly stopped.
He stared at the burning corpse in horror at this, eyes widened.
Within the next few seconds, before he could even look for any other potential survivors, before Haseo could even do anything at all, many other ear-splitting screams filled his ears, them being filled with terror, grief, and despair all at once, it turning into a monsterous wail.
He tried to use some form of magic from The World to put out the flames, and yet he found he couldn't access his items either.
As he started to realize this, it was already too late.
The silence that lay in death's wake reigned over the small area he was in, and Haseo could only stare, his eyes realizing something else.
The corpses weren't respawning themselves into injured versions of themselves, nor were they disappearing.
In The World, the former would always be the case when someone died, and the latter the more likely case if someone died in an AIDA Server.
As this truth dawned on the boy, his eyes widened, him not sure how to deal with the realization that came to him.
This was all real.
He looked up at the sky, the sounds of explosions and screaming being heard faintly again, the clouds that covered the sky gaining a reddish tinge for a moment, and next thing he knew another ship was plummeting towards the ground, a flaming ball that was on an inevitable path towards destruction.
This one was far off into the distance, and there was no way Haseo would be able to make it in time to reach the ship after it crashed, even if he ran twice as fast as humanly possible.
Knowing this, Haseo looked up at the sky, his eyes now narrowed.
He needed to stop this, he thought to himself.
He had to try and stop the ships from crashing.
But the only way he could even possibly fly was if he used Skeith's powers...
However, Haseo realized the foolhardiness of his solution all too quickly.
If he couldn't access the map or even his items, then what was to say that Haseo could still summon Skeith to obey him?
As he thought this, Haseo looked up at the sound of cries and screams, them compelling the boy to move, his fists clenching themselves as he steeled himself to try it anyways, several symbols coming onto his body.
"Come on..." Haseo spoke, his heartbeat settling to a slow pulse before gradually becoming quicker, the symbols on his body growing brighter and brighter, "Come on... I'm right here!"
He could hear a sound, something like a bell, ring in his ears, and he grit his teeth, the symbols disappearing on his body as it gained a new light, his heart now hammering at a speed much too rapid for safety.
"SKEITH!" Haseo roared out at the top of his lungs, him feeling himself levitating a short distance into the air.
He felt himself find a good deal of surprise when he felt his feet press down against something much harder than the sand the next second.
Haseo looked down, finding a what looked like the stereotypical image of the devil mixed with a three eyed monster without legs and very long arms.
Haseo's hands and toes were pressed against the being's back, it having no neck with a levitating ball shaped head, two horns sticking out with a symmetry on Skeith's head.
This was Haseo's first time actually seeing Skeith in this form, as usually he'd just end up fusing his mind with Skeith's body and therefore seeing things through his point of view.
"Let's go. You wanted to stop the ships from crashing didn't you?" A monsterous voice said below him, and it took Haseo a moment to realize it was Skeith.
Haseo noticed something else while looking down at himself, seeing that he was in the attire of his first form rather than his new form.
He looked up at the sky despite this, answering Skeith's question, "Yeah, we need to stop whatever the hell's going on up there."
With that he willed Skeith to move upward, and the black demonic looking being flew up into the sky.
The wind slapped Haseo's hair back, and as he reached the skies, Haseo felt himself give a mental note to himself to not look down, and he looked around himself as he saw several ships flying around in the sky, most flying off into one direction with the others attacking a dark colored creature with wings.
Haseo squinted as he looked at it, it dodging any and all cannon fire but not attacking back.
He would've kept trying to discern what it was had it not been for it starting to shoot at the ships again, but it doing this at one of the fleeing ships.
His eyes widened as it caught fire, but he forced his feelings back as he willed Skeith to move as quickly as possible.
The avatar dashed forward through the air with a roar that slowly increased in volume as it moved, it reaching the ship and holding it up before it fell a moment later.
Haseo looked up inside of the ship and found that the people inside of it hadn't been hurt at all.
He spoke quickly, "I'm going to put you guys down!"
They responded only in fear, and not understanding what was wrong, Haseo was unable to brace himself for the impact that suddenly collided with Skeith's back and his legs.
The boy gave a loud shout of pain, then looked back to try finding the source of the attack.
It was the oddly shaped creature that had attacked him.
Having a better look at it now however, Haseo soon realized what it was but couldn't believe it.
The black and purple colored dragon charged a flame in its mouth after a moment that it had most likely taken to aim, and shot a fireball at him and the ship he carried.
It hit home, this time hitting Skeith in the back again, both the young man and the avatar sharing a yell of pain.
Haseo grit his teeth, and he willed Skeith to hold the ship with one hand, Skeith turning with his left hand and aiming it at the dragon, several balls of energy shooting at it and hurting it enough to make an equally pained yell resound from its mouth.
Skeith shot round after round of energy balls at it, and though most missed, some still hit their mark.
Haseo heard the short people inside of the ship speak over the sounds of chaos that surrounded them in a yell to him a second later, in what he realized what old English.
He looked back at them again, trying to find the right words to speak, "Say that again?!"
"We'll," the man who spoke stopped when Haseo yelled out in pain, Skeith having been hit in the chest by the dragon, "We'll be fine, you fight that dragon and buy us some time to escape!"
Haseo grunted, but willed Skeith to let go of the ship, the avatar complying and releasing it from it's massive arm.
"Get out of here as fast as you can!" Haseo thought he said in their language.
Whether they understood him or not, the ship veered slowly away from him, and Haseo turned to look fully at the dragon.
Seeing the incoming fireballs, Skeith summoned his scythe and slashed through them all as he dashed forward, him closing the distance between the dragon and himself in a moment's time.
The dragon spread its wings up into the air and flapped down powerfully, it flying upwards in a move to dodge the incoming avatar, and Skeith spun around heavily in the air, the scythe he held slicing through the air with a whipping sound.
"Just what the hell are you?" A deep, monsterous yet womanly voice spoke, the dragon flapping its wings to stay aloft while it half glanced at Skeith, Haseo not answering the question due to Skeith responding before he could.
"I'm in the position to ask you the exact same thing." Skeith's voice boomed through the air.
"If you want to play dumb and pretend you've never seen a dragon before, tough break for you." The voice responded, and Haseo realized that it was the dragon talking.
Had it not been for the amount of pain his legs, back and chest were in at that moment, Haseo would've genuinely started to think this was a dream.
Despite this, Haseo will Skeith to fly forward, the wind blowing back his hair as he charged at the dragon once again, and the dragon flapped its wings powerfully to push under itself, but instead of flying away like before, the dragon burst forward, making the distance between them close much more quickly, so much so that Haseo didn't have time to react before the dragon's body slammed into him, slicing through Skeith's torso with its claws.
Both Skeith and Haseo roared in pain, and he could faintly hear the sound of man's voice speaking, "My Lady! There seems to be a man controlling that monstrosity!"
Haseo recovered enough to look back at the dragon again, it flying away in that moment, and seeing a middle aged man clinging to the tail of the dragon.
The thing that answered the middle aged man's voice wasn't the dragon, but a young woman who looked back at Haseo from the upper part of the dragon's back.
"Gabriella, you need to destroy him. We can't let someone get in the way of One's ambitions!" She said, and the dragon, now known as Gabriella, spoke with a large deal of repulsion to the woman's words.
"When are you going to accept the fact that this isn't going to help anyone?!" The dragon roared up to its rider.
Skeith's body faced the dragon Gabriella, with its back turned to him, and Haseo roared through the air with enough strength to create an echo, "Why are you killing those people?!"
Gabriella turned to face Haseo head on, the dragon flapping its wings as it remained idle in the air.
"Those men that we're attacking are criminals. They have selfishly stolen goods that hard working men and women slaved over to make ready for the market." The woman spoke loudly to Haseo, who's scowl deepened.
"And burning them alive is a better alternative than imprisoning them?"
"This is justice at work. It won't be impeded by someone who has the mindset of a revolutionary." She replied, before looking down at Gabriella, "Gabriella, take him down!"
"I don't know," Gabriella said slowly in response, "I kind of want to hear what this guy has to say."
"What...?" The woman looked stumped in her own surprise, before she glared down at the dragon she was riding, "This is an order from One, are you actually going to disobey her will?!"
"If you really think killing elves when they're in fact running for their freakin' lives is One's will, then we apparently aren't talking about the same Intoner!"
"What do you know? I'm her little sister, I know her better than you!"
"Says the girl who won't even acknowledge her own disciple!"
As the woman and dragon argued between each other, Haseo simply stared at them, then dared a quick glance towards the ships in the distance, them being fairly far away now.
He looked slowly up at the woman, Skeith having read his master's mind and raising his hand to aim at the girl, who was in the middle of her sentence when the avatar fired a ball of energy at her.
Gabriella noticed the ball headed to her, and tried to duck out of the way, the woman's arm getting scraped by the ball despite the dragon's efforts, this being enough to blow her off of the dragon's back and into the air.
"My Lady!" The man who rode Gabriella's tail roared, trying his best to reach a hand out to grab his mistress by the hand, missing her by several meters, the woman falling down through the air, her body crashing through the clouds and out of sight.
Gabriella looked down at where the woman had once been, Haseo being quicker to react, him willing Skeith to fly down after her.
Knowing his intentions however, Skeith resisted Haseo's order, rotating his head to glance at him, "Are you sure you want to do that? What would stop her from trying again?"
"Just shut up and go!" Haseo yelled, and Skeith stopped his resistance, his body diving down quickly through the clouds, Haseo willing Skeith to push himself further down towards the Earth with greater speed the second he spotted the falling form of the woman, Skeith closing in on her as she flailed and screamed as she fell.
The woman's body was plummeting now, and Haseo spoke as loudly as possible, "Skeith, GO!"
The avatar and the human's eyes glowed red simultaneously, and Skeith roared as his speed doubled, his scythe disappearing as he reached a hand out to the woman, it extending itself like a rubber band and wrapping itself around the woman's body, the woman's scream stopping as her fall was stopped completely, her eyes widening in fear as she realized who had caught her, Skeith retracting his arm back to himself, Haseo looking over Skeith's shoulder and at her.
The young woman was in much younger than Haseo thought. From a distance, he'd believed her to be a few years older than him, perhaps in her early twenties, but close up, he saw that she looked to in fact be slightly younger than he was, looking to be fifteen or sixteen.
The girl caught his eyes, and she glared at him in defiance, "You won't get away with this."
"Calm down," Haseo said in a flat tone, "I'm going to set you down."
Having already descended to the ground via Skeith, Haseo willed the avatar to set the woman down, which it did, the woman falling on her knees as she finally hit the ground.
She clutched her arm, which was rather bloody from when the energy ball hit, and glared at Haseo, even as Skeith disappeared in ball of light and he fell several feet along with her, his feet slamming into the sands, the impact of the fall making Haseo bend himself over slightly, knees bent, eyes wary of the woman in front of him all the while.
Soon enough, Haseo could hear the sound of flapping wings, and Gabriella slammed into the ground behind the woman, kicking up a good deal of sand off of the ground.
His clothes having returned to their white color theme, Haseo stared down the girl, who glared up at him, clutching her wound and wincing deeply from it.
The man who had ridden on Gabriella's tail ran to the woman's side as soon as he hit the ground, stumbling clumsily forward as he reached the woman's side, kneeling down beside her, "Lady Four, are you hurt?"
The woman shyed away at his attempt to check her wound, "Don't worry Decadus, I'll be fine."
As though to prove this to the man, Four forced herself onto her feet, the gauntlet she wore that held her bleeding wound removing itself, the gauntlet covered in her blood.
She lifted her arms up, her hands curled into fists, as though she'd readied herself for a fist fight, yet Haseo's gaze was only on the dragon behind her.
He knew he could summon his weapons, or at least his guns, along with Skeith, yet as Haseo gazed at the dragon, he could still feel the pain from the scratch Gabriella had given to Skeith's chest.
The pain seemed to grow and lessen in sync with his heartbeat, each pulse returning it to its full strength.
Haseo wasn't sure about Four and the man who accompanied her, but he knew for certain that he couldn't deal with the dragon for very long even with Skeith's help.
Knowing this, Haseo took a step back, "We're both wounded," he tried to reason with Four, "It'd be best if we stopped."
"If you won't fight against us anymore, then we can just go back to hunting those elves. How do I know I can trust you not to attack us from behind?" Four replied.
"To be fair Four, he saved you from certain death. If he hadn't done that, then you wouldn't be standing right now. I sure wasn't going to try catch you." Gabriella's voice spoke behind her.
Four whipped around to face the dragon, "Why would you say something as cruel as that?"
"The same reason you seem to care nothing for people who aren't humans that are begging for mercy. I want to watch you burn."
Four glared daggers at Gabriella, "I see, so that's how you feel?"
"It's a shame I can't deny that."
"Hey," Haseo called, the woman turning to her, "Your name is "Four", right?" He asked for clarification.
She nodded after a moment of silence, "Yes, I'm Four."
"If you don't want me to attack you from behind, I'm willing to promise not to do that. But if you're going to attack the elves, I can't promise that I won't get in your way."
"Why are you trying so hard to fight for those criminals?"
"I can't say. I guess it's a little hard for me to ignore the sounds of people screaming for help."
"They're elves, they aren't the same as humans." Four said as though this were fact.
"I don't care if they aren't. All I know is that you're killing people who are trying to run away. And I'm not going to sit back and let you do something like that."
For a long moment, they stared at each other, Haseo poised on summoning his weapons, Four still in her fighting position.
"So, what are you going to do?" Haseo asked, his eyes challenging her, almost daring her, to choose to stick with her objective on killing the elves up in the sky.
Gabriella was the one to answer him, "Seeing as how I'm not so willing to stick my neck out for something like this, I'll just say that I'm in favor of letting them go."
Four didn't break her eye contact with Haseo, but still spoke to Gabriella, "That isn't your choice to make!"
"When you think about, I really don't see how it isn't." Gabriella said, "I'm your only way of getting to those elves without you using too much of your own power. Just let them go Four. Doing this won't help anyone, it's only going to screw you over."
Four's glare at Haseo deepened, and he wasn't unsettled in the slightest by it.
Again, there was a moment of silence between them, and Four seemed to relent, lowering her fists and breaking eye-contact with Haseo, "Fine. I'll let them go."
"Alright, good answer." Haseo responded, though he inwardly wasn't as sure as he sounded.
Even if there wasn't any blood, he could still feel the wound Skeith had gotten when he was cut by Gabriella's claws.
With the way it felt, Haseo wasn't sure if he could concentrate enough to summon Skeith again.
If Gabriella figured that out, there'd be no reason for her to not let Four go after the elves again.
"Lady Four, please, let me tend to your injury." The man who accompanied Four said.
Four moved away from his hand, "Calm down, I'll be fine Decadus. I can handle worse than this."
"But... My Lady..."
"It's fine Decadus." Four replied, her not wearing a reassuring smile as one might expect as a response to such worries, but rather holding up her glare towards Haseo, there being an almost inperceptable tone of aggravation in Four's voice.
The man, Decadus, looked worried still, but said nothing of it, pulling his hand away from Four.
Haseo glanced at the man, watching him look at Four, then glanced back at Four, "I know this will make me sound like a jerk for asking this now," Haseo started, "But you wouldn't happen to know where the closest town is, do you?"
Four blinked at that, "What? This is the middle of the Land of Sands. There aren't any towns nearby."
Haseo returned her quizzical expression with one of his own, "The Land of Sands?"
What a strange name, he thought.
Looking around at his surroundings, Haseo also briefly thought it was a rather lazy name for a desert.
"You don't know the name of this region? Are you a foreigner?" Gabriella asked him.
"I just might be. Where is this place exactly? I just woke up in the middle of this desert."
"You're in the country of Midgard." Four said.
Another quizzical look from Haseo.
"Yup, he's definitely a foreigner." Gabriella said.
Haseo scratched his head a bit, and Gabriella spoke again, "We might as well try taking him to the Cathedral City. Everywhere else is still pretty much destroyed at the moment."
"What? Why would you want to bring him there?" Four asked Gabriella.
"He obviously doesn't know where he is. And since it's damn near impossible to get any food or water around here, he'll probably be dead in the next few days if we leave him out here, if that." Gabriella said to Four, and without waiting to ask for her consent to this, the dragon spoke to Haseo, "Come here and get on my back. Since I'm going to be carrying three of you people, I want to get it over with as soon as possible."
Haseo's eyes widened, but he slowly nodded after realizing how right the dragon was, walking over to Gabriella as she lowered her body for everyone to get on her.
Decadus didn't seem to like the dragon's idea however, "Gabriella, are you certain that this is the best course of action to take? Who knows what he might do if he's so close to Lady Four after attacking her?"
Haseo could feel Decadus keeping a wary eye on him as he walked closer to them.
"If he really wanted her dead, he wouldn't have caught her. Besides, I'm pretty sure Ms. Wanna-be-Messiah over here doesn't want to leave someone to starve to death in the desert," Gabriella glanced at Four, "Am I right?"
Decadus spoke before Four did, "Yes, I imagine my Lady wouldn't do such a thing..." He looked down slightly, "Leave a person to slowly... painfully... starve to death... Ooooh..."
At Decadus' heavy shudder, Haseo stopped next to him, looking at him and hesitantly speaking, "Are... you okay?"
"Ah," Decadus reclaimed his poise, "Yes, I'm quite fine."
"Decadus..." Four glared at the man despite his words, "What did I tell you about thinking about that sort of thing?"
"M-My apologies, my Lady." Decadus responded quickly.
Haseo heard Four's words, and hearing Decadus' reply, he felt curiosity about what they were talking about, yet sensed that, somehow, he probably was better off left in the dark about it.
Haseo climbed onto Gabriella's back, mounting the dragon carefully, with the dragon speaking to him, "Is this your first time riding a dragon?"
"Yeah, it is..." Haseo said honestly, feeling himself getting nervous as he climbed up onto Gabriella's back.
"Then grab onto my scales. Hold on as tight as you can if you're nervous."
Haseo complied to Gabriella's words, then glanced to his right, seeing Four trying to climb onto Gabriella's back, Haseo realizing then that there was a problem with him being in front.
"Hey," he spoke to the dragon, "Shouldn't Four be in front? I don't want her falling off."
"I'm quite fine," Four interjected in Haseo's question before Gabriella could answer.
He looked back at her, "With the way your arm is right now, I don't want you getting hurt because of me."
"I don't need your pity." Four replied coldly.
"I'm not pitying you," Haseo's gaze hardened into a glare, "I'm only trying to help you."
"Then I don't need your help."
"My Lady," Decadus spoke behind Four, "With all due respect, I think it would be best to heed his idea, seeing as how he only seems to be looking out for your best interests. With your injury, it would be quite dangerous for you to take flight."
"Decadus, he is still our enemy. I am willing to take the chance of him attacking me again," Haseo's eye twitched somewhat at her stubborn belief in his supposed malevolent intentions, "But I am not letting him sit in my blind spot."
"I'm going to leave you two here if you don't get a move on." Gabriella cut into the conversation between Four and Decadus.
Haseo sighed heavily, then spoke, looking straight at Four, "I don't want to hurt you. It's like what Gabriella said. I had the chance not to save you when you were falling, but I didn't take it. I was only keeping those elves out of harm's way, not taking you out." Haseo reasoned with Four. But Four still looked like she wasn't for the plan at all, even after Haseo's words, and the boy sighed again, "I get that you don't like the idea of riding with me, but this is the best thing to do for the both of us. I'm only suggesting it because I injured your arm. If your arm were fine, I wouldn't care if you sat in the front or back. But since I don't want your death hanging over my head, I want you to sit in the front so you can grab onto the scales if you need them to stay on. Does that make sense?"
Four still looked wary of him.
Reading her reply from her expression alone, Haseo looked at Decadus, "Hey, Decadus, right?" When the man looked at him to confirm this was his name, Haseo spoke again, "Since Four doesn't want me to sit behind her, why don't you sit behind her and make sure she doesn't fall off?"
Though Four looked like she wanted to say something, Decadus had already considered Haseo's idea, and he nodded, "If that would be the best course of action." Then Decadus turned to Four, "My Lady, would you be willing to agree to such an idea?"
"I would." Four said after a moment, there being a faint trace of reluctance in her voice.
"Alright," Haseo jumped off of Gabriella, his feet slamming into the sand, "Then let's get going."
As Haseo rode on the dragon, he wondered if it'd be an accurate anaology to compare the experience to how he imagined riding a very large horse would.
With every one of the countless flaps that Gabriella gave to her wings, Haseo felt the movement of her bones underneath her back, and he gripped tightly at the scales the dragon had, his hands growing sweaty at his nervousness at being so high in the sky.
Unlike with Skeith, Haseo's body wasn't permanently attached to Gabriella's back when he rode on her back, and being so high up made the young man become scared of death by terminal velocity, the wind slapping at his face and making it become cold after a while, its high pitched whistle making it hard for Haseo to hear anything over it, the feeling that his eardrums were blown out by something other than sound clear for his brain to register.
The flight itself lasted well into nighttime, and Haseo was just starting to lose his grip on Gabriella's scales when he finally saw, in the distance, the sight of buildings, in an urban looking setting.
"Alright, here we are. The Cathderal City." Gabriella said loudly, in a voice that Haseo could hear and understand, letting him immediately realize that she'd said this loudly.
As they flew into the city, Haseo looked around at his surroundings, seeing the countless buildings, skyscrapers being the main feature of the city they flew over.
As they soared through the air, Haseo heard many shouts of surprise and awe, him hesitantly glancing down to see that there were many people on the ground pointing up at Gabriella in amazement.
Soon, when Gabriella started to fly in a certain direction, Four openly voiced her concerns, "Gabriella, we shouldn't bring this man so close to One."
"He won't hurt her. She's a lot stronger than you are Four."
"I don't want to put that sort of pressure on One."
"Calm down, I said he wouldn't do anything right?"
Though Haseo heard the conversation going on between Gabriella and Four, he was too engrossed in the world around him to care much for it.
He didn't know anything about this "Midgard" place, but if the Cathedral City was this advanced, he'd surely be able to find a way to get home, even if this place was filled with people who spoke English instead of Japanese.
As he thought this, the boy's eyebrow creased. him looking down at his attire and realizing that this couldn't be the real world, yet at the same time felt all too real to not be it.
What had happened? He questioned himself again.
Had the AIDA in Ovan's arm reacted to Haseo having all eight Moreganna Factors, the data that made up avatars like Skeith, inside him and, with the powers he had in that moment, had created a new AIDA Server where real life and the virtual world couldn't be distinguished between each other?
He looked down in worry then.
How had Atoli and the others, who had been not too far behind him, taken the Rebirth's blast, if he'd been taken to a completely different place when in the full brunt of the program's commencement?
As he wondered about the six people other than Ovan he knew to have Moreganna Factors, Haseo's attention was brought to the land underneath him again when he felt Gabriella glide slowly down towards it.
Bracing himself for landing, Haseo was glad to have gripped Gabriella's scales, for when she landed, she did so without a care for lessening the fall's impact.
He fell face forward into Decadus' back without control, slamming into it, and pulling his head back quickly, Haseo looked at the back of the man's head apologetically, "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that."
Decadus looked back at him, "It's fine, you needn't worry."
Haseo nodded his understanding, then heard Gabriella's voice, "Okay, time to get off."
Haseo found his footing in the place he had sat on the dragon, and he climbed down Gabriella's back, his feet pushing him off of Gabriella's back and onto the ground, him landing with a soft clap, before he turned, seeing Four and Decadus getting off the dragon as well.
Four walked while clutching her arm, going straight towards a royal looking building, and Decadus followed her a few meters before turning to Haseo, looking hard at him.
"What?" Haseo asked.
"I'm contemplating whether I should thank you for saving Lady Four or if I should curse you for putting her in danger to begin with."
Haseo's hand found his hip, "You don't need to thank me. I don't want to be a killer, so I saved Four. At the same time, I couldn't just sit down there watching ships full of screaming people fall out of the sky and not try to keep the death to a minimum."
As he remembered the elf he'd first tried to save in that flaming and crashed ship, screaming horridly for help, only for all his screams to stop in an instant, his flailing body now still, Haseo felt a chill run up his spine.
What would happen when all the other elves realized the people they had been flying with were dead and gone?
Would their bodies ever be found in that desert?
As he pondered this in his mind, Haseo was broken from his lapse of thought when Decadus spoke, "I see. I'd advise you not to interfere with Lady Four to that extent again then."
Even as he said those words, Haseo couldn't help feeling as though there was a somewhat relieved smile playing at Decadus' lips, him walking away and walking behind Four.
"He's happy you came around and stopped her you know." Gabriella's voice made Haseo his gaze turn to her, her watching Decadus' back with him, "He knew killing those elves wasn't right."
He looked at the dragon a moment, then gave an exxagerated sigh in mock-relief, shrugging his shoulders, "Well thank God HE isn't insane."
"No, he's not insane. Just really weird. He's an okay guy though."
Haseo shrugged again, before turning to fully face Gabriella, "Even though I don't know where the hell I am," he closed his eyes, bowing his head slightly to her, "Thank you for bringing me here."
Gabriella turned to look at the boy in front of her, and made an impercievable smile, "Hey, don't sweat it kid. You saved me the trouble of having to kill all those elves. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing me a favor."
"Really? Well, thanks for returning the favor then." Haseo turned away from Gabriella, still speaking, "I could've sworn you were more against killing those guys than Decadus though."
"Nah, I didn't really care about those elves. Dragons are just really allergic to elf blood. I didn't want to get caught near that stuff if you catch my drift."
Haseo took a moment before responding, turning around to half face the dark colored dragon again, "Your name was Gabriella, right?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I just wanted to be sure. Do you always make excuses for not wanting to do certain things, or is this time special?"
Gabriella seemed a bit taken aback by Haseo's question, but still responded in her gruff effeminette voice, "Hmph. Well I never. We dragons don't make excuses. We do what we want, when we want."
"And yet you were arguing with a girl over whether you should kill a bunch of elves or not?" Haseo deadpanned.
"Just shut up." Gabriella looked away, then swung her head back to look at Haseo, "What's your angle in all this then, if you're going to be like that?"
At Gabriella's question, Haseo shrugged again, "I already said it. I didn't want to watch people die senselessly."
Gabriella stared at Haseo, or rather, at his body, before rearing her head back, "Seems like you really mean it."
"Of course I do." Haseo crossed his arms.
"You're a pretty good kid, to stick your neck out for someone else like that." She had looked away from him, but realized something and gazed at him once more, "What's your name then?"
"It's Ry-" Haseo started to say the name that had become a reflex as deeply rooted into him as his DNA, but then realized his attire and appearance.
If this really was some type of advanced AIDA Server, then Haseo would still be in The World.
If that were really the case, then it'd make better sense to give his name from The World instead of his real one.
"It's Haseo." He corrected himself.
"Tell me Haseo," Curiosity lit up Gabriella's eyes, "Are you by any chance an Intoner?"
"An "Intoner"?" Haseo gave a look that reflected more confusion than when Four had told him he was in the land of Midgard.
Gabriella looked at him a moment again, and she sighed lightly, "Well, that answers itself. How were you able to summon a daemon if you aren't an Intoner?"
"A "demon"? What demon?" Haseo heard Gabriella's words and found more confusion to be what filled his voice.
Then, though he didn't know the meaning of what she'd meant, Haseo realized that she was talking about Skeith, him only thinking this because Haseo had seen Skeith and had known that he looked about as much like a stereotypical demon as one could possibly be, horns and all.
"Oh, you mean the thing that I was fighting you with?" Haseo didn't refer to Skeith as a "avatar" out of reflex of simply never telling anyone things he had learned in his time in G.U., "That wasn't a demon if that's what you thought it was."
"What was it then?"
"It's a power I have. I can summon it anytime I want to to help me fight."
"Really? ANY time you want to?"
"Yeah."
"Even when you threatened to fight against Four if she tried to go after the elves again? Because if I didn't know better, I'd say you were bluffing then."
Haseo froze over when he heard Gabriella say this, then relaxed after a moment.
"Geez," He brought a hand up to his face, "Was it really THAT obvious that I wouldn't be able to fight again?"
Gabriella chuckled, "No, you hid it well enough. I could just tell you were bluffing."
"How?"
"It's a power I have. I can use it anytime I want to to help me see through bullshit."
"What...?" Haseo realized what Gabriella had done, and smiled lightly at her spitting the vagueness of his own words right back at him, "Oh, I see." Realizing that she'd known all along that he wouldn't have been able to summon Skeith again as easily to fight against Gabriella, Haseo asked the dragon a question, "But if you knew, why didn't you call me out on it?"
"I told you already. I hate elf blood."
"Really?" Haseo smiled at Gabriella, "I'm glad you didn't call me out on it. I'm just a bit surprised."
"You gave me an excuse to disobey that green eyed Intoner. So I should really be thanking you."
He crossed his arms in thought, but nodded all the same, "Alright. I'll be on my way then."
Haseo turned from Gabriella, starting to walk away from her and down a set of stairs, knowing full well within himself that he had absolutely no idea where he was going to go.
He had never heard of this Midgard place, but since he could understand the language rather well, he thought he might be able to find a way to get a map.
If he needed to, Haseo would just use Skeith to fly his way over to home.
That was assuming this was some version of his home...
"Hey, Haseo," the boy stopped at Gabriella calling out to him, Haseo turning his head to her, "You don't know where you're going, do you? Stay here."
Haseo didn't hesitate to genuinely consider it.
"Are you sure Elf Hunter would be okay with that?" Haseo asked.
"You don't have to worry about her. I can handle her if she gives you a hard time."
Haseo looked at Gabriella for a long moment, then sighed at his own helplessness.
He didn't know anything about this place, and was now being indirectly forced to take the hospitality of a dragon who was attacking him not too long ago.
Haseo was unsure of himself as he turned and walked back up the stairs, but still felt his lips moving, "I don't really have a choice, do I? Seeing as how I don't know where I am."
One sat on her throne, her crimson eyes scanning the text from the book in her hand at a pace that would make her seem like she was skimming it.
Despite this, her brain registered much more than the average person as she read, her eyes only leaving the tome sitting in her lap when her ears registered the sound of a pair of footsteps from outside the massive room she was inside of.
Seconds before the owners of the feet could reach the door, One called out to them, in a voice that echoed throughout the room, "You may come in Four."
The footsteps stopped abruptly, before they resumed their path, the door opening itself to reveal the brown haired girl from behind it, Decadus a few steps behind Four.
One immediately realized something was wrong when she saw Four's bleeding arm, and wasted no time in asking about it, "Four, what happened to your arm?"
"I was wounded during a battle." Four replied, looking down at the burnt hole in her shirt and the pink, muscly flesh that was revealed inside of it, "Do we have anything I can use to heal it?"
"Three should have a small healing potion." One closed the heavy tome in her gloved hands, setting it beside herself and walking towards Four, the sound of her footsteps as loud as the sound of cannon fire to her ears despite her steps being no louder than the average type.
One didn't show the pain she felt on her expression, staring with a straight face at Four, the girl walking towards her as well, One examining the large wound on the girl's arm, holding it up for her to see in the torch light.
One's eyes narrowed as she looked at Four's wound, "It seems you'll be needing something stronger than a small healing potion. Come with me."
One led Four back outside of the room, Decadus saying nothing as he followed them down the spiral steps, multiple torches lighting the staircase up as she made her way down the steps.
"How were you wounded Four?" One glanced behind herself at her sister, her arm still held up in the air.
"I was hoping to punish the Elf Pirates for their crimes. But as things turned out, someone interfered."
"Are you talking about the air fleet?"
"Yes."
"Was it a dragon that interfered?" One asked this after her brain thought of any situation where a dragon like Gabriella wouldn't be able to fully protect Four, yet in a split second she knew only a dragon had the power to stop another dragon in its goals, if not defeat them.
To One's rare surprise however, her deduction was wrong.
"No, it definitely wasn't a dragon." Four answered, "It managed to withstand several of Gabriella's attacks without being beaten however."
"What was it then?"
"It was a creature of the likes that I've never seen before." Decadus spoke, eyes narrowed at the memory.
"What did it look like?"
"It looked like some sort of Grim Reaper." Four tried to describe.
"It wore a hood and wielded a scythe?"
"Yes, it fought with a scythe, but it didn't have a hood." Four said.
"Is there anything else you can tell me about this creature that fought against you?"
There was no chance of it being a mere interference if it wasn't a dragon, One thought.
Dragons were simply too powerful to be interfered with to an extent like this.
Four's wound could've been caused by a burn from dragon flame, which would've explained it not healing over, that had missed Gabriella and hit Four instead, but since it wasn't a dragon, there must've been a struggle of some type of some other supernatural creature or force.
"It had three crimson red eyes, a long horn was on either side of its head," Decadus described, "And it seemed to be being commanded by a person riding it."
One gave it a second of thought.
Had it been a daemon of some type?
"Was this Grim Reaper a type of familiar then?" She asked.
"I imagine that's what it was. The person riding it seemed to summon it at will." Decadus answered.
"Was it Zero?" She looked behind herself at Four, stopping in her tracks down the steps.
As was natural for Intoners, summoning daemons through the power of their Song was a powerful ability, quite possibly the strongest power an Intoner possessed.
And Zero was easily the most powerful of the Intoners.
Therefore, One thought, if it had been Zero who interfered, then it would be a wonder that Four managed to leave the battle with only a wound on her arm.
Though she acknowledged this thinking to not be aligned with pure logic, One simply couldn't find any other cause for what could've caused Four's wound to not heal over by now.
If not a dragon, then what else could possibly hurt Four for such a long time?
Thinking this to herself, One furrowed her eyebrows slightly, Four answering her after One processed the many thoughts flowing around inside of her brain in an instant.
"No. It wasn't Zero."
"It wasn't? Then who attacked you?"
"It was a young man. He attacked Lady Four after she started to dispatch the pirates." Decadus spoke.
"A young man?" One's mind flashed to an image of her younger sisters. "How young was he?"
"I cannot say. If I were to give an estimate, I'd say he was in his later years of adolescence."
One looked down in thought, "I see."
Her mind buzzed then.
There was someone capable of fighting and hurting Four with damage that wouldn't repair itself quickly.
That person was a young man who hadn't reached adulthood yet.
He was able to call forth a familiar at will.
Was that young man another Intoner?
Though she wanted to dismiss the possibility, One was unsure of what else to think.
Commanding a familiar was a large undertaking; the act of summoning a familiar of stronger magical essence than oneself could be the catalyst for one going insane.
To summon it at will alone would speak volumes of a person's skill at controlling familiars, yet what One couldn't understand was the young man having enough magical power to summon a familiar that could fight against Gabriella.
Was the boy an Intoner, and One and her sisters simply never knew about him?
Or was he a new Intoner?
The second alternative made One start to scowl for a moment before her expression relaxed.
No, Zero wouldn't make the same mistake again, she thought to herself.
If the boy was an Intoner, then why did only appear then?
It was at that moment that One realized she had been assuming the boy was still sane.
If he had gone insane from the summoning, then maybe he wasn't an Intoner.
To assure herself of this however, One asked the duo another question, having only taken a few seconds to come to find a new one to ask, "Where is the boy now?"
Decadus was the one answer.
"He's currently somewhere in the Cathedral City Lady One. After negotiating with Lady Four, Gabriella transported the three of us here. I'm not sure where he is now."
Common sense told One that the boy couldn't have gone insane if he managed to ride Gabriella over the long distance between the Land of Sands and the Cathedral City.
Was the young man an Intoner then?
She pondered the thought in her mind, then looked back down the stairs, the spiral staircase illuminated by the mesh of flames and moonlight, One continuing to walk down the steps, "We'll need to discuss this later. Your injury needs to be tended to Four."
"Yes Sister." Four replied, following her silently from then on.
A/N: Alright, I finally came around to posting this thing!