Disclaimer: This one owns no one... except that one guy at the end.

Ch.3 Travel Party

Sheba set out at around 9:30 the next morning. She had begun the trip alone through Suhalla Desert. Faran had told her that a carriage would be waiting in Suhalla to take her to Tolbi. From there She would board a ship to cross the Karagol Sea, the Tickets were already paid for by Faran. She would then meet Ivan in Kalay and head to Vale from there. Sheba began thinking to herself about many things: like one Faran was almost too protective. Sheba knew that he just wanted to help but at the same time she knew she could take care of herself. Two she was really excited that everyone was going to be getting back together in Vale, finally she would be able to see everyone again, even Piers was coming in the Lemurian ship. Three This trip could be so much quicker if Felix hadn't been so attached to the Teleport Lapis to give it to anyone else, especially her seeing as she had to walk across two continents just to get back home. Last but not least four, she had the slight feeling she was being watched. This thought made her think twice about the first thought of Faran being over protective, after all the man who had knocked her unconscious was never caught.

On a pillar that loomed high above the desert, a man covered from head to toe in a brown poncho watched the young Jupiter adept. 'Who are you who smell so like me?'

Sheba had finally made it about half way through Suhalla range. It had been a pretty easy trip, the monsters had been a piece of cake to her. And since the beacons had all been lit it seemed as though things had all died down. The Suhalla desert was still hot but at least it wasn't a constant sandstorm anymore. Sheba was eating a loaf of bread as she walked along through the narrow passages of the range, however the ease of her trip was not meant to last as a brutal sand storm came raging out of nowhere along with the sand twister. Sheba covered her face as sand threatened to get in her eyes. As the twister died down a monster appeared from within.

"Ugh… What the!" Sheba dared to open her eyes as the sand died down only to see the monster that had appeared, "Tempest Lizard! I thought that he always stayed in one place in Suhalla range!" Sheba quickly threw down the now sand coated piece of bread and moved to prepare herself.

The Tempest Lizard prepared to attack as Sheba drew her Lachesis' Rule and prepared to defend against the lizards first strike. It quickly used Impact then charged at Sheba full speed knocking her down.

"ahh!… Damn that hurt." Sheba quickly got to her feet, "You'll pay for ruining my lunch!" Sheba rose her weapon yelling, "Apocalypse!" The spirit of a kimono lady appeared beside Sheba then charged at the Tempest Lizard and struck it with its scarf. The lizard howled in pain and once again cast Impact, but this time it also used its poisonous fangs to strike with. Sheba took a direct hit as it's teeth came down hard on her arm and could feel poison begin to spread throughout her body as the lizard threw her away by her arm. When she landed she tried to retaliate with a Spark Plasma attack but the Tempest Lizard just shook off the attack as if it were nothing at all. That was when Sheba felt like she was way out of her league. The lizard let lose a wind stroke and Sheba fell to her knees. She never believed she would face the Tempest Lizard and was now going to regret ever facing it. Jenna's temper must have rubbed off on her otherwise she could never recall having ever had the motivation to fight the lizard just because it ruined her lunch. She began wondering why the thing was taking so long to finish her off. She had fallen on her stomach but despite the pain that was beginning to tear at her body she was able to shift enough to turn her head towards the lizard, and what she saw shocked her. A man covered in a poncho had stopped the Tempest Lizards huge fist with his arm and held it back with ease.

"Sorry beast… but I cannot allow you to kill her…" he spoke in a voice that sent shivers down your spine and had a feel that tore at your insides. "Now sink into the heart-lorn world of nothingness!!" a strange light appeared around his right fist. He pulled that fist back releasing the earlier blocked punch that was thrown by Tempest making it slightly stumble. "Shining Fist!" In an instant the lizard was destroyed. The man stood still for a moment before he sighed and turned to look at Sheba. He turned and began walking towards her while saying, "Guess you were a bit out of your league…"

"Ah!" Sheba shrieked as a jolt of pain shot through her body. As much as she wanted to retort to the man's comment, even though she knew he was right, she simply couldn't move let alone speak so she settled for glaring at him.

"sigh If you want to glare at me know that your anger is misplaced, and I did save you." as he spoke what Sheba could see of his nearly covered face and his voice grew ten times softer than it had been a minute ago. "It would appear you are suffering from the affects of a type of poison judging from the festering wound you received on your arm."

"Uhnn…" was all Sheba could say as she started getting the urge to throw up.

"I shall purge the poison from your body." His words were soft and a bit soothing to Sheba as the enigmatic man began to purge the poison from her body. "Hmmm…" now that questionable sound that came from the man made Sheba shiver slightly as she thought about what might be wrong. "It would seem this is venom and not regular poison… I will have to use a more powerful method." He gently rolled Sheba onto her back as he placed a hand on her head. "Heal!" a sudden surge of power ran through Sheba's body as the poison slowly vanished. "You okay?…" he silently waited as she regained her composure.

Sheba herself felt drained, she had never been so badly poisoned. Then again there was always Piers to cure the poison immediately. She finally sat up on her own without the enigma's support. She held her head as she glanced at him questionably, "W-who… are…you?…"

"As I have told you before, I do not know…" at this he seemed downhearted to Sheba, "Yet I feel you are the key to answering my questions."

"What?!" Sheba asked with utmost curiosity.

"You… Smell like me…"

"???" Sheba looked at him with another questioning look, 'who is this guy…I smell like him? What is he crazy?'

"No, I'm not." he spoke simply as he stood up but his eyes never left Sheba's.

'He's reading my mind again, but his eyes…it's as if he's searching my eyes for answers.' Sheba slowly stood up.

"Hmmm… it seems you truly don't know me…" at this the enigmatic man put his hand on his chin as he closed his eyes to think. "Is it possible the answer is buried deep in your heart… or mine?…"

"Sorry I don't know who you are, but thank you for healing me." with this she began to walk away to continue her journey.

Sheba continued her trek through the desert and her journey to Suhalla… however a small drawback was following her through what remained of her desert trek.

"Are you going to be following me the rest of the way through the desert?!" Sheba shouted back to the enigma.

"Maybe…" he spoke it so simply this answer only served to annoy Sheba even more.

"So your stalking me now?!"

"Is that a question?…" once again he spoke so cluelessly Sheba could feel her blood begin to boil.

"Hrrr!" He turned around and glared at him as he came closer. Then he did something Sheba didn't think he'd do… he walked straight passed her as if she wasn't even there.

"Again your anger is misplaced. If you wish to know why I was following you it is because this is the only path through the desert." He continued walking on without a second thought and Sheba… well she felt defeated.

'Is he really just trying to get through the desert? Why… What business if any does he have in northern Gondowan? Or is he just good at creating excuses?" at this thought Sheba continued following him now even more suspicious of the man with no memories. They continued walking until the enigmatic man came to a cross roads, there he stopped and waited for Sheba.

"What?" she asked simply raising an eyebrow as to why he'd wait for her here.

"You obviously know these lands better than I. May you lead the way?" he stepped aside after his question.

Sheba was still annoyed with him but she led the way nonetheless. "This way." she spoke and he followed her down the left branch of the cross road. "So you really don't have a name or any memories?" she asked suddenly.

The strange man was taken aback by her sudden question, "Strange… now you want to talk?" he asked curiously.

"Well if I have to guide you through the desert might as well make the most of it." she answered back.

"Oh…" that was all he spoke for a moment. To Sheba his demeanor spoke of someone who was thinking of something to say. "As for your question the answer is no… and for you and me both it is quite annoying."

"But what you said earlier…" Sheba started but stopped as soon as she began. As she had been walking her thoughts had turned unexpectedly to the dream she had been having. She had also remembered what the man had said to the Tempest Lizard when he fought it off. That was when she realized the man definitely had something to do with that dream of hers.

"What did I say?" he asked with much curiosity it didn't suit his usual tone of simple speech.

"Nothing…" Sheba decided to end that conversation there. 'I'm not going to get involved with that dream. In fact I don't even know why I've been writing about it. I'm going to ignore it and hope it goes away.'

"So what's this dream about?" the man spoke with sudden interest. Of course that question really riled Sheba. He had been reading her mind, sure she did it to people before to find if they were hiding something, but she had never been on the other end of the situation before, even Ivan never read her mind out of respect.

"Who says I'll tell you?!" she huffed as she crossed her arms in contempt.

"If it's about me would I not have the right to know?" he asked with a curious glance.

"That's beside the point, what if it was something that wasn't about you?!" she asked with a huff.

"Now that's beside the point." he spoke all knowingly, "The fact is the dream is in some way related to me!"

"So you don't go… HOW MUCH OF MY MIND HAVE YOU BEEN READING?!! HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS DREAM IS ABOUT YOU?!!" Sheba shouted furiously.

"Only the part about you, and I quote, "not getting involved with that dream"…" the man jokingly waved his pointer-finger around in the air.

"So then how do you know the dream is about you?" Sheba asked suspiciously once again.

"You told me." He spoke so simply Sheba finally cracked.

"AARRGGHH!" she shouted in frustration, "You!" she pointed at him making him stop in his tracks, "One: Stop speaking so simply its annoying! Two: Never read my mind again! And Three remove that God-forsaken poncho it's making me feel warm!!"

"No." once again he answered simply. Sheba was seriously pissed now. She swore he was laughing at her under his poncho thing. She began glaring at him, and not some petty glare either. This glare had death written all over it. "Fine." he gave in, "I'll stop bugging you. But only if you promise to tell me a bit about this dream."

Sheba was utterly surprised. She hadn't expected him to stop so suddenly. But still… "Who says I'm going to tell you anything?" she asked.

"Hmmm… that place, Vale… I think I'll be heading there."

"What!?" Sheba was utterly shocked at this. This strange guy knew of Vale, but how… 'He couldn't've!' she glared at him again as she said, "You read my mind again didn't you?!"

"Sorry." he spoke simply again but this time Sheba ignored it.

"Why?!"

"Well one: you're going there aren't you." he spoke this more like a statement than a question seeing as he already knew her answer, "And Two: I think I need to go there anyways… That Mt. Aleph, and the other adepts… maybe someone knows something…"

At this Sheba quieted down a little especially because he looked so sad, "Now how about you?" at this he looked at Sheba, "What's your story?"

"Huh?"

"I have read it… you have no memories of your true past either, your missing heritage if you will… You don't know who your parents are either, who your family is…"

"You really forgot everything?…" Sheba asked feeling sympathy for the enigma

"I can sometimes make out a few faces of whom I think I know but no names, I can't place a voice, a smell, I don't even know if some of these people whose faces I can see are my friends…" Things grew quiet for a while until the enigma removed his poncho, "I thank you for being my guide and companion to Vale… as long as you don't mind having a traveling partner?" he raised an eyebrow curiously as he threw the poncho over his shoulder and stuck out his had for a hand shake.

Sheba got a good look at him now as she reached to shake his hand. This man had brown hair that came down in three strands in the front, the rest was combed neatly back and in the back his remaining hair came out in a messy ponytail that nearly stuck straight out. He had deep blue eyes that held a strange mingling of happiness and sadness. He was about a head and a half taller than Sheba. His body was covered in a strange suit that covered his entire body (excluding his head and arms) along with a armored vest that covered his torso. And he wore heavy looking boots that looked older than Sheba due to the amount of dirt and creases. Down his arms ran strange lines that seemed to have no real significance. Lastly there was the strange crest on his chest with the picture of a crescent moon with two slash marks that made an X-pattern that had cut through it. Though the wound looked deep and went through the armor and gave an eerie white glow the man seemed not to notice. There were many things about him that made her immediately want to ask questions, but she knew he probably had the same questions himself.

After looking him over quickly Sheba shook his hand with a nod. "Thank you… uh… darn it it's on the tip of my tongue!" he had spoke with a smile until he realized he didn't know the young girls name.

"My name's Sheba." She spoke with an enthusiastic smile.

"Sheba… sounds easy to remember, but I may still forget it!" he said with a wide grin. With this the set off again and soon found themselves right at their exit point. "Finally we're out of there, I was starting to get sand in my ears." he spoke with glee to have finally gotten out of the desert.

Sheba was glad as well but her fatigue outweighed the joy of having found the exit. She was still a bit queasy from her poison experience and had walked so far she didn't want to walk the rest of the way to Suhalla. She sat down on a nearby boulder that was sitting in the middle of the field that she would have to walk through in order to get to Suhalla. That distance nor the dark starry night helped her fatigue at all. "The last time I felt this tired was when we fought against the Doom Dragon… or Dullahan…" Sheba didn't even want to think of the armor that nearly killed her and her friends two years ago.

"You look tired." he spoke with a slight hint of concern.

"I am…" with this Sheba leaned back on the rock in order to make herself comfortable, soon she was deep asleep with no hint of being able to be awakened until next morning.

"Hmmm… She reminds me of someone… is it because she looks so peaceful asleep?…" the Enigma watched her as she slept and he thought of reading her mind so he could watch this dream of hers. He walked over to her and gently picked her up and hoisted her on his back as he began walking to Suhalla. He sensed the presence of life this way so he hoped it would be Suhalla he came upon at least. "I shall not read her mind… though it frustrates me, I must respect her wishes." With this he quickened his walking speed, and hoped he'd get to Suhalla before too long. As he had began walking faster he heard Sheba mumbling in her sleep just over his shoulder he listened intently until she spoke a word… no a name that he knew was definitely his… Kurrama.

This one: Nothing much to say today, but at least this one got out a nice long chapter. :D