My mind was everywhere and nowhere in particular when I wrote this chapter. If you come across spelling/grammar mistakes or gibberish, please do tell.

Arrival – a new world

Everyone was standing in the creation room. Now, there was only one door for them to pass through. At the other end, they would enter the world of the Legend of the Sun Knight. They would become part of the tv-show. The true voyeurs could even pay for camera access every minute, of every day. From now on, no slip ups in speech could be made.

"Doll, we can count on you, can we?"

Doll smiled.

"By all means."

Prince smiled confidently in return.

"In that case, lets go. Ladies first."

At those words the door swung open. Only sky was visible. With a big grin Doll sprung into the air. DanDan followed with a squeal. Neurotic followed his wife quickly. Cold Fox was next. Even when he was about to jump into the open air without any protection, his face remained stoic as he let himself fall into the air. Kong Kong looked a bit nervous. While he fell beneath the other side of the door, something like 'geronimo' was heard. Even though Wolf had a teary farewell with his beloved, he was ready to literally dive into adventure. He went with a loud 'woohoo'. Now it was just Gui and Prince left. They looked at each other. Whenever they were alone, they still were a bit uncomfortable.

"I guess this is it, isn't it?"

"Don't dawdle around, jump!"

That was all the encouraging Gui needed. With a big grin Prince followed. Never would he have thought that escaping it all would be such a thrill. He closed his eyes and let himself fall into the open air. The prospect of going on a adventuring trip for a few years, the knowledge that he didn't have to worry about celebrity or student activities was liberating. The feeling of freedom was mind blowing liberating. With his arms spread wide, and still with a grin on his face he enjoyed the cold air for a moment before opening his eyes.

The sight was spectacular. Seven gigantic bone dragons were soaring through the air, giving several of their riders a fright. Another bone dragon appeared directly under Prince. Prince didn't waste a moment to grab the magnificent undead creature to ride it as well. It truly was a wonderful experience in many ways. After making eye contact with Doll he grinned, she had done a awesome job. Doll acknowledged his grin with a nod and murmured some incantations no one could hear because of the noise of the air. She made a broad arm gesture, commanding her bone dragons to fly west.

Prince smiled to himself. It was a good idea to let Lolidragon leave the first travel instructions with Doll, for Prince could have sworn west was the opposite way. While bending westward the dragons dived towards the ground, giving Prince a tingling sensation in his stomach. After they passed the clouds the air grew considerably warmer.

Flying below the clouds had another merit: they were able to enjoy the landscape. Even though the first hour was flying over stretched oceans, they flew for at least a few hours more over land. The further they flew landward, the rougher the landscape became. The mountains they flew past were an incredible sight for a person which has lived their whole life in the city. Prince was in awe.

But even the beautiful sight of mountains had to give way for another breathtaking landscape filled with heath plants. The dragons landed there, and obediently let their riders dismount. When eight pairs of feet were reestablishing their relationship with the ground the bone dragons disappeared.

"Don't tell me these bone dragons will be our means of travel, the next three years?"

Doll looked at DanDan questioningly.

"What's wrong with my dragons?"

"Bottom sores, that's what's wrong with it! I'll grow callus on my beautiful buttocks." She broke down in sobbing.

"How will Neurotic ever find me appealing again? He lives for beauty, just like I do, and I will become a hag! Uwaah..."

Quickly embracing his hysterically sobbing wife, Neurotic did his best to console her.

"But DanDan, you always be the fairest in my eyes, and I'll suffer the same fate... You wouldn't discard me for such reason, would you?"

When the sobbing only became louder the rest chose to ignore crazy couple.

While the rest was still stretching in order to soothe their muscles, Kong Kong spoke up.

"I don't know what their problem is anyway. There's two persons that know the basics to healing, and we have a genius at healing with us. In other words: we have a walking first aid kit at hand, she wouldn't even have to suffer from split hair ends, if she asked them to."

Prince grinned.

"That's right, no need to worry about stuff like that. Awesome! But wait... That means... I don't have to suffer from my acidified muscles because I can heal them! Sweet."

Quickly, Prince began to heal his legs.

"The first half hour I was straining my muscles with adrenaline... I guess you guys must have too?"

As the others mumbled in agreement, Cold Fox gave a curt nod.

Wolf smiled.

"I guess we all have – don't bother Prince, I'll bathe all of us in healing light, so save your strength."

An hour later they were all enjoying roasted rabbit while sitting at the camp fire.

"Oh my, Prince you are such an excellent cook. I would have never guessed you were!" Being healed and having delicious dinner was enough for DanDan to be smiling again.

"Prince has always been. You wouldn't believe what kind of meal he cooked just to set up a date for Wolf-dage and Yu Lian-dasao when they both were too awkward to make a first move." Doll smiled in pride.

"Huh, what are you talking about?" Wolf was frowning.

"It was really delicious, that meal made me fall in love with Prince even more." Gui was beaming.

"Really, what are you guys talking about? I can't remember such thing?" Wolf looked bewildered.

Prince smiled a cold smile.

"We sent the two of you a note, but you disregarded it because we didn't make a sound over the team channel. Because you guys didn't hear us on the team channel, the two of you decided to get a bite in town before you would go looking for us."

Wolf looked pleasantly surprised.

"How sweet of you guys, I never knew!"

"Grrr, that's because you were too dense! You irked me so much that you made me buy a club to knock you out. I had to drag you into the church! I planned every part of your wedding! But do you know what the worst part is? After the two of you actually got married, you were too busy with each other to give any of us some kind of thanks. What's up with that, really?"

Although it was only a modest firelight from the campfire, it was enough light to see that Wolf was blushing like mad.

"I'm sorry guys, and thank you, really!"

"Guys." Everyone looked in shock to see Cold Fox speak. In silence they waited for what he had to say.

"I love this location, but we aren't on a camping trip, are we? When are we going to Leaf Bud City? Because, honestly, I'd like to go to the coronation ceremony." His ice cold face didn't exactly match his words.

"I flew us here on Lolidragon's instructions. Eight bone dragons would cause a tremendous uproar if we landed too close to civilization. If we wake up at dawn and travel by foot we should be able to get close to the city before night fall. I propose we sleep outside of the city - I doubt we could possibly find rooms with all the people coming for the same event. If we wake up at dawn once more we can wash up at a stream, and enter the city early enough to get a decent spot... I hope." Doll looked at everyone, silently asking for agreement for this course of plans.

Cold Fox gave one of his curt nods, and the rest smiled happily.

The next morning it was very quiet while everyone was cleaning up their improvised campsite before they could finally travel further by foot. They were all tired for they weren't used to this kind of life. Especially waking up at dawn wasn't what they had been anticipating on before entering the dome. There was also some kind of fear to speak amongst the group; obviously some individuals had an awful temper in the morning. It felt as if they had a tremendously deep grudge against the sun for shining so brightly.

Kong Kong wasn't one of them. His mind was already working at full speed.

"Hey, can't we let Gui play his guqin so we can travel faster? With all the healers with us we shouldn't have to worry about his fingers, should we? I'd love to arrive earlier, so we can do some sightseeing before tomorrow. What do you guys say?"

Gui smiled.

"I'm in for it. Are you guys willing to heal my fingers so I can keep playing for hours?"

Wolf groaned.

"I'll do anything, if you just stop talking..."

"I'll take that as a yes."

With the help of Gui's guqin techniques, the group managed to travel a twelve hour distance in four hours. It was still morning when they arrived at the outskirts of Leaf Bud city. They decided to wash themselves in the stream before entering the city. It wouldn't be good to look like savages; how could savages possibly be allowed to enter a decent tavern to eat?

After eating their second meal that day, they began to discuss what to sightsee. There was too much to see with the little time they had at hands today. Most men wanted to go to the shops of the famous weapon forgers located in Leaf Bud City. The two women wanted to go to the main street to enjoy fashion and shopping while Gui begged to go and admire the architecture of famous buildings. Prince looked looked at Wolf with a pleading look, as if he asked for a solution. Wolf shrugged.

After an hour of bickering they had finally come to a consensus. They would do various things each person wanted, as they would visit several city parts when they stayed close to Leaf Bud City. Gui, DanDan and Doll lucked out, because they decided to begin their sightseeing at the center of the town.

The Sun Knight groaned.

"Not again..." Yes, again. Yet another time there was an urgent knocking on his door while he was applying his full body mask. The Sun Knight took a deep breath, let his annoyance slide away into his toes, and actually managed to make his voice sound pleasantly surprised. In essence, that was what being the Sun Knight was all about.

"May Sun inquire whom was guided by the God of Light, to come knocking on Sun's humble door?"

Silence. The Sun Knight sighed. 'Don't tell me I have to repeat myself? Dear God of Light, spare me this annoyance...' After a moment the lad at the door began to speak in an insecure but determined voice.

"Err... This is the vice captain of the Leaf Knight platoon. I am sorry to say I have no idea what you just said, but I am here on the orders of my Captain. There are undead creatures on the loose." Inwardly the Sun Knight cursed. Each and every time again and again...

"May Sun inquire what kind of undead creatures have been witnessed to be bold enough to step into the land protected by the God of Light?"

Silence. Once again. And here was Grisia, thinking he had simplified his sentence by asking first, and referring to Him later. After what seemed longer than a minute the poor vice-captain of the Leaf Knight platoon finally figured out the question.

"Knight-Captain Sun! The report spoke of more than a hundred skeletons. Adair acted quickly, so the Sun-platoon should already be on the spot. My captain, and the Leaf-platoon also went to the scene to aid. Knight-Captain Earth and the Earth-platoon should also be there by now."

"And where are these thorns in the eye of the God of Light?"

"..."

"The City Square, in the Center... Where all the tourist shops are, Knight-Captain Sun."

Another deep sigh. With a warm and passionate voice the Sun Knight spoke.

"Sun will never forgive those foul creatures of the dark. Those who do not bathe in the warmth given by the God of Light shall perish! ...Ah, please be patient as I will ready myself to thrive in His light, and punish the wicked who do not abide His law."

Twenty minutes later, the Sun Knight came gracefully dashing to the place where the undead were spotted. But what he saw wasn't what he expected to see. The holy knights were struggling against the massive amount of skeletons, nothing strange there. But who were those three remarkable individuals that boldly stepped in to help?

The first individual was kind of hard to miss, since he was a wolf-man and at least half a meter longer than the skeletons he was fighting with very accurate and effective kicks. The massive amount of holy light the wolf-man carried in his body left the Sun Knight baffled. It should have been peanuts for the wolf-man to deal with the skeletons by showering them in holy light. No doubt about it. This wolf-man, a species that was rumored to be far less intelligent than humans was carrying at least as much holy lights as the cardinals or even the pope of the Church of the God of Light did. Very extraordinary.

But so were the two other individuals that were bravely facing the skeletons. The two other individuals were handsome. If Grisia was talking to his teacher, he would have described them along the lines of: 'The kind of handsome that, when men see them, they would want to kill them and take their corpse apart.' But somehow that didn't completely fit. For the raven-haired of the two men it did though. On closer inspection it turned out a demon, and with all the dark element he had in him, he was the epitome of the bad boy feeling. It was obvious that housewives would gladly cheat on their husbands if it meant a few minutes with him. The description 'so handsome that when men see him, they would want to kill him and take his corpse apart' didn't fit because of the other individual.

The other individual was an extraordinary elf. White hair, red eyes, and a healthy rosy skin. Clearly he was no albino, and if he had white elf or black elf genes was something you would immediately wonder about. Being filled with a lot of holy and dark element made those suspicions even stronger. But even though he somehow had futures of the most notorious and feared race that ever walked the earth, it didn't work against him. He was the kind of handsome, that when men saw him they wouldn't think about killing him or tearing his corpse apart, for they too, would have been mesmerized by his appearance. Yes, that was the right description. But the most remarkable of these three individuals was that they didn't draw any kind of weapon to fight these skeletons. With a simple flick of their wrists they managed to dismantle a skeleton, and quickly move to the next. It almost looked as if they had did so for years. Clearly the public was in awe. The Sun Knight smiled a menacing smile. Who were those three individuals that stole his spotlight?

Quickly but gracefully the Sun Knight fought himself to the middle of all the skeletons and let his holy light flow all over the square. For a few seconds nothing could be seen but the white from the holy light, and when the light faded away all the skeletons were gone. While the tired holy knights lowered their swords and put them back in their scabbards, the Sun Knight was already stalking towards the three individuals.

"In the name of the God of Light I must thank you for protecting His lambs. Your selfless act of stepping in and fighting these abominations caused by the dark is most brave. May I ask for your names?"

It was the elf (or dark elf?) which responded.

"I'm Prince, this here is Guiliastes, and that's Wolf. But you must excuse us, we and our companions still have to seek rooms for the night. We are afraid this will costs us time, since we aren't the only tourists in Leaf Bud City, with the coronation of the new King..." 'The coronation? Is it that soon? Hmm... I should ask Adair when...' - Wait. First, I must deal with these people.

One of the first things Grisia had learned from his teacher was the phrase: 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' At times like these those phrases suddenly reappeared in his mind.

"As thanks for protecting the God of Light's precious lambs I offer you and your companions shelter at the holy temple. I would like to get to know such unique individuals as your self better."

Prince smiled apologetically.

"I must say I am most honored by your invitation, but my little sister here..." - Prince now tugged an small girl with the looks of a porcelain doll towards him - "...has talents in area's your church does not wish to be associated with."

The Sun Knight allowed himself a moment to compare the two individuals. Appearance-wise two persons couldn't look less like siblings than these two did. The girl clearly had no elf blood in her. But half of her was filled with holy element. The other half of her was dark element, kind of like the same with the elf which claimed to be her brother. Or was it figure of speech? How peculiar. Dark element... talents... Such a young girl already a necromancer? 'So that's why they were so familiar with dismantling skeletons. They had enough practice material...'

But Grisia knew looks could be deceiving... The litch named Pink was an excellent example.

Under no circumstances would these people walk away from under his nose. If they were good people he wanted to be associated with them, and if they were the kind to cause trouble, he wanted to be there to eradicate it immediately.

Once more the Sun Knight smiled the radiating smile he had practiced for over ten years.

"Even though her talents or half of her elemental makeup are from the dark side, there is an equal amount of light to be found in her. Even though she might be strayed, she still is a daughter born under the protection of the God of Light. Sun could never ignore children of the God of Light, for they all must be able to receive His benevolence." 'I should use the same kind of speech if I am seen with Roland in his human form again. Not smiling and scaring the wits out of my knights like the last time causes trouble...'

The elf nudged with his head to the demon of whom Grisia was sure men would love to rip his corpse apart.

"And what about my comrade here?" He was clearly referring to all the dark elements that could be found in the demon's complexion. It almost felt as if the elf didn't want to go to the holy temple under any circumstances. 'Weird, normally people would faint at the idea of receiving such honor.'

"A most unlikely individual to set foot in the Kingdom of Forgotten Sound where the main religion follows the God of Light, but nevertheless, he is an individual that bravely protected the people who follow the God of Light. A hero, I might say."

The elf grinned a boyish grin. He knew he couldn't wiggle himself out of this situation.

"In that case, my comrades and I would like to thank the Sun Knight for his hospitality."

The Sun Knight smiled serenely. Everything worked out so far. 'Now lets see what kind of people they show themselves to be.' He turned to his vice-captain.

"Adair, the God of Light smiles down upon these individuals. Be fast as the wind and make sure arrangements will be made."

"Yes, Knight-Captain Sun."

My boyfriend accused me of having the traits of a fantasy writer. With every sentence I write I think up all kinds of additional parts that aren't essential for the main story line. He told me I get side-tracked way too often, and make the story unnecessary long. He believes the true masterpieces of literature are meant to be short – in that way the writer will focus on what's really important. Or something like that...

He even pointed out that the latest novel he wrote has about the same amount of words as the eight chapters I wrote to introduce the setting of the story, so I would have a solid basis for my crossover. I am sure you can imagine that the way he told it was really convincing. He does that all the time. It's annoying, really. However, Since I acknowledge he has a point I made a decision.

Today I decided to put those story parts to use to make an extra story. Please look forward to it in the near future.

Love,
Bleeb90