It's always sad to see a good friend or family member leave you. You tend to get an empty feeling inside…and many times…you don't like that feeling. Well, I believe it's time that the truth about everything that had happened between B.E.N., Annie, and Bella was revealed. Enjoy!

Chapter Ten: Meanwhile…

The Benbow Inn was crowded that same night. Many familiar faces passed by for a bite to eat. Doppler was there that day, as he was almost every day, including Amelia. Jim had just come home after another mission, asking where B.E.N. was. Annie explained to him that B.E.N. was away on community service, helping the needy. She promised that the robot wouldn't be long and that he'd be back soon.

The Benbow Inn was crowded, loud at times, but to Annie…it was the quietest and most boring and it had ever been in the whole year she'd lived here.

Letting Sarah know that she'd been taking her 10-minute break, Annie very solemnly dragged her feet upstairs to where the guest rooms were. Walking further up, the felinid came upon B.E.N.'s own room. She registered the entire door, its brown color and golden trimming and a certain uniqueness to it that seemed to radiate from it. Though it belonged to Annie's robotic companion, the room was without its owner, empty and without life.

Annie slowly opened the door with a sigh and walked inside. She stopped to absorb the décor of the room itself. The bed, blanketed with its stylish blue comforter, lay to the left side of the room and flanked by a small shelf and a nightstand, the foot of it pointing to the opposing wall, where the tall, thin wardrobe sat, accompanied, to the left of it, by the full-view mirror. The shelf on the side of the bed consisted of cute, little nick-knacks. Annie could see that the whole of the room was left exceptionally neat and presented an inviting and playful air to it.

She wandered over to the side of the bed and picked up in her hand a small stuffed animal of a space teddy bear. It looked like a lighthearted version of the generally ferocious, real live kind. But then, all stuffed bears were like that. Annie now knew in full that B.E.N., with all his craziness and spontaneity, has remained a child at heart. Oh, how she missed that youthful spirit of his. Hardly anyone else here carried that with them. That was why it became so boring around here. B.E.N. always sort of lit up the room when he came in to serve the customers.

Making eye contact with the teddy bear, Annie felt a tear roll down her tiger-marked cheek, saw it drop onto the stuffed animal's face and soak into the velvet fabric. She gasped in a sob, her throat choking up on her as she hugged the bear close to her chest and began to cry.

"Annie?" queried Sarah, who stepped into the room and found the felinid sitting on the bed in tears. "Annie, what's wrong?" Sarah took pity on her and sat down on the bed next to her in attempt to comfort her. "Annie, tell me what's wrong."

"I'm…" Annie sobbed in a cracked, squeaking voice, "I'm just missing B.E.N.…a lot. Things just aren't the same without him."

"Oh, honey, don't worry. I'm sure he'll be back soon from whatever it is that he's doing. It's just community service, right?"

"That's the problem. He's not on community service."

"Then, what is he doing?"

"Oh, Sarah…I'd have to tell you everything."

"What? What is it?"

"Well, you wouldn't believe me." Annie wiped away a few tears from her wet face. "Even if I told you."

"It's all right. You can tell me."

"But I'd have to tell you the whole truth."

Sarah seemed a bit surprised by this. "The whole truth?"

Annie exhaled before speaking, feeling an overwhelming guilt finally catch up to her. "Okay. Let me start from the beginning." And she began to explain everything. She told Sarah the same prophecy she'd told B.E.N. and about the pirates that kidnapped him and her, the egg that had come into the mail for him and had hatched into a white dragon, the Crumbletons that tried to snatch the dragon away, the planet of Draco, everything. She told Sarah about Bella and how the dragon had been living there for a whole year. At this particular point, Sarah interrupted.

"Wait. Even if this dragon were real, how could it live here without being seen?"

"Because," said Annie, "she couldn't be seen. Dragons are invisible to those that don't believe in them. I could see Bella because I believe in dragons. You couldn't see her because you don't believe. In fact, no one believes anymore, but B.E.N. definitely believes. He owns one, and that one is Bella, the white dragon. And the reason why he left with her is to ward off the Ruler of Darkness, the self-appointed king of Draco."

"Annie, are you sure this is not just a story and that none of this is real?"

"See? You see what I mean? You're not a believer. That's why you couldn't see Bella."

"All right. So, why were these pirates and the Crumbletons all after only B.E.N.?"

"Because he carries something that they wanted. But they weren't the ones that wanted it. I figured out that the Ruler of Darkness is their boss, so he is the one that wants B.E.N. for what he has."

"What is this thing that B.E.N. has that the Ruler of Darkness wants?"

"It's something I had given to him a year ago when he had saved me from that wreck."

"What was it? A piece of jewelry or something?"

"No. It's not any material possession. It's something far beyond value."

"Well, what is it?"

"It's…well…"—Annie hesitated—"…it's a magical power. But I don't know what it does."

"Are you sure? Dragons are one thing, but magic?"

"It's true! Anyway, I didn't give it to him just because he'd saved my life. I was supposed to give it to him because…well, basically, it chose him…and I was the delivery girl."

"How does someone, much less B.E.N., get chosen by a magical power?"

"Remember the prophecy? Well, not only did this power choose him, Bella also chose him sometime before she hatched, both for the same reasons. The prophecy said, 'only one Purest of Heart shall come and purge the darkness on a dragon whose skin shows white.' Bella is that same white dragon. And she and the magic power chose only B.E.N. because of his pure heart…because he is the Purest of Heart. That's why he's away. He's going to the planet Draco because he and Bella are the only ones who can 'purge the darkness.'"

Sarah was dumbfounded for a long moment, trying to take all of this in. It was very hard to believe that all of this could be true. "But…Annie…B.E.N. can't be the one from the prophecy."

"Well, ma'am…he is. There's no one else like him anywhere in the universe."

"But Annie, B.E.N.'s a machine."

"He's alive, isn't he? You know him. He laughs, he cries, he gets scared and hungry and sleepy, but he never gets angry. Never. It's those qualities about him that make him a person. And it's for those reasons that he was chosen as the Purest of Heart. And the magical power I gave him would've rejected him is he weren't the Purest of Heart. But it didn't. It readily accepted him. That's undeniable proof that B.E.N. is the Purest of Heart."

Again, it was a lot to take in. But Sarah had to admit that Annie was right about B.E.N. She then decided to go along with what Annie was telling her.

"I see. So, what are we supposed to do? Wait here while he 'purges the darkness' all by himself? I've never known him to be able to do this sort of thing. At all."

"Neither did he. But he's not alone. He's got Bella with him. And the prophecy also said, 'only one other than the Purest shall come with a spirit so bold, a child who rides a masculine dragon whose skin shows nothing but gold.' That means he'll gain a partner, someone who rides a golden dragon. Ultimately, though, it'll be he and Bella that will get the job done, one way or another."

"Well, I just hope he's all right out there…wherever he is right now."

Taking a glance out the window and into the etherium outside in the endless night sky, Annie said in distant agreement, "Yeah…me, too."

To be continued…

—

How am I doing so far on this story? Wanna read more? Please send me a review! Please?