I don't own Jane and the Dragon. My trimester at school is ending, and lucky for me, I don't have as many tests as I did last time. Thank God for that. I managed to find out how to get rid of my access browsers, and now I actually have a decent amount of space on my internet window. Either way, I thank flyingheart23, SunRise19, and KrisEleven for the reviews(No the story's not done yet). They really helped. Before everything gets all mushy, enjoy the story. :)

Chapter 21: Siblings Reunite

"Umm, where's the fire, Julian?" Kai said, as she and Ahi arrived in the front door (they had wisely left Lightnose back at the river for, obvious reasons) witnessed Julian and Tigre running back and forth across the kitchen floor. Dan wasn't even in the room.

"WellKai,you'renotgoingtobelievethis,butwejust-"

"Hello, name's Tigre. What's yours?"

"Tigre, it's me, Ahi."

Tigre was silent for a couple moments, then he finally spoke.

"No way. The Ahi we all knew was shorter, way shorter."

"Tigre, it is her. I'll explain later. For now, what's going on?" Kai said quickly, turning her head back to the greatly frazzled Julian, who blurted out:

"Kazi wrote to say she's coming!"

"Satan made flesh is coming to visit! Satan made flesh is coming to visit!" Tigre yelled, drawn right back into his initial panic, starting to fidget uncomfortably once more.

"Wait, when did she say she was coming? And where's Dan?"

"Tomorrow and we have no idea. Does that clear it up?"

Kai's expression changed from one of confusion to one of slight panic and resignation.

"Get a room ready. And if you see Dan, tell him I've got some food that should last him about a week, maybe two."

"I don't get it, who is Kazi?" Ahi said, completely confused and frustrated, a couple hours later.

"Well, we are sisters, but she and I…"

"Don't look a thing like each other?" Tigre supplied.

"I guess you could say that."

"And Kazi can be the scourge of God when provoked." Tigre cut in once more.

"The scourge of God?" Ahi asked, now more than a little wary of the visitor.

"Well, not quite the scourge of God, but the closest thing to it. And I can talk for myself." Kai said. Tigre gave them both a 'I'm just saying' shrug, and walked off to go help Julian set up the room Kazi would stay in.

"What's with him?"

"He managed to get on Kazi's bad side last time she came to visit. It was his first time here, just like you, so I guess he didn't think she would get so worked up over it. Over dinner, he made a remark that got Kazi mad. Long story short, I had to help him climb down from the tree by the river sometime after dark." Kai paused, seeming to considering something, and then called up the stairs.

"Hey, Julian, did she happen to mention if she was bringing Alken?"

"She said he might be stopping by, but she didn't say anything about bringing him with her." He yelled back.

"Who is Alken?" Ahi asked once Kai had come back into the room.

"Alken's…a friend. He's not normal, though, just to let you know."

"It's fine. I live with not normal everyday, remember."

"For us, even, he's pretty unusual."

"Oh."

Next morning, practically the whole store was on edge. Ahi hadn't seen Dan since the time he and her spared, which was two days ago, and in his absence, the tension was almost as visible as the door that she was staring at. She had heard stories from Tigre and Julian, mostly horror stories, but she couldn't help but be curious. First off, Kazi was supposed to be Kai's sister, but she didn't look a thing like her, so then what did she look like?

The answer came a little too suddenly for Ahi's liking. One minute, the door was flying open with a bang, and the next, she saw a flair of color, and had something shoved into her face.

"Hello, you're new aren't you?" said a strange voice from somewhere over her head. Ahi looked up into the face of someone who could have been more than a couple years older than her. But the most surprising thing about the face was that it was framed by rainbow-colored locks, and their were, right smack on her face, twin, blue streaks of scales, running horizontally across her cheeks, but stopping before they touched her nose.

"You know, you could close your mouth now. My appearance isn't that shocking, compared to yours, anyhow. To be honest, even I've never seen anyone with hair like that."

Ahi was drawn rudely back to earth by the remark.

"Well, I've never seen anyone with rainbow colored hair before, so I guess that puts us both in the same boat, doesn't it?" she blurted out before she could stop herself. What instantly ran through her head were all the horror stories she was told, but to her relief, Kazi was smiling.

"Don't worry about it. I was just testing you. At least you aren't a pushover. I like it better that way."

"Jane! Jane! Look at this!" Princess Lavinia cried as she climbed on one of the smaller rocks in the quarry. The princess, prince, and squire were accompanying the king in the stone yards; the prince and princess were there to learn about the quarry, Jane was merely there to keep the little majesties out of trouble, which was proving to be more difficult by the minute.

Suddenly the princess let out a screech of fright, which brought both Jane and the king running.

"There's a big, scary monster over there!" She cried.

"What, my little pumpkin? What did you see?"

"A monster!" she squealed, gazing wide-eyed at the rocks like she expected something to jump out at her.

"I will see what it is, your majesty." Jane

Jane walked warily over through the rocks, and came across a suit of armor, or at least what looked like a suit of armor. It was so battered and dented it was tough to tell what it was. Plus, it seemed to be on its side. Jane gently put her hand on the metal, and was startled by how cool it was. Usually, if metal is left out in the hot quarries for most of the day, it heats up pretty fast. This metal, however, felt like it was in a shady forest rather than the hot valley. And it was surprisingly light, too, when Jane tried to lift its arm. The sudden movement forced the armor to roll over onto its back, and Jane gasped with shock. The armor was molded into the shape of a dragon, but on two legs, like a human, instead of four. And, but she could have been mistaken, she thought she heard a faint groan when she turned it over, but there were no signs of life in or near the metal. Jane looked at the armor, an idea forming in her mind.

She walked back with a "There's nothing back there, little majesty. Just a discarded bit of metal."

"See that you get it cleaned out, Jane. We don't want metal getting in the way of the masoners." The king said over the princess's cries of 'but it was big and black, and scary!'.

"What is that?" Dragon asked, gesturing at the metal.

"Some kind of a suit of armor, made to look like a dragon." Smithy said, as he worked on the greatly battered armor, laying on one of the long shelves, as Jane and Dragon looked on.

"Do you have any idea as to who might have made it, or where it came from?" Jane asked. It had only been minutes since she had managed to find Dragon and get him to bring the armor back to the castle. They were both intrigued, but unfortunately, Smithy didn't have that many answers for them.

"All I can tell you is that it is made of a metal I've never seen before. It's harder than the plating for Sir Ivon's armor, and you know how thick those are."

"Okay, number one, it's tough." Dragon commented.

"Whatever happened to it must have been tougher." Jane remarked, looking at the multiple dents, scratches, and marks in the metal.

"Not sure, but it must have been almost indestructible to leave that kind of damage in it. As for the maker, I don't even know anyone that smiths with this type, or anything close to it. This thing is one big mystery." Suddenly, Jane caught sight of a peculiar looking mark on the chest plate of the suit. It resembled the eye of a tornado, and it seemed to be scratched right into the metal.

"What's this?" she asked, putting her hand out to touch it. Before she could even brush the metal with her fingertips, the armor gave an almighty jerk, like it was alive, and fell to the floor, startling the dragon and two humans out of their wits.

"W-what was that?!" Dragon cried, warily approaching the downed metal. He gave it a sharp poke, and quickly pulled away, but to their relief, the armor made no attempt to move.

"Now, that definitely isn't normal." Smithy said as he moved it back to the shelve, careful to avoid the imprint.

"I think we've seen all we can here." Jane remarked as they began to smell the unmistakable scents of Peppers cooking wafted over them.

Just as they were heading over to the kitchens for dinner, they failed to notice a gleam in the eyehole of the helmet, like something inside the armor was checking to see if the coast was clear. It could have just been the wind, but what sounded like a faint sigh came from the armor's direction. Whatever was inside began to recount the horrific events from the past night.

All through this trip, darkness had been his friend. It had kept him safe from the people that lived along his route, and made sure he could actually travel.

But, now, as Alken ran through the forest, he realized that his newfound 'friend' had suddenly turned sinister. He heard a crash of a tree behind him and tried to speed up, but something large and black landed in front of him, like a predator cornering its prey.

"Itami!" he cried "It's me, Alken! Why are you chasing me?"

Itami did not answer, but gave him a menacing grin before swiping out with his clawed paw, which just nicked Alken's shoulder.

Fear instantly took over. Alken turned tail and made a dash for a sheltered spot in the bushes. Itami waited for a couple moments, and then took off once more. He spotted Alken from the air, dived, catching the metalloid off guard, and grabbed him in his claws.

Alken tried to struggle, but Itami was making sure to dent and batter him as much as possible to keep him from moving. Then, without warning, Itami suddenly let go, and Alken had to grab onto the black dragon's hand to keep from falling.

"First you want off, and now you want to stay? Make up your mind!" Itami taunted as he roughly pulled the poor Alken right off and dropped him once more. He fell, down, down, down…

With a loud crash, he fell into what sounded like a rock pit. He waited for Itami to come and torment him again, but the black dragon was already long gone. He tried to get up, but he realized that Itami's battering had damaged some vital parts of his armor, rendering him immobile.

Guess all I can do now is wait for someone to come along. He thought as he settled down for what seemed like a long night.

Meanwhile, an awkward scene was being played out at the dinner table in the store. Tigre seemed determined to stay out of Kazi's reach, Julian was quieter than usual, and Kai remained impassive to the whole thing. Ahi reluctantly tried to strike up a conversation, but no one seemed to want to talk. Finally, Kai said something.

"Hey, Kazi, Sakana came with you, didn't she?"

"Yes, of course. Why do you ask?"

"Where is she staying?"

"Down by the river."

"She might run into someone down there."

Kazi shot Ahi a glance, and Kai nodded in an affirming way.

"That's right." Kai said as she bit into another piece of bread.

Lightnose had to admit, the night was beautiful, in its own way. The sky, the river, everything looked so different in the dark. The sky especially. He had never seen stars, but he had heard about them from Ahi before, but this was beyond what she had described. He would have probably stayed up till morning, just staring at the sky, if it weren't for the fact that he was suddenly interrupted.

A funny sound from down in the water caught his attention, and he looked down just in time to see the water swirling, rising?

No, it wasn't rising. Something in it was rising. Lightnose made for the nearest thicket of undergrowth, just as a dragon emerged from the water. As Lightnose looked on, he realized that this one was more sleeker, more agile-looking, than Dragon. It was also a darkish color blue, that got lighter in certain areas (or was that just the light from the moon?). It climbed up onto the bank and looked around, like it was trying to seek something out. It moved to the very spot where he had been lying, and seemed to be trying to sniff him out. Then, it turned to the thicket in which he was hiding, and said

"Come on out. I know you're back there. Its okay, come on out." It spoke in a female voice, calm and soothing, like how a mother would speak to a scared child. Lightnose hesitantly left his spot, but remained tense, just in case he had to run, or fight.

But, as soon as he was within reaching distance, the strange dragon put a hand on his shoulder and asked "Are you all alone here?"

He nodded, not sure of what to say.

"Would you mind if I stayed here?"

Finally, he spoke.

"No, I wouldn't mind. It's okay with me."

"Thank you so much! My name is Sakana, by the way. What's yours?"

"Err, Lightnose…" he said, as he had never talked to a female dragon before, and he wasn't quite sure how to go about it. And he knew that his inexperience was showing. Luckily, if the other dragon noticed, she chose to ignore it. Why did he feel an almost familiar feeling? A warm feeling, a feeling that you knew someone cared. A parental feeling. His nervousness eventually wore thin, and he found himself slipping off, right there under the stars.

Awww, I put in a cute end here... No, he doesn't like Sakana in a romantic way, he's just never had a parental figure in his life before. Please Read and Review.