Two Destinies Chapter 36: The Drake Rider

Author's Preface: Well, what do you know? I actually found enough time to write up another chapter! And it hasn't even been a week since the old chapter came out! Wow! Either I'm getting lazier with my schoolwork or I'm getting my homework done a lot faster and finding a lot more time for writing. But no matter… Aren't you glad you guys all have some new reading material? *shot* Enjoy~~~

Warning: This chapter contains a bit of coarse language (even if it's only two of the same word uttered by the same person within a sentence of the other utterance). Beware.

"Kyle? Shannon?"

"Hey, where did you two kids run off to?"

"Dear Atamoni! Kyle! NO!" Kyle continued to hear the voice of his father directly over his head sobbing miserably. He wanted to open his eyes and embrace his father with loving arms and words, but his eyes (as well as the rest of his body, for that matter) refused to cooperate. Instead, he just had to listen to his father continue to cry. Eventually, his father spoke solemnly between two distraught sobs. "Kyle…" He sniffled. "I can't believe anybody would do such a thing to you… Why would anybody murder you so brutally?" Kyle was absolutely horrified upon hearing this. He was trapped inside his own dead body? As he thought about it more, his thoughts returned to the dream that he'd had last time, where his heart had supposedly been torn out, and he wondered if this was a follow-up to that dream. At that moment, Kyle heard his mother's voice and snapped out of his reverie.

"Holy Atamoni! What the hell happened to our son, Stahn?"

"I don't have any idea, Rutee!" Stahn replied. "I just found him like this… And I can't find Shannon anywhere!"

"Well get your ass back into that cave and find our daughter!" Rutee yelled at Stahn. "Look, if you come out with Shannon looking as horrible as Kyle is, I'll have your ass mounted over the fireplace! Let me take Kyle so you can head back in!" Kyle was completely confused at this point. His mother had just called this Shannon person her "daughter", but Kyle was an only child… Or was he?

At this point, Kyle's eyes started to work again and he found himself waking up to the sight of an azure blue sky with a few cumulus clouds dotting it. He took a silent breath, but something around his neck was constricting his breathing. He put a hand over his neck and was surprised to feel a ribbon wrapped around his neck. Just then, he heard the sound of a woman laughing next to him. Upon quickly turning to see who the owner of the voice was, he nearly fell off of whatever he was riding on, only to be caught by some woman with shoulder length black hair, gray eyes, a star tattoo on one arm, and a minimalistic black outfit with long tan pants. She lifted Kyle back onto what seemed to be the back of a dragon and continued to laugh.

"Having fun?" She asked, looking back at Kyle. He was completely confused.

"…Mom?" He asked innocently, seeing a strange likeness between this woman and his own mother. The woman had to double take and nearly sent the dragon that they were riding on into a nosedive before regaining control seconds later. Her face lit up with a combination of indignation and embarrassment.

"'Mom'?" She scolded. "I'm too young to be a mother to somebody your age, you stupid kid!" After saying this, she slapped Kyle across the face and added under her breath, "Hmph… What nerve… After I had saved you and everything…" After his cheek stopped throbbing, Kyle took a closer look at the woman and realized that she wasn't his mom. Kyle's face turned bright red.

"S-sorry, Miss…" He apologized. "It's just that you look a lot like my mother did when she was younger… I didn't mean to offend you or… Ngh…" Kyle tugged a little at the ribbon around his throat again that was trying to strangle him after it cut his apology off. The woman chuckled.

"Heh, guess I might have put that on too tight…" After saying this, the woman swiftly moved behind Kyle and brushed his hair aside to start fiddling with the ribbon.

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked, trying to look back at her. Instead, she used one hand to move his head back to a forward position and continued to fuss with the ribbon.

"Don't move your head, kid!" She said. "I'm trying to fix this thing so it doesn't choke you anymore, and that's hard to do when your hair is in my face…"

"Kyle…"

"Huh?"

"My name is Kyle. Kyle Dunamis. I'd rather you call me that than just 'kid'…" The woman stopped for a brief second as she tried to figure out what he had just said before chuckling a little and continuing to mess with the ribbon.

"Marone. My name is Marone Blucarno." Marone continued to fuss with the ribbon for another second before returning to her original position on the dragon's back. "There." She said. "That shouldn't choke you anymore, Kyle." Indeed, Kyle was able to breathe freely now, even if he still couldn't see what she had put around his neck. "It's just a simple light blue ribbon tied in the back." Marone said, answering the question that had popped into Kyle's head. "You can see it once we get down." This statement brought up another question.

"Wait, where are we going, Marone?" He asked, his right index finger and thumb still wrapped around the ribbon on his neck.

"We're heading to Morle right now. You know where that is, right, Kyle?" Kyle looked away from Marone. He had no idea where that was, and he assumed that Marone wouldn't accept the reason why he had no idea. "Oh, that's right… You're not from this world, are you?" Kyle looked up at Marone quickly in shock.

"Huh?" He said. "How do you know?" Marone chuckled as she looked back at Kyle.

"I heard you claim that when you were protesting to the king." She said. "In fact, I heard everything you said to him." Kyle blinked once in surprise. "I don't know if there really are any worlds out there besides Eternia, but I don't think it's right for you to be persecuted just because we haven't found any other worlds… I'd like to believe there are other worlds…"

"But there are!" Kyle protested. "I'm the proof of it! My world is very different than Eternia – we have two moons and we don't have another planet attached to ours by some kind of barrier, and Inferians and Celestians live together in peace!" The last sentence caused Marone to look back at Kyle in shock for a second before she turned forward again a second later.

"A world where Inferians and Celestians live together in peace, huh?" She repeated. Quietly, so that Kyle couldn't hear, she added, "Wouldn't that be great…"

Meanwhile, back in the dungeon, the rest of the team was still waiting, completely bored out of their minds. There was absolutely nothing for any of them to do but lounge about or fall asleep. Reid had once again lapsed into his thoughts of Rasheans with Farah, but he was quickly snapped out of them when he heard two pairs of heavy boots thunder down a set of stairs. Within a few seconds, Roen ran over to the prison cell where Reid and his friends were and banged on the cell door. A second later, he started to scream at the top of his lungs.

"WHERE IS HE?" Roen yelled. "WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HIDE HIM?" Everybody stared at Roen like he had five heads. Not only did nobody have any idea what he was talking about, but they had never seen Roen this pissed off before. Keele spoke up first.

"I don't follow…" He said. "What are you talking about?" Roen gave Keele a death glare, which caused the poor scholar to straighten up in shock and have a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck.

"Stop playing stupid! I know it was you guys who sent that dragon to rescue your little blond friend!" This was news to everybody, and they all exchanged smiles of relief now that they knew that Kyle was safe. Reid was still slightly concerned about the dragon, though.

"Dragon?" He asked. "What kind of dragon?" Roen's death glare moved from Keele to Reid, who didn't even flinch at all.

"You know very well what kind of dragon it was, Reid Hershel!" Roen barked. "You're the one who sent that damned flying lizard to save your friend!" Reid sighed.

"Look, Roen, I don't have the ability to tame dragons…" He said. "It certainly wasn't me… Besides, I had no idea that Kyle had even been rescued until you said anything…"

"YOU LIAR!" Roen yelled. "Tell me where you hid the boy, or I'll have your head roll!" Just then, the other person who had come down the stairs tried to pry Roen off of the cell bars.

"Roen, calm down. I think they're telling the truth…" At that moment, Roen threw the other person off of his arm and pointed at him.

"This is all your fault, Cress Albane! If you weren't so weak and wishy-washy, that damned boy would be dead right now!" Cress stood back up quickly and glared at Roen for a second before socking the knight captain in the face, causing Roen to fall to the floor unconscious. The others were surprised and impressed by the blond haired knight. He turned around and faced the imprisoned heroes.

"So, you guys are all Kyle's friends?" He asked. Meredy twirled around.

"Yes!" She exclaimed. "We are all friends with Kyle!"

"I see…" Cress said. "Anyways, judging by your reactions, I'm assuming that you guys weren't behind the dragon kidnapping, then, right?"

"YEAH!" Max shouted.

"Did you see what happened, Cress?" Chat inquired. The blond knight nodded.

"Indeed. I saw the dragon swoop down and pick up Kyle and then fly over the stadium. I also happened to notice that there was a woman riding on the back of the dragon…" Keele gasped.

"A woman riding on the dragon?" He said in admiration. "But those creatures have always been very hard – nearly impossible – to domesticate! She must be very talented!" Reid quickly became embarrassed by Keele's behavior, but he focused back on Cress.

"Say, is there any way you could help us get out of this dungeon?" He inquired. The blond knight looked down at Roen for a second, and then looked back at Reid and smiled. He bent down and picked up a small set of keys from Roen and stared at them.

"I hope one of these is the correct key…" He said as he stared at the set.

"I just hope you get us out before he gets up…" Chat said, pointing at Roen. Cress shrugged and then started trying different keys in the lock. He had tried four of them when Roen started to stir. Everybody froze. However, he didn't reawaken, and everybody sighed with relief. Cress started messing around with the keys again. Three keys later, he finally found a key that fit into the hole and unlocked the cell. Everybody rushed out of it and headed for the stairs behind Cress. While they were running, Reid picked up the conversation.

"Which way did the dragon go after leaving the colosseum?" He asked.

"I'm not exactly sure…" Cress responded. "It went in a southwestern direction, I think…"

"Southwest, huh?" Reid said, pondering as to where the dragon might be going. His thoughts were broken when he heard Keele pipe up.

"I know!" He said. "The dragon probably headed towards Morle. Maybe we should head for there!" At that moment, Reid looked back to see if Cress was still following them and, strangely enough, the blond haired knight had seemingly vanished into thin air. Reid was completely puzzled.

"Let's go to Morle!" Meredy chirped, distracting Reid from his thoughts.

"How are we going to get there, though?" Chat inquired. "I have no idea where the Van Eltia is!" Keele snapped his fingers.

"Leave it to me!" He raised his Craymel Cage into the air. "Sylph! Aerialboards!" Just then, the green hoverboards made of wind appeared before them all. There were only four boards, so Meredy and Chat shared one while Keele, Max, and Reid rode their own. After quickly teaching Max how to drive his Aerialboard, they all zoomed off faster than they could have gone on foot, now heading for Morle to hopefully meet up with Kyle again.

The dragonlike creature eventually landed on top of a tall tree to let Marone and Kyle get off of its back. Marone quickly turned around and petted the creature on its head.

"Thank you for getting us here quickly, Varossa." She said. The dragon snorted happily in return. Kyle crossed his arms and watched them.

"Varossa, huh?" He eventually commented. "Is that the dragon's name?" Marone turned around.

"Yes, that's the name I gave him." She said sternly. "And Varossa is not a dragon – he's a drake. You can tell by the difference in size. Dragons are usually about twice the size of Varossa here, and he's a rather large drake." Kyle's eyes widened.

"So dragons are pretty huge, then…" He said. Marone nodded.

"Anyways, as I'm assuming you've never been here before, let's head down so you can see the rest of Morle." At that moment, Marone jumped up and then disappeared into the tree canopy. Kyle nodded to nobody and then tried to jump through and land on another branch below, but instead, he started falling to the ground, yelling in surprise. However, something caught him out of thin air by his left ankle – Marone. She hoisted him up onto the branch where he was and let him catch his breath.

"Geez…" Kyle groaned. "Thanks for the save, Marone…" The drake rider chuckled.

"How about you just follow my lead so you don't plummet to the ground next time?" She suggested. Kyle silently nodded in agreement and then proceeded to follow her lead, jumping from branch to branch until they finally got to solid ground. Upon reaching the ground, Kyle looked back up into the trees and was astounded by the sight.

"Wow…" He said in amazement. "An entire village in the trees… We don't have any cities like this back home…"

"You should be safe here for a while from those pesky Inferian knights." Marone said. "Nobody gets through the Forest of Temptation quickly, if at all…" Kyle turned to Marone.

"But what about my friends?" He asked with a concerned tone. "How are they going to find me?" Marone raised an eyebrow.

"You have friends, huh?" She said. "Well, you should really hide here until things calm down back in Inferia City, but if you'd like, I can bring you right back into the mousetrap right now…" The teasing tone was heavy upon her voice. Kyle paused for a few seconds before sighing in defeat.

"Never mind…" He said. "I should just stay here and wait for them to come find me…" Marone shrugged.

"The Forest of Temptation is really dangerous, but they would only go through it if they knew you were here in the first place…" She said. "Don't worry, if worse comes to worse, I can bring you back to Inferia City…"

"I'll stay here in Morle for a while." Kyle conceded. "Like you said, the city must be in a panic if they're looking for me…" After saying that, Kyle turned away from Marone to continue looking at the new surroundings and, at that moment, he spotted a small puddle nearby and ambled over to it. Upon bending down to see his reflection, he saw a simple light blue ribbon lightly tied around his neck, just as Marone had said. He placed one hand on it as he continued to look at himself. A second later, Marone's reflection appeared over his.

"You like it?" She asked. Kyle nodded slowly.

"It matches my pants." He said distantly, continuing to stare at the reflection. At that moment, the reflection changed suddenly. Marone's face was gone and Kyle was staring at himself wearing that green and black outfit from his dream again. Another thing he noticed was that his eyes had changed color and were a lighter blue than his own. After looking at this strange reflection for a few seconds, his vision became blurry and, though he wasn't aware of it, he fainted.

During the period where Kyle was passed out, he found himself completely surrounded by darkness, but, unlike the last dream he had, he was able to see himself. Also differing from the other dreams, he was still wearing his usual clothes. At that moment, Kyle realized that there was another person there with him, but his eyes opened wide when he realized who it was.

It was himself…

However, this Kyle was wearing the green and black outfit that he had seen in the reflection and his eyes were the lighter blue color, as well. The eyes, however, looked aimlessly at the ground emptily, seemingly devoid of life. His arms were also pinioned above his head as if he was being shackled by something over his head. Curious, Kyle took one step forward, and the floor hummed beneath his feet, surprising him. The other Kyle gasped quietly and looked up to stare at him for a second, his lighter blue eyes regaining their life. The two Kyles looked into each other's eyes for a second before the lighter eyed Kyle spoke up.

"Help me!" He yelled fearfully with the same voice as the darker eyed Kyle while struggling to no avail against his invisible chains. "Please, you have to save me!" The darker eyed Kyle gasped and tried to move forward to save his other self, but he found that his body wouldn't move. Instead, his arms also magically moved themselves up over his head so that he was in the same pose as his other self. He struggled as well against whatever was holding his arms up, but, like his other self, he could not escape. The lighter eyed Kyle stared at him in fear for a second before he threw his head skyward and started screaming in agony.

At this moment, Kyle woke up screaming as well. He was hyperventilating for a few seconds while Marone appeared out of seemingly nowhere and ran over to him. "Are you okay, Kyle?" She asked. Once Kyle had regained his breath, he replied.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" He said. "It was just a nightmare…" He looked around the room as thoughts began to swirl through his head. What was the meaning of that nightmare, though? What was with that other me?

Little did neither Marone nor Kyle realize that somebody was watching them from the shadows…

Author's Final Note: Things just keep getting weirder and weirder, don't they? Anyways, seeing as I've introduced Marone Blucarno, I bet you guys can guess who's going to show up some time in the near future, right? That's right, Corrina Solgente! (And yes, I'm spelling it like that rather than Coreena, which looks more like a portmanteau (lolbigword) of Corrine x Sheena from Tales of Symphonia.) How is the story going to be different with the addition of the Tales of Eternia Anime exclusive characters? Just wait and see~~~ (and leave a review in the meantime! *shot*)