Author's Note: Alright, I'm getting back into the swing of things… and I'll have to do my chemistry homework later. Not to mention get back to playing Ultima, I have those other games I just got, practice my skills for Nursing… man, college leveled classes are hard! Well I guess they're getting me on track to prepare myself for actual College work… but enough about me. Enjoy, guys!

Chapter 25: Reunion

Enter Mike:

The snow crunched under my feet as I walked by the frozen river, southward bound. I had no idea where Paulo was, but I figured following the river would be my best bet. The sound of rushing water up ahead told me that I was approaching the line that separated between the snowy mountains and the grassy plane.

"Alright…" I said to myself taking a breath as I made sure the shotgun was loaded. "Okay… I only have six bullets in this thing… gotta make them count…"

I walked forward, staying by the river when I saw something flash in the corner of my eye. I turned to it, confused. The "flash" was a tiny, red dot in the sky that was… growing?

"What…?" I blinked up at the growing dot in the sky, which slowly took on more details. The "red" grew to be fire, and in the center was a humanoid figure, holding onto another figure. As it grew in size, the thought occurred to me to jump out of the way. As I acted on this thought, the massive thing of fire crashed on the spot I was at, letting off a blast of heat and sound from the crash. I fell on my face, my back burning with heat and the snow around me melting.

"That was AWESOME!" a familiar voice said as I pulled myself up. "Wasn't it, Paulo? …Paulo?"

"That's not the word I would have chosen…" moaned Paulo's voice. Growing excited, I quickly stood up and spun around to see Paulo sprawled out on the ground near Dave's feet. Dave himself looked different, with bright red fur and orange streaks that made it almost look like his fur was on fire. In fact… he actually WAS on fire.

"Dave?" I asked, slowly approaching them. "Paulo?"

"Mike!" Dave cheered, hugging me and, consequently, burning me. "We found you! Where have you been? We've been looking all over the place, flying here and there and…"

"Dave… burning… ow…" I groaned in pain.

"Oh, sorry!" Dave quickly let me go as Paulo stood up, patting himself down. "Guess I don't know my own strength! Superheroes DO have super strength, after all."

"…superhero?" I asked.

"It's a LONG story," Paulo sighed, approaching me. "He is right though, we've been searching this mountain range for awhile looking for someone, but we had no idea WHO it would be."

"Look, I don't care, I'm just glad to see you!" I laughed in delight. "C'mon, the barrier's just north!"

I grabbed Paulo by the wrist and started running, but he soon dragged me to a halt.

"Wait a minute, slow down!" he said. "What are you talking about?"

"…you're right, Dave will be faster!" I agreed. "Dave, can you fly us north?"

"Sure!" Dave said cheerfully, shooting fire out of his feet and floating in the air. "I can fly us anywhere!"

"Get DOWN, Dave!" Paulo said, waving him back to the ground.

"Aw…" Dave landed back and sulked.

"What… but Paulo, Dave can get us out of here in no time flat!" I told him. "Look, there's a sort of barrier to the north of here. If we pass through it, we'll get back to the school!"

"Really?" Paulo asked, excitement in his voice. He quickly regained his composure, however, and took a deep breath.

"Well, at least we know where to go afterward," he finally said.

"Afterward?" I asked. "After… what, exactly?"

"Look," Paulo explained, "this is going to sound crazy, but this weird fish-man-thing suddenly came to us-"

"Oh that's not crazy at all," I assured him. "I saw it too, when I first landed here."

"Oh… well that explains a lot of explanation…" Paulo muttered to himself. "Anyway, it came and told us that apparently Dave is the 'Chosen One' that's supposed to save the world from some mind reading monster."

"…I'm sorry, what?" I asked, not quite believing what I just heard.

"Look, it's hard for me to swallow too, okay?" he replied. "But then again, we're in a world where Dragons put curses on people, there's a fish-man, and a glowing red orb makes Dave catch on fire and fly with said fire."

"And super strength!" Dave piped in.

"Dave… why don't you practice melting that frozen river over there?" Paulo pointed.

"Okay!" Dave nodded cheerfully before turning and shooting fire out of his hands, aimed at the frozen river near us.

"…and he reminded me of that thing Dave said back before we got sucked into the dome," Paulo continued, turning back to me.

"Oh yeah…" I nodded in memory. "When it looked like he was possessed…?"

"Exactly," Paulo nodded. "If I remember right… one is stuck in the forest, one's corrupted by the dark sword, one the corrupted person's trying to save, one lost hope in the mountains, one's stuck with the chosen one, and finally, the chosen one."

"So… you're saying that prophesy is talking about us?" I asked him.

"Exactly!" Paulo said in the same excited tone that an eccentric detective would get when he was onto an important clue. "Dave's obviously the chosen one, I'm stuck with him, so that fills my role, and we found you in the mountains… but you don't look any more hopeless than you usually do."

"Hey!" I protested.

"That leaves three," continued Paulo with a tiny smirk, "and if the Prophesy's to be believed, one's in the middle of the forest, so maybe they made it out okay, but one's been corrupted and the other's been kidnapped or put in some kind of danger! Best case scenario, we still have two guys somewhere in this world, and if the fish guy's right…"

He turned and pointed to a city with a castle in the center of it in the distance. "…they'll be somewhere in there."

"…" I said nothing, simply watching Paulo. After a minute, he turned back to me.

"Well?" he asked. "What are you doing standing around? C'mon, Dave can fly us in and-"

"We can't go in," I cut him off, shaking my head. "It's way too dangerous."

"…what are you talking about?" Paulo asked, staring at me with wide eyes. "These are our FRIENDS you're talking about! Daisy could be in there, or Abby! Even Lucy-"

"Paulo, look around you!" I interrupted, throwing my hands in the air. "We're in the middle of a great big fantasy novel! But no, that's not the worst part. You know what's going on out there? At our school, back in the real world?"

"No, but-" started Paulo.

"Hell, Paulo," I said in a dark voice. "The place went to hell. Half the school is dead, turned into zombies. The other half is sheltered in, afraid for their lives. McCain was bleeding to death the last time I saw him, and I don't even know if the medical supplies we got were enough to help him! The only reason I came back here was because Jasmine asked me to come get you."

I turned away from him, facing the cold mountains and, somewhat indirectly, the barrier that separated this world from the real world.

"We're a couple of teenagers," I continued. "We're waving around weapons, pretending we know what we're doing, but we're still just a bunch of dumb kids. In here or out there, it's over. The sole reason I'm taking you back to Jasmine is so she'll see you before she dies."

There was a moment of silence. Even Dave paused what he was doing and stood in silence. Then, the quiet was broken when Paulo hit me in the back of the head.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he yelled at me. "What kind of attitude is that?"

"It's a realistic attitude!" I snapped back, spinning to him. "Face it, the world is ending, and-"

"Shut up, okay?" Paulo interrupted me. "Just shut your fat fucking mouth for ONE minute! I know it's hard for you, but try to actually LISTEN!"

I glared at him, clenching my fists but otherwise staying quiet.

"So the world's going to shit," Paulo said with a shrug. "From what you're saying, it's because monsters are coming out of the Dome?"

I nodded.

"So that means they're all coming from in here," Paulo reasoned. "Maybe they're coming from that castle, who knows? All I know is that, while we're here, we should save the others!"

I turned my head away from him.

"…Mike, what would you do if it were Sandy in this situation?" he finally asked, striking a chord in me. I was visibly shaking now, but from rage or sorrow not even I could tell at that moment.

"…you're pathetic," Paulo finally spat when I didn't answer. "I know you hit a low, but this is an all-time low. You're no better than the son of a bitch that started this hell in the first place!"

He was stepping closer to me as he said this, finally pushing against my chest.

"You want to stay here and be an emo?" he asked. "A misunderstood teen? Only doing what you think is best because it's what's easiest for you? Fine. Stay here and do that all you want, but don't expect us to hang around and watch!"

He turned away from me, walking back to Dave, who was watching with wide, hurt eyes, like those of a child watching his parents fight.

"Let's go, Dave," Paulo said to his best friend. "We can fly over the walls surrounding the city, break into the castle and save our friends."

"But… what about Mike?" Dave pointed.

"What ABOUT him?" Paulo asked with an air of disgust. Dave looked back at me for a minute before falling in line with Paulo. I blinked hard, bringing my hand up to my face to feel tears coming out of my eyes.

What would I do if it were Sandy in that situation…

Doing what I think is best… because it's easiest…

My friends…

…Lucy.

I clenched my fist and looked up, newfound determination sparked in my heart.

"WAIT!" I cried after them, running.

"Oh for the love of… what is it NOW?" Paulo asked, turning to face me.

"You can't fly into the city," I told them.

"Watch us," Paulo spat, turning around. I caught him by his shoulder.

"This time, you listen to ME," I told him. "If you fly in from high, they'll see you coming a mile away. Dave was clearly visible even in bright daylight what with his fire."

I pointed to the river, drawing Paulo's eye, and drew an imaginary line following it toward the castle. "From here, you can see the river leads into the city. It doesn't look like it's pooling into a lake, either, so that means the river runs right through the town, which would also mean there's some kind of passage for the water to go through. If we go through that passage, we can enter without detection."

"…" Paulo turned back to me, a look of confusion on his face. After a minute though, his usual expression came back and he asked me, "So, what made you finally decide to grow a pair?"

I smirked at him grimly. "Hey, If I'm going to die, I might as well go out actually DOING something."

"You know…" Paulo thought for a minute before patting me on the shoulder. "When you pull your head out of your own ass for a minute, you're a halfway decent guy."

"I'll take that as a complement," I nodded. "C'mon, we got a lot of swimming up ahead."

"But… but the water will put out my fire!" Dave whined as Paulo and I started off next to the river.

"You can dry yourself off after, you big baby," Paulo said. "'Sides, you flew straight through clouds and came out the other side totally soaked and you were still okay."

"What if the only reason that happened was because the Sky God blessed me?" Dave asked, falling in step next to the two of us.

"Sky God?" I laughed.

"It's a long story…" sighed Paulo, pinching the bridge of his nose. I looked down at the shotgun I was still lugging around in my hand.

"…I got one, too," I finally told him. "Tell yours, first. We've got a long walk ahead."

Author's Note: All the pieces are starting to fall into place! Tune in Friday to see the exciting… school chapter. After that though comes Lucy's chapter, and the chapter after THAT is when shit starts to his the fan. 'Till then, this is Pax the Dreamer, signing out!