In less than a month, Pyra's world had turned upside down, inside out, and any other confusing change imaginable. First she was saved from a bunch of apes by a weird creature. It looked like a very lanky ape, wearing a cloak and had an extremely brutal fighting style. That same creature then took residence in her hometown, and proceeded to defend it from a siege. She almost got captured in that siege, but the creature - whose name she later learned was Daniel - came to save her once again. That time, he also had a 'golem' with him: a creation of his, made with earth and some crystals.

Pyra's father had died in that siege though, and when Daniel said he was planning to leave, Pyra had begged him to take her with him. She still wondered why she decided to do that, and the danger she'd been in after that made her reconsider her choice multiple times. But… she felt safe with Daniel no matter what. He'd slaughtered his way through a whole city to save her, and then offered to help her and her new friend Sora grow strong enough to protect themselves…

And then he proceeded to throw the two of them into one of his 'training dimensions' with only a barebones explanation.

And ever since they'd taken residence in Leedri, she barely got a chance to talk to him.

What happened? Did he grow tired of having her around? She needed to know.

The small dragon walked outside the house, quickly spotting the one she was looking for. He was sitting on a cobblestone wall, lazily holding a halberd in one hand. He was fiddling with his horns with the other hand - they'd all been rather surprised to see him sprout those too; maybe he was actually way younger than he sounded?

Still, he immediately stopped when she got closer. Even though he wasn't looking in her direction, he'd immediately noticed her approaching, somehow. Things getting weird around him seemed to be the norm, what with gods looking for him, him being part demon and dragon, and a whole lot of other things Pyra was pretty sure he'd never actually explain fully.

He turned around and gave her a look from over his shoulder.

"Oh, hey Pyra. Need something?" He asked, spinning over the wall to face her.

"I- yeah." She took a deep breath. "Now or never," she thought to herself. "Daniel, I-"

Just as she was about to speak, his head quickly snapped to the side. His hand gripped the handle of his halberd tightly, and his eyes focused on something in the distance. She looked over too, trying to figure out what had caught his attention.

In the distance, she spotted a horse's skeleton galloping towards them. Riding on it was a massive suit of armor, with a bright blue flame in place of a head.

"Pyra." Daniel's voice was quick and harsh. He wasn't the calm person Pyra was used to: this was the Daniel that had fought his way out of an entire city. "I need you to go back inside. Warn Sora and Kellea too, don't come out until I come tell you otherwise."

"But-"

"No buts. Please, go. It's for your own good."

Pyra huffed out some smoke, but acquiesced and returned inside. Instead of going to find the others though, she took place next to a window to see what was going on.

The fiery knight didn't slow down at all. Instead, he barreled straight to Daniel and tried to cut him in half with a swing of his massive sword. Pyra didn't manage to follow the action, but the next thing she saw was that the knight had rushed past, and Daniel was nowhere to be seen.

The knight slowed down, looking around. That was when Daniel reappeared behind him, lashing out with a kick covered in black fire. He hit the knight straight in the shoulder, with enough force to throw him off his horse.

Daniel landed, and the knight pulled himself up to his feet. The two stared at each other for a few seconds.

"I understand that you have your mission, Lanoor," Began Daniel. "But we don't have to do this. Do you still remember Machrosias? I heard you used to work for him-"

"Do not dare utter that name again, knave." The knight's voice was filled with hate, the flame that made up his head flaring up. "Thou shall not sully my former Lord's name any more."

Daniel ducked away from the slash, and the two started flitting in and out of sight again. All the while, Daniel tried to talk.

"Why are you so mad at me? What'd I do to you? Yeah, I guess that the blast of ice back when we first met could've hurt, but I didn't think you were going to hold a grudge over that!"

"Hold a grudge?!" Roared Lanoor. "What of the town thou froze to death? What of the innocent lives thou so callously ended? I care not for the spell thou used, but for its results!"

Daniel froze for a moment hearing that, and so did Pyra. Daniel had done what?

Lanoor took the chance to land a punch squarely on Daniel's face.

"Isn't that the guy we were running away from?" Came a voice from next to Pyra.

The small dragon jumped, but quickly calmed down when she spotted her friend Sora. He was watching the fight with apparent disinterest, but Pyra knew better. The slight tensing of his shoulders, his eyes flickering all over the battlefield trying to follow the action… he was worried.

"I think so, yeah. But don't worry, I'm sure that Daniel can handle it." Pyra said. "I hope, at least."

The fight seemed to be rather evenly matched, all in all. That was, until Daniel started to fling out magic. It wasn't his best, Pyra knew that for certain. Daniel had once given her a demonstration of his strongest spell, 'Agidyne'. What he was using now, didn't come even close to it. He probably didn't want to cause too much collateral damage.

At some point during the fight, Kellea had joined their little group. The succubus seemed to be physically forcing herself to not rush over and try to help. Pyra had to wonder why… that was, until she remembered a certain scene she'd spied on a few days before.

Kellea was gripping Daniel with all she had, burying her face in his chest. He'd wrapped both his arms and wings around her, and was softly caressing her back and whispering things to her. Hiccups and sobs kept coming from the cocoon of wings, but over several minutes they subsided into light snoring.

Daniel folded back up his wings, and picked up Kellea. He moved to the stairs, and Pyra had to scramble away to hide back in her room.

Pyra wasn't really sure what happened after that, she was a bit too scared to go check. But with how Kellea seemed to like Daniel more since that night, she could hazard a guess.

A loud clang rang out from outside, and Pyra's had swivelled to follow the action again.

One of Daniel's golems had joined the fight. It was one Pyra had never seen before, a sleek silvery metal with dark grey joints. It was grappling Lanoor's waist, keeping him rooted in place. While the knight attempted to free himself, Daniel rushed in to cut him up. A gelid blue aura coated the halberd's blade as it came down on Lanoor's flaming head.

Everything froze for a moment. Then, the flames were extinguished. Piece after piece of the armor fell to the ground, nothing left to hold it together.

The halberd fell to the ground a moment after, Daniel collapsing onto his back.

Kellea rushed outside, followed by Pyra and Sora a few paces behind. The succubus kneeled down, fretting over the collapsed demon.

"Hey, don't worry," he muttered. "I'm just tired. He was one tough bastard, I'll give him that."

"I was thinking I'd actually see you lose for once," came Sora's sarcastic comment.

Daniel laughed. "Not in a million years, mate." He then turned to Kellea, who was trying to help him up. "What'd I tell you? Some preparation and luck. Ain't nobody keepin' me down."

Pyra was very surprised to see the usually blank-faced Kellea smile for once. It was infectious, making everyone smile back. If Daniel could defeat Lanoor, maybe they actually had a chance.

The good cheer vanished when a crack - not unlike glass breaking - came from Daniel. They all looked as a spiderweb of breaks spread over Daniel's body. His eyes bugged out as the cracks spread faster, covering his whole body.

"W-what? No, I- this shouldn't be happening! What is this?!" He yelled. His voice was distorted, barely understandable.

They all watched on, horrified as he began to disintegrate. The distinctive blue of Daniel's magic bled out from the cracks, spreading out over everyone. Pyra felt a 'pull' from deep inside her, recognizing it as the same feeling as when Daniel had first shared his magic with her. She watched as the aura around her seeped into her scales, the same happening for Sora.

Kellea was trying to hold onto Daniel as much as she could, but it didn't seem to help as he only kept disintegrating in her arms. He looked at her, only one eye visible anymore. Pyra was certain he'd done something in that exact moment, as the remaining mana converged onto Kellea. Some kind of last blessing?

None of them had any idea, but they did know what happened just after that. The remains of Daniel's body disappeared into dust. He was no more.

The three of them kept staring at each other, confused. 'What now?' they asked themselves.

Before any of them could utter a word, a golden light enveloped them. When it finally dimmed, the group wasn't anywhere to be seen anymore.

Observing the endless multiverse grew stale without anything in particular to catch the eye. Yet, as of late a young mortal had been attracting some of its interest. He was… endearing, in a way. Like a lost child, fumbling around. Alas, it was only that: a child. For all his considerable power - for a mortal, at any rate - he had died. First it was his real body, being impaled and incinerated by the golem Estoma, soon followed by the clone he'd left to protect his allies.

He hadn't really lasted much, but it was going to change that. The child had saved its life, thus it was going to repay the favor.

What should have been an easy task of intercepting the young man's soul before it reached an afterlife was instead near-impossible, as some force kept trying to wrench the soul from its grasp. A more attentive analysis showed a mark, imprinted on the soul. It recognized said mark; Thanatos' touch.

The soul-eater had somehow marked the young man's soul for consumption. When had that happened? When had the two even met? Regardless of that, it was now forced to make a choice: save only part of the young man's soul, or send him off to a death with no afterlife or reincarnation.

It wasn't a hard choice.

The most corrupted, greedy, and evil parts of the soul were separated, along with the mark. They rocketed away, and it honestly hoped that Thanatos would feel sick after that.

Something else attracted its attention, though: three beings were just flung out of the universal bubble where the young man - what was his name? Something with a D? - had just been. It recognized traces of the young man's soul within the three beings, deeply intertwined with their own.

Those three… were the soul pieces trying to follow the main soul? A reasonable assumption. Now, while it could just rip the pieces out, and fix the young man's soul that way, the process would result in the death of the other three. And that was unacceptable. It could not allow them to follow the young one either, as their bodies would be destroyed in the void. Therefore, it gently guided the three of them in different universes.

The young one would find them in time, and recover his full strength. Until then, it could easily halt the stream of time for those universes.

"Now then," it spoke in a chorus of voices. "Let us fix you, little one. This is no time to die."

It was not a heartless being, unlike the Trickster. It would not willingly rip someone away from their family, and for this one to whom it owed so much... it would rectify the Trickster's misdeeds.

An unknown amount of time later…

Something started ringing in his ears. It was very annoying. The sounds of shuffling came from somewhere nearby, and the ringing stopped. There was some more shuffling around, and then a muffled thump. With a long sigh his eyes finally opened, and he sat up to find whoever had interrupted his sleep.

He was sitting on a bed; at the foot of the bed was a carpet, and on that carpet was laying a young girl, currently rubbing her side. She didn't seem wounded, so she'd probably just tripped over something.

"Hey, you ok down there?" He asked, partly out of slight concern for the small girl - who couldn't have been older than fourteen - and also to see if they spoke the same language.

Her left eye, a vibrant green, glanced up to meet his gaze. The other eye was covered by several locks of black hair, looking a bit disheveled. "Uh… yes." Came her quiet response. She stared at him for a long moment, her face morphing into a slight frown. "Do you… do you remember me?"

He frowned at the question. Why would she ask such a question? Of course he didn't… but why was something nagging at the back of his mind, then? Was he supposed to know the girl? Had they met, and he'd just forgotten?

"I can't say I remember seeing you before, but something tells me there's more to it… so you tell me. Have we met before?"

Her shoulders slumped down with a short sigh. Her head hung low, the long hair now partially covering also her visible eye. "...yeah," she whispered, just barely loud enough for him to hear.

"Well that was probably the wrong thing to say," he thought to himself. "Then again, giving her false hope would've probably been worse."

Kneeling down next to the girl, he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Look, I… I don't remember, but maybe you could help me fix that?"

Her head turned a bit towards him, so he continued.

"I have no idea where we are right now, or really much of anything, but if you say you knew me, then we can figure it out together. Deal?" He gave her the most reassuring smile he could, which must've looked more comical than anything according to the chuckles he heard.

"Alright, deal."

They both sat there for a moment in silence. Those last few moments had felt… right, for lack of a better word. As if both of them had found a piece of themselves that they'd lost.

A faint click came from the side, and the duo turned to stare at the door. There stood a tall blonde woman, holding a camera in her hands. She calmly placed the camera on the nearby desk, gave the two a dazzling smile, and rushed in to hug them both.

The young man - who was beginning to feel rather annoyed at not remembering even his own name - flinched back, but couldn't dodge the blonde-haired missile that caught him in a death grip. He looked at the girl, trying to call for help.

She must've assumed that he was confused, instead. "This is our mother."

He tried to get a look at the woman, but all he could see was the back of her head as she held him close, along with the slightly muffled sobs as she cried into his shoulder.

"Her mother? Well, if the girl knows me then it would make some sense for her mother to know me as we- wait a minute."

"What do you mean our mother?"

It was then that the woman - his mother? - spoke up, still slightly muffled.

"You're back. My baby's back home."

Yeah, this is back. If you don't know what is going on, that's fine: it will be explained in time, as this is a sequel. Feel free to read the prequel if you want, but be aware that I'm not all that proud of it anymore.

Also, you can expect future chapters to be much longer than this.