Dragonia
By Dixxy
Chapter One: Peanut Brittle Surprise
(Rowen)
BZZZZ! BZZZ! BZZ! BZZZZ! BZ-
BAM!
I swore when I realized I had thrown yet another alarm clock into the wall. "Damn it, not another one," I grumbled. That was the third alarm clock I'd broken this week. I got up and cleaned up the debris, then sat back down on my bed. I yawned, stretched, and picked my watch up off of my bedside dresser.
10:34.
"Whatever," I mumbled. I shook my head, blinked, and stretched again. I'm not a morning person, so naturally, getting up is going to be a chore in itself. Once I was barely balanced on my two feet, I clopped over to the bathroom, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor of my room and the ceramic tiles of the bathroom floor. I skinned out of my boxers, stood in the shower, and blasted on the cold water.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Now I was awake.
After getting dressed, I went downstairs to find Yuli was sitting at the kitchen table playing with his Game Boy and eating a bowl of some sugary kid cereal. I waved sleepily at him, and he gave me a thumbs up in response. "G'morning, Yuli," I said, stifling a yawn.
"You're up early."
"I set my alarm. You know Mia wants me to start getting up earlier." I cleared my throat and began to do my Mia impression, shaking index finger, stink eye, and all. "'Rowen Touma Hashiba, if you don't want to have the tardy record you had last year then don't you even think about sleeping in late, young man, ragh, ragh, ragh!'" Yuli laughed, snorting in the process, which caught him by surprise. I looked around, scratching my head. Something was missing. "Say, where are Mia and Ryo this morning anyways?"
"Grocery shopping. They looked really sad, though, but I couldn't figure out WHY. It's not a Monday, it's still summer, and it's a really nice day outside," said Yuli. He looked over at the calendar, trying to see if he could figure out what was bothering them. He frowned. "Oh. Now I get it."
Still a little sleepy and not registering what he was talking about, I went over to the calendar to see what he meant. I took a closer look at the date, thinking the number over. I scratched my head- that date held some sort of importance, but what was it? Then I realized what he was talking about.
It was exactly one year since Sage, Cye, and Kento had disappeared.
I sat across from Yuli and rubbed my temples. What a major bummer. I guess the pain of knowing they're gone will never go away. Sometimes it feels like it was just the previous day that they'd been spirited away as memories of Sage's sly grin, Kento's boisterous laugh and Cye's calm outlook on life were brought back to the surface.
Mia, Ryo and I have pretty much given up on ever finding them alive. Something got to them. I know it was a something- had it been a someone, Ryo and I would have been able to sense their armors and we would have found the bodies. Then the police could conduct an investigation and find out who the killer was. But no. They must have been obliterated- nothing was left except for a burnt piece of rubber that had been Cye's watch.
Yuli hasn't given up yet. "But they didn't find the bodies, and if they were obliterated then Cye's watch wouldn't have survived!" he constantly argued. "Ryo, Rowen, I know they're in the Dynasty waiting for you come after them! Why don't you rescue them? Why are you just abandoning them!"
"But Talpa or whoever took them would have shown themselves by now," Ryo always retorted.
Sometimes, I wonder if they are still alive and kicking. After all, I keep having a really weird dream where I hear their voices and suddenly I'm attacked by a kind of attractive woman with white hair and red eyes. The woman was evil, I'm sure of it, but I wasn't sure if the dream actually meant something other than just a delusion I was having.
Then again, that wasn't the only weird thing that happened to me. A few months earlier, I had been on the balcony leading off of the room I shared with Ryo. It was around eleven or so, so I was just getting up. That was when I heard a far-off voice begin singing an American song I'd learned in a chorus class called "Somewhere, Out There". Feeling kind of stupid, I answer back with the second verse and before I knew it, I was singing the duet all by myself and somehow hearing the response. Was I crazy? Or was it something. . . more?
I had to find something else to talk about. "How long have Mia and Ryo gonna be gone?" I asked.
"A few hours," he said. "There isn't a lot of food in the house. I had pretzels for breakfast."
"Why?" I asked. "Isn't there any cereal left?"
"Nope. Even if we did, no milk."
"Oatmeal?"
"Nope."
"Toast?"
"Nope.
"Bagels?"
"The one Ryo found this morning looked more like a pistachio donut."
"Cream of Wheat?"
"Eww!"
"Eggs?"
"Uh, uh."
I blinked. Wow, we really WERE at a loss for food. I stood up and went digging through the cabinets. I finally found half a bag of potato chips and a few Twinkees, then dubbed it breakfast. I brought it back to the table, where Yuli was smiling. "I told you so," he said.
"Man, you'd think Kento was still here," I said. I winced at the mention, but stuffed a Twinkee into my mouth anyways. A little stale, but still edible. I picked up a magazine and started to skim through it while I made the most of my really, really stupid breakfast. Once the last of the chips were gone and Yuli had stolen my last Twinkee, I washed it down with a glass of tap water and tried to decide on what to do next.
My stomach rumbled. I was still hungry. "Rowen, what else can we eat?" asked Yuli.
"I don't know," I said. Then, I got an idea. "I know! Go put in a video and I'll find some popcorn or candy or something. When Ryo and Mia get back we can eat something healthy to make up for all the junk we've been eating like a salad or something, all right?"
Yuli's eyes widened. "Yeah!" he said. "Popcorn! Candy! Rowen you rock!" He scampered off into the den and began to tear through our entire library of videos. I laughed- Yuli was really a good kid. So sociable and friendly and outgoing. He'd turn out all right. I just knew it.
Little did we know it, but something was outside. Something unlike anything we'd seen before. It was watching me and Yuli through the window as we munched on popcorn and some peanut brittle I'd found in the back of the cabinet. Its stomach rumbled in hunger as it watched us, licking its lips in anticipation.
It would have its meal, soon.
The only problem was, it had to decide when to strike. When it would eat. Whether or not it was worth watching the movie we were watching (the talking box was fascinating to this creature). And of course, whether or not it would need to use force to obtain its meal.
It still waited in perfect, complete silence.
It grinned when Yuli went to open the window to get some fresh air.
"That's better," said Yuli. "It was getting stuffy in here."
"Yeah, I'll agree with you on that one," I said, taking another mouthful of popcorn. Yuli had chosen one of the Pokémon movies. Currently we were watching Rocket Gang trying to pull another fast one on Satoshi, Kasumi, and Takeshi. Personally, I wanted to see Purin- that little pink thing was funny as hell!
Yuli sat back down on the couch with me, taking another piece of the peanut brittle we'd discovered. Mia must have bough the "Big Bucket O' Peanut Brittle" on an impulse, but I did have to admit- it was good. Still, a bucket of peanut brittle? I didn't quite understand.
Me, I was concentrating on the popcorn. I like peanut brittle all right, but I like popcorn a lot more. I like buttery foods and I like salty foods. With popcorn, I get the best of both worlds with a nice soft, yet crunchy package. Oh sure I hate it when the kernels get stuck between my teeth, but so is life.
Without warning, something zipped into the house through the window, crashing into a plant on its way inside. Yuli and I both screamed in both terror and surprise, and ducked for cover, jumping over the back of the couch and keeping down low to prevent the thing from seeing us- whatever it was, it was ALIVE.
"What was that?" asked Yuli in a hushed whisper.
"I don't know," I replied.
"Go check it out."
"Me? Why me?"
"You're the one with the armor!"
"You have the Jewel of Life!"
"You're older!"
"You're. . . friendlier."
"If you don't go out there I'll tell Mia you put me in danger," said Yuli.
No beast could be as scary as Mia when she's upset- hell hath no fury like a pissed off Mia Koji. Well, that certainly settled it. I was going out there to see what it was. And, if I was lucky, then MAYBE it wouldn't kill me in the process and smash me into tiny bits right before Yuli's eyes.
Hold on, Rowen. You're a Ronin Warrior. You've broken mystical armor before. You stood up to Lady Kayura and didn't get killed. That thing couldn't have been all that big- hell, you could probably step on the damned thing and kill it if need be. Just relax and know you're the superior being, I assured myself.
Taking a deep breath, I crawled my way to the other side of the couch. I could hear that whatever the was, it was eating rather noisily and sloppily. I could tell if it was the coffee table or some other hard surface, but it eventually let out a loud, noisy belch and went back to eating.
I looked at the coffee table. It looked fine. But from my belly-to-floor position, all I could see was a pair of scaly wings and a chubby little tail with a crescent moon perched on its tail, which was swinging back and fourth as it ate. It didn't appear to be too big at all, so maybe I'd surprise it.
I jumped up. "Got ya!" I cried.
The thing looked at me quickly then began to fly around the house, taking another plant down with it. I somehow managed to catch the plant while Yuli took off after it, his arms flailing as he ran. "Wait! We don't want to hurt you if you don't want to hurt us! Come back!"
Once I put the plant back up, I started running after it and Yuli again. I just barely caught my balance as it flew back down the stairs, Yuli on its tail. "Close as many windows as you can- I want to see what that thing is!" I instructed. Yuli nodded and we both began to close any open window we could find. The thing was now trapped.
Once I was pretty sure we had all the windows closed, I went back into the living room to see what it had been eating. It didn't take my super intelligence to figure out it was the peanut brittle from the mess of saliva, peanut chunks, and claw marks lining the plastic bucket and the coffee table.
"I think it was hungry," said Yuli.
"Yeah, but was the peanut brittle just an appetizer?" I asked. Yuli and I both gulped. I cleared my throat, trying to change the rather grim subject I'd brought up into a more. . . safe subject. "Let's arm ourselves. I'll get into subarmor and you get the Jewel of Life. Then we're protected."
"I never let it leave me," he said, pulling it out from under his shirt. I just nodded after transforming into the familiar metallic-blue and white subarmor. Once I flexed my joints and knocked against the hard surface, the two of us crept silently and quietly upstairs, listening carefully for the thing.
Soon, I heard noise coming from the inside of Yuli's room. I placed a finger to my mouth. "Yuli, you stay here. I'll go in your room and try to find it, all right? It might be dangerous and Mia will kill me if you get hurt. Stay tight and if Ryo and Mia come home, tell them what happened." Yuli nodded, and I placed my hand on the doorknob, mentally preparing for the worst.