Dragonia

By Dixxy

Chapter Two: Lucky and Melody's Introduction

(Ryo)

Once I got over the shock of hearing the cries of help and Rowen sprint off after them, I got a hold of my own senses and took off after him. "Stay back there!" I yelled. Mia and Yuli didn't say anything, but I still talked. "Rowen and I will handle this! It's too dangerous for you two to come along!"

"Ryo!" Yuli called.

"STAY BACK!" I yelled, then I continued my trek through the woods, dodging what branches, spider webs, and other unpleasant things I could as I tried to catch up to Rowen. The adrenaline rush was starting to kick in – I was frightened out of my mind and running faster than I ever had before. And then I could feel the power of Wildfire reaching out to me, too. I got scared – if my armor was reacting, there could be trouble. What if Rowen was being tricked by whatever it was that got to the others? What if I lost him, too?

Although Rowen and I butt heads a lot, the two of us bonded that first year without the guys. A lot. Rowen had lost his best friend – Sage – and I was I just getting used to the idea of having friends, only to have most of them taken away from me. We found solace and comfort in each other and we tried to deal with it. We clung to each other and spent every possible moment we could together – that's why Rowen reacted so strongly to the store clerk. Because of how close we are, well, a lot of people thought that we were more than friends, which isn't true.

Still. . . if I ever lost Rowen. . . I don't know what I'd do with myself.

I ran as fast as I could after him, praying to every god or goddess I had ever heard of that I could get to him in time, maybe even some I hadn't heard of, too. And I yelled for him. "ROW-EN!" I cried. "WAIT UP! WHAT IF IT'S A TRAP? YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE BY MYSELF!"

Rowen stopped short, and I crashed into him from behind. Rowen cried out in disapproval as the two of us tumbled to the ground in a mess of kicking limbs, swears, and a few well-placed punches that would leave us sore and bruised for the next few days. By the time we'd managed to separate ourselves, I saw what had caused Rowen to stop short.

"Rowen. . . what the hell are those things?" I asked slowly.

"I don't know," he said simply.

There, sitting before us, were three creatures. One of them was a rabbit. Just a cute white bunny with a pink nose and big long ears and a fluffy, cotton tail. You know. A rabbit. Yet the bunny had evidently cornered two other creatures – both of which were terrified of the rodent before them – we had never seen before in our entire. They were backed against a large tree, caught between the trunk, two large roots, and the rabbit.

The creatures differed slightly in size and shape, though both had large ears, small, bat-like faces, large hind legs and smaller forearms, chubby tails, and furry wings. One creature was slightly larger and bright blue in color – the other was a soft pink. The pink one was clutching to the blue one for dear life as the blue one tried to protect its friend.

Cautiously, Rowen stepped forward. The bunny sensed him and scampered off, leaving the other two things trembling. "Um. . . it's okay," said Rowen. He got closer, then knelt down before the creatures. He held out his hand, and the blue one looked at it skeptically. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Just stay calm, okay, little fella?"

"I'm not an idiot, you know."

Now it was Rowen's turn to scream. "YOU CAN TALK?"

The blue creature placed its tiny arms on its hips and nodded, looking insulted. "Of course I can talk! Everybody knows that dragons can talk just as well as any human can! We were born that way! We can talk as soon as we're born and right up to our dying breathe! What do you MEAN 'you can talk'? Are ALL the humans in this world stupid as you!"

"Lucky. . . dear. . . this isn't our world, remember?" said his pink companion. "Maybe they don't have dragons here. Or if they do, the dragons can't talk. So relax and just let the nice human help us. All right?" She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Now try to calm down, Lucky – we just need to find your mother and her Matron, then we'll be all set."

By now, I had decided to join Rowen in his awed stupor. "Matron? Dragon?" I asked, slowly raising my hand. "Um, could you fill us in on exactly what it is you're telling us? Pinky here is right – we don't have things like you here. Um, dragons. So, ah, who are you and what are you doing here?"

"My name is Lucky," said the blue dragon. "This is my soon to be mate, Melody." Melody slapped Lucky's shoulder, and the other dragon fumed slightly. "What? It's true! Once we have my mother's blessing we can mate! You've been looking forward to this for a long time! It's what we've talked about for the past few months! We'll get a nice little nest in a quiet fore with a nice clearing for the hatchlings to play in and-"

"So you want to get married," said Rowen.

"No, we want to mate – dragon's don't get married, silly!" said Melody.

"RIGHT," I said. I turned to Rowen. "Is it too early to start drinking heavily?"

Rowen shook his head. "Not in my book."

"Good – do you know where Mia keeps the vodka?"
"No idea."

". . . grand."

Out of curiosity and sympathy, we brought the dragons back to Mia's house – this was complicated by the two dragons freaking out apon seeing White Blaze (who, for his part, didn't help when he tried to eat them). But once we were home, we settled in the living room as the two dragons told us about their world and what they were doing in the Mortal Realm. The dragons took the coffee table, Ryo and I shared the loved seat, Mia sat in a chair, and White Blaze and Yuli shared the couch (much to Mia's chagrin, but she rarely argues with the cat).

"There are several different worlds in the universe – your world is one of them," said Lucky. The rest of us nodded – this was old news to us. "Dragonia is our world, and we traveled here from there in order to find my mother. My mother and her Dragon Matron – a kind of human that can be connected to a Dragon – have settled here."

"How come?" asked Yuli.

"She won't tell me – all I know is that she's on a mission for Melody's grandfather and his Dragon Lord, and that mission requires them to be here," said Lucky. "But, according to the Dragon Code, we need the permission of a parent or grandparent, if the parent or grandparent is alive, to mate – if you're an orphan the rule is waived but dragons don't die easily, so it's rare that happens. But since my mom is still alive we need to talk to her. It's sort of like marriage but it really isn't – there's no formal ceremony involved – just the permission and then you're mates for life."

"So you need your mom to give you her blessing," said Mia. She sighed, twirling her hair on one finger. "Do you know where she is? Well, aside from being in this world? This world is a big place and you could be left wandering for years without a starting point."

"Both of them travel, but they live in some place called Japan," said Melody.

"Well, this is Japan," I said, spreading my arms out in explanation. Melody and Lucky brightened, and I realized my error. "Well. . . the house itself isn't Japan, but we're IN Japan. It's a country in our world, and, in your favor, a fairly small one. There's a LOT of people here but it won't take long to find who you're looking for, I'm sure."

The pink one suddenly got skeptical. "Wait just a minute. Why are you being so helpful?" asked Melody. She cocked her head to the side and frowned. "I've heard people in this world don't like magic and burn things they think ARE magic unless it's a cheap parlor trick. So why did you accept us so easily?"

I laughed. "You're right. Most people in this world aren't comfortable with strange creatures and magic, but we are," I said sheepishly. "People don't like it because this world is based on sciences and technologies rather than spiritual things. There isn't a lot of magic in this world, or at least not a lot of places it can be found – it's pretty rare and few people ever even get to see anything magic, never mind experience it."

"But it does exist, right?" said Lucky.

Mia nodded. "Yes, it does – this world is protected from other realms by nine mystical armors – Ryo and Rowen were chosen to wear two of these armors," she said. With that, we took turns explaining the legend of the nine armors, Talpa, and how we had all gotten involved. Lucky and Melody listened intently, hanging on our every word. I found it a bit strange, but brushed it aside. This was new to them, but the concept must not have been too hard to grasp.

"So where are the other armor bearers?" asked Melody. "Are they here, too?"
I felt my heart sink at the mention, and the room went quiet. Being the leader, I spoke up. "We don't know," I said. "A year ago today, the other three Ronin Warriors were taken away from us – we don't know what happened to them or even have so much as a clue. In fact, the only reason we were out there was to visit their memorial."

"Memorial?" asked Lucky. "What's that?"

"Like a grave site without a body," said Rowen. He stood up and slowly sauntered towards the window, looking out with sad eyes. "Granted we don't know for sure that they're dead, but everything points to an untimely death. I think we all like to think they're alive out there, but at this point it's an impossible dream."

Melody frowned. "I'm sorry I brought it up. I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay," said Mia. "It hurts to think about it, but it's better than forgetting them."

"They were all wonderful people," said Rowen. He sighed. "Sage and I were best friends from the time we were kids. It was a coincidence we were both Ronins, but we helped each other get through that and other things as well." He sat down. "So much happened to all of us. . . it's a wonder we made it through at all."

"If you got through so much together, then why do you think they're dead?" asked Lucky.

"We couldn't sense them," I said. "The armors have a strong bond, and we couldn't find them. It's kind of hard to explain, but. . . well, for example, I can sense Rowen's armor right now through my own. I know he's close by and all, but even when he's across the island visiting his dad I can sense him. He's hours away from me, but I can sense him when he's there."

"And since you couldn't sense them. . ." said Melody.

"What if they're just really, really far away from you?" said Lucky. He flew from the coffee table onto my lap and looked me straight in the eye. "Or in another realm? Or what if someone was able to interfere with that bond and did it just to make you THINK they died? Ryo, they could be out there somewhere waiting for you to rescue them."

"Can we PLEASE not talk about it?" I begged. "Even if they are in some other world, we have no way of getting to them or even figuring out where they are. There isn't anything we CAN do! But you didn't see what that clearing looked like when it happened! Everything around them was destroyed! The ground was burned, there were dead animals in the area and it looked like someone dropped a fireball on them! We DON'T like to talk about it!"

Lucky seemed hurt, but didn't say anything else about the guys.

A week went by, and slowly but surely, the two dragons were now a small, albeit temporary, part of our lives. Melody slept in Mia's laundry basket in her bedroom while Lucky slept on a bean-bag chair Rowen and I had acquired for our room a few months earlier. We figured out what foods they liked to eat, gave them saucers to eat off of, and they ate their meals with us. The only thing they didn't do was go out and about with us, as we weren't sure how people would react to them.

"I'm gonna miss them when we track down Lucky's mom and they go back to Dragonia," said Rowen. He and I had found some time to ourselves, floating aimlessly on a wooden raft out on the lake by Mia's house. Cye and Kento had built it about a week before the camping trip, planning on using it to try and have picnics out on the water. That had resulted in several very soggy sandwiches sinking to the bottom of the lake and two very disappointed Ronins. None the less, Rowen and I still used it. It was a good raft with sentimental value.

I turned my head to look at Rowen. We were lying belly up on the raft, enjoying the sun's rays as we drifted along with the slight breeze. He had his hands behind his head as he stared straight up into the sky. "Well, yeah, I'll miss them, too, but we aren't even close to figuring out who these people are yet."

"I know, but. . . I like Lucky," said Rowen. "I feel drawn to him. There's something about him that makes me want to have him not go away, if that makes any sense. And it's not any one thing, either – it's weird, Ryo. I've never felt that emotion before. Even with the other Ronins." He sighed. "I can't explain it, but. . . do you remember what Lucky was telling us the other night about Dragon Kin?"

"You mean how every dragon has a special connection to a human being?" I asked. Rowen nodded, and my eyes widened at the sudden realization. Dragon Kin, Kin for short, was a generic term for the people connected to dragons, such as Melody's grandfather's Lord and Rowen's mother's Matron. "Rowen, you don't actually think you might be Lucky's Dragon Kin, do you? I mean, you're from the Mortal Realm and Lucky said Dragon Kin are only born FROM Dragon Kin!"

"Neither of my parents talk about their families," said Rowen. "My dad says he was an only child and his parents are dead, and my mom says its because she was seventeen when she had me and her family doesn't talk to her, but one of them could be lying about it. If one of them IS a Dragon Kin, they wouldn't know I was a Ronin Warrior."

That was true. None of the families, except for Kento's family, Sage's grandfather, and Sage's little sister knew about the armors. My parents are dead, and Rowen's parents don't know anything about it. Therefore, if Rowen's inkling was right, they would have had no reason to tell him about anything.

Though, then again, we almost DID tell them – that's how those who know about the armors even know. We told them. After the guys vanished, we invited their families to Mia's house. Apon arriving, Mrs. Rei Fuang informed us that Cye's mother was close to death and couldn't make the meeting (nor did she ever know about it for that matter). After hearing about what happened to her son, her heart started to give out and she was living out of a hospital. His older sister was too distraught to leave his mother's side, but Kento's mother promised to pass the information onto them if she could.

A few months later, she told us that Mrs. Mouri had died on New Year's Eve.

What would have been Cye's sixteenth birthday.

I didn't think anyone would believe us – Satsuki (Sage's sister) and Sensei Date seemed to believe us, but the Rei Fuangs argued immediately. Rowen and I both armored up to prove we weren't making anything up about it, and then we could see it in their eyes – none of them doubted us. This was no stupid trick we were pulling to try and make them feel better or entertain ourselves. This was real. Summoning mystical armor of our seemingly no where was no parlor trick and they all knew it.

But what happened after this sunk in was a string of ramblings of stories they had about their sons and how they "should have known" or what not. They KNEW their sons were special, but until now, they didn't understand what it all meant. And now, things were coming to the surface.

Like's Sage's adoption – he'd been abandoned as a baby and taken in by the Dates. Rowen listened to the revelation with a stone face – Sage had told him about it already, but it was news to me, Mia, and Yuli. Evidently his parents were angry that he had found out and they had gotten into a huge fight over it the night he left to fight with us. But what sickened me was how his parents were planning on completely excommunicating Sage from the family altogether before he vanished – only his grandfather and little sister opposed to the decision and supported Sage during what was probably a confusing time for him. Rowen added in that this was probably why Sage was behaving the way he did – sure he was very formal and the like, but Satsuki agreed – that wasn't the way her brother normally behaved.

One of Kento's siblings started talking about Cye's mysterious birth. Apparently, not only did he not grow up with a father – something we all knew – but his biological father was a man his mother couldn't even recall herself. She'd been drunk the night Cye was conceived and, as a result, never knew who the father of her baby was. That was something Cye hadn't talked about around me or Rowen, but evidently something he had shared with the Rei Fuangs – probably because he'd known them for longer, but we couldn't be sure. None the less, that was why Cye's mother had gotten sick – she'd been older when she'd gotten pregnant, and because of her age the pregnancy was rough. Cye probably felt guilty about it, but it couldn't be helped – no one chooses to be born.

The story that confused me the most, however, was Mr. Rei Fuang's accounts of Kento's unusual childhood behavior. Sometimes, he told us, he son was able to tell them things they couldn't believe. He once recited the winning numbers for a jackpot lottery ticket five minutes before the numbers were even drawn, and another time he sensed that someone was going to break into the house a week before someone actually did try to break in. Then, one day, it suddenly stopped and Kento acted as if he'd never heard of such a thing. Mrs. Rei Fuang added that around that time a Christian preacher had been visiting and spent a day performing exorcisms on people who were supposedly possessed by the devil. Though, in a weird, way, Kento being exorcised explained why the visions stopped, it didn't explain why he didn't remember it.

Evidently, the question they were all inadvertently asking was if any of that had to do with their sons being Ronin Warriors? Unfortunately, Mia, Rowen, nor myself had a good answer. With the sole exception of Rowen knowing about Sage's adoption, none of them had ever talked about these secrets unless it was amongst themselves (which in the case of Cye and Kento was extremely likely). Mia hadn't found anything about it on her computer, and not once had the Ancient, Anubis, or even Kayura said anything about it.

Somehow, Rowen's strong feelings for the perky little dragon almost made sense.

"Rowen. . . I don't mean to bring up the past, but this seems weird."

"How is it bringing up the past?"

"The guys. . . there was something different about them, too. Cye's father's identity is a mystery, Sage's total heritage is unknown, and, well, as strange as it sounds Kento used to be psychic. Now you think you might be a Dragon Kin. But. . . none of this seems to fit with our armors!"

"I don't know. . ." said Rowen. "But. . . hey! That looks like my mom's car!"

"How can you recognize it from here?" I said. "Sure the road travels along the lake but come on, Rowen! That's a good two hundred meters away! There's no WAY you could know that was your mom's car! And besides, why would she come out here today? You're birthday was, like, five months ago and-"

"First of all, part of my armor's abilities REQUIRE good eyesight, and second of all, Sage was like a second son to her. She's probably coming to see us to pay her respects," he said. The two of us began to paddle the raft to the docks as Rowen continued. "She just ended a two-week stay in Brazil, so she couldn't come with us on the actual anniversary, and my dad's on a two-month long business trip in Rome." He grinned. "Besides, you can hear that sputtering engine of hers from a mile away."