Disclaimer: In case someone needs to be reminded, Harry Potter is not mine.
Author's Notes: I have a tendency to write things with a future purpose. Yup, I enjoy using foreshadowing. Sometimes I even re-read what I've written and grasp details that I can use later on for other things to happen, meaning that when I originally wrote a certain part I did it randomly, but then I go like: "Whoa! I can use this to develop something else!" It's just my style. Things that may seem random might be significant later on and maybe even sooner than what you would expect them. Not that you will go now and check every tiny detail. Don't do that or you'll go insane! Don't try reading my mind either, I'm a good Occlumens. (Yeah right!)
Beta Read Version thanks to Menecarkawan!
Song: 'Blast My Desire' by Move (from Initial D, methinks)
Ch. 10: A Surprise Attack and An Escape
For two weeks, the young heroes were in the kingdom of Franya waiting for a signal from Dianeia. She kept telling them that the time wasn't right yet and that she would receive a signal from her twin that she would recognize. By the time the second week was ending, Dianeia looked worried and Harry kept asking what was wrong, but she wouldn't reply. She would simply gaze into the distance or watch the children play. Harry wasn't stupid though. He knew the young woman was hiding something from him and he felt that he deserved an explanation, even more when they had gotten so close to each other. In the end, they had remained sleeping together even if in bath times they had exchanged bathing partners and during the last days Luna and Dianeia had bathed together and he had been bathing with either Neville, Janryu, or Soshlan. To him it had been a relief in a certain sense because he would have gone out of control bathing always with Dianeia when his teenage hormones were running rampant. Some nights had still been full of passion though, but at that moment he felt Dianeia was treating him like a child by not sharing what exactly was on her mind.
On the last day of the second week, Harry decided he would get an answer and grabbed her arm. "What is it that is wrong? We've waited for two weeks already! When are they going to help us escape? I want an explanation now!"
"It's complicated," she replied lowering her gaze.
"What do you mean by that? Do you think I'm a child that will not understand?" He felt his anger rising as he was reminded of the many times Dumbledore would hide things from him, things that he certainly needed to know.
"I don't think you're child. I consider you a man, Harry. By saying it was complicated I didn't mean that you wouldn't be able to understand. The problem is I've lost the connection with my twin ever since a week ago. The last thing I felt from him was anxiety at something that was approaching this kingdom, trying to find a way to get through the magical barriers. The day after that I felt my brother no more. It's complicated because I have no idea of what has happened."
Harry sighed and tried to be as careful as possible with his following question. "Do you think that he might be... you know... err..."
"Dead? No. He is not dead. That, I'm sure of. You don't have to be shy asking, Harry. Death is a very normal thing and even though I would have been saddened, I'm strong enough to cope if it happens." She was gazing into the horizon as she spoke and Harry nodded at her statement and hugged her. They kissed after that and felt someone scowl behind them.
"Aww man! All the girls are taken!" Janryu exclaimed looking pissed.
Harry laughed as he saw Neville and Luna speaking enthusiastically to each other and even Soshlan lost in conversation with Nemaisse.
That day, Dianeia was dressed in a pastel pink sleeveless tunic dress and fuchsia long pants. She had brown fur boots and her headscarf was of the same pastel pink as her tunic. Harry was wearing brown boots and that day he was dressed with a long sleeved cream coloured shirt and gray long pants. He also had a cream coloured bandanna and had transfigured his black goggles to beige. Luna was dressed in a dark blue short-sleeved tunic and dark blue pants that reached her mid leg, but her long dark blue fur boots didn't allow for any part of her legs to be seen. Neville was dressed in a sleeveless dark green shirt that was put over his head like a pullover and black pants. Janryu wasn't a 'ninja' anymore as he had a long sleeved gray shirt laced in 'Xs' on its front and dark brown pants. Soshlan was in a light yellow tunic and pants that with the colour of his hair made him look like a chick or a canary. Nemaisse was dressed in a reddish brown short dress with very short pants of the same colour underneath.
The earth suddenly trembled as if there was an earthquake and the air was filled with the screams of all the children that had been previously playing. Harry and his companions looked upwards and saw what looked like fireworks and a quivering sky above them. Harry suddenly figured that it wasn't the sky quivering or fireworks. It was the shield that surrounded the kingdom flickering and crumbling under invasive magic. "I think this kingdom is being attacked," were the words that left his lips.
Many soldiers came out of nowhere and started to pick up the screaming children and take them away. They kept yelling: "WE HAVE TO EVACUATE THE CITY! TO THE MOUNTAIN CAVES IMMEDIATELY! ALL THE CHILDREN GROUP TOGETHER! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!"
Many of the children had burst into tears and ran to where the guards were, but Harry and his companions didn't. They started to run toward the limits of the city using the confusion as their cover. Nemaisse went after them yelling: "YOU ARE RUNNING THE WRONG WAY! THE MOUNTAIN CAVES ARE BEHIND THE CITY, NOT AT THE FRONT!" The young nymph hadn't realized that her newly made friends weren't trying to save themselves from the attack, but using it as cover for their escape. She had heard them speak about escaping several times, but hadn't considered them serious about it.
As they reached the border, Harry raised his right hand and exclaimed: "Accio all of our weapons!" Everyone was surprised except for Neville and Luna as Dianeia's rod, Neville's guns and knuckles, Luna's staff, Janryu's magical sack that produced an infinite amount of knives and stars, and some boomerangs that belonged to Soshlan came to them. The surprised owners caught the weapons and they all looked at Harry. Dianeia smiled at the black haired teen. "Do you feel your twin?" he asked her.
Dianeia concentrated and nodded looking somewhat surprised. "I feel him!" She closed her eyes for a minute and opened them. "He is coming this way, but he says that the dark lord's army is outside. We might have to fight our escape against the enemy!"
Harry nodded and suddenly saw Nemaisse staring at them. She looked very confused. "Have you guys gone mad? Why are you risking your lives?"
Harry had never told Nemaisse that they weren't from that world and there was no time to explain it in details. "We are from the other world, Nemaisse. Our mission is to fight the dark lord. We cannot remain hidden. Hope you understand."
The nymph girl gaped in surprise, but nodded. "What should I do then?"
Neville spoke to her quickly: "You still have time to join the other children in the evacuation! Go!"
Nemaisse looked back, but the children were almost completely gone. She was about to start her race back when the ground trembled again and the force field that protected the kingdom flickered for the last time and vanished.
Like a stampede, the enemy army started its way towards the discovered kingdom. There was no way Nemaisse could outrun them. She didn't know what to do when she saw Harry and his friends running toward the stampede rather than away from it. She thought they had to be completely crazy to do that, but after she shook her head in her disbelief, she ran after them.
Harry used magical waves to push soldiers away and Luna and Neville did the same creating a barrier with which they could push their way out. For the moment that had caused some confusion in the enemy soldiers because they thought they were attacking guards from the kingdom, but it didn't last long. Harry heard an enemy soldier yell: "THEY ARE CHILDREN! GET THEM AS SUPPLY FOR OUR KING!"
Dianeia invoked a stronger wave with her rod that she merged with the one Harry, Neville, and Luna had created. Janryu also put some magic into it, being imitated by Soshlan and even Nemaisse afterwards. Some mages between the enemies started to weaken the barrier though. The escaping group had almost reached the last of the enemy army in their race, but the mages finally destroyed their force field. Harry quickly prepared his sword and the rest of his friends followed suit preparing their weapons. They all started to fight the armored soldiers, which was something that took the soldiers by surprise. They had never expected children to actually fight them.
"FIGHT THEM BACK, BUT DON'T KILL THEM!" As a leader enemy soldier exclaimed those words, the others obeyed.
Harry gave his own orders to his companions: "SIMPLY FIGHT YOUR WAY OUT OF HERE! WE CANNOT RISK TIRING OURSELVES!"
They fought bravely until they were able to start running again, but many soldiers went after them and some mages suddenly changed the appearance of the territory. Harry and his friends found themselves trapped between two walls and a very high cliff in front of them. One of the mages threw a huge ball of fire at Soshlan and the elf-fairy had no time to dodge it. He closed his eyes, but felt something push him violently against one of the walls. He slammed hard against it and when he opened his eyes, he saw that knives and stars were holding him. He couldn't believe Janryu had saved him even if it had been in such a brutal and painful way. With a magnet effect, Janryu summoned his pointy weapons back and Soshlan broke his own fall and mouthed a 'thanks.'
Luna called both Undine and Bijon at the same time forgetting that such a thing could weaken her too much. Both summons attacked the enemy, Bijon with a thunderstorm and Undine with a tsunami, but after some minutes, Luna fell on her knees and the summons returned to her. Neville carried her over one shoulder and looked at Harry as he shot one of his guns randomly at the enemy, that had just recovered from Luna's attack with help from the mages. "What are we going to do?"
Harry looked at Dianeia with an inquisitive look because he was still counting on her twin brother. She quickly replied. "They are almost here. We have to buy them some time. Another summon?" Harry nodded and summoned Fenghuang. The phoenix created a fire barrier in front of them and started to attack the numerous enemy soldiers with fire bolts, but Harry had to call it back as he could feel the sudden strain on his body as the mages attacked the phoenix. The dark mages vanquished the fire barrier that was in front of the young group and one of them rapidly sent a ray of light against Harry. The ray went right through Harry's chest pushing him far backwards and in seconds, Harry was falling off the cliff.
The others looked in horror, but Dianeia removed her headscarf and opened her arms making the scarf wrap around them serpent like and merge with her body. Her clothing also blended with her skin and then she threw herself after Harry. In midair, there was a blinding light and Harry was able to see above him a magical creature coming towards him at incredible velocity. It was a beautiful winged unicorn of the purest diamond white he had ever seen. Its horn gleamed with a pink colour.
With its amazing speed the unicorn passed the falling boy and got under him and as if on cue Harry turned his body around landing on the creature on his stomach. He was able to grab the unicorn's abundant mane as he fell on it, managing to quickly mount it. He embraced the creature's neck with his heart still going at what felt like a thousand miles per hour and a tingling sensation on his chest that he couldn't figure out at that moment. The unicorn flew upwards and went in speedy circles creating a tornado that went against the enemy army. Dark mages prepared themselves to use a spell they had to trap winged unicorns for the dark lord, but Soshlan threw a bronze boomerang that broke the dark mages' staves before returning to him. He had known full well what they had intended to do.
Soon a dark yellow Pegasus and a silver winged unicorn that had dark blue triangle runes on it's head and a sapphire horn appeared and signalled with their heads for the youngsters to mount them.
Neville, who was holding a weak Luna, looked taken aback, but at the sight of Harry on a winged unicorn too he quickly headed for the silver unicorn and mounted it with Luna. Soshlan went for the Pegasus with a hesitating Nemaisse behind him and they mounted it while Harry weakly called Janryu. Janryu looked terribly scared of the light creatures, but as Harry extended his hand to him with a faint smile and he looked back to the enemies that were already vanquishing the tornado, he ran and grabbed Harry's hand, letting the other teen pull him towards the creature and help him mount.
Just as Janryu grabbed Harry's waist, the three winged creatures flew with great speed that made the mounted teens hold themselves as strong as they possibly could. In what seemed like only seconds they were flying across the sea as far from that land as they could.
As they were approaching land, Harry saw blood in his hand. That was when he noticed the wound on his chest that had formed an enormous bloodstain on his shirt. He started to pant as he felt very dizzy and started to cough blood. Janryu's eyes went wide as he also noticed there was blood on his shirt and confirmed that it came from the back of Harry's own shirt. "WE HAVE TO LAND FAST! HARRY IS DYING!" Janryu yelled at the top of his lungs.
The creatures reacted immediately and they landed close to a clearing. The teens dismounted and the three creatures transformed to their human forms. Dianeia quickly kneeled and started healing magic on Harry. She had almost forgotten the reason he had fallen off the cliff in the first place. Luna joined her with her own curative magic and Dionaius and an unknown young man did the same. Harry's wound closed after some time, but he had lost a great amount of blood as the ray had made a hole through him. It was a miracle it hadn't destroyed vital organs, but that was probably because the mage had made sure not to kill the 'child.'
The dark blonde young man opened his mouth and produced a dark red sphere that he introduced into Harry's own mouth. "This will replenish his blood. I turned it red so that my blood colour wouldn't disturb the other children," he said in a soft tenor voice.
Dianeia looked frightened at the young man that had previously been a Pegasus. "Isn't that dangerous? Mixing your blood with his?"
The young man smiled innocently at her. "I had already analyzed his blood with some quick scanning and we are compatible." He winked at Dianeia and the young woman blushed.
"Still..." Dianeia looked disturbed. "That's not possible. His blood couldn't have been compatible with your blood. Completely different races! He is a human and you're from the Pegasi people!"
That dark blonde frowned. "My analysis didn't lie and I'm only half Pegasus."
"Who are you anyway? And what do you mean by half?" She was very inquisitive and wore a very serious expression.
Dionaius looked nervous at the way his twin had snapped at the Pegasus bloke. "He is a friend, Dianeia, and it would be better if you don't learn about his heritage for your own mental health."
Janryu started to smell the young man, not really afraid of him, but Nemaisse hid behind Soshlan. Soshlan trembled and started to step back from the 'Pegasus' he had previously mounted with the nymph. He had noticed something strange in that Pegasus, but didn't have time to analyze it then.
The dark blonde man straightened himself. He was quite tall and his straight hair barely reached his shoulders. His eyes were big, looked like sapphires, and had a constant eerie glow. His skin was of a tanned olive shade and he wore a blue long sleeved tunic that reached his knees and black pants. The man was handsome, but there was something strange about him. He introduced himself with a faint smile. "My name is Kroy. I am twenty-five years old. Pleased to meet you."
Soshlan was rude all of a sudden. "What possessed your parents to get married?"
Harry, who was faring much better now groaned before sending a glare in Soshlan's direction. The elf-fairy couldn't get past his prejudices. The boy almost reminded him of Ron in a very peculiar way, but Harry would make sure that the boy would change. Certainly being of mixed blood had to help in that aspect.
Dianeia relaxed all of a sudden and spoke in a tired tone: "You're the first one I've met that is half dark and half light. I've never seen something like it. I already know that you are no half vampire, but what I think you are is still very disturbing."
"What are you?" Neville was very curious and Luna grabbed his hand smiling at Kroy.
"Alright then, no use trying to hide it anyway." Kroy lifted his hands as if in a defensive posture. "I'm half Pegasus as you already know and half Draconian."
Harry stood quickly and alarmed Dianeia who wanted to make him sit again, but he didn't. "Can you turn into a dragon?"
Kroy nodded, but frowned. "It's not nice though. It doesn't happen at will and it's painful. It only happens if I'm under too much stress, in grave danger, wounded, or provoked to the extreme. So far in my life, I've only transformed twice that I'm aware of as I tend to have a very patient nature and soft character. It would require quite an emotional outburst to transform that I lack. My father is from the Draconian people and my mother belongs to the Pegasi race."
"That's wicked cool!" Neville exclaimed with an agreeing Luna next to him.
Janryu suddenly blurted: "I think I can handle the likes of you."
"I think it's amazing," stated Harry. "I'm glad your parents weren't prejudiced against each other. And by the way, thanks for the blood. I was conscious enough to know what was happening around me."
Dionaius looked at Dianeia as if searching for something and she averted her eyes. Just like his twin sister, he knew that the possibility of Kroy making a blood transfusion for Harry was simply not possible. "Dianeia?" She shook her head and the twin dropped it. He would interrogate her later.
Soshlan was still silent when he sat down and Nemaisse kept hiding behind the elf-fairy as if Kroy would try to eat her or something. She was even trembling with fear.
Janryu decided to change the tone of things and made an announcement: "To anyone who is interested I am nineteen years old today! Happy Birthday to me!"
Everyone stared at him and muttered 'Happy Birthday' with little emotion in their voices. It made Janryu feel extremely unloved. "Great! I knew you wouldn't care!" Luna let go of Neville's hand, went to Janryu and surprised him with a warm hug. The vampire boy was very shocked, but smiled. "Thanks! So... What do we do now?"
"I have to return with my brothers by tomorrow so I won't be able to stay long with you lot." Dionaius said this not looking at anyone in particular, but at the ground. He was still thinking about the strange blood event, but he wouldn't mention anything about it to Zheylks. He still needed to confront his twin sister at some time though.
Kroy looked at Dionaius and then at the adventurers. "Well, I can stay with them if you want me to Dionaius. It's not like I want to meet your oldest brother..." Kroy was already aware about Zheylks and knew that the man would never accept a bizarre halfblood like him as Dionaius' friend.
Harry falling to the floor as if possessed interrupted their reverie. The boy started to contort and convulse to their horror as a strange magic surrounded him. He screamed as if in great pain. Harry was only reminded of one thing as he was feeling like his body was being torn apart. He was reminded of the Cruciatus curse and that wasn't all. He screamed even more as a deep horrid voice ripped through his mind speaking to it directly and no one else being able to hear it: "YOUR POWER WILL BELONG TO ME, CHILD FROM ANOTHER WORLD! DO NOT DARE DEFY ME!"
Thanks to the ones that reviewed: lovenotknown, deepeningblue, and Fk306 animelover.
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