I hope you are enjoying the story so far. Read on readers! Read on!

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Encounter

Trish and Phantom Girl flew in front already deep in a conversation. Brainiac 5 lurked behind them. 'They certainly like each other.' He thought bitterly. 'I wonder why she keeps calling me Alex. It's not like I'm the type of person you can get mixed up with someone else… Wait!' A horrible thought entered his mind. 'What if the Coluans sent her?' He'd heard about them searching out anyone who dared to leave. He shook his head. 'No. She would look Coluan. Wouldn't she? Besides she would have only knocked him into the portal. No. She couldn't be one of them.'

"Brainy? She asked you a question." Phantom Girl said.

"Huh? What?" He blinked on focused on Trish's form. She looked like she was doing the backstroke.

"Do you remember anything?" She said. "Anything at all from before?"

"No." He said. His mouth tightened into a straight line.

"Ah! Don't be so grouchy all the time little brother! It really doesn't suit you." She smiled at him.

"Little brother?" Phantom Girl asked. "She's your sister?"

"No she's not!" Brainy answered.

"You're so mean!" She faked a look of hurt feelings then burst out laughing. Suddenly she stopped. Stopped laughing, stopped smiling, stopped moving. She just stopped. She narrowed her black eyes on the forest below. Silently she lifted her hand and pointed downward. "Asgesto manis dragtor yamu. (As-guess-tro man-is drag-tor ya-moo)" She whispered.

"What did she say?" whispered Phantom Girl.

"Didn't you hear?" Brainy asked.

"Yeah. But it was in a different language." She said.

"No it wasn't."

Phantom Girl looked at him as if he was crazy. "Well what did she say?"

"Be quiet. Look down there is a dragtor." He stated. Phantom Girl shook her head and looked down. There, was what could best be described as was something between a gargoyle, a dragon, and a creepy monk on a bad day. Trish put her hand over Phantom Girl's mouth before she could scream.

"Don't make too much noise. Those things can jump pretty high." Trish said. She let go of Phantom Girl's mouth.

"That thing is so creepy!" Phantom Girl said.

The dragtor looked up and bent down ready to jump. "Well, too late." Trish sighed.

The dragtor launched itself into the air. Just missing Trish. It fell back down with an 'iiiiiiieeeeeee'.

"What do we so about it?" Brainy yelled as it nearly grabbed his arm.

"Well, there's only one thing I know works." Trish said.

"We would like it if you could tell us." Phantom Girl said as she and Brainy dodged yet another attack. "Before it eats us all!"

"Yeah!" Brainy moved his head just as the dragtor's teeth grazed his arm. "Ow. Tell us."

"I would suggest." Trish looked at her two wards. They kept jumping back and forth trying to avoid the dragtor. She just stood there unmoving. "That," she took a step to her right as the dragtor zoomed up where she had been moments before. "We," she stepped to the left and the dragtor zipped back down past her. "RUN LIKE THE WIND AND NEVER LOOK BACK!" She tore off through the sky like a rocket. Brainy and Phantom Girl flew after her.

They flew for they didn't know how long, every once in awhile they heard a zing-iiiiiiieeeeeee-thump of the dragtor behind them. Phantom Girl started to turn around. "No!" Trish commanded. "That's how they get you. They make their victims run and then when it turns around…" she stopped. "You get the idea. If we keep going like this we'll get out of it's territory and it will leave us alone."

"The way you spoke about the dragtor it sounded like some terrible thing." Brainy said.

"Well." Trish said. "Would you know how to get rid of them without killing one? I mean if you knew that then you know that once a dragtor is dead more come around and feast on whatever is there. And nothing has ever escaped the dragtors in all the known history, and even if you do you'll be jailed for killing a King Creature."

"Wow." Phantom Girl said. She laughed. Brainy frowned.

"Lighten up Alex! Look up ahead! There's the city!" Trish said.

"I'm not-" Brainy started, but he stopped. He wasn't getting through to her.

"It's beautiful!" Phantom Girl said. The skyline was magnificent. Towers spiking into the sky, flags fluttering in the breeze, antennas pointing to the heavens, large square buildings by the towers, low flat ones looking like the ground, twisted buildings spiraling up as though a staircase, statues of people, sculptures of twisted wire, trees opening their green leafy arms to the sun, birds dotting the sky like little black lines of paint the artist had forgotten to clean off, tiny silhouettes of people's hanging wash, and over it all a massive, rainbow colored dome. The dome looked like a bubble still trapped to the wand. It had to have been made of glass, but it was far too large and birds flew in and out of it freely. All of this glowed in purple and blue shadows. Dappled in the glowing red-orange of the setting sun behind it. It looked, almost like a paradise. It had to be. It was perfect. No smog clouding up the air, no smell of greasy over-cooked food… And it was beautiful. But even more so... Neither Phantom Girl nor Brainiac 5 could think of a word that did the city justice. There was not word in their language for this kind of beauty. The city didn't look out of place or overpowering as it rose up out of the forest. It looked as though Mother Nature herself had grown the city right out of the Earth.

'This must be a city of dreams. Nothing else could make it so pure. So… familiar.' Brainiac 5 gasped. This was the city he had been seeing in his dreams so often! The dream of a beautiful city and a voice… What did it say? Those words! Those words someone had spoken in his dreams. He couldn't ever remember them. But they seemed so important now!

"Mehkisutrio allahee weropila Yamista. (Meh-kee-soot-tree-oh all-la-hee where-row-pee-la yam-is-sta)" Trish said. Brainy looked over at her. She was staring at the sun behind the city and crying. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. But she was smiling. Then she yelled out. Almost as if praising a god, "Yamista! Yamista weropila kyama! Noy hoto grow asti rempow Yamista! (yam-is-sta! yam-is-sta wher-row-pee-la k-yam-ah! N-oy hoh-toh gr-ow as-tee rem-pow yam-is-sta!)

"I agree." Brainy said without thinking. "That defiantly describes this place."

Phantom Girl looked between them and groaned. "Will someone tell me what she said?"

"I'm sure you heard her this time." Brainy said, turning to her.

"Yes but it was in a different language! How do you know it?" She yelled.

"You really understood me?" Trish asked.

"Of course." Brainy answered.

"YOU ARE ALEX!!!" she yelled. Trish threw her arms around Brainy and hugged him tight.

"Please stop calling me Alex." Brainy begged. "I don't know how I understood you. I just did. My name is Brainiac 5. Everyone calls me 'Brainy'. Now please. Stop calling me Alex. I'm not him!"

Trish let go. "You really don't remember a thing do you?" She said.

"What is there to remember?" He asked.

"So… so much Al- Brainy." She answered. "But I guess if you haven't remembered by now you never will." She looked back at the city. "You must really not want to remember what they took away from you. Do you? No don't answer. It's time to move on. That's what we did then and that's what we'll do now." Trish blinked and wiped away the tears from before. She had stopped smiling. "You… you both need to go back to your dimension. But know this Brainy- I'm sorry for what happened. To you and everyone else. I'm-" she took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry."

Brainy just stared at her. "What are you-"

"We better keep moving. Or we won't make it by nightfall." Trish said cutting him off.

Brainy didn't say anything else. Neither did Trish. Phantom Girl tried to break up the awkward silence that had begun, "Umm... what's that dome made of?" No answer. "Pretty cool sunset." No reaction. "What's a King Creature?" Silence. "Who's this Alex you keep talking about?" This earned a glare form Brainy but she switched the subject before something even more awkward came up. "What's this city's name?" Absolutely no change. "Nice clouds you… got… here…" 'Man, that's just stupid.' She thought. So she gave up. So they all flew off in silence toward the beautiful city off in the distance.

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I will try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can. Please be patient!