A warm breeze sweeps past me, I feel the smell of grass tickling my nose. I blearily open my eyes and blink a couple times. A forest? How did I manage to get here? Confused, I tried to remember the last thing I did. I was falling through nothing, and then I just blacked out. Then the memories flooded back to me. The plan, Vix, the Archway. Vix. I thought. Where did he end up? He had to be here somewhere, didn't he? I got to my feet and started to call out for him. What if we got kicked out of Ackley's or something and they kicked us out here? Every worst theory ran through my head from a bad nightmare to a matter of life or death.
"Vix! Where are you, man?" I turned the corner of the tree nearest me and collided with a shoulder.
"Oof.."
"Sapphire?"
"Hey there friend." I smiled, rubbing my head.
"Thought I'd lost you for a minute there." Vix breathed a sigh of relief, and helped me up. "So where the hell do you think we are, anyway?" He questioned.
"Definitely not Ackley's that's for sure." I said. I pointed out a small trail. "Why don't we try there first?" Seeing as we had no greater ideas we followed the trail for a couple minutes, until we saw a clearing.
"Civilization here we come." Vix muttered. We both stepped out of the forest into an European style brick road. It looked exactly as a normal city would look- except with the touch of English class. Vix and I wandered onto the side walk and looked around at the sights before us.573Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXW0QWXbSF8
Everything looked normal- aside from the people. Flashes of every colour walked by us, red, blue, pink, and even a girl with rainbow hair! Not only were their hair colours absurd, but the things they spoke of in general.
"Don't play with that dearie!" A woman dragged her son away from a display case, which contained a dark aura inside it. I glanced at the name of the shop 'Darkest Desires'. I quickly pushed the shop out of my mind, it didn't seem like the kind of place I should be. Each and every building had a theme to it as well. We passed by a children's shop, I knew it was a kids store because all of the displays seemed like they were mocking regular toys. A jack-in-the-box popped out of it's box- in a series of multi-coloured flames.
"Guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Sapphire." Vix joked. I chuckled.
"Yeah but then just exactly where are we?" He shrugged and we continued to wander, not really knowing where we were heading.
"Someone's following us." Vix growled.
"What?" I peered over my shoulder.
"The guy in the hood." It was pretty easy to figure out where our follower was, he was the only one who was dressed like us. Dark clothes. Hood up. I thought I saw a flash of purple but it was gone within the second.
"Vix...don't you think we look a bit out of place?" I realized. Noting our darker clothes we stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the bright surroundings.
"Oh..uh, yeah. Probably." He took his eyes off of the shady figure and turned his attention forward.
"This is an interesting place to say the least." I tried to lighten the mood. No answer. I sighed. "Come on, let's go somewhere else." I dragged him to a different street we explored the sights for a bit, all sorts of little quirky things. Our enthusiasm didn't last very long and we started walking in circles.
"How about we try in here?" Just as I turned the corner a force pulled me into an alley. "AACK!" I yelled out. A gloved hand clasped my mouth shut. I struggled and squirmed but to no avail, this guy had a firm grip! My eyes darted around looking for a way to escape, but all I saw was Vix in the same predicament.
"Would you guys keep quiet?!" A voice urgently whispered at us. He dragged us further into the shadows. "Please, I'm only trying to save your skin!" I managed to remove his grasp on my mouth.
"Help us? I don't think this qualifies as he-"
"Shhhhh!" He ushered me to be quiet, and hid us in the shadows. A strange noise, like a clicking, gurgle sound made itself known. It looked like a weird hybrid. I could tell the body was of a horse, but it's upper half was something else. I thought it looked like a centaur at first, only a much darker and scarier version than in the stories I heard when I was young. It's head was completely grown over with what looked like a terrible disease, and one of its arms was a large sword instead. It hesitated a few feet from us. We all held our breath, I did not want this thing to see me. After a moment it grunted and turned it's gaze forward and ran off. I exhaled a sigh of relief. The guy in the hood lessened his grasp on us as well, he also looked relieved.
"What was that thing?" Vix asked.
"That, was one of the guards from Lloyd's castle. No idea what one was doing here... so I started following you." He said, rubbing his eyes. I noticed his eyes were a stunning purple.
"Who's Lloyd?" I asked curiously. "Also who are you anyway?" He smiled.
"Well first things first we need to find somewhere we can talk without being overheard, it's too risky outside." When Vix raised an eyebrow at him he sighed.
"I'm Aaron, by the way. If that helps. Now come on, I don't want to wait on one of those coming back" He gestured to the main street. I looked at Vix with a 'well what else are we going to do' look. He sighed.
"Alright, we're in for now. Just don't pull anything."
"Not planning to." Aaron flashed a smile. "Follow me." We walked for a ways always staying in the shadows, when I was starting to wonder if this had all been a joke he stopped.
"In here, this is where I've been staying for a while." He opened the door and walked in. With a deep breath I followed Vix and Aaron into the small entrance.
It was a small house- or should I say room.
"You've been living here?" It was very small, but held all the basic living equipment you need. A kitchen, bathroom, he even had a living room crammed in there.
"Don't judge a book by it's cover." Now that we were in brighter light I could make out Aaron's features. Shockingly bright blue hair rested slightly on deep purple eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light. I wondered briefly how he managed to keep something so bright covered. Aaron hung up his trenchcoat on a coat hanger and stretched. He wore a white long sleeve shirt along with a pair of beige slackers. What was strange was that he was barefoot, I hadn't noticed him wearing any sort of footwear at all to begin with. How strange. I thought. Aaron looked at both of us with a smirk and sat on the couch. He motioned for us to accompany him, and we did. It was quiet, until Vix broke the silence.
"So you have some info about this Lloyd character and his little friends, do you?"
"Do I, now?" He said with a sigh. "Though this place looks like a magical haven it's not so bright when you get into it, you know." He got up and went to turn on the light. It fizzed out just as he turned it on. "Gah- stupid thing. Guess I'll have to improvise then." Aaron picked up a glass bulb. I was about to ask what he was doing when his finger caught fire. He put it inside the glass and a ball of flame appeared inside it. I gasped.
"How did you do that?!"
"What, this? this is normal. Don't you guys know about magic?" Aaron looked surprised.
"We're... not exactly from here." I said with a shrug. "If it's that hard to tell." Aaron laughed.
"Wow, I knew you guys weren't from here but seriously? You have never seen someone turn a light on this way?!" He looked back and forth at us excitedly. Was this the same guy as before? His entire face shined at us. "Are you from some part of the Light kingdom or some different place- maybe somewhere unexplored?" I got up.
"Woah, woah there. Calm down, I don't even think we're from this world bucko. What do you mean magic, anyway?"
"Magic." Aaron pondered the word. "Magic. It is difficult to explain but at the same time I don't know how I would live without it. There's seven different types of magic; Fire, Water, Nature, Wind, Lightning, Light, and Dark. Each of them are completely different from each other, see a person can usually only learn one type of magic. On some occasions there will be someone who can learn two but that's about the extent of it. Personally I use Fire." He lit up his finger again."Are you following?"
"Is this real?" Vix said quietly.
"Real? Of course it's real! Everyone has the ability to learn magic! What type varies on you. Sometimes you don't get to choose, and some magic can kill you if you are not careful. Real enough for you?" Vix nodded.
"Then could we be able to do magic?" There was a pause.
"I don't know." Aaron said, looking carefully at Vix and I. "But you can always try."
"Are you saying you can teach us?" My eyes widened.
"Of course, I was a pretty good student and tutor at Ackley's after all. Top grades and everything." He grinned again. Me and Vix froze. Aaron glanced at us, his grin fading. "What? Obviously there would be some sort of school for this stuff, I mean-"
"That's not it," I said. "We go to a school called Ackley's too, just it's not as magical as yours is."
"Isn't Ackley's how we got here in the first place...?" Vix thought out loud.
"Are you saying that the school is a connection between these worlds?" Aaron suggested, amazed.
"That's exactly what I'm saying, I just don't know how we're getting back though." I said. "For now we just have to make due here." Aaron started pacing around the room, deep in thought. After a minute he stopped and glanced from me to Vix.
"Have you ever heard anything about this towns history?" Aaron asked.
"We just got here through a magical portal and god only knows why we're here." Vix said sarcastically.
"So no we haven't." I finished.
"Well, there's a bit of folklore here and there but the story that seems to pop in my head is the one about Light and Dark."
"Light and Dark? Can you be a bit more informative please?" I asked. I was curious about the story, surprisingly. Usually I'm kind of dull on history.
"It's just a legend about how three outsiders from different worlds or something come into our world and fight off the evil spirits or something. I just thought that you two being here and Lloyd gathering strength it has to mean something doesn't it?" Aaron ruffled his hair in concentration.
"Seems a bit ironic to me" Vix muttered.
"But, anyway." Aaron stood up and cleared his throat. He had a mischievous grin playing across his face as he looked between us. "Let's see if you have what it takes."
"What it takes?" I asked. "For what?"
Aaron just smiled. "For magic, duh."
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