Young Writers Society

Colin looked down and watched Infra collapse. It didn't take a genious to figure out was going on. With a last glance at the Dragon, Colin leapt from the jetter, floating down beside Infra.

"Focus on the Dragon," Colin growled to Elyn. As the Monkey-boy scampered off Colin flooded his mind with Anger. Forming the hottest fire he could in his hands. "I hope this works."

With a loud bang Colin engulfed Infra in flames, hoping it would be enough. Trying to keep focus while the Dragon thrashed and roared just above his head.

Infra opened his eyes, and immediately let out an ear-splitting scream. After a second he pulled himself together, but the pain... it was almost unbearable. He climbed to his feet with a great effort and found himself looking at the boy... girl - whatever, the one who'd tried to rob Elyn. He looked around and realised they were alone.

"Wha - where are the others?" he croaked.
The figure turned. "Ah, yer finally 'wake, mutant."
"H-hey!" Infra growled. He tried to conjure a set of fireballs but fell to the ground with the effort.
"'Ey! Calm yerself, yer in no shape ta be gettin' fired up." The thief laughed at the joke. Infra growled again.
"I'm only ribbin' ya. Not often one sees a feller like yerself in these 'ere parts. Or in any parts, fer tha' matter. What'd y'say yer name was?"
"I didn't," Infra muttered. "It's Infra. What happened to the others?"
"Me name's Quinn, t'anks fer askin'. The others? They was fightin' that huge dragon feller. The little monkey feller got ou' a little elephan'-lookin' thing an' twisted it, and one of the arms blown right off the dragon. That psychic feller, 'e was settin' ya on fire an' it seemed ta help, but then 'e got knocked off 'is feet when the monkey bloke's elephan' thing went 'aywire. Tha's when I grabbed ya and brough' ya 'ere."

Infra struggled to get up. "We have to go back and help them -"
"We don' 'ave to do anythin'. I'm no figh'er and yer barely alive, we're best off stayin' out of i'."
Infra sat in thought, shivering, for a minute. Finally he stumbled into the forest, returning later with an armful of wood, which he laid down in front of Quinn and, after a few tries, managed to set alight.

(Since the Earth Dragon of Ice thought that Grif's character killed her brother, that would mean he had killed the Earth Dragon of Fire. Earth Dragons don't die, they just turn into eggs and become reborn. Just thought you should know. If any of the characters want to know what the hell is going on they should ask Zephyrus, since he's the only one who can give them the right answers. And when they do, can you guys let me do the explaining? You guys probably wouldn't get it right.)

Quinn and Elyn had taken Infra somewhere safe to mend his wounds. Zephyrus and the others were still fighting the dragon. He knew they had to either defeat the dragon, or run away. He couldn't explain to the others just how dangerous the situation was, dealing with a rampaging Earth Dragon spelled death for anyone who didn't know how to deal with one. Elyn had blown off one of the dragon's arms using a strange statue before he left, but it wouldn't be enough. All it did was anger her even more.

He had to do something to give them a chance to run. If he could demobilize the dragon long enough he could get the others away to a safe distance. He thought of a risky plan, but it was all he had.

He grabbed his shirt and tore it off his body. Four silver feathered wings shot out of his back. Along with revealing his wings came a portion of his Dragon Knight power.

He grabbed his sword from his sheath and placed his hand on the blade. He chanted, "Amnotekkaro Raza!" and the metal burst into a stream of flames.

He jumped into the air and flew at the dragon with his fiery sword. He sliced her in the neck as he passed by. The burning sword had bypassed the dragon's icy armor and penetrated the skin.

The dragon roar as she turned her head to breathe her ice-breath at Zephyrus. Before she could, Zephyrus held out his hand and shouted, "Oraza!" A ball of fire shot out of his hand and nailed the dragon right in the mouth.

The Earth Dragon of Ice howled in pain. Zephyrus took this chance to finish her off with a powerful attack. He flew back to the riverbank and put his sword back into its sheath. He face the dragon, lifted both his arms into the air and chanted, "Oraza Raiamoss!"

A fiery red cloud appeared over the dragon's head and started shooting fireballs. The fire rained down on the dragon in a spray of embers and flame. The rain of fire pelted the dragon relentlessly until she let out one final roar and fell into the river.

Once the dragon was down Zephyrus collapsed to his knees. The attack had exhausted him. Colin, Amelia, the newcomer and his friends came to his side. "That was impressive, Zephyrus."

Zephyrus gave him a breathy, "Thanks."

The newcomer in armor looked back at the river and asked, "What's happening?"

Zephyrus looked and saw a whirlwind of icy wind circulating over where the dragon had fallen through the ice. His heart sank as the wind became fiercer after each passing second. "We have to leave, now!"

One of the newcomer's friends asked, "Why? What's happening?"

Zephyrus climbed to his feet. "There's no time!" He held out his arms. "Everyone, grab a spot on one of my arms." They did what he said, still unsure of what was happening.

The wind was growing faster and faster. Just like the dragon, anything the wind touched turned instantly into ice. Zephyrus had to act fast. He closed his eyes, concentrated on a safe spot in the forest where they others had gone and yelled, "Mozadodo!" In a flash of pink light their bodies disappeared and reappeared in front of Elyn, Infra and Quinn.

Not a moment after a giant explosion erupted from further within the forest. The explosion sent a giant rush of cold wind through the forest. When they looked back they saw a crystalline tower of giant ice shards towering hundreds of feet over the forest. They had escaped the Earth Dragon's final attack, but just barley.

Zephyrus had used up the last of his strength teleporting everyone to safety. His vision went black as he fell to the ground in a limp heap.

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Amnotekkaro: Object of war (weapon)
Raza: Burn
Oraza: Fire
Raiamoss: Storm
Mozadodo: Movement/Teleport

Grif had only just barely grasped onto the man, when he was teleported. When he landed, he was dizzy and a wave of nausea came over him. Adelaide countered it by making the air 100% oxygen. When Grif regained his composure a second later, he began to think.

"Adelaide, I'm going to need updated coordinates. Any word on the princess?"

"Negative."

"Mark her MIA, characters are prone to surviving."

"It could also be the required death in a storybook."

"Let's not count on it. I need a sit-rep."

"There is a large tower of ice nearby that wasn't there earlier, we seem to be over a mile away from it. We have one MIA princess and one unconcious mage type. All other members are accounted for and are tired but in good health."

"I don't think they liked the teleporting very much," Grif said. Some had actually thrown up.

"Dude! Not cool..." one of the characters said.

"Let's not do that again," another one agreed.

"Now what?" a third said.

"We'll need to get to higher ground. When that ice melts, it will flood the valley. We must be far away when this happens. Then we'll see about getting you all home."

The group looked at him.

"Who are you?"

Colin hadn't had time to think about home. He wondered what was happening, wondered if the others were safe or if he had failed to protect them. I like my teleporting better, it's much smoother.

"Name's Griff," said the armoured warrior,

"How informative," smirked a still wobbled Infra.

"I'm here on orders to find you all."

"You're a bounty hunter then?"

"Obviously not, or you would all be dead."

"Think rather highly of yourself don't you." Infra was enjoying the harassment of Griff a little too much.

"In case you all forgot," Amelia pointed out, "Zephyrus is unconscious after rescuing all of you. I think we should all be worried about him right now."

Grif took a metal tube with a long point out of a compartment in his armor. "This'll help him recover his strength." He put the needle into Zephyrus' arm and injected the fluid in the tube into his arm.

A few seconds later, Zephyrus groaned and slowly opened his eyes. He tried to sit up but Amelia cautioned him, "Don't move, you need to regain your strength."

He shook his head. "I'm fine, I just need to sit up."

"What happened back there?" Grif asked. "I've never seen a reaction like that from any other dragon."

"That's because Shiva isn't a normal dragon. She is the Earth Dragon of Ice, the incarnation the Chaotic element of Ice. You have no idea how dangerous she and the other four Earth Dragons are. We were lucky to make it out of there alive." He shook his head again. "But I don't understand why she was acting like that. The Earth Dragons are usually docile creatures that stay as far from human contact as they can. The only reason they would be acting like this is if something terrible was about to happen to the world."

"Dragons? Docile creatures?" Grif said skeptically.

"Usually," Zephyrus stressed.

"What sort of terrible are we talking about here?" Adelaide said, speaking for the first time to the others.

"Uh... are you a girl?" Infra asked.

"I'm not, but she is," Grif said. This just confused everyone.

"I think he's insane," Colin said.

"I think he's a girl," Infra persisted. Grif felt his hand move and in an instant his hand moved to within an inch of Infra's face. His closed fist opened and for the first time Adelaide was visible to the rest of the group. She appeared as hologram in the palm of his hand.

"Boo," Adelaide said. Infra flinched and jumped back.

"I'd rather you not do that," Grif said, withdrawing his arm.

"Answer my question wise guy," Adelaide said, gesturing angrily at Infra.

"Cut it out," Grif said firmly to Adelaide, before returning to Zephyrus. "How bad are we looking at?"

"Really bad, I've never seen them get so worked up," Zephyrus said.

"Not another 'small group saves the world' storybook," Grif muttered.

"What's a storybook?" Quinn asked.

Colin had the urge to look into Griff's mind for answers, but couldn't. he agreed when entering the Order to never look into someone's mind without their permission. Not that he hadn't broken that rule a few times.

"A hologram," Colin muttered, "You seem pretty advacned. I mean a true Artificual intelligence doesn't exist on Earth yet. At lewast not my Earth."

"Figured it out, have you?" Griff asked.

"Partially, It is obvious this is not our original planet of origin. Maybe some of you are from this planet, but I know I'm not."

"We have a genius on our hands," Adelaide mocked. Griff tole her to be quiet yet again.

"It really doesn't matter does it? What we're here for. I'm sure we all have different reasons. Griff is here to take us back home, right?"

"Not exactly. I'm here to keep you safe until you can get home."

"What?"

"Somewhere in the storybook is a quest object. Once we reach that object, the storybook will end and you will all be back then. The problem is that I don't know what the quest object is, nor how we can get there. For all I know it will be when we defeat some evil villain or find some lost treasure."

"So you're here to protect us?"

"Right. It is important that none of you die before we obtain our goal. Otherwise your author will die too. That is why we must finish this quest as quickly as possible."

"Now hold on!" Infra growled. "Are you saying - how dare you!"
"What?" Grif asked calmly. He'd been expecting this.
"You dare imply that I'm nothing more than a figment of some mortal's imagination?" Infra was getting riled up again. Grif coughed.

"Calm down!" he exclaimed. "This is the truth... you need to accept it. If we successfully complete this storybook, you'll return to your own world with no memory of what's happened here."
"Fine with me," growled Infra. "The less I see of you, the better."
"The feeling's mutual," Grif shot back. "Anyway, the other major problem is the remnants that followed you guys here from your worlds, like that dragon - boy, getting that to come quietly is gonna be a real job."
"Wait a minute!" Colin almost shouted. "You mean our enemies could have followed us here?"
Grif nodded. "And like I say, we'll need to get them back to their home world as well - although they're not bound to the authors like you, they'll vanish entirely if they're still in the storybook world when it ends. And their absences from their own worlds could have nasty consequences."

The group stood in silence as the realisation of the task at hand swept over them. Eventually Quinn spoke up.
"Oi! Where'd the little red feller bugger off to?"
"I dunno," Elyn replied. "'E muttered somethin' - sounded like ultra - an' bolted."

Quinn was shocked could she really be a figment to a person imagination. Was her life all just controlled by someone? It was a frightening thought, but of everything that had happened it kinda made sense. No she couldn't believe it what sick person would torture her like this?

"'Old on 'ere if we're controlled by sick bloke then fine, but how dae we know, ya're not in league with them!"

Her only answer was "We've more important things to do!"

Great she thought her life was controlled by someone, and just when she was beginning to enjoy it. She took a swig from her flask to the looks of distaste from others.

Everything was happening so fast. Only a few minutes ago Zephyrus thought he was in control of everything in his life. But to think that he was only a figment of someone's imagination was too hard to swallow. But, he did what he always did when faced with a self crisis, move on and worry about it later. "I don't know what this quest item is, or how to find it, but we won't be able to find it standing around here all day. My friend in Muzuki Village is waiting for me. She may know something about what we have to look for, or at least know somebody who does. Either way it'll point us in the right direction."

Amelia

"Okay then we resume our journey," I agreed.

"But what about Infra?" Colin asked. "Don't we have to find him first?"

"Don't worry, it is inevetible that we will see him again," Griff assured us. "It's much too early for anyone to lose their lives yet."

"Tha' makes me feel so much better," Quinn sighed as we headed in the general direction of 'Muzuki Village.' As we walked, I mused about the story I was currently writing and wondered if this was how Chris felt when he found out he was just a figment of my imagination. Of course, I'd known all along that there was someone else out there writing my story, probably on another world but now I knew.

Quinn wasn't going move without answers and she knew the new arrival knew more than he was saying.

"Oi I'm not movin' until yer tell us now evryfink yer know!"

The new person turned around obviously annoyed, "We've no time for idle chit-chat."

She rolled her eyes, "Yer know I could just real yor mind, right, but I'm bloody well bein' fair and givin' yer a chance ter tell us."

The others turned round and the dog demon thing faced her...

(Okay I'm stuck what Zepherus would say here. I know it's short but it's to bring this back to front page.)

Zephyrus shook his head. He didn't have time for this. If he didn't get to Muzuki Village soon, Karen was going to rip him a new one. But that wasn't what made him mad, it was Quinn being so self centered.

He didn't try to keep the anger out of his voice. "You think you're the only one who was shocked to hear what Grif said? You think you're the only one who's being affected?"

"Don' ya be yell'n a' me!"

"I'll yell if I want to! Because the truth is, the world doesn't revolve around you. We all want more answers, but right now isn't the time to be arguing, it's time to work together as a team. When we have time we can demand answers. But right now, shut up and start walking or I'll carry you to Muzuki Village myself!"