Young Writers Society

Hnng. Aegeas didn't know what to make of this. The idea of living shadows was absurd, but when the shadow stood next to the lady, the resemblance was clear. And, distorted as its voice was, and eerie as it looked, it hadn't attempted to attack either of them yet. Also, the lady didn't even have a sword after all - the noise must've been from the pen. This could've been a ruse, but Aegeas didn't see the point of it; neither he nor Kellach were in any position to fight, especially if either of the others knew magic.

So, when he felt Kellach starting to move, Aegeas reached a paw back. Kellach took the hint and stopped.

"Were not monsters, Aegeas said, glaring up at the intruders. "What makes you think we are? You're strange, but we don't call you monsters, do we?"



Lunis hauled himself through a busted window frame and collapsed onto the floor. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at the rusted and dusty ceiling of the small room. It wasn't what he wanted to see. He wanted to see the adobe ceiling of his house. He wanted to see Zech's face. He wanted to see a softer and paler sun. He wanted to see home. But, for the second time in recent memory, he'd been pulled to some bizarre place with friends from the war. He hoped it wouldn't become a pattern.

Oop. That's what that muffled shouting and pounding was.

Rolling off of Mal, Lunis got onto his feet and started to lift himself up. When he saw through a hole in the room's door, however, he quickly lowered himself and placed a paw over Mal's mouth.

Others, like he'd predicted. Three strangers in the hallway.

He felt Mal bit his paw. With a quiet hiss, Lunis pulled the paw back and moved over to the lion, who pulled himself up into a sitting position and took a few deep breaths.

"You," Mal huffed, "Smell awful."

Lunis rolled his eyes. This was one 'friend' he certainly hadn't ever wanted to see again, but the universe sure had a cruel sense of humor. "I don't care," Lunis hissed. "We have three possible threats in that hallway, and I don't want you getting us both killed."

"Isn't this Achernar's airship?" Mal hissed back. "Why isn't he here to deal with this?"

Shrugging, the panther looked past the window to the desert beyond. "I don't think it is," he whispered.

"What?" Mal whispered. "Of course it is, there's nothing else that could be as big as this."

"Moron!" Lunis shot back, glancing back to smack Mal upside the forehead. "He never flew in any deserts - he said they were too dangerous. And this ship is too battered for it to not have crashed a while ago. If Achernar wrecked his ship, I'm pretty sure we would've heard about it by now. Have you heard anything about it?"

Rubbing his forehead, Mal looked away. "No."

"So it can't be his," Lunis said. He peered back to the door, hoping the hole didn't reveal him or Mal. "Let's wait. If they walk by, we'll find a better place to hide in. If not, we'll climb to a better hiding spot."

"Oh boy," Mal hissed back. "Can't wait to be crushed again."

They had never really spoken to each other before, but Apophis - as that was who Alex really was - was more than a little surprised to see the way that Auryon was acting around him. From the few conversations about her that he had with his counterpart, she hadn't seemed like the type who was easily frightened. Yet right now all he could think of was his best friend cowering behind his big brother; their demeanor was roughly the same at the moment.

"I wasn't around Lucifer this time, so I don't think a mispronounced spell is at fault for this," he guessed. After a moment awkwardly passed, he took a step more in Auryon's direction. "I don't know how the sharing the body thing works and how much you remember, but hi. I'm Apophis. I'm a god from another reality."

He held out his hand.


"Oh," Ari softly said, not having anticipated upsetting the otters by using that term. "Monster just seems to be the universal word for anything that's not human, so I thought I'd just play it safe and call you that instead of something else."

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," Zion guessed, glancing between the two otters. They held their hand out. It was likely as an offering to help them get to their feet, and for them to shake.


While the hole may not have revealed the two's presence to those out in the hallway, it did little to help with the dazed man who had just woken up in the back corner of the room. He came to behind a stack of boxes; it was likely why he hadn't been spotted by the other two occupants of the room. When his head finally stopped pounding, he peeked over the top of the highest box and stared at the two staring at the door.

They didn't look like any mob he had seen before, but they also didn't seem like players. And they were going off about ships going through deserts, which wasn't exactly something people on Earth talked about. He doubted people in Minecraftia did, either, but it was a big world and he was only just beginning to explore it.

Now, how was he supposed to go about this? He had his sword and magic. That would be good if they tried attacking him. But he didn't even want to be attacked in the first place! He just wanted to find out where they were, and how he could get back to the palace. He peeked a little more over the boxes. He had his voice, his appearance and the fact that he was just as scared of them as they'd probably be of him-

The boxes went tumbling to the ground with a loud crashing noise, and he found himself sprawled across the top of the pile as he let out a groan.

There went the idea of being subtle.

Aegeas lowered his swords, but didn't move. "There might be, but I don't want to deal with someone who thinks we're 'monsters,' especially if they're a monster hunter. What makes humans the norm? And isn't it obvious what we are?"

"And, y'know," Kellach said, "You've kinda been chasin' us everywhere, so that ain't great."



When he heard the crash, Lunis jumped. Taking care to land on his feet as softly as he could, he quickly identify the culprit - a purple-haired man spread out over a pile of boxes.

The panther growled. Of course there would be someone hiding in the one place he hadn't checked. Of course he'd been too tired and distracted to smell or hear the stranger. Of course someone had just blown his cover.

There was nothing to be done about it. They were compromised, but at least he could figure out if the stranger was hostile. He grabbed Mal, who'd been sitting still and staring at the stranger with wide eyes, and tossed him towards a dark corner of the room. Crouching, Lunis hovered over the stranger, knife in hand.

"What do we have here?" Lunis hissed.

Auryon looked apprehensively at his hand, hesitating. Apophis didn't seem concerned, though, not for her own or her vessel's welfare. The human took a step forward and took his hand before raising her eyes to meet his.

"So I gathered. I'm Auryon Blackthorne, but you might already know that." She gave Apophis and inquiring glance and the demon simply shrugged and shook her head. "Or not, anyways. Uh, I don't know which name Apophis gave you, but I'm guessing it was Sarah and...it's Auryon. Please."

Zion gave Ari what was probably a pointed look; it was hard to tell when the sentient shadow lacked anything remotely resembling eyes. "I'm sorry if my host and I frightened you," they apologized. "Ari gets excited about meeting anyone that isn't human - she likes learning about them. She calls herself a monster hunter because she tries to find them, even if all she does is ask them a lot of questions."

Ari thought for a moment. "You look like two bipedal otters," she hesitantly said, trying her best to answer the question earlier asked of her. "But I've never met anyone like you before, so I don't know if there's a certain word I should be using instead."


"Oh," he weakly said, "that's a knife."

He knew he should try disarming the guy (mob?) in front of him, but his lessons with Aleks had only done so much. Give him a sword and he'd be doing great, but right now he didn't even have that. He tried to get in a more comfortable position, but then he remembered that there was a knife pointed at him.

"You have a very confused chosen one," he said, trying to quickly come up with a better answer than that. There was the chance that this person was actually fairly dangerous and not just seemingly dangerous; he needed to make it so he wouldn't want to hurt him.

"You shouldn’t stab me with that," he helpfully told his sort-of captor. "My god would be furious if I was killed, or even just injured. He'd wash you away in a tsunami."

He said all this was an incredibly serious look on his face, but internally he was regretting the bluff the moment it left his lips. If his god actually did show up, he was screwed. He was the more intimidating out of the two of them!


"Auryon it is, then," Apophis said, smiling. He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by the sound of something crashing in a room farther down the hallway.

He glanced between the other Apophis and Auryon.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

The otters paused. Still no signs of an attack, and those two were getting less threatening by the second. Aegeas turned his head back to look at Kellach; Kellach shrugged and put his knives away.

"Yeah, we're otters," he said, turning back to look up at Ari. "I'm a river otter, he's a sea otter."

"What kinda questions d'ya have?" Kellach said.



Lunis hesitated, pulling the knife back. Was this guy nuts? He was talking about "chosen ones" and having something to do with a god.

But his expressed hardened when he heard the people in the hallway stop talking. He moved his knife closer to the stranger's throat. "It's a good thing I don't believe in gods," Lunis said. "You're going to tell me exactly who are you, who you work for, and why should I trust you. And you're going to keep quiet, or else."

"It's not really any specific question," Ari admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck. "I usually just see where the conversation goes. But maybe names are a good start?"


He briefly wondered how much he would have to move before the knife starting drawing blood, then quickly shooed the thoughts out of his mind. He wasn't going to think about how easily he could die right now. He had to focus on surviving. He would answer any questions asked of him, and then he would work on a strategy for disarming his captor if that failed to satisfy him.

"My name is Kaito Shion," he said. The name easily slid off of his tongue; it helped having gone by it for two years, even though it wasn't what he used around the other chosen and their gods. "I work for the gods of Minecraftia. My god is Aquarius, the god of water. And you should trust me because..."

What was he supposed to say!? No one ever asked him that! His trust was usually a given. Everyone knew these days that he helped out Hero and his chosen, and that was enough to get their trust. He bit his lip and thought for a moment, mulling over the options.

"Because I saved the world," he finally decided. That was a good one. Not only was it entirely true, but it sounded like the perfect reason for someone to trust him.

Kellach piped up first. "I'm Kellach," he said, resting his paws on Aegeas's shoulders. "And this 'ere is my boyfriend, Aegeas."

Nodding, Aegeas set his scimitars on the ground. Maybe this would turn out okay after all.



Lunis blinked. Kaito, if that was his name, was absolutely insane. Minecraftia? Aquarius? Saving the world?

Well, Kaito certainly wouldn't be useful for intel, but he'd make a good enough hostage. Standing up, Lunis reached down and grabbed Kaito by the shirt, dragging him over to the wall and pulling him up to a sitting position.

"I was there when we saved the world," Lunis said, sitting down next to him and setting a paw on his shoulder, "And I'm pretty sure you didn't do it, so you stay right here and nobody gets hurt."

Both nodded and Auryon looked to Apophis, waiting for the usual information.

"A single being. Humanoid, emitting heat. Down the hallway," she rattled off, looking to her vessel for more information. Auryon closed her eyes and listened.

"Human," she affirmed. "Also only picking up one being. Something's...off, though, I don't know what."

No more words had to be spoken. Despite their turbulent relationship, they'd been working together in a rather intimate fashion for a very long time, so what they did next wasn't a question in either of their minds.

Their forms shimmered and merged. Auryon's body was the main form but her eyes were glowing dimly - the sign that Apophis was awake within. She - they - turned to Alex.

"Shall we?" Their voices spoke in unison with a strange, echoing quality.

Ari grinned. "It's nice to meet both of you!"

Her pen hovered over the open pages of her notebook. She could write their names down, but she didn't usually include that kind of information; she liked to focus on the general things about a person's kind. Then she could apply it to future situations. She also was fairly good at putting names to faces, so she doubted she would forget them if they met again.

"So where are you from?" she asked, clicking the pen as she tried to come up with a better question to ask.


Apophis thought the merging part was a little bit of overkill, but he didn't comment on it. He would be ready to summon his magic in an instant if the situation called for it. Yet there was nothing to suggest that there was any threat involved in the situation. An odd soul could just be an odd soul; he had certainly seen enough of that on the rare occasions where he accompanied God and Lucifer on jobs.

"Let's go," he said, making sure his baby snakes were clearly peeking out of his pockets. If an attack did happen, he wanted to make sure his attacker knew that there were baby animals on his person.


"I did save the world!" Kaito protested, more frustrated with the accusation than concerned with how he was probably going to get killed for speaking out. It had been incredibly difficult to overcome their foes; there were times where their side had been convinced they wouldn't be able to do it. But he had been out there on the front lines, and they had won the fight fair and square. "I'm telling the truth, and I'm not just going to sit here and play the damsel in distress just because you don't believe me."

It was at that moment that Kaito realized an incredibly important detail: he could control water, and his captor was a cat. He let the magic rise up from within - imagining that Aquarius was there by his side - and let the water burst up from the small space between himself and his captor. The water went slamming into the captor's face, and Kaito hurriedly scrambled to his feet and darted for the door.

He threw open the door and went running into the hallway-

Only to go barreling into an unfamiliar man making his way down it with an equally unfamiliar woman.

They nearly went falling to the ground, but the man quickly regained his balance and helped Kaito back on his feet as well. That was the first sign that something was horribly wrong. The next came when the man asked, "Are you alright?"

Kaito stared.

"Y-You talked!" he exclaimed, staring at the space above the man's head with an incredulous expression on his face. He hesitantly raised a hand up and went to poke the area above the man's head, but a hand quickly shot out and grabbed onto his wrist.

"What are you doing?" the man asked.

"Trying to figure out if you defy the laws of the known universe," Kaito promptly informed him. "You're not...You're not a villager. You don't look like one. But you can't be someone's chosen, because one of the gods would have heard about you-"

He suddenly came to a stop, nervously glancing over his shoulder and back in the direction of the room. "There's two people in there," he said. He looked right into the man's eyes. "They tried holding me captive, so I think they might be on the dangerous side. You should probably stay away from them and let me handle it."

The man gave him a smile.

"I can handle myself," he said, clearly amused by Kaito's comment. His heart skipped a beat when he saw a strand of darkness rise up from the ground - that was what Janos had been able to do.

Eyeing the pen, Aegeas frowned. Strange, but not necessarily a bad sign. "Where specifically?" he said. "I don't think we're from the same part of the world-"

"Or even the same world," Kellach chimed in.

"Yes," Aegeas said, trying to hide how much he disliked that idea (even if he'd been forced to believe it time and time again, it never stopped sounding absurd). "But, there's our home countries, or where we live now, or where we used to live. What would you like to know?"



Crap crap crap crap crap. Why hadn't he realized Kaito was a magic user? It wouldn't have helped him - he wouldn't have been able to dodge Kaito in this small room, much less intercept him before he escaped - but at least he wouldn't have gotten hit in the face.

He fell onto the floor, wiping the water from his face as he heard Kaito throw open the door and run down the hallway. The footsteps of the others stopped. Growling, Lunis pulled himself up.

A muffled laugh came from one of the dark corners of the room. Lunis snarled at Mal and moved towards the busted window. He could hear the lion gasp and start to run towards him, but the panther was done working with a pathetic child. Gripping the edges of the window frame, Lunis threw himself out, hoping to spin around and stick his claws into the metal side of the ship.

Except he miscalculated just how quickly he'd fall. He had just enough time to twist himself before his right leg caught on the window frame of the room in the floor below. Black spots shot across his vision alongside a loud crunch!, and only a combination of adrenaline and his leg being stuck firmly in place allowed him to reach up, grab one side of the window frame, and pull himself into the room.

Lunis sprawled out on the floor and groaned.

Zion glanced over at their host as the theory of them being from different worlds was presented. It certainly made a lot of sense. There were few places or cultures they could imagine the names Kellach and Aegeas coming from, and it would explain the confusion that had arisen over word choice. But before they could talk with Ari about this, their best friend's face had already lit up like a child's face on Christmas morning.

"Wait," Ari said, eyes growing increasingly wider, "you're aliens!? I've always wanted to meet an alien! Can you tell me about your world, please? Maybe it's one that I've heard about before!"


When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that he was in a room he had never seen before. He had tried being brave - honest - but it was hard to when he was taken out of the comfort of his home and put here instead. He had spent the next few minutes with his legs pulled close to his chest, trying to figure out what had happened to him. But he wasn't as brave as Zephyrus was, or as brave as his chosen, and he had just remained in his spot.

The only reason he was getting up now was because an unfamiliar person had just entered the room. He was nervous about approaching someone who could possibly try killing him, but he also was starting to guess that this was like with the mansion and the church.

(He just hoped that someone else would be there. He wanted his big brother. He wanted Zeph. He wanted Liz. He was so scared, and having one of them there always made him feel like things would be alright.)

He hesitantly walked over to the person sprawled across the floor. "Hi," he whispered, crouching down beside them and giving a small wave. "I'm Aquarius. Do you...do you know where we are?"


Kaito stared as the man leapt through the window, leaving his partner-in-crime in the room. Although, in retrospect, the man hadn't exactly done anything to harm him. It had been the panther with the knife - why did thinking that have to feel so normal? - who had been threatening him, and he felt a little guilty for how badly he had worded things when the man with the darkness turned to face him.

Yet he also seemed torn between following the man who had leapt from the room, and it was this second option that eventually won out. Kaito glanced one last time at the lion before darting after the man with the darkness; he was terrified of what would happen if he was left alone with Kaito's former captor.

A pillar of darkness cushioned the man's fall as he leapt from the window. Kaito wisely decided to copy him with a spurt of concentrated water, and the two easily made it to the window of the lower floor without getting hurt.

And when he finally steadied, he found himself looking at his god.

Who was only a handful of inches away from Kaito's former captor.

"Aquarius," he managed to get out, eyes widening in horror.

His best friend and boyfriend raised his head, a smile beginning to spread from one ear to the other as he realized who was standing in the window.

"L-Kaito!" he exclaimed.

"I don't really like being called an alien either," Aegeas said, but Kellach quickly drowned him out.

"We're from Fayne!" Kellach said, letting go of Aegeas's shoulders so he could prop his feet on them. "It's kinda this amazing world with three moons and all these different places full of humans and otters and many other things, and yeah, me and Aegeas saved it. Because, y'know, that's how we roll."

Aegeas rolled his eyes; Kellach was already back to his usual storytelling self. But, it seemed to be what the lady - Ari? - wanted, so he couldn't blame him.



The pain was intense; it drowned out his thoughts and his impulses, replacing them with panic. Zech knew that his claws had caught on the frame, but there wasn't anything he could do about it without shifting his broken leg. He was, for the most part, powerless. Fortunately enough, some idiot had just crouched down beside him. They'd make a-

Aquarius?

"No," Lunis mumbled, craning his head back in time to see the others arrive. A man floated down in a block of darkness, followed by Kaito and a stream of water. He fumbled around for his knives. "No. You can't be real. None of you are real." The panther raised a knife to Aquarius's face. "You're all hallucinations. I'm in shock. Or maybe you belong to it. None of you are, are going anywhere." He pointed his other knife back at Kaito.



Huh. They'd completely ignored him. Mal looked around the now empty room, then moved over to the window frame and poked his head out. The lion resisted the urge to laugh - of course Lunis's plan had backfired on him. And now he was alone, while the panther was presumably injured and surrounded.

Well, he had to be alone, right?

"You saved the world?" Ari repeated, clicking her pen again and again as she waited for more information. She wasn't just talking to an alien; she was talking to an alien hero. "I haven't ever done that before! The closest we come to saving it is dealing with Perseus, but it's not really the same..."


The knife pointed at Kaito was too far away to cause any harm, but the knife pointed at Aquarius was too close for comfort. Kaito when to take a step forward to come to his rescue, only to stop when he realized that would only further provoke the panther. "Leave him alone," Kaito desperately said, pulse racing even more than before when Aquarius gave him a terrified look. He needed to do something! The life of the person he cared about the most was on the line, and he wasn't going to let him die over something like this-

"I'm just going to borrow these," the man with the darkness suddenly said from beside the panther, the two knives now instead in his hands instead of the panther's.

Kaito stared.

How could someone ever move that fast? He hadn't seen him drink a speed potion. The only people who possibly compared were the oldest gods...

Who is he?

"Yep!" said Kellach, a big toothy grin on his face. "Some evil thing from the beginning of the universe came back, possessed some kid's body, an' tried to take over the world. And we went into battle, fought off skeletons an' dead people an' creatures made of plants, ran around on floating rocks a bunch, and kicked plenty of butt. Evil thing took a bomb to the face, and that was that."

Aegeas smiled. At least Kellach didn't mention-

"An' this fella here gave me a big ol' smooch." Kellach set his legs down, leaned forward, and wrapped his arms around Aegeas. "Isn't that right?"

"It is," Aegeas said, sighing. He'd expected as much; it made for a good story, and Kellach had gotten a lot more shameless lately.



The knives weren't in his grip. Why weren't they? Was he too tired? Was he too injured? Was he just slipping? It had been a long while since he'd had to do something like this.

Lunis was spent. He slumped, head touching the floor. He opted not to lower his arms, though, saying, "I'll claw you if you get too close."