John silently thought to himself as he walked into the woods with his lance and got himself ready to train. The young gator prince found a nice clearing as he set down his stuff and stretched for a moment. “This should be a good spot, father did say a great place to train is one that feels right and puts you at ease.” He said and loosened his armor some as to not hinder himself for being to tight around his body.
Once he was ready and finished, he grabbed his lance once again and twirled it around a little as it shifted into a sword in his hand, a small pulse of lightning surrounding it as it transformed. John had a special sword that was able to turn into other weapons temporarily and he found a lance to be the easiest form of carrying it and so he used that to his advantage. John nodded as he finished his preparations and then started a few quick swings to practice and get into form. John looked at a tree and started to strike it, enough force to send the sword into its bark, but not hard enough to start cutting it, John was more getting a feel for how quick and fast he can strike rather than how hard so he could slowly build up to that. As he did his warm up, he heard some noise nearby as he suddenly grew onto the defensive.
After surveying the area, John made his way over to a tree and carefully climbed up it to get an idea of where the noise came from. Thanks to his luck he was able to locate the sound with ease and noticed it not to far from his current spot. He leapt onto a branch and started his small trek towards the noise, hopping across branch to another just to avoid detection on the ground. Once above where the noise was coming from, there was a hooded figure performing a ritual, and it didn’t look friendly. John made his mind up as he nodded softly to himself, and drew his blade from its place, and lunged down to confront this figure. “What are you doing?” He asked, being one of the royal princes, he had a duty to uphold and that was to make sure his people were safe, and with how close to his home this was, this was what he needed to handle.
The figure grunted when he heard the ritual and just silently went back to the ritual, hoping this new nuisance would go away. Unfortunately for him, John was persistent and slowly approached which his weapon at the ready. “I asked you a question!” he sneered at him, anger slowly building up.
“And who said I must answer to that of a child? You have a lot of nerve to come out here alone child.” He suddenly spoke with a deep and malicious voice, one that, if physical, would pierce even the toughest material.
John growled and quickly made a dash for the man, swinging his sword in a rage as his words had gotten under his skin. John didn’t even care that it was careless at that point, he just wanted to prove a point to not ignore a prince, even if it was something so stupid. The hooded figure had other plans however and quickly grabbed the blade tightly, his hand spilling some blood as he wound up a punch and quickly sent his fist into John’s stomach, the gator gasping and spitting out a little blood as it was surprisingly well placed and painful, much to his shock. The man smirked as he held the grip. “Maybe a child like you should just find your place in the depths of hell. DIE!” He yelled as his fist conducted an unknown magic and before John realized it, an explosion happened and he flew backwards.
The man grunted and coughed as he swatted his hand around lightly near his face to clear the smoke from around him. “Ugh, forgot that spell was a little rough, stupid brat shouldn’t havee interfered, I hate having to kill people off unless I want to.” He said arrogantly as he went back to his ritual, but unbeknownst to him, John wasn’t killed.
John coughed a little and groaned as he held his stomach, a little blood dripping from his jaw as he looked around weakly, he was in the same forest but something felt off, as if it wasn’t his home. He carefully stood and grunted as he fell to a knee, spitting up a small puddle of blood. The mage packed quite the punch and John was just grateful to be alive as he looked around. John was about to try to stand again before he heard some voices nearby. “It sounded like it came from this way master. That explosion was impressive.” A voice said as he heard people approaching.
Upon their arrival, John got a glance at two dragons, one was a mix of purple and black and was roughly the same height as the boy, the other was a bit taller and was a black dragon. Leading the way for the two was a small black avian, that didn’t give up a real life feel, but more an ethereal one, he was a familiar created by the purple dragon. Despite his weakened state, John could see a small magical tether between the avian and the dragon boy. He stood and was about to greet himself before gasping in pain and falling forward, pain setting in from the punch as he suddenly blacked out. The purple dragon looked and gave a concerned expression towards the black dragon who sighed. “Just a kid, but we can’t leave him here. He isn’t from this place, so let's take him home to rest Cerin.” He said before the dragon started doing a form of sign language ‘Okay Darius.’ he signed to him before carefully lifting John over his shoulder. The avian gave a skeptical look as he examined the sky, a small tear in the clouds showing there was some foreign magic at work.
“Avalian, come!” Darius ordered and the familiar flew to him and Cerin, landing itself on Cerin’s head. “Master, I think he may be from another timeline all together. There is a weird anomaly in the sky and even my powers can’t pinpoint what it is exactly. We might wish to question this young man when he is conscious.”
“We will scan and question him later, for now he needs rest, food and some patching so he doesn’t bleed to death. We can worry about everything weird later.” Darius said simply as they walked to a small house in a town not too far away. ‘I wonder where he is from, and why he is here. I thought all locations involving timelines were finally sealed off.’ Cerin signed as Darius patched up the sleeping gator, who was rested nicely in a comfortable bed, his wounds easily cleaned up by Darius.
“They were, so it is quite the mystery. Once he is awake he should be able to tell us what happened. But what Avalian said does get me curious.” Darius said before putting his hand to his chin and looking down as he thought, the man examining John one last time, he had some unique feeling to him and it was what was throwing him off the most. There was no way that he was from their timeline but he also did not want to immediately jump onto that thinking just because how absurd and outlandish the theory of a Multiverse was, even if Cerin claimed it true. He had his doubts.
-
After some time, Darius went to check on the boy, who was slowly sitting up and looking around. “You shouldn’t move too much or your wounds will tear open again. We spent too much time patching you up already.” He said calmly but firmly, but smiled gently to give John a relief seeing him panic at the new person. John looked around and held his stomach, glancing at Darius as if to ask where he was. “My name is Darius, I am one of the residents of the household. We found you out in the field earlier and brought you here to fix you up and let you rest, you seemed really beaten and worn.” He explained to him.
“I thank you. I am prince John Adams-Grace, the eldest son of Lord Inferno and his husband Ornstein.” John introduced himself in a formal and dignified way as he had always been taught, but gave a skeptical look when Darius looked shocked.
“John Adams? That is impossible, King Inferno’s son died at birth, there is no way you could easily share the name and species of such an important figure, especially with your two family names. There's no way, unless..” He trailed off softly before looking at John. “Sorry, I should not be worrying you over such trivial things. Please rest and we will continue this later.” He said before leaving him, John was confused but lay back, that stuff in his mind now running rampant.
Darius headed to his room and started looking through some books. This was no mere coincidence and he now slowly believed Cerin’s claim, was this boy the same as their own dead prince, or was this just a conspiracy in the making?
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