Threads of Fate

[Tsiiri]

Many millennia ago, the world was a peaceful and prosperous place. All of the land was covered in green and all of the water was clear and clean. Everywhere one would look, life could be seen. All of this was because of the dragons. They alone controlled the world, and all subjected to their decisions. That is, however, until man came along.

The first man appeared about one millenium after the rule of the dragons began. Man constantly disagreed with what the dragons had decided. Man destroyed life and the world began to die. The water began to be replaced with waste from man. As the water was tainted, the land began to turn into a barren land. As all of this was happening, the dragons began vanishing, one by one, until they apparently ceased to exist. Eventually, all the memories of dragons died out, as many memories do over time…
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The mineshafts were dark and damp. The sound of a drilling machine could be heard nearby. They had been drilling for days, searching for some kind of mineral but their superiors would not tell them what it was. Alex looked around the same surroundings that he had seen for the past two days, searching for something that he might’ve missed.

“Alex! Get over here! I think I discovered something!”

Alex ran to his drilling partner Allen to see what he had discovered. When he got to Allen, he was nearly blinded by the discovery. Allen had discovered a hole that seemed to be producing a white light.

“What on earth is this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Hmm…let me take a look at it…”

Alex leaned down to examine the hole, however, the ground crumbled beneath him and he fell into the hole. He hit the ground with a thud.

“Uggh…what just happened?”

Alex barely heard someone yelling, it sounded like Allen but he wasn’t sure.

“Where am I?”

Suddenly, he heard a low roar. Alex turned around, looking for the source of the sound.

“What was that?”

He heard the roar again, this time, he turned around and a huge creature of before him. It let out one more low roar before spraying flames out of its mouth. The flames hit Alex before he had a chance to scream. All that was left was a few strands of charred hair and a small pile of ashes.
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Tsi awoke suddenly, he could’ve sworn that he had a bad dream, but he could not remember if he had a dream. He slowly sat up in his bed and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He stood up slowly and headed towards his shower. He stepped in and turned on the hot water. The water was ice cold when it first hit his body, but it quickly heated up. He quickly woke up and became more aware of his surroundings.

Tsi turned the water off and dried off. He stepped out of his shower and got dressed. After he got dressed, he checked himself in his mirror. His black shirt and pants hung loosely from his slender body. His silver hair had streaks of blue and purple that was barely visible. His hair was spiked and the bangs went down to his eyebrows. He had a fairly light complexion that made his violet eyes stand out. He ran his hand through his hair and then turned around and turned the television on. There was a report about a team of drillers vanishing while on the job.

“Hmm…nothing interesting, it is a bit unusual, though, I mean nobody has ever vanished before...Oh well…”

Tsi shook off the odd feeling he had and headed outside. Tsi closed his door behind him and looked around his surroundings. The sky was cloudy, however, they weren’t clouds of water, but clouds of smoke. In the distance, a huge wall could be seen. This wall surrounded the entire city, preventing anyone from entering or leaving the city. All around, tall skyscrapers stood erect with huge monitors attached to them. Apparently, the monitors were still showing the same report that Tsi had seen on his television moments ago. He ignored the broadcast and began to walk around town. The entire town was a slum, every single building was built from pieces of junk metal.

Tsi wandered around aimlessly until he came to an alley. This alley didn’t seem out of the ordinary until he noticed something shining in a trash heap. He walked to it and picked it up. It was a golden object with a purple symbol inscribed on it.

“Hmm…I wonder what this is…”

Suddenly, rats appeared all around him, these rats had apparently gotten into a scrap heap because they were several times larger than most rats in the town. They began to approach Tsi, pushing him into a corner. Then, Tsi felt a burning sensation in his hand. He looked down at his hand and saw that the object was glowing red.

“What on earth is going on?”

Tsi suddenly felt a surge of power flow through him. He looked around and saw the ground beneath him glow red. Then, Tsi felt the power disappear from his body and noticed the rats were gone. Before he could think of anything else, he passed out.

[2ndPower]

It was cold, it was dry, and Donovan was grumpy. He had entered a strange place, completely unlike anything that he had seen before, a place of stone and metal, where the air smelled anything but fresh and noise seemed to come from everywhere. He did not like this place, strange things walked around everywhere, and there didn't seem to be anything good to hunt. He did not understand his situation, and erring on the side of caution, was very careful to remain out of view of those creatures. Donovan was getting hungry, but he could not find anything to eat, and he had lost the way back to where he had come from. Donovan had fallen into this place through a combination of curiosity and accident. He had heard a battle roar back in his own land, and had ventured towards the area it came from in hopes that one of his comrades would share his prey with him. However, when he got there, he found nothing but a few ashes and a strange hole in space. The other dragon was nowhere to be found. Donovan had ventured closer to the hole to inspect it further, when he was sucked through. The smart thing would probably have been to go back in the way he came, but his curiousity overwhelmed him. He had always loved exploring. Unfortunately, this strange place had confused him, and he had gotten lost.

Donovan had lurked through this place since it was dark. Those... things... were everywhere. They seemed to be more or less sentient, so Donovan left them alone, deciding not to eat them. Unfortunately, there was not much else for him to eat around here. Those people had been eating things themselves, and some of them had discarded them, apparantly for others to pick up and eat, or so Donovan hoped. He had tried a bit of their food, and found it unappetizing. So little meat, wrapped up in other things that he did not recognize, and did not particularily like. Discontent, Donovan left the area, searching for things that he could eat.

Finally, some food! Donovan had found some small, four-legged things that he might be able to eat. He had been about to kill a few when he heard a noise nearby. Once again being cautious, Donovan moved out of sight with a quick flap of his wings, behind a large pile of what seemed to be random items. One of those beings approached, the pile. Donovan stiffened, then crouched. Had he been discovered? No, the thing had bent down to pick something up from the pile that he was hiding behind. The thing was then surrounded by magic, then fell over. Raising himself to his full seven feet of height, he was considered a runt by his species. Donovan walked over to the thing, his red scales glistening in the light, his golden eyes focused on the being. Could he eat it? Donovan didn't particularily care for pointless killing, but there was nothing wrong with killing to eat, or eating something that was already dead. Donovan had thought that the thing was sentient, so he wasn't going to kill it, but if it was dead, that would be a free meal. Donovan checked it over. No, it was still breathing. A bit of a dissapointment. A bit tired of hiding, Donovan flew to the top of the refuse pile, and observed the thing. All the small creatures had dissappeared when the magic happened, and Donovan was getting a little desperate, and bored. Maybe the creature would die, then Donovan would feed, or maybe it would wake, see him, then somehow lead him to other food. Donovan would have to wait to see.

[Tsiiri]

Tsi awoke in the alley where he had passed out. His hand felt like it was on a warming stone. He looked over at it and saw that there was a symbol burned in. Then, he realized that the metal he had was gone.

"This is getting a bit odd..."

He slowly stood up and looked around. Nothing seemed unusual, that is, until he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked towards and saw that before him was a creature that he had never seen before. It was large and it had scales. He had no idea what it was and freaked out. Slowly, he backed out of the alley and took off running, hoping to get away from the creature.

"What the heck is going on?"

Suddenly, an alarm went off, signaling some urgent news. Tsi looked up at a moniter on a building.

"There has been an extremely odd happening about thirty minutes ago. People have reported seeing a glowing red pillar in the sky. The origin was in one of the back alleys in the city. No one knows who the source of it was, but everyone is warned to keep a watch for the source."

Tsi thought to himself, What have I gotten myself into...Then, he remebered that he was running from the creature he had seen and thought he had lost it. He stopped to rest for a moment and sat down against a wall.

"Things are getting very odd now, I wonder what is going on..."

The heat in his hand had finally subsided, the symbol burned into his hand had turned red.

"What does this symbol mean?"

Tsi sat there and continued to ponder over all of this...

[2ndPower]

As the thing left, Donovan took flight, tracking it from the skies. Curiously, no one seemed to notice him, they seemed to completely ignore most of what was above them. It made travelling unnoticed quite easy. Stalking his prey, however, was not. Almost immediately after the thing had turned a corner, Donovan had lost track of it. Everyone here looked alike, he couldn't keep tell one of those things from another. He tried to find its scent trail, but there were too many interfering scents in the air. Donovan had lost his prey. Yet another dissapointment added on to this day. Since nobody had looked up and seen him thus far, Donovan decided to explore this new territory from the air. It was always easier to find prey that way.

Donovan was startled when a loud, blaring noise erupted from somewhere, causing him to start almost enough to make him fall from the sky. This was followed by some sort of animal noises, much more complex than any he had heard before. In the short amount of time it was on, there was barely any repitition of sounds. It appeared to be very well organized. Language, perhaps? Which meant that these things were indeed sentient, his initial hunch was correct. Which meant that these were not prey. It was part of The Dragon's Code, which every dragon was taught from the time that he or she was a whelp. Dragons do not kill other sentient beings unless they need to in order to protect themselves or others. A long time ago, there was a race called man who did so, sometimes through malice, sometimes through selfishness, and sometimes through carelessness, and nearly drove the dragons to extinction. Without the dragons to care for the world, man took over this post and did an utterly horrible job. The last surviving dragons fled to whatever havens they could find, and began a new life there. That was how the legend went, and with it came a lesson: care for the world. At least, that was how Donovan's matron taught it to him.

In response to those blaring sounds and the language, several people looked up into the sky, where all the noise was apparantly coming from. The sky where Donovan was. Several screams arose from below, causing more to look up, and them to scream, and they caused even more to look up and scream, and thus it went. The beings down below came to a panic, much like bugs do when their nest is disturbed. Most of those people ran, but a few pulled out some strange items and pointed them at Donovan. Their was a sound of something like thunder, and immediately Donovan felt a great deal of pain in his left shoulder and right knee. Checking himself out, he saw that nothing was broken, his scales weren't penetrated, they'd both probably just leave a bruise. Still, it was unpleasant. Before those things on the ground could hurt him again, Donovan rocketed off in the direction of the sun, then landed on the ground when he was out of view. He needed some way to get out of here. He could fly over the wall, but then what? The way to go home was inside the walls. If these things were sentient, maybe he could find some way to get help from one, but who? Maybe the thing that was almost his prey earlier could help, it had run in fear, but it hadn't screamed or tried to hurt him. That was probably his best bet. Staying in the shadows, Donovan ran in the direction that he thought the thing had went.

[Tsiiri]

Screams were everywhere and Tsi thought that he had heard gunshots.

"What the heck is going on?"

Then, he remembered that beast he saw. Was that what was being shot at? Suddenly, the gunfire ceased, either they had gotten the creature or it had vanished...

Then, Tsi heard the sound of something big approaching him. He turned around and saw the creature once again. He quickly stood up and turned to run, but tripped on something and fell on to his back.

"What...are you? Why...are you following me?"

Tsi was panting heavily in fear. This creature scared him to the point of almost becoming unconcious...