Standard disclaimer: I don't own the series.

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AN: I am not a fan of winter :/ (shrugs) Cuz of a nice winter storm, I was not able to go to the library last week and post my new chapter. So, yeah, a double post :)

Anyway, the group is back on track, Ryu's group are heading out to Worent to look for the Goddess Keys, and Troy and Manna are heading back to Dragnier. Right. So, what does that mean for the rest of the group? What of Wyatt and Yuki? Hehehe! Won't that be a surprise. Well, we get to find out what happens to Wyatt at least in this chapter ^_^;

Hehe, wanna know what reader feedback can do for an author? Yeah, this is completely random, but it's a bit of fun trivia for one of the characters. See, back when I was planning the characters, I wasn't sure what I should do with Nina. I had already developed Miyuki and Ryu (Yuki, surprisingly enough had gone through several name changes as well as ethinic groups. Her original name was going to be Iris.) But Nina was still a bit of a wild card.

I knew that I had to have Nina in the story. She was part of Breath of Fire afterall. It made no sense to just drop her. So, I was torn with what to do with her character. The reason she wasn't mentioned in the Prolog was because I didn't know what to do with her at the time of writing it. I had this idea to make Nina a twelve year old runaway princess during Act II... much, much younger than the rest of the cast. I was going to go with that idea until a nice little review from Nina Windia asked me when was I going to introduce Nina.

Heh, I then figured it was time to introduce Nina. I revamped her character design and personality and put her in the story during the fourth chapter. She was pretty underdeveloped because of my last minute change in her character. See, that's what we call evolving characters. It's kinda funny, but Nina was going to have the nickname Ashe (cuz of her middle name, Ashelia?), but uh... yeah. That didn't work out.

Surprisingly enough, Sari was something of an add on character, too. I wasn't sure what to do with her after I added her. She took the place of Wyatt during Act I. But, because of people actually liking Sari, I decided to keep her in the story, and like Nina, has evolved beyond my wildest dreams.

Well, yeah. A lot has changed from my original script, but I am pleased with the results. :) So people? Make sure to leave a lot of feedback when reviewing people's stories :)

Uh, anyway, onto the chapter!

“Ah, Professor? Are you sure this is going to work?” Wes asked nervously.

“Why so scared, Assistant #1? This will be my greatest work! Now, hand me that screwdriver! Assistant #2? Hand me that wrench!”

“Okay!” Momo said as she ran over and picked up the wrench that was lying on the worktable. She ran over and handed the object to the old man.

It had only been two days since the Professor and his “assistants” returned to the Godwin Foundation. Two days and the old man had done nothing but work in his lab. At first, Wes thought that his boss was putting the finishing touches on the giant robot, but the Professor said that he had finished with that project. He said that now he had another project he had to finish.

Momo seemed to understand. She was busy at work helping the Professor. She had basically become the Professor’s errand girl. She was fetching whatever he told her to get; everything from tools to doughnuts. In his defense, he said that a super genius had to eat.

Yui wasn’t sure what to think of all the chaos going on in the lab. She could only sit and watch as the three of them were busily at work trying to build something that looked vaguely humanoid. Though, the Professor claimed that the project was almost finished before he began work, he still needed to make a few adjustments.

The Professor finally stopped working on his “project” and stood back from the table. Momo and Wes stood behind him with curious looks on their faces. Even Yui walked over and peered over Wes’ shoulder. Yui’s mouth nearly dropped open.

“Well… at least he’s atomically correct…” Yui squeaked out finally. Of all the things that she thought the old man was working on, this was the last thing she expected.

Lying on the table before them, was the naked body of a young adult male with short, red hair and a red serpentine dragon tattooed along the upper left arm. Momo stared for a few moments before Yui finally realized what Momo was looking at. She sighed and attempted to cover Momo’s eyes, but then realized that the damaged was already done and went back to merely staring.

“Couldn’t you at least put some clothes on the poor boy?” Yui mumbled.

“Huh?” the Professor looked over at Yui. “Oh, right. Do me a favor and get Jonothan Godwin over to my lab?”

Yui looked over at Wes, who in his defense merely shrugged and gave her a look of ‘yeah, I told you he was crazy.’ Yui sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “

“I’ll be back in a moment…” Yui muttered darkly as she exited the lab.

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Ryu wasn’t sure what to expect when they entered Worent. A large wooden barrier-like fence protected the entire village. There seemed to be walkways along the inside of the fence, as well as what appeared to be small lookout points around certain points of the fence. The inside of the village was filled with various ornate large huts and tents. There was a large watering hole in the middle of the village, as well as live stock. There was a rather large hut at the back of the village.

This alone was not was bothering Ryu. The bleached skulls on the spears at the entrance of the village could be what were bothering him… or maybe it was the fact that several heavily armed Worens in full battle regalia surrounded them.

For his part, Ryu merely shrugged. He was use to being threatened. One did not venture into a life of mercenary work and not except to be threatened every once in a while. Jin seemed have a similar response, as his weapon was still in it’s sheath and Jin stood with his hands held up slightly like Ryu’s. Sari merely kept her hands to her sides and scowled. Nina looked like she was on the verge of a freak out, but kept somewhat cool by clasping her hands in front of her.

Jin looked like he was about to say something, but was cut off by a young Woran woman stepped forward. She had short, fire red hair that was held back by an ornate, beaded headdress. She was currently clad in a gold chestplate with a symbol of a tiger’s paw on it and a short, pleated gold skirt. She had on purple and gold boots that stopped short of her toes, allowing for her claws to move freely and had the same color of bracers on her arms.

She must have been someone important, because the other Woren stood at attention with their weapons as their side and placed a fist over their chests. Ryu looked a little closer at the young woman and nearly choked.

“Katt…?” the word was out before Ryu had a chance to clamp his hand over his mouth.

Nina looked at the young woman. Her eyes widened slightly with recognition. Indeed, the young woman looked almost exactly like another young woman that they had both seen lifetimes ago.

The woman, however, was not sharing the sentiment. “Who are you to call me by such a name?” the Woren hissed in a low, slight accent. She raised the ornate staff that she was holding and pointed it right at Ryu. “Who are you to enter this village?”

Ryu caught sight of the Dragon Tear and noticed that it was flashing rainbow colors. Great, another Destined and this one (like Rekks) seemed to want to kill them. Ryu cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but one look from Jin caused him to close it once again.

The red head stalked right over to Ryu and grabbed his face with her free hand and twisted it around to get a better look. She frowned and released his face. Ryu rubbed the place where the woman had held his face, noting the slight claw marked the woman’s hand had made.

She meant business. Ryu knew that the Worens did not take kindly to strangers and trespassers, especially those that came to their village armed. It was from all those years of being hunted to near extinction that caused the Woren to not trust other Clans.

Ryu remembered that his race was almost hunted to extinction, but they were able to make a comeback. The Woren were existing in only pocket communities. He remembered hearing rumors about Worens living on the main lands, but they were just that, rumors.

What Ryu had not excepted was the woman’s next action. She placed her hand against Ryu’s breastplate and ran her hand down the metal. “You seem like a fierce warrior. Such anger and determination in your eyes.”

She ran her hand over Ryu’s arm. Ryu saw Nina flinch out if his peripheral vision. She looked like she wanted to flame the woman from Infinity and back again. The woman released Ryu and Ryu started to relax, but the Woren forcefully pressed her lips against Ryu’s mouth. Ryu flinched it took a moment to realize that the Woren was giving him some tongue action.

Ryu didn’t even have to look at his comrades to know that they looked just a bewildered and confused as he did. In Nina’s case, however, it was not confusion that her face bore. It was downright pure anger and… something else.

Ryu remembered the one universal rule of women: women hate other women. Especially women that were trying to claim their territory. If Ryu remembered Woren mating correctly, then they were known for having several different “lair mates.” Especially the higher ups.

Ryu didn’t know that much about Woren mating rituals, but he figured that the woman was “marking” him as her property. That was not going to go over well with Nina.

The woman released Ryu when they both heard the sound of metal scraping against something. Ryu glanced over and noticed that Nina had unsheathed those short swords. Nina was very inexperienced with those, but she tried to hold them with the same ease that Yuki had once held them.

The woman laughed. “And what do you think that you are doing?”

Nina growled. “Hands off my man, BITCH!”

Ryu flinched. He had the dreaded feeling that this was going to degrade into a cat fight. Literally.

The woman hefted up her staff and pointed the sharp end at Nina. “You dare to challenge me?” the woman said with a slight hint of amusement in her voice.

“Oh, hell yes!” Nina growled. “Just WHAT do you think that you are doing?!”

“I am taking what is mine,” the woman hissed. “You have come upon my land. Anything on my land is mine. Therefore this male is mine.”

“Like hell he is!” Nina snapped as she assumed a battle stance.

“Stand DOWN!” a sharp male voice said from behind the young woman.

Everyone turned their attention to another Woren, this one male, had long blond hair that was spiked in the front and held back by a white bandana. He was dressed in a black tang-top that showed his muscles off nicely, khaki colored baggy pants, and black boots.

Ryu wracked his memory trying to figure out where he’d seen this man before. Images seemed to overlay with memories of past lives of another male Woren that seemed to have a knack for picking locks and saying that infamous phrase of his, “don’t that just be all?”

Ryu grabbed his head and flinched in pain. “Rei…?” Ryu choked out. His voice cracked as he took a step forward. Nina noticed that the Dragon Tear flared to life once more with its rainbow colors.

Another Destined…

The man grinned slightly. “Ah, no. ‘fraid not. My name’s Cyrus Johnston. We met in Wyndia, remember?”

Ryu stopped in his tracks and frowned. He had been too distracted with what had happened in Wyndia to recall all those who had been at the meeting with the queen at that time.

Nina remembered, however. This man was the captain of Yuki’s Ranger unit. Nina looked over at Cyrus hopefully. Cyrus caught the look and turned his attention to the Woren woman.

“Mara, please stand down,” Cyrus said in a strong voice. For her part, the woman merely looked at him. Cyrus continued. “These are the people that I told you about.”

The woman, Mara, merely gave them a cool, steely gaze. “Them? Truly?” she lowered her staff.

The feline warriors lowered their weapons, but still stood at attention. Ryu noticed that Jin seemed to relax a little bit. Ryu also noticed that Jin seemed to be holding his stomach as though it hurt. Ryu glanced over at Sari, and noted that she looked a little bit calmer now.

Nina on the other hand looked like she was about to kill this Mara person.

Mara turned her attention to them. “I am War-Queen Mardeia of the Woren, ruler of the flames, Avatar of Tora the Huntress,” Mara said as she slammed her free hand against her chest.

Jin nodded. “I am Jin Uzuki,” he gestured to himself. “This is Ryu… Bateson, Saria la Crosse, governess of Shevat, and she,” Jin gestured to Nina. “Is Princess Nina Ashelia de Wyndia IV, heir to the throne of Wyndia.”

Mara nodded. She didn’t even seemed fazed over the fact that mere moments ago she was ready to fight Nina over Ryu. “Yes, my lair mate has explained your situation to me. You are here to look for the Goddess Keys. I am unfortunate to say that while once we held the Dark Key, we no longer have it. A thief from Navare has come and stolen it.”

“Stolen it… Ah…?” Ryu stumbled in mid sentence. “Lair mate?” Ryu looked over at Cyrus, who for his part just stood there with his arms crossed.

“Yes, Cyrus is one of my lair mates,” Mara explained.

Ryu could only stare. He was right. Polygamy was still going strong in Worent. Ryu tried to image what sex would be like for the Woren ruler and all of her consorts. Ryu twitched and placed his hand over the claw marks on his cheek. He suddenly felt like he just didn’t want to know all that much.

Mara gave Ryu a questioning look. “Is there something wrong?”

Ryu felt the sudden urge to protect his… lower vunerable, more delicate areas. “Nope,” Ryu squeaked out. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Mara nodded. “Fine. If you will all come with me, I will debrief you on our current situation.” And with that, Mara walked off to the largest hut, the Woren guard following after her.

Ryu turned to Cyrus. “What’s up?”

“Is something wrong?” Sari asked.

Cyrus sighed and nodded. “You could say that. We think that one of Gideon’s Swords will attack Worent.” Cyrus gestured for the foursome to follow him. “If you will please come with us…”

Ryu nodded as Jin and Sari started to follow after Cyrus. Ryu watched at Jin lowered his hand from his stomach and placed it down at his side. Ryu noted that the palm of Jin’s hand seemed a little red.

Blood? Ryu thought to himself. It was then that he noticed that the area around where Jin had held his hand seemed faintly red. Jin was bleeding?

Ryu didn’t have time to think about it further because Nina suddenly forcefully pushed Ryu from behind. “Let’s go,” Nina grumbled under her breath. “Let’s go and get this over with…”

Ryu tensed and let Nina push him along. This situation was going to be very uncomfortable before it was all said and done.

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For some reason, he could not move. He sent the commands to what basically served as his brain, but his body did not respond. He wasn’t too sure as to what happened during the battle, but whatever it was, it left him immobilized. He had no idea how long he had been unable to move. He just drifted and tried to send the command to move once more. It did not work.

He wasn’t too sure what had happened. He figured he was dead and this was some sort of strange afterlife. After all, didn’t his body get destroyed?

He remembered someone once telling him about that everything has a consciousness. Even he had one, even though he was artificial. He was supposed to be some kind of achievement in modern science. He was created as an artificial life form that was made from flesh and metal. A biomechanical-android some would call him. His core, his heart, the source of his being, was a chrysm gene that housed Ladon’s powers within it. He was created as a means to defend Caer Xhan against Myria and all those who opposed the greatest city of the Techno Age.

Things did not go according to plan. His powers, the Red Dragon, could not be controlled. During the attacked from the crazed goddess, his powers went berserk and he razed Caer Xhan completely. He destroyed his creators. Myria had seen him standing in the middle of ground zero of the nuclear explosion and saw fit to seal him away, so he would no longer be a danger to himself or to others.

It was almost twenty years ago he was reactivated. His database had been completely wiped clean. He no longer remembered who he originally was. The man that had reactivated him, this Jonothan Godwin, said that he was to be a part of Project FATE. He would take the name Fate and he was code named the Red Dragon.

From his remains and the pieces of technology that they had unearthed at the ruins of Caer Xhan, they created something called a Gate. He didn’t know what that was supposed to be, but he was able to link up with it. Whatever that meant.

He later found out that he was supposed to be used in calling forth the fractured Dragon God. The people that participated in the experiments were unknowingly to be used as the host for the spirit of the Dragon God. What Aaron and his men didn’t realize was that the people that were participating were slowly loosing their minds.

It was when the young Prince Ryu Laurante was used in the link experiments, did the system go haywire. Aaron had lied and told the king that the experiments could possibly save his son’s life. Legence only backed up the claim the mad scientist said. It was ironically Aaron’s children that helped him to regain his sense of self. Jin and Miyuki had saved him.

After he unwittingly destroyed Lahan, the man that reactivated him took him from the ruined city to the man’s home, the Godwin Foundation. It was there that Master Godwin told the boy that he was to be his grandson and heir. The man said that he felt horrible for what happened to the boy and he would do whatever it took to make things right once more.

If he could only go back to the way things were. If only Legence hadn’t done what he did… then…

He felt something enter his mind. A series of commands were being inputted…

Activating Ether Circuit…

Code Name… Red Dragon…

Juxtaposition of programs…

Running Internal Program…

Administrator character aspect: F.A.T.E.

Opening Ether Circuit…

Activating Support Program…

Navigator Codes… Accepted.

Input Password… HONEY.

System Input Complete.

“Uh…?” Wyatt groaned. He tried to sit up, but found that his body seemed to want to rebel against that action.

Instead, he opted to try to look around the room. He lifted his head slightly and spotted a series of computer equipment hooked up to him. The thing that he noticed most of all was the small little pink colored one-foot robot that was currently sitting on his chest. The little robot beeped something in binary to him. He groaned and tried to shake his head.

“Activation has been complete!” an elderly sounding voice shouted with joy.

“Oh, Ladon! It actually worked!” another male voice said. This voice, however, sounded slightly younger and a little on the wimpy side.

“Of course. Did you ever doubt?” a small girl’s voice scolded the second voice.

Wyatt finally was able to turn his head and he spotted Momo, the old man, and that guy called Wes. He looked passed them and spotted Yui standing behind them, Shelley and Seth right on either side of Momo’s mother.

Standing on the other side of the…table?… he was lying on was an older man in his mid-forties. His was dressed in a black three-piece business suit and had short, graying black hair. Wyatt knew the man to be Jonothan Godwin.

“Little Master…?” Seth asked in a hesitant voice.

“Un?” Wyatt tried to respond. “Ah…? What…? Happened? What’s going on?”

The Professor said nothing and merely set to work running a series of scans on Wyatt. When he was done, he started to detach Wyatt from the machines. Momo walked over and picked up the small robot and held it in her arms as the Professor finished what he was doing.

“What is going on?” Wyatt asked. He froze. For the first time, he noticed that his voice sounded different. It sounded much deeper and a little sharper than the child voice he was use to hearing.

Godwin smiled and helped Wyatt into a sitting position. Shelley walked over and handed Wyatt a mirror. He took the mirror and glanced at his reflection. He nearly fell over. Instead of the boyish features he was so use to seeing, a mature face stared back. His face was no longer round, but instead seemed to be a bit more angular and a little longer than he last remembered.

He dropped the mirror and glanced down at his body. His body was even older, with more muscle than you would find on a twelve-year-old. It was then that Wyatt realized that he was naked. He looked over at the women and noticed that they were all staring. He blushed like mad. He then realized that a four-year-old had seen him naked. Wyatt thought that he would die of embarrassment then and there.

“The good news is that you’ve got more height on you now!” the Professor laughed. “I’d say you’re now 5”9… maybe 5”10.”

Wyatt could only mutely nod. He wasn’t really sure what to think of all of this. He was… older. He could only figure that the old man had taken his core unit and placed it into an adult model. But, how was he able to do it that fast?

“I have been waiting 500 years for this moment,” the old man laughed.

“What?” Wyatt could only asked in confusion.

“The crazy chick, Manna,” the old man explained. “She told me of this situation, so Momo and I prepared for this moment.”

Wyatt could only shake his head. “I guess that makes sense…”

Little Momo nodded in agreement. “Yeah! So now we can get on with the mission!”

“Mission?” Wyatt asked.

“We have to find the Goddess Keys,” Momo said.

“What’s this ‘we’ business?” Wyatt asked.

“You need my help in order to find the next Key,” Momo said.

 

To be continued…