Chapter 3: MapleStory
"Uggh...... my head......" I opened my eyes and sat up, scratching my head. I was in a place surrounded by rocky cliffs along with a few Indian-like huts. Alexis and Lacus were lying on the ground beside me. A strange stump-like monster with an eye walked towards me. I shrank back. Hey wait...... stump? The cliffs...? We were in Perion! In MapleStory! What the heck is going on!? Oh yeah...... That weird necklace must have something to do with this...
I punched the stump. It was barely knocked back. However, the second I pulled my fist back, it began to chase me. I bashed it on the head and it collapsed to the ground, its legs broken. "Where...... are we?" Alexis slowly got up, raising herself on her arms. "See for yourself." I pointed at the stump I had just bashed. Alexis's eyes widened in horror. "Don't tell me......" she gasped, taking in the surroundings.
Lacus stirred, clutching her head. Alexis pulled her to her feet and she immediatly gasped. "Perion!?" Lacus glanced around wildly. "I think we should find shelter before any of those monsters decide to attack." I pointed at a few nearby snails. When one opened its mouth, I could see a row of small yet sharp teeth. "Agreed." the girls nodded. "I see a smoke spiral." Alexis pointed at a pillar of smoke rising up from behind a mountain.
We reached the source of the smoke, but not without injuries. We had to run away from wild boars and Alexis had a small wound on her leg from kicking away a wild boar that got too close to her. Lacus was limping, having tripped over a rock and twisted her leg. I was half-carrying her. The smoke spiral appeared to be coming from the chimney of a brick house, which was highly unusual in Perion. The house was rather big and there was an archery range behind it.
We knocked on the door. I immediatly heard footsteps and I noticed the door's hinges. I pointed at the hinges and we quickly stepped back. The door flung open towards the exterior of the house. Good thing we took a step back, or the door might have hit us. A man stood in the doorway. He was middle-aged with black hair swept backwards. There was a steel glove on his right hand, which I recognized as a Sapphire Gigantic. He was wearing reading glasses and holding Ilbi throwing stars in his claw hand.
"What the......" the guy's glasses nearly fell off. He raised them and stared at us through blue eyes. "Ummm...... Excuse us, can we stay here for a while?" it was kinda awkward asking like this. "Ivan!? Is that you!?" the man exclaimed. "How do you know my name?" I was aghast. "It is you!" he grabbed my shoulder and shook me. He then noticed Alexis and Lacus standing beside me. "Alexis, you too!?" he stared at Alexis. "How do you know our names!?" she demanded. "Oh, you probably have amnesia or something. Just come in." he motioned for us to go in.
The moment I entered the house, I felt a warm fuzzy feeling inside me, as if I belonged here. "There's nothing much, but please, make yourselves at home." the man walked off to the kitchen. I took in the sights around me; a picture of a boy and a girl wearing wedding clothes...... Hold it! The boy and the girl inside the picture looked exactly like me and Alexis! Only... they looked younger. There was a Golden Arund hung on a hook on the wall and a Devil's Sunrise on another hook beside it.
"I think I've been here before......" Alexis and me said simultaneously. We stared at each other. Lacus's eyes flicked between the two of us and the picture on the wall. She had apparently noticed it too. "Okay, this is weird." I mumbled. The man came back with three teacups on a tray. He set them down on a coffee table and took a seat on a sofa. "Just in case you don't know, my name is Roy." he smiled at us. Roy... the name seemed familiar......
"Well, well, look who's back." an ethereal double-headed dragon suddenly appeared beside him. It had scales all over it and a head was blue coloured while the other was red. It had two pairs of wings, red and blue coloured respectively. The body was gray. "WAAAAA!!!" I tipped the sofa over when I saw it. Lacus and Alexis were also sitting on the same sofa as me and fell over with me. "Twin Dragon, don't scare them like that!" Roy scolded the dragon as Alexis got up and pushed the sofa back into position. She didn't scare easily.
Suddenly, a roar came from outside. Roy's face whitened. "What's a Crimson doing here!?" he ran outside and was then thrown back in by some kind of wind! "Oh my god......" Alexis breathed. "If it's a Crimson Balrog...... RUN!!!" I took off towards the kitchen, hoping to find a back door. I found one and tried to open it, but it was locked. The windows seemed to be reinforced too, so no way out there. A hideous face appeared in the window. Its breath formed mist on the windowpane.
To be continued......