Ah, yes. Part 5 of Fading Lights. The last part of the first season.
Let's end it off with a bang, shall we?
After the unfortunate turn of events a few days ago, Jura finds himself in a different area than he's used to and will meet new friend...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"H-Hey! Centi, slow down!", I yelled between pants, running after the dog. Centi happily ran through the forest, excited that he was back. He didn't know about the dragon, but right now, we both ignored the threat. He ran straight to where we fought tho, stopping when noticing that there was a dead body on the ground. I caught up to him, panting heavily. With my hands put onto my knees I glanced up, trying to relax my breathing. The realm was still lying on the ground, the body completely destroyed beyond recognition. The white-purple hair was still covered in blood, the skin was fully pale and covered by a few leafs. Centi whimpered and went over, carefully nudging the realm. I took a deep breath and stood up. "He's not alive, he sacrificed himself for me. But I failed to make it up to him.", I explained, turning sour towards the end. Centi just smiled tho. "I'm sure he doesn't judge you for that.", he tried to cheer me up before looking to the realm, surprised. I tilted my head, but paused when a quiet groan erupted from the being on the ground. Centi took a step back as I came over, confused. I carefully nudged the realm before trying to wake him up after a small whimper erupted from him. It took a few moments, but eventually the realm actually woke up, his grey eyes glancing over. "You okay?", I asked carefully. The realm tried to sit up, but was too weak to even move. I carefully scooped him up and turned to go home. Centi followed closely, turning back to his human form. "This is bad.", he whispered. I nodded a bit. "It is, yeah. But he's a realm, so maybe he has a batter chance of survival than us." "Jub died from blood loss tho, how is he not dead?" "I'm not sure... It's weird." We walked back home and Centi opened the door for me, so I went inside and to the living room to settle the poor guy down. Nightmare was still there, so he looked over. "Pietro?", he asked, confused. "How is he still alive, I figured he'd respawn in Pride." I looked over, surprised. "Pride?" "He's the realm of Pride, Pietro." "I see.", was my reply to that. I didn't know what to say, which he luckily soon noticed. "Maybe call Jub over to help, he should know what to do. I'd just be a bother if I tried to help.", he mumbled that last sentence under his breath, being that badly hurt brought his moral down badly. Centi left to get Jub, ruffling Nighty's hair as he went past him. Nighty tried to fix it again, whining. "Not nice!", he whined around. I giggled and went over to help him, careful. "Where are Zeph and Althea?", I asked. "They're cleaning up the room with Jay and Notch, which is why I'm sitting here.", he explained and put his hands into his lap so I could fix his hair myself, which I didn't mind. Centi returned with Jubilea in the meantime, who had his hair open, so we saw just how long it was. Also he just came out of the bath seemingly, since he wore a robe and slippers, and his hair was still rather wet. He tilted his head a bit at the sight, frowning. "What happened?", he asked. I told him what happened before my death and he listened while trying to help Pietro. Eventually he left and returned with his own grimoire, using its magic to fix this mess. I was done explaining after a while, so I fell quiet. He slowly nodded. "I see.", he mumbled and got to work.
After a couple of hours the realm was awake and fixed up, frowning a small bit and looking around. The situation couldn't be more odd. A realm sitting in front of us with a clear lack of orientation and words while we all just kinda watched, not sure what to do with him. Hero came over and carefully handed Pietro a bowl with soup, which he gladly took with a slight nod. He got the spoon and started eating it while I scratched my head. "What do we do with him?", I eventually asked. Jay sighed a bit, unsure. "I... Don't actually know. We can't just let him back...", he admitted, rubbing his chin. Pietro seemingly was listening, however acted like he only ate his soup. Hero seemed a bit helpless with the situation, Red was trying to figure out where he even came from when he saved me. We had no clue if his sacrifice was an accident or intentional, he wouldn't say anything about it either. He just sat there, silent. I sighed weakly. "Uh... Do you, like, have a family?", I asked. Pietro eyed me, frowning. "None of us have families, Jura.", he eventually finally said, putting his now empty bowl away. "We never had anyone that wanted to be there for us. Our lives only include betrayal and lies, nothing else. Everything good was stripped from us against our wills. Our bodies are constantly self-destructing, our minds shattered a long time ago. And I have to hold everything together with with what little I own from my own mind." I fell silent, pretty shocked that he said more than just a word. Pietro eyed me before clearing his throat. "I'd like a water, please. All this talking made my throat dry up." Red nodded and headed off to fetch a water, putting the empty bowl away in the meantime. Jub frowned and ran a hand down his face. "Okay, what do we do, P?", he asked. Pietro shrugged. "I assume I'll have to stay here until the others, or at least one of them, has found me. That makes two, which means one of you can bring me back.", he replied. Jerry frowned a bit. "Why don't you just teleport?", she asked, confused. Pietro fell silent for a bit until he got his water. Once he had it, he drank it of course. He lubed up his throat and put the cup down. "I was thrown out of the inner circle against my will, teleporting in would be impossible without help." "You? You got thrown out, Pietro?!", Jub asked, completely puzzled. Pride nodded. "Yes. I have no clue why tho.", he admitted. Jub was definitely shocked, so it was probably really bad. We had no clue just how bad it would be tho.