Ruins of Calamity

It was the late evening. The sun had just about set, and darkness slowly covered the forest- draping over it like a blanket. This wasn't any old forest, however, for specks of energy floated off of some of the trees, dispersing into the air like spores and causing the area around it to glow. Usually the glow was a faint blue, but occasionally a turquoise color would make it's way into the bunch. It looked like fireworks had gone off on the ground, but at a more mellow pace with less explosions and fire of course. 

A river ran through this forest, it slowly getting more and more shallow as it reached a stopping point. This point ran through some very old stone buildings, perhaps it was a temple of some kind. That's what it looked to be. Large chunks of stone wall, and smaller pieces of the stone brick that made up the building laid strewn about around the river. The river opened up into a shallow pond, which ran into the main part of the building flowing into who knows where. In the middle of this shallow pond, a broken down fountain was sitting, barely working. A little bit of water spouted out from the middle, flowing back into the pond from which it came. Parts of the stone plate that made up the fountain had fallen down, resting in the pond, in fact some of the parts were sticking up out of the water. 

At the top of this fountain stood- or rather, knelt- a strange being. He possessed the ears and facial shape of a Mobian fox, but multiple tails suggesting that he might have been a Kitsune. Perhaps that would have been the case if there were not two small black leathery wings sprouting from his back. He was covered in jet black fur, two long bangs hung over his face but didn't necessarily block his face. His eyes were still visible, two bright red irises glowed faintly in the darkness.  Parts of his bangs seemed to be bleached, so they were a light blonde color- thick, single stripes on his tail were also blonde. He wore a dark red trench coat, that reached down to his ankles along with faded blue pants with two black straps hanging off the sides. His shoes were also a faded blue color- but were slightly darker than his pants. 

Besides everything, the only other notable thing about this creature was the fact that one of his hands was much different than the other. Rather than being furred and black, it was clawed, scaly and purple. It was surrounded in a dark aura that seemed perpetual. He slowly ran one of his clawed fingers through the water pouring into one of the broken stone plates below, seemingly very calm.

Ace had been wandering the area for some time now. But now he ended up in some kind of temple with multiple bodies of water around it. Someone was at the top of the fountain, touching the water with a clawed hand.

If his Dragon taught him correctly, he should stay away from him. Which he did, or at least tried to do as he just looked away and balanced a large pillar of fire on his hand.

"Acetylene, perhaps instead of judging books by their cover you could see if he is a friendly." The Dragon's voice echoed in his head. "Eh, he just looks a bit sketchy, out in the middle of nowhere, eerily touching the water of an abandoned temple..."

"Perhaps he is sad in some way." "I doubt that." "We've been in this area for almost a week and you haven't said a word to anyone! Perhaps things would start happening if you actually engaged into them!"


Ace had no choice, if he didn't at least try to have a conversation, the Dragon would bicker about it for the rest of his time here.

"Hey. What's up?" Ace walked up as close as he could, but the water stopped him. "What'r'ya doin' out here in the middle of nowhere? Acetylene asked the figure.

The shadow blinked, and as he did it looked as if a dark energy flowed in to him flaring up as it gathered in his body. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Doubt? Reluctance? Both? Either way, it made him feel pretty good. He took his hand out of the water and flicked the droplets off of his hand, afterward he straightened the top half of his body out, raising himself to turn and look at the direction of the voice. His ears flicked, trying to really pick up the voice that had called out to him. His ears flattened nearly to the back of his head, and then perked back up slightly. He looked annoyed rather than any kind of upset, to say the least. He gave Ace what seemed to be a look of disgust, before standing up and stretching- balancing out on the small piece of stone that he had been kneeling on just moments before. 

"I could ask you the same thing." A sharp, harsh tone came from the Shadow. His voice was deep, indicating that he was an adult, but not too deep. It was smooth, probably almost pleasant on the ears if he wasn't such a jerk. Each of his tails flicked with annoyance behind him. This one was new. Who knows what they'd do? "So because my happenings are none of your business, how about I do that? What're you doing here?" He returned the question, but not after barely answering the question asked to him in the first place- if at all.

Ace flinched. He thought to his 'companion; in his head. "See? It looks like he doesn't even want to be around us!" "Just answer the question, if he lashes out an attack then at least a battle will give us something to do." 


Ace sighed to himself. He turned to the multi-tailed shadow. "I suppose your right" He said, shrugging. "I'm just wandering around at this point, tired of being in the city is all." Ace claimed.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as Ace flinched, and seemed to take a second to start talking again. The strangeness in his actions amused him greatly, he was clearly curious as to why he had done that. Twilight, however, figured that since he would be reluctant to answer any question this fox had to throw at him that he wouldn't ask the fox any questions either. It was only fair, was it not? His mind might change soon though, he never really settled on one thing. If questions brought him amusement, he might as well ask them.

"I see." He replied halfheartedly. "I find that dump to be incredibly unpleasant. Too loud, too much chatter. No one ever shuts up or slows down for a moment. Really kind of annoying." He jumped from his position and hovered in the air, his wings spread but they didn't flap as he floated there. Twilight made his way towards the lakeside and landed once he was over land again.

"Wings?" Ace thought out loud. 

Ace turned his head in the direction of Station Square. "Yeah, exactly that. Too much chaos (pun intended)" He looked back over to the shadow. "If you don't mind me asking, who are you?"

A sudden gust of wind blew from behind him and a small dark red sphere appeared next to Ace, it pulsed with bright sea-green thunderbolts, it spread into the shape of a small Dragon, but was transparent. "I agree, we haven't exactly had the best experience with the silent types." The Dragon had manifested itself so that Twilight could hear it.

As this went against everything the Dragon taught him so far, he face-palmed.

"Oh. So you have a friend?" Twilight, yet again, looked amused by this change. "What're you two trying to do, asking me these questions?" 

He crossed his arms, tapping his foot for a second. "I guess I could tell you who I am, but only if you tell me who you are." He tried striking a deal with the two. "Seems like a fair deal to me, seeing as how I have no reason to break it." He focused his attention to the Dragon for the most part, before turning back to Ace.

"I don't really have a name, but Ace refers to me as 'Dragon'" it pointed to Ace. "This is my carrier, Acetylene."


Ace lifted his hand from his face. "Just call me Ace for short, Acetylene is a little long."

"The deal has been made. Identify yourself."


Why was the Dragon so aggressive today? normally it would just sit in the back of his mind like a backseat driver, but now he was projecting himself?

"Okay Ace, Dragon." He nodded to them both as he referred to them by name. "I'm Twilight." He introduced himself as he said he would, he knew he had no reason not to. The Dragon's aggressive manner seemed to annoy him a little bit, however. 

He stretched out his wings, displaying them to Ace and the Dragon again. "If you couldn't tell, I'm not exactly from around... wherever this is. Nor the city." Though it did not seem that the Dragon was from this world either. Perhaps he was, Twilight'd never know, but it certainly did not seem like it. He turned around, keeping his eyes on Ace until he had turned completely towards the ruins sitting among the lake- indicating he might have some interest in going inside. A small path on the land lead into the ruined temple, so they would not have to get wet going inside if they were to.

Ace's tail flicked. "So what about this temple?" He said. "It looks rather important." He pointed out. "Almost like it was attacked kinda." 

The Dargon turned back into the orb and shot into Ace as he ran inside.

"How am I supposed to know? I came here because it was quiet." Twilight walked inside, not nearly as interested in running as Ace was. "It probably just broke down over time, or whatever." For a few minutes of walking, a lot of the inside was just rubble and cracked stone brick, moss growing on the inside seemed to let off a glow like the trees outside did. The lake water slowly became less and less prominent until it was completely gone, only the ground and flooring of the old temple to be walked on. 

Farther inside, there would be a broken down main room, or what seemed to be a main room. Pillars filed down a path, most of them were broken and incapable of holding anything up at all. It was a miracle the ceiling had not completely caved in. It seemed like the upper levels of the temple were all completely destroyed, they had caved in on themselves until they were nothing more than large piles of rock scattered throughout the nearly completely broken staircase. There appeared to be a few passages to below the temple, and who knows what would be down there.

"Yeah, probably. But with this kind of stuff you never know." He looked through a hole in a pile of rocks, and it was hollow, a few bugs and mice were there but that was it.

"This place must have have been here for a long time." He felt the glowing moss, it left a huge glowing mark on his hand and it seemed to be pulsing.

Twilight simply observed the glowing moss, but for no more than a few seconds before turning and moving on towards the main room. He looked at the pillars, kicking around a few smaller pieces of rubble that lay strewn about on the ground. 

He grew quiet, which wasn't surprising to him but he wondered what Ace would think of his quietness. He felt like he had exhausted his friendliness for the day, he'd see how he felt the next time they spoke. He looked around at the area, looking up at the broken down upper level of the temple. "Hmm.." He hummed, thinking.

Ace almost sat down, but realizing he almost sat on a larger pile of moss, he stood up. "Boy, there isn't much to talk about is there?" He said, looking up at the ceiling. "What's all this moss stuff anyways?"

"Glowmoss. What else would it be?" Twilight replied. He grew quiet again as he went to inspect the stairs downward towards the rest of the ruins. He stepped down, starting to the bottom half of the ruins- suspecting there'd be something more down there. As they go deeper, the ruins seemed less and less like ruins and more and more intact. 

Engravings cover both of the walls, in an organized cluster of patterns and a strange language- it was probably an ancient, dead language. Twilight didn't suspect anyone used it anymore, anyway. It looked vaguely familiar to him, however. He stopped to look at some of the engravings, staring at them in hope that he'd think something a little different if he looked at them for long enough.