I'm back! This month marks the 10th year anniversary since I started this story and so I believe I may have found the motivation I needed to bring this story to an end! After over a year (I lost count) without updating look forward to more chapters this coming month!

We start things off with Alexis's POV!

Chapter 85 - It Has Been a While

It had all been a misunderstanding.

Except the whole Drew can speak with dragons bit, apparently.

They crew had arrived on this humongous flying lizard and had clearly sworn revenge and were ready for battle, but that had been quickly resolved the moment pleas to stop were being heard from behind me and Jakkob.

"Don't hurt anyone! Please! We're okay!"

Lucia ran towards Drew and was followed by a few more kids who really did not give a damn that Drew's arm was – wait.

"You're alright!" I walked towards the kid and offered him a quick hug.

"Yeah, I'm aiight," Drew replied as he tried his best not to fall down from everyone grabbing him. "The arm hurts a bit but I think Mac's hocus pocus is taking care of the painful stuff."

Behind the English kid stood Mac, Lucas and Elie who were still weirded out by the flight they had just taken on the back of the green giant. "Where's V? I couldn't help but ask."

"Resting and on watch duty with the kids," Elie replied as she scanned the surrounding areas, bow at the ready. "How about you… you good?"

I couldn't help but smirk, trying my best to ignore the pain on my side. "I'm alright. Been better, been worst."

While Elie and Drew had been on the chatty side, Mac and Lucas clearly weren't. Lucas couldn't manage to look my way and I knew it was all due to guilt from me getting caught by who we thought were the bad guys and Mac…

"Dude…" I attempted as I got closer to him. The guy's sight had been set on Jakkob who stood in silence, looking back at Mac.

"Hey, look at me!" I placed both hands on his shoulders and shook him a bit, trying my best to getting him to look away from the possible NPC. "Mac, I'm okay."

"Who is he?" Mac spoke with a lower, serious tone.

His eyes never met mine. "He's… a friend."

"Friends don't kidnap their friends, Alexis," Mac explained.

To which I nodded.

"You must listen to me, Mac. Now's not the time. We need to save Toref before it's too late."

His eyes finally moved to look at me. "Is that what he told you? What if he's lying? What if this is a trap?"

"It's not - just…" How was I supposed to justify this situation? Was I supposed to tell him the story of how that random guy had found me in a wheat field in my birthday suit? What if that meant Mac would attack him? There was no way we could get any more leads about the situation in town without Jakkob and so I had to take a side.

"We lived together when I arrived in this world, okay? And he knows… he knows we're not from here. He's just trying to help us defeat the bad guys, alright?"

"How can you trust him?" Mac snarled back in reply.

And now he was just pissing me off. "Why can you not trust me?"

Before Mac could answer in recoil Elie got between the two of us with her hands up in front of our faces. "Both of you, stop it! Now's not the time! We already have to deal with saving a town, a bunch of kids and all of that with a talking dragon!"

She was right.

Before anyone else could talk back Elie waited, made sure neither Mac nor I would speak back to the other and then moved her attention to Jakkob who still had not moved. "You. Explain the situation. Don't try to fuzzy it all up with fancy sweet words either. Tell us what's going on and then we will decide if we help you or not."

It had all been a misunderstanding.

While Lucia took the younger kids back inside the building Jakkob finally explained the situation inside Terof: how a mysterious rock had appeared one down in the town square and had begun rotting the tree roots and flowers all around the area. "After it began affecting humans soldiers were asked to take the children away from town while healers attempted to take care of the cursed object. Sadly, some of the soldiers started attacking the children and that's where this little war between the adults and kids began.

"I received a message from the army asking me to return home and to come and protect the kids. And while at first I had declined the order, I was told that I would be able to find the heroes of our world here and I just…" Jakkob turned his eyes to look at me, "I just couldn't let this chance go."

It all made sense in the end, but there was something bothering me about the whole situation. "How come the kids never told us this?" I asked, looking towards Elie and Drew.

The kid replied first. "They all think the adults have turned against them."

And Elie went on. "They still think this way too, and their feelings are worst ever since they had to deal with the incident."

Jakkob frowned. "Incident?"

"I've told you," I said, looking back at him. "One of the kids died in an explosion of some sort. My friend here lost his arm."

The guy sighed. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Of course, it didn't!" Mac spoke up, lifting his arms in the air. "You do realize that all of this could have been averted if the adults had explained the situation to the kids? Or if the parents would have protected them the way a parent should protect their kids?"

Mac walked away and Lucas followed him without a word said. I watched them leave, unable to move my feet to go with them and reassure them that everything would be fine in the end, but for once I feared the lied behind it all.

"So, what now?" I asked after a moment, looking at the three who were still standing near me.

"Of course, we must go," Elie nodded. Though some of us should stay here with the kids just in case.

"Right," my answered had been a rather quiet one. "I'm staying."

"Same here," Jakkob replied as he turned to look at Elie. "I can map you the area out so you know where to go and how to get to where that rock is."

Elie nodded and they both headed indoors to work on the plan, leaving Drew and me and…

"So…" I pointed upwards at the dragon who hadn't moved a muscle since it had landed. "You can actually talk with it?"

Drew nodded. "Apparently he's the dragon I was supposed to defeat but… I don't think I have to? Not that I would have battled him anyways; he's the guardian of the forest."

"I see…" The dragon slowly moved its head so it could look at me. "If I say hello… what will happen?"

There was a moment of silence and a soft growl coming from the dragon's throat.

"He says Hello, Blue Knight… heh…"

"Huh… I gotta admit, I am a little jealous. But I am glad that you are on good terms. As long as he accepts to help us. So of course, that means you will have to go to town with Elie. You up for that?"

Drew nodded. "If it's what I must do to help these kids then I don't care if I lose another arm over it."

My right hand reached my left side and I couldn't help but smile at the kid. "You're pretty brave, Drew."

"Nah, just a bit on the crazy side but hey – I can talk with dragons : could this get any crazier?"