Disclaimer: I think you can guess.
Note: This story takes place about one year after Talpa's defeat. Due to instances of violence, language, and sexual innuendos, I'm rating it PG13, so don't say I didn't warn ya.

Pain was all he knew. It invaded every part of his being, flowing through his blood, curling seductively around his spine. His skin was painful and cracked where wounds had once bled the precious life-force over his body. Nerve endings screamed at him, crying out the torture that was their existence. But his mind was tortured in a different way, forever asking why, never hearing the voice that answered, just beyond his grasp.

Now the darkness should have lifted. It settled. Screams sounded all around him, drowning out every other sound that might've been as they increased in sound until he knew his ears should burst.

Frantically, he ran and ran, but he couldn't see through the cloaks of blackness that made this hell reality, and instinctively knew that he wasn't getting anywhere anyway.

He stopped, for no reason, the force that ruled this place of darkness willing it so. In the time it took to blink, he was no longer alone. A boy, a blue-haired boy, stood in front of him, facing in the opposite direction. The boy turned around, and he found himself face to face with Rowen, and they were one and the same. Except that this boy wasn't Rowen, and they were different. They were mirror images; complete inverses of one another, who simply appeared to be the same.

"You can't escape me," he - it hissed. "I am your destiny."

Sage jolted awake in his bed, gasping for air as his heart pumped wildly in his chest. It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. Rocking himself back and forth, he waited for his breathing to slow to normal, visions of unbearable pain and inevitable evil still fresh in his memory. He was back in his own room again, but the darkness of his dreams still hung heavily in the air. Trouble was coming, and lots of it.

He glanced up at the bay windows. It was dark outside, hours since his last memories. His memories. He remembered the fighting, the fighting that he thought would last forever. And then when Anubis awoke, and they returned to the mansion. After that was fuzzy. He could see Mia and Yuli running to meet them, and then knew that they were talking... and then he heard a scream. A terrible, excrutiating scream that he felt emitting from within himself, felt his soul tearing apart, but not of its own accord. A part of him, a part that he'd never realized was a part of him, was being torn away from him, pulled by the very darkness of his dreams into a place he couldn't understand, couldn't see. But it was evil, that he was certain of.

Sage forced it from his mind. It hurt him too much, and this wasn't the time. Rising from his bed, he walked to the door and headed downstairs. After all, trouble was coming. He wasn't about to miss it.

Ryo moved as silently as possible, forcing his stealth so as not to alert his friends inside, who were still discussing the day's events to shed some light on their situation. They were so into it that they'd forgotten dinner, so Cye was busy in the kitchen, with Mia, Kento and Anubis sitting around the table, talking away, and Yuli was asleep upstairs. They hadn't even noticed that he was gone yet, since he was supposed to just be checking on Sage.

Slipping out of the front door, Ryo crept across the porch. He winced when he realized that this was where it all began, or at least as far as they could trace. Moving like a Ninja master, or as close to one as he could manage, Ryo hurried off of the porch and across the lawn. He had to get far enough away from the others to make a gate over to the Dynasty. He didn't even know if he could do it on his own, but it was worth giving a shot. He just couldn't stand to leave Rowen over there any longer, now that they knew what forces they might be up against.

He was ready to break into a full run right when a gate opened right in front of him, producing 3 warlords, the last remaining descendant of the clan of Ancients and one mystical white tiger practically in his lap. Ryo just stared as they all clambered to their feet.

believe that that was the worst trip I've ever taken," Sekhmet declared, picking himself up off of the ground.

"Yes, remind me to get another inter-dimensional traveling agency next time," Dais muttered. "Oh, Wildfire! How nice to see you again! What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? It's freezing!"

Blaze got up and went to lick Ryo, but sensed that he wasn't in the mood.

"I'm going to the Dynasty to find Rowen; he's been abducted. Do you have a problem with that?" Ryo seethed agitatedly.

"No, no problem at all. Although you may have a problem finding him," Kayura stated, her features drawn and her voice laced with a quiet solemnity.

Ryo looked up at her, startled. "Why is that?"

"Because he isn't in the Dynasty anymore."

"Wha'?"

"He's gone. Disappeared into thin air."

"To where? What happened?"

"Ryo? Ryo! Where are you?" Mia called from the house.

"Ah, great."

"C'mon," Dais said to him. "I think it's about time we traded stories."

It took them under a minute before they were close enough to the house for Mia to start up. "Ryo, where the hell did you think you were going? To the Dynasty? Where did they come from? Are you listening to me?"

"We-"

"Shut up, Ryo, there's no time for your excuses. Sage is awake. Do they know where Rowen is?" she gushed, obviously put out over the whole situation.

"You okay, Mia?" Kento asked tentatively, hoping she wouldn't kill him for asking.

"Yeah, I'm just-"

"Where is he?" Everyone turned to Sage, who was standing in the doorway, gripping its frame tightly. He looked like death warmed over.

"Sage, you should be in bed!"

"Do you know where he is?" he demanded of the Warlords.

They all looked down at their feet, all except Kayura. "We did. He's the one who broke us out of the dungeon and helped us get out of there. But we were ambushed: Talpa's new Warlords. Rowen was holding them all off on his own, until..."

"Until what?" Sage pressed desperately.

"Until...I don't know. Something happened. I can't even explain it, but it was like some awful force just swallowed him whole. And then he disappeared, and the Warlords were as shocked as we were."

"Ahh!" Sage cried out, dropping to his knees and hugging himself tightly.

"Sage!"

"What's happening?" he managed through the pain. Now he knew it: his soul was being split in half.

The first thing Rowen sensed was wet. Then he heard it, gushing and gurgling all around him. Under his body he felt something hard and gritty. As his consiousness stirred, he became aware of his surroundings more. Aware of himself.

Pain was all he knew. It invaded every part of his being, flowing through his blood, curling seductively around his spine. His skin was painful and cracked where wounds had once bled the precious life-force over his body. Nerve endings screamed at him, crying out the torture that was their existence. But it didn't matter anymore.

The water flowing over and around his naked body washed away the blood and cooled his hot skin, soothing his nerve endings. It washed him inside and out, detaching the pain from him and purifying his blood.

Slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes, his new and improved eyes. He was laying flat on his back on a shallow spot in a river that went maybe fifteen feet across, staring straight up at a mass of trees. Gaps in the branches and between trees showed that the midnight sky was clear and star-filled.

And yet sunlight streamed down from the sky, seemingly out of nowhere, gracing everything it touched with its light and warmth, sending down a tender kiss that spoke of its love for all things natural. That was also its curse, for it would have nothing of the unnatural, the unholy things created by evil ones, the agents of the outer realms who sought to take its creations - Nature's creations - and corrupt them. It was also this that sobered Rowen, for while its light did fall upon him, he couldn't feel the warmth he knew was there.

up in the water, assessing his surroundings suspiciously. He wanted to know why he was here, and what had brought him here. The last thing he remembered was fighting Talpa's slugs, and then....this.

The water had subdued his pain, along with his anger, for the moment, but his body still ached and groaned at him like he was 17, going on one hundred. Then it sunk in. Where he was, or at least what the place was. Where he sat was in the middle of the river, and the forest sprung up all around it, wild and vibrant. On one side. That was where the light fell, over all of it, and it faded as it carried across the river, until it reached the other side, and it was black as midnight, as the sky above it all.

On the light-filled side, the trees and plants were lush and alive, and the wildlife made their prescense known. On the other side, the trees were gnarled and grey, and no other life of any sort could be seen. It was then that he realized that he was in a living representation of yin and yang, and he was sitting directly on the line that seperated them.

"Good. I was afraid you'd never get it," a soft, comforting voice behind him spoke.
????? Rowen lifted himself to his feet, turning to the speaker. It was the spirit from the Nether Pools, floating in the air just above the water. "Alex," he rasped. "Alex, how can you be here?"

"I had to come. I had to be with you, little brother."

A tear formed in Rowen's eye. "But, you're dead. Dead people don't just come 'cause you need them."

"Then what about your friend Anubis? Isn't he a perfect example of just that? Look, Rowen, the important thing is why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"Please, Ro, we both already know that. I'm here because Talpa has stolen you away, to the darkness." Rowen stared at him, soaking it in. "You don't belong in the darkness, Rowen. You, I, and Talpa all know that."

"S-so what is this? If he's already gotten me, then why am I still here, and not....evil? I don't feel...evil."

"Because of here - this place. This is a place of immaterial beings, not material. I've brought your soul here, but your body is waiting for you in Limbo. If I were to send you back into your body at this moment, you would be under Talpa's control. Being here is the only thing that stands between you and that fate."

"So whadda we do? I can't stay here forever."

"No, that's not the idea. Do you understand what your current position here is?"

Rowen furrowed his brow. "I'm in the middle of the river, between good forest and bad forest?"

"In a literal sense, yes. But what about the metaphorical sense, like you realized before?"

"Wha'?"

"What you were thinking before, about Yin and Yang. You said that you were sitting on the line that divided them, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that was exactly it. Talpa is pulling you to the dark side, but your spirit belongs with the side of good. So you're stuck in the middle, in sort of a stalemate which I've brought to reality. Here, and only here, you have a choice in which side you take. You're in the middle right now, but you can move to either side, and that's where you'll be. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Then make your choice. But know one thing first: the choice is the easy part. Staying on the side you choose is where the struggle will take place."

Then Alex watched as his brother moved toward his desired side. It was the side of good. An obvious choice, right? Well, maybe so, but we'll see.

As Rowen's foot reached the dry land and he stepped up onto it, the world he was in began to get misty and thick with fog that obscured his vision. He was already gone by the time he realized he was leaving.

He felt the wind whipping against him with a vengeance, but it was like a gentle lullaby to the Ronin of Air as he plummeted from the sky, his body the meteor in a shooting star of blue whose tail reached back for yards. But he was oblivious to it all, his eyes refusing to stay open through his exhaustion long enough to enjoy the ride. He didn't even feel the impact as he collided with the ground. His vision became blurry as sleep set in, but the last thing he saw clearly was the sight of his friends running out of the front door of Mia's house to find him laying there in a crater on the front lawn. He was back.

Do you still hate me? Yeah, well....pooh on you!

Ya know, the title of this chapter is actually a fitting subtitle for the entire story, come to think of it... sure, it's corny and isn't a perfect fit, but hey! Gimme a break!

Well, Rowen's back, at least for the time being, *wicked smile* and the connection between Rowen and Sage is becoming more obvious - or at least I hope so, 'cause if not, then either you're very dumb or I'm very bad at this. Anyway, I've got a lot of plans going on for future chapters, and the only way you'll get in on 'em is by staying tuned, so please do!

So, whadda ya think? Lemme know at [email protected]. Get it? Got it? Good!

Later!

Aleksa ~~~<~~@