Collisions

Chapter 8: A Promise is a Promise

Corey’s sleep, unlike that of the preceding day’s, was not interrupted by a nightmare. He woke up, feeling refreshed and ready. After consuming a ration, he activated the camouflage again, and left to continue his primary mission: finding the last Dimensional Stone. Making his way through the forest, he searched high and low. Unlike before, he wasn’t tired, and could pay closer attention to detail.

His search lead him through the area close to the groundhog’s burrow, above and within the general area of where Man would camp in the future (and inadvertently cause a deadly forest fire), and even through the stream. All of these areas were dead-ends. With no real leads on the location of the Stone, and not really wishing to risk blowing his cover by asking about a shiny object, Corey returned to the meadow.

When he got there, he noticed that Bambi and Faline were together. Though he was doubtful that Ronno was going to ignore it if it was still broad daylight, he had to make sure he didn’t interfere. He was going to live up to his promise, even if the end result left Bambi badly beaten.

Corey decided to think of a contingency plan, just in case Ronno did show up and started antagonizing “big brother” first. Unfortunately, his thoughts kept returning to the Stone, and how Drew had ranted at him about interfering. Did he really want to be Bambi’s big brother anymore? Something within him merely nodded-his inner child.

“Darn it,” Corey noted that his words were still censored by the air as he mumbled. “I’ve got the brother I never had, but if the entire spectrum of reality becomes dominated, it just won’t be worth it. But part of me feels that what Drew was saying during our recent argument makes sense…like it or not, we are somewhat similar.”

He closed his eyes, now getting a headache from the large amount of stress caused by the flow of information. He took a few deep breaths, blind to what was going on. It wasn’t until he heard an all-too familiar voice that he was snapped from his thoughts. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Kayla.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the young Prince,” came Ronno’s voice. Corey looked up to see the dark-colored fawn make his third appearance in this fable. Ronno also sounded a bit angrier than usual.

“Ronno!” Corey heard Faline whisper, mildly agitated. As Corey debated on whether or not to move in, Bambi took a few tentative steps forward, clearly either afraid of or unsure of what to do next. But the operative knew that the young Prince had to be ready for any type of confrontation-verbal or physical, even if he stood no chance in the long run if the latter happened. However, the young Prince’s future mate was better at masking some choice emotions than she let on, since she tried to be friendly once again. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just here to check on Bambi…” Thankfully, though Corey knew full well things were about to turn south in a hurry, Ronno didn’t seem to notice the obvious: Faline was in love with Bambi, not him. “See if he or his unbalanced brother want some competition.”

Upon hearing this, Corey stumbled backwards, nearly tripping as he did so. He was definitely in too deep to back out of it now. Corey’s priorities shifted: he would try to find the last Stone first to prevent Zach’s collection from becoming complete, and worry about Bambi’s situation later. After all, he knew it would take the combined power of all seven to distort reality, so that it could be changed back to the way it was before all of this occurred, or otherwise to how the user saw fit.

Corey’s introspection was halted in its tracks when Kayla’s voice rang out.

“What’s going on?” she asked. Corey looked over to the scene as she did the same, following his lead. “Hey, that’s…”

“Yes…I promised I would stay out, no matter how bad it got…” Corey replied, as the conversation in front of them began to turn less and less friendly.