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Acnologia was falling. His feet had crumbled first, once his hold over the Rift in Space and Time broke. Starting from the edges of his body, his existence was crumbling away, trailing up towards his head. He could only stare ahead - ahead into the infinite, fathomless space. Not much existed here, the ground and crystals serving just as a way for him - and his captured Dragon Slayers - to stand. Once he was gone, this all would collapse.
I... Everything I wanted...
It was his final, internal lamentation. Yet a voice still responded.
"You'd never get everything. Because you'd never get the most precious thing of all..."
It was the voice of the Fire Dragon that finally did him in.
"I don't need anything else. Because I have my friends."
He may have had a point. His punch had shattered Acnologia's control over the magic keeping him stable once he consumed this rift, but it had been imbued with the magic of the other six Slayers. Even more, Acnologia had not been able to dodge - some force from the outside, no doubt the allies of the Slayers, had managed to entrap him. And the Fire Dragon King's only wound against him, his missing arm...
While his face remained in existence, the now former-Dragon King moved his mouth to relay one final message, "I see... You're indeed worthy of being king."
Then, the final bits of him gave way. Despite his lack of ears - or anything left of him in existence - he still heard one last thing, booming straight to his soul.
"I don't need to be king."
If there was any afterlife in store for a soul sent out of time and reality, those words would stick for him until the end of eternity.
At some point in time, the scholars concluded that the best evidence for existence and reality is the capability to have a thought. "I think, therefore I am." Or it was something like that. Something important had to do with something about thinking. He didn't really pay attention to whoever lectured about it. Or he had just forgotten it when his lifetime stretched to centuries, and those centuries were filled with destruction.
There have also been many theories of what occurs after death. Is there an afterlife you "live" in? Do you lose all your memories and reincarnate into a new life? Do you remain tethered to the world and existence in an unperceivable manner to the still-living? The questions never mattered to him - no need to think of where his victims were headed and no need to expect he'd find out for himself.
Dreams were a figment of imagination that the brain put on during sleep. They helped process information and turn them into memories. Or they were just the brain hallucinating during the long inactivity. Or they were something else. It had to mean something when one didn't dream. He forgot what it was, but it was on the tip of his tongue that it meant something to him at some point.
It was all a fuzzy cloud of confusion. Was he supposed to be dreaming right now? Was everything before a dream? Was he dead? How long had he been thinking? That one solid rock in the ocean - the last "conversation" he'd ever had - felt a millennium away. Trying to go further led to him feeling lost. What had led up to those final words? Who and what had he been? Why did his thoughts sometimes trigger distant and unpinnable memories? He couldn't tell if he had had amnesia and was slowly remembering, or if his lifetime of memories were being eaten away and now were almost gone.
The falling had never stopped. He never expected to hit the ground, but apparently some subconscious part of him still anticipated the falling to stop somehow. He felt nothing. That didn't tell him anything about if there was nothing for him to feel or if he had nothing to feel with. There was just... nothing.
"I don't need to be king."
Words were still entering his head, thoughts that he couldn't tell came from him or somehow invaded from another course.
"I don't need to be king."
King of what? Of where? What was a king? How did he, for brief seconds, know what being king meant? Had he been a king before? Had he tried being one at some point? Did it not go well?
"I don't need to be king."
Then what did he need? What else was there for him to be? Could he still be something else? Was he allowed to? Where did he start in becoming... whatever else that wasn't king?
"I don't need to be king."
There was a roar. Roaring and kings seemed interlinked in his mind, like they fit each other. He felt like he should roar - but if roaring and kings were interlinked, then roaring would defeat the purpose of not needing to be king, wouldn't it? Yet the instinct to throw his jaws back to roar hung at a different part of his mind than the thought that kept repeating.
It didn't matter. He couldn't roar. He couldn't move his mouth at all. His own body was blocking it and some pressure was keeping every inch of him from moving. He became aware of the curled up position he was locked in, his head tucked down and within himself and the tip of his tail pressed on top of his skull. He became aware of the fact he had a tail. Aware of scales all over him, some of them smoother and some of them plated. Aware of claws and fangs.
This did not frighten him, for the brief moment that he questioned if it was supposed to and why it would. It felt familiar. It almost felt right, but then something in the back of his mind tugged at him, wanting to investigate that further - was it right because it was how he was and how he was supposed to be, or because it was what he wanted to be and sought out to be? What was he?
A dragon. The word soared through the recesses of memory, bursting across his awareness. He knew what a dragon was by sight and he knew what a dragon was by his own senses. All of this experience was very familiar. With some foreignness - there was a lack of something protruding from his back, more limbs he should be in control of. And even though these were scales and claws, the exact experience of them differed between what he expected and what he sensed. No, what he remembered.
Dragons were something very meaningful to him. He was beginning to remember more. There was hatred making his heart beat faster and a disgust making him wish he could flail about. They were powerful, fearsome creatures. They were blights that needed to be purged. They were something that he was. They were something that he still is. But he also wanted to live. Well, it felt more complicated than that. He had a drive to do something and a longing for something that was lost, but also an acceptance that both were unachievable. Living on didn't feel like the next best thing, but it was the only option at his disposal. He couldn't end it on his own.
"You can't end this on your own anymore, can you?"
Words were replaying in his head again, but the sound of roaring was keeping him grounded. There were two different types: the one from before - the one that made him think of dragons - and the new, higher pitched ones that sounded like wild animals. The roars clashed - sometimes becoming muffled, sometimes going shrill with pain. He was hit with the sense that this was a battle. And battles were good. They were to him. They were shows of strength and a chance to dominate. He liked those. But the more the roars went on, the more he felt this battle wasn't one of the good ones. This was desperation and viciousness - for one side, it was survival, and for the other, it was malicious murder. Some part of him screamed to join in. Another screamed to run away. Both options were off the table - he still couldn't move.
The dragon's roars were waning - were losing their strength. In a battle where only one side could win, the dragon side was losing. What would it mean for the dragon to be defeated; what would it mean for him? The swirling thoughts of vile dragons and wrathful revenge were pleased, but some ingrained instinct was scared and despairing. He didn't know which one to listen to. Why would he be glad? Why would he be scared? No, the answer to the latter was obvious - he, despite the hateful thoughts, was a dragon. If something was killing a dragon, that something might just come for him next. And it sounded so close. He couldn't see, but just that fact alone meant it was perfectly capable of killing him next.
"Why, ********...?"
Fear of dying spread throughout, overwhelming him and pushing out the burning question of what had attempted to break through to him yet failed. He was pinned and could do nothing as it approached him. A faint stench of burnt flesh and smoke were in his nostrils, but it was like it came from within instead of from elsewhere. He knew this feeling, had felt it before and only once it seemed - it had come with the burned bodies and the rubble and the smoke, which is why he was hallucinating them now. At least he couldn't see. He was afraid of what he'd see - of what would be real, right before him, and what would be like the stench, a memory turned to false reality.
A cry sounded out, coming from a human. He briefly questioned what a human was and how he recognized it to be one. Going back down into the depths at the back of his mind, he heard many human cries - pained, dying, in sadness, and sometimes in anger. This cry he heard was different, although the closest in his memories were the angry ones. It sounded more like the battle cries of the dragon and what was killing it. The sounds of more pained roars and nature's elements going wild only confirmed that this human had joined the battle. He recalled the sounds of air, rock, lightning, plants, and water. And of the sword. There was no set memory for these sounds, he must've heard them dozens of hundreds of times.
Yet nothing of what he was hearing now could tell him what the human's inclusion meant. The dragon still sounded like it was dying, but at least now the beasts killing it were dying, too. But was the human now killing them all? What were its goals and status?
Would he still die?
"Why can't humans and dragons exist together?"
He had the strong feeling that humans and dragons did not get along. There was that sense that this is why he hated dragons... yet he also was one himself. Why would that - the relationship between humans and dragons - factor for him and his hatred?
The battle sounds soon ceased. Talking began, but it was too far and too soft for him to piece together. There were definitely two voices, both of them reminding him of humans. Yet he had only heard one human's battle cries - one blade fighting the monsters. The talking didn't last for too long before he heard stomping approach him - footsteps too big and mighty to be a human's, only worthy of being called a dragon's. Despite not hearing anything from the dragon since the battle ended - only the humans - it was now finally coming towards him.
All at once, something crashed right next to him. Then, smaller footsteps, followed by twinkling beats against whatever it was that held him in place in the air. There was a delay in him falling - falling once again. This time, he hit the ground, rolling in a ball before his tiny form stretched out, his face and belly pressed into sand.
"Ah... Are you alright there, little guy?" For the first time, he heard a voice that came through his ears, not blossoming from his own mind. And it was shrill against his eardrums. Hopefully, that was something he could grow a tolerance for.
Lifting himself up to his feet, he found his assumption that there were two humans was false. While there was one - a girl with yellow hair and white clothes - the other entity was small and floating in the air. A word came to mind from the depths: fairy. That word - and an accompanying sight that vaguely resembled the floating thing before him - traveled to make his heart skip a beat, but he wasn't sure why.
His attempt to respond to them only produced a pitiful "roar" - if it could even be called that. It was certainly smaller and weaker than the dragon's, which was nowhere to be seen. His mind was torn between questioning where it went and questioning why his first instinct had been to try speaking like a human.
"Wh-what's wrong?" That shrill voice sounded again, coming from the "fairy". That made too much sense. "You don't look so good. Is it your tail? Did you injure it when you fell from that barrier?"
Huh. He hadn't noticed it on his own, but there was a sharp pain coming from his tail. His body was a bit too bulky for him to inspect it himself, but the depths made the quick assumption that it had been cut or scraped.
"If only we could bandage it..." This time, it was the human who spoke.
But the fairy quickly followed. "Hehe, it's Paimon's time to shine! Your backpack's so full that even when it's an emergency, it still takes all day to find anything. Let's use this scarf from Paimon's Emergency Backpack instead!"
"I have no clue where that backpack of yours is even supposed to be..." Looking over the fairy - the "Paimon" - he could only agree. Was it under the cape shining of a starry night? It didn't look like it.
"Hmph! Somewhere secret, somewhere safe, of course..." Then, the Paimon stomped her foot. "Anyway, do you wanna use the scarf or not?"
"We'll use it. Thank you kindly, Paimon."
Tilting his head, he had missed the moment when the red scarf had been produced. "Errr?"
"Alright, little guy, don't move..." the Paimon warned, as the human went behind him to tie the scarf. The depths of his mind protested that a cut couldn't simply be treated with a scarf - keeping the wound from being exposed from contamination was good, but pointless if it wasn't cleaned out first. Not like he could tell them, or do anything about it himself. "Hehe. Our little guy sure is well behaved, eh, Traveler?"
He roared, wanting to sound indignant but failing to be anything but adorable.
"That should do the trick," the "Traveler" agreed, further reflecting her lack of medical knowledge. That for some reason, he felt confident in having himself.
"Alright. Feel better now? Hehe, looks way better now." There was nothing he could do but relent. "That's a relief... Still, how did you end up in that barrier? And those Rifthounds..."
"Errr?" He had no answer for the question. His own memories could only come up with that he had been falling, he never hit any ground, and he had kept being in the air. But what was that about "Rifthounds"? Were those the beasts that the human and the dragon fought against? Just like the dragon, he saw no bodies of theirs.
"So you don't know either, huh. Now, we don't really get what you're saying... But now that we've rescued you, you can go home."
"Ehrrr?" Home? Where was that supposed to be? He could barely remember anything before this moment, so how was he supposed to remember...
"Just burning rubble..."
He had the sinking feeling there was no home for him. The stench came back. The hatred for dragons soared. Was this the reason for it, despite his dragon-ness?
"Wait, do you not know where your home is?" Between the three of them, the Paimon kept dominating the conversation. "What about relatives? Oh wait... the big guy from earlier..."
He blinked. The dragon? He still didn't know the deal about that dragon. If they were both dragons, and those Rifthounds were killing dragons, logic also dictated that that dragon might've been protecting him. Why would...
"And I think of you as nothing less than our divine guardian, *********."
Despite the depths' hatred, it also recalled feelings of grateful awe towards dragons. A sense of being small beneath their feet - this being terrifying, but also relieved at the protection from similar gigantic threats. These feelings didn't feel like parent and child. But with how ancient and distant they felt, he also believed they didn't fully reflect his current situation. Just like everything else the depths washed up.
"What do we do, Traveler?" the Paimon continued to ask, but now while ignoring him. "We can't just leave it here all by itself, right?"
"It might be better if you stay with us for a while..." the Traveler agreed, at least having the decency to keep him within the conversation, when he was still the center of it.
"Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe we'll find this little guy's family when we reach Natlan... But we've never seen anything like it..."
"Ah, 'Chosen of... Dragons...' Could that mean...?"
A lot had suddenly been thrown towards him, even if they were talking amongst themselves. He focused on Natlan - he both never heard of such a place yet felt an intimate familiarity with it, that familiarity coming from his body's instincts for once. The depths was now the one trying to play catch-up, eventually conceding that it was a place it had never experienced before.
"Huh. You mean you heard something like that?" the Paimon continued, in reference to the phrase that the Traveler said - which, admittedly, he was also curious about. Now he was beginning to understand why the Traveler just let the Paimon yap - it was useful yapping. "Now that Paimon thinks about it, Natlan is the 'nation of dragons'... So, does that mean that... Wait, they call little guys like this 'Saurians' around here, right?"
More things thrown at him, more things that could only make him blink. So, he wasn't a dragon? But he felt a lot like one! And this Natlan - his body's familiarity tugged at him to go, because it was important and where he belonged. If he belonged in the "nation of dragons", that had to make him a dragon, right? Ah, but then there was the matter of the lack of wings...
"Come to think of it, Paimon does see some resemblance to vishaps. Y'know... Two legs, one tail, and all." And now he was also a thing called a 'vishap'?! How many new terms would he have to learn?! And which one would tell him what was going on with him?!
"We're happy to have it travel with us..." the Traveler spoke up. "But we should ask our friend here if that's what it wants to do first."
"True, true." the Paimon agreed, finally treating him as part of the conversation again. "Hey there, little guy. Would you like to travel with us?"
What a silly question. He had no home and no idea what he should do, beyond vague senses of "go to Natlan" and "I don't need to be king" and "dragons are vile creatures that I don't like". The Traveler had freed him and (barely) given him aid with his injury, while also already on the way to Natlan. There was no other option, in his eyes. He was small and weak, while the Traveler was capable in battle and a protective guardian towards him. He couldn't make the journey to Natlan on his own. Even with his body's familiarity, he doubted it would be enough to guide him - and even if he could, he'd just die on the way, anyways. Plus, the longer he stuck with these two, the more he figured out about this world. So far there were no answers to the other mystery about him - that being the memories from the depths of his mind - but at least it was better than having nothing answered for him at all.
"Hehe! Looks like we're all agreed then! Anyway, Paimon's Paimon, and she's the Traveler!" Oh, so "Paimon" was a personal name, not a title or its species. "Oh, yeah, you need a name too... Let Paimon think. Right! Since you're yellow and brown all over, let's call you 'Hash Brown'!"
His nose wrinkled and his back curled backwards. He didn't just reject the name - the depths were aghast at the description of him entirely. Yellow and brown? When he looked at himself, that's what he saw. But sometimes, somewhat transparent, he could see a slick blackness and bright blue. That's what the depths were expecting. But no, it wasn't what he was, just like how he didn't have wings. Once again, his identity on whether he was a dragon or a Saurian or a vishap or something else yet named raged.
But yes. He hated the name.
"I suspect that would only go down well at Good Hunter..."
"You mean people wouldn't like it anywhere else?" Brushing off the mention of yet another place the depths within him didn't recognize - and neither did his body's instincts, to be fair - Paimon continued, "Would you like the Traveler to give you a name, then? Well... Now that Paimon can vouch for her naming sense, though."
"Poor little thing... to suffer such a calamitous fate."
"So, what should we call this little guy?"
He braced himself. Whatever it was, the depths would hate it, but offer no alternative that it was waiting for.
Intently, the Traveler stared at him, with him somewhat feeling as if the stare went through him. Her face scrunched - in a way that didn't appear like just her creative gears turning. Scrutiny came barreling down upon him. For all this time, the Traveler had been regarding him as an adorable, tiny, weak creature. Within her glare, however, he had the feeling of being recognized as something much more. And it wasn't completely with pleased awe.
"I can't shake off this one name in my head..." she murmured. Her lips moved, a static arising from his eardrums in preparation. Although, from how Paimon didn't say anything, he realized she hadn't actually voiced it out loud.
"Acno..." the Traveler finally declared, nodding in agreement with her decision. Unless it hadn't been hers at all? "Let's go with Acno. I think the name stuck in my thoughts suited him, but shortening it feels even better with how he looks."
Acno... The first time he heard it, the static continued its threatening presence, but it retreated. It stopped coming with the subsequent times it was said - and the times he thought it. Because it wouldn't leave his own head, just like the Traveler.
Acno... The depths didn't reject it. In fact, for once, it seemed satiated. It hadn't demanded for this name before, yet it felt like it'd been waiting for it. But also... that static had felt like it came from the same place, as if it was also pushing away from it. Just like the Traveler's sentiments, this seemed like a compromise.
Acno... What was that word on the tip of his tongue? What was it that this name felt like a constant tease of?
Acno...
Acnologia.
"And I think of you as nothing less than our divine guardian, Acnologia."
"Why, Acnologia...? Why can't humans and dragons exist together?"
Those memories that peeked through...
"If the name of that loathsome dragon must be burned into my brain, I shall take it as my own. >They< will not forget it, either. They will tremble in fear when it is spoken. From this point forward, my name will be their doom."
He understood them now.
"I am a Dragon Slayer. My name is Acnologia. I have come to rid the planet of the dragon scourge."
They were joined by so many more.
"I will destroy all. And this world will belong to me. For I am the Dragon King! Acnologia!"
He remembered. In the depths of his mind was the Dragon Slayer and Dragon King, Acnologia. The memories melded together with his body - this body of this world, not of the Earthland that Acnologia was banished from. Had he been reborn? Had he possessed another? It was hard to fully be sure of. This body held instinctual memories, those of which he felt would've always been there, regardless of the origin of how he - Acnologia - got here. There was also still a piece of the wider mind holding on, an island not yet flooded by the depths coming through. This piece was but a speck of life in comparison to his own, of being born and of the first senses of coming to. This body hadn't lived long before it was put into stasis, neither was it aware of how it got there. If he was overtaking it, then at least there wasn't much that was being overwritten. Not much that would be lost.
And yet...
"You'd never get everything. Because you'd never get the most precious thing of all..."
The memories kept going.
"I don't need anything else. Because I have my friends."
Reminding him of one last thing.
"I don't need to be king."
That one salvation from the cycle repeating.
Because there was no need for the vengeance of Dragon Slayer Acnologia to continue, nor the destruction wrought from the Dragon King Acnologia. He had lost. He had been beaten. He had conceded the crown to the victor... and the victor had refused. The way of life that had brought victory over him, he had vowed to recognize it, for whatever good it would be once he was dead.
For whatever reason, he was not dead. He was in a completely new world, taking over a completely new life. Well, that life was still kicking, having taken over as the new "depths" of the mind. Was this the fate of one who died in a Rift in Time and Space? Of one who destabilized his own existence, devouring and absorbing time itself? He had been falling, but maybe he had also been thrown - thrown into another world, into another body.
Into another life. One where he was not a king - not the Dragon King. He still seemed to be a dragon, but maybe that was existence having one last laugh at him. Or it was part of the point it was trying to get across to him. He wanted the world after everything had been taken from him. All his final foe had needed was companionship. Things might've turned differently for him if he had the same, rather than standing alone and begetting destruction. Might've.
Looking up at the Traveler and Paimon, letting the thousand-yard stare in his eyes clear away... Now it seemed like he could find out.
Acno. He was neither Acnologia, nor the nameless Tepetlisaurus that had been born into this world. With curiosity from both sides on what could be ahead for them, the memories blended together and the thoughts melded into one unified consciousness. Acno was what was created - who he was.
"Then let's call this little fella Acno, shall we?"
The Traveler nodded, shooting down a smile as she caught how Acno stared. He tilted his head. It had been one hell of a coincidence that she came up with that name. Not just "Acno" - she made it sound like she had come up with the full "Acnologia". She had seemed like she had glimpsed his past and recognized what was going on. Just who - what - was she? The more he studied her, the less she seemed like the humans he knew of. And not just in the sense that this was a new world.
"Looks like our little friend loves this name! Well, with any luck, we'll solve the mystery that surrounds you while we're in Natlan... Ah, and maybe we'll get some clues as to why the Traveler was able to suddenly enter that Saurian's body..." Yep. Definitely something more than human.
"Seriously, we only just got here, and it feels like so much has already happened..." Paimon continued her rambling after a brief, joking derailment between the Traveler and her. And yeah, she had no idea just how true that felt to Acno. The prolonged existential crisis - starting at some point between Acnologia's death and several minutes ago - had already disorientated him to the point of draining, but the resolution had been its own overwhelming experience. Light was shining from the sky, but he felt ready to lay down and rest his eyes.
"Anyway, how do we get outta here?" Like a secret code had been entered by Paimon, Acno's body had felt drawn. Maybe he did know, to some extent, what this place was. He at least knew enough to be able to leave. "Hmm? You know where the exit is?"
Yep. His feet seemed to know, so he'd let them do the work. "Hey, hey! Don't just suddenly go running off like that..."
Despite Paimon's protests, Acno only stopped once he reached the pillars at the other side of the enclave. Contact with that filled his vision with light, before it faded away to reveal they'd been transported. This new place was a dirt road leading up to a tunnel in the mountains, bright colors painted in an artificial way around the tunnel.
"Ah, we're back here..." Paimon said. So this is where they came from. But he saw no pillars or any similar devices for them to have made the first teleportation. "Strange... The shining pillars from before are gone! Hmm... Paimon's heard that there's a place called the Stadium of the Sacred Flame, and it's a major hub in Natlan. Maybe someone there might know what's happened to Acno. Let's head there if we get the chance, shall we?"
Acno roared in agreement. Just because he accepted his new life, it didn't mean he wasn't burning with curiosity with how it happened in the first place - nor what was in store for him as a Saurian unique from the rest.