Taeyang and Gaius: To Change Fate

Gaius could hear them somewhere behind him. His brown tipped feet made the snow he ran through hiss and steam up. It was obvious what path he was taking. Fire just did not mix well with snow. He was so annoyed. And his side stung quite badly. Not a mortal wound by any means but enough that it hindered his progress by constantly distracting him from where he was going.



He’d just been nice. He didn’t understand humans in the least. He’d traveled through their little town and run across a little girl. She’d been so excited to see a fire fox up in the mountains with all of the cold. He’d let her pet him and even let her take him to her little home to warm up and have some food. But they’d had no fire. None at all. So he’d made it for them. Sure an ember had sparked up and caught the clothes of the large man aflame but only a little bit and it had been put out so quickly that he’d not been hurt at all.



Still, he was being chased. He figured they wanted his fire and were just using the small accident as an excuse to try and catch him. But he’d not be caught. He was too clever. And by clever, he could take on their form. He did so as he approached a large building. Hands were easier to use to open doors and he slipped inside.



It was dark. So very dark. But his eyes started to adjust. He could make a flame to light his way but if there were humans inside then he didn’t want to give himself away. He stuck to the walls and went further inside. It became obvious after a while that he was in some kind of temple. Good, those always had secret passages. He searched furtively as his ears listened for sounds of them catching up and coming inside. Would they cause a scene inside a temple? Maybe. Depended on whose temple he was in.



Ah, found it. He slipped through the passage and closed the door behind him. It brought him further down. He felt like he was going down into the center of the earth. But fear kept him going. There was a light at the end of the stairs and he started to run as soon as he saw it. He took on his own form to go faster without fear of tripping badly and burst into the light.



An altar. That’s where the passage lead. It was lit up by the light of the moon, allowed through cleverly disguised slits in the temple ceiling. There were places to sit and worship or pray. He walked past those. He looked up at the large statue, made all out of some shiny, dark stone. An all black dragon, life size, towered over the altar. He shivered but kept going because at the dragon’s feet were the offerings. And offerings usually meant food. He changed back into a human as he approached the altar to look through the bags of things left inside.



“Hope you don’t mind any if I just take some of this,” he said to the statue. It was never a good idea to anger the gods. They’d curse you. Or worse, if you could imagine. He didn’t want that. But he was so hungry. There was never any food out in the cold mountains. Not that he could easily find. Why’d he even come out here again? He didn’t remember. His prying hands found fruit and dried fish. Dried meat. Wine. “Nice,” he chuckled. The gods only ever got the best offerings.



A sound far above caused him to spin around and look towards the stairs, the bag grasped in his hands. He paused, waiting there, holding his breath for what felt like an eternity. Nothing. Good. Still, he wasn’t going to chance it. He whirled back around, taking the bag of goods with him, and scampered behind the statue. Then he started to climb. Bag tied around him, he climbed up the long tail and onto the shoulders. He settled down there, out of sight, and set the bag down beside him. Then he took a breath and just breathed to calm down.



Ow but did his side hurt. He wasn’t sure what had been thrown at him. One of those capture spheres maybe. He lifted up his shirt. It was bleeding a little. Could they find him from that? Oh he wasn’t for that. He quickly used his fire to cauterize the wound. It hurt and smelled something awful but that would do. That done he let the shirt drop down and started on the food. Once his belly was full, more so than it had been in days, he settled down against the neck of the great dragon god and tried to sleep. He prayed they wouldn’t find him. And he prayed that the god wouldn’t mind him taking shelter on his likeness. And then he slept.

Dialga had brought Zekrom and Lucian as he had been requested. The idea of this trip was to make it so that Gaius never slept with Lucian and therefore never met Yveltal. Their plan was simple enough, he thought.

Though, sneaky as their other brother was, when this meeting had gone down, he had heard it. He was still mad about how his brother had taken him down previously, though he was still weak from the fight he felt as though he could at least get in the way of Zekrom stealing Gaius from him entirely.

Zekrom was not aware at first, there was just this prickling at the back of his neck that caused the fine hairs there to stand up. They were close to his temple, he knew that. He could feel the power and the pull of the offerings. "Why here?" He asked Dialga.

Dialga just looked at his brother. "Why else?" he asked. "Because this is where he is. This moment determines the direction his life takes that leads him to Lucian. If you're to stop that, then you must intercept him here." He felt like that would be fairly obvious. He wasn't going to just take him to one of his temples for the sake of boosting his ego before they got started.

Lucian said nothing on it. He'd not met Gaius at this point yet and didn't know what he'd done with his life before then. It was odd though, to find a fire creature so deep in the snow mountains.

"But this is like, my temple." Zekrom pointed out, it was mischief. He knew it was mischief. "Well, cheers then. I guess." He said and pat his brother on the arm in a very brotherly sort of way. "I appreciate your help, I assume I can trust that we will be returned to the current time when we're done?" He didn't feel like redoing everything. That seemed like effort.

Yveltal was lurking, he slipped off in the shadows. But he was too slow and too weak to be massively ninja. He failed and his brother, Zekrom, felt him move before he could escape. "Wait," he said to Lucian and Dialga then, his head snapping to the side as he shed his human form and became this massive, menacing looking black dragon. He pounced immediately, landing on Yveltal as he hissed and attacked.

MASSIVE MASSIVE FIEND FIGHTS. They broke the MOUNTAINS. And destroyed the world! Omg. No, just kidding. But they did dent the mountain. It has a Yveltal shaped indent. It also caused plenty of snow to fall on him as he did that cocoon thing to save himself. "Prick." Zekrom said, as he turned back into a human. His clothes torn, though he hadn't been wearing them. Blood spilled from his shoulder, lip and leg. But he didn't care. "Let's go then." He said, like he hadn't just kicked some ass.

Dialga snorted. He hadn't involved himself in the fight nor was he going to. But yes, Lucian would be returned to the present as he belonged. And so would Zekrom. He said as much before leaving them both two it.

Lucian nodded. He too hadn't gotten involved in the fight but he wasn't quite as powerful as his brothers, gods as they were, and he was also directed to remain neutral because of his position. "Ready then? You'll scare the boy looking like that," he pointed out of the torn clothes and blood. "But maybe it'll attract him. Who knows."

"in my defense, I didn't have an option." Zekrom pointed out with a smirk, he was so easily amused. "At least we needn't worry about that prick for a few years." He said, he brushed himself off and took his brothers wrist to drag him towards his temple.

"No, not for a bit," Lucian agreed. "Though leaving him here will leave those who live here at risk...But I suppose we'll deal with that when it comes up." Already they'd changed things. But nothing could be done about that. He followed his brother into the temple. It was dark. Too late for people to be inside for worship. But he could smell Gaius. "He is here. Suppose Dialga wasn't playing after all..."

"Hm," Taeyang said thoughtfully as he sniffed at the air and followed Gaius' scent. He could see that he had shuffled through the offerings. "Food?" He offered his brother and threw a bag of dried meat and a bottle of the finest meads from this town. "If you need anything else they've offered, help yourself. Sometimes it's books, magical books and gold. So much gold for the dragons." He said, as he gestured to the massive pile. He found a fresh pair of clothes, though he would bleed through them, he thought it would look better. So he changed.

"What would I do with gold?" Lucian asked. It wasn't something that could be spent in the underworld and he had enough contacts in the above world to keep what he needed there for his children and the like provided for. "I can see why they'd give it to a dragon though." Ah but food and drink was nice. Not that he needed or wanted it. "You should eat. Recover your strength some."

"I think if I put anything in my stomach other than Dutch courage, I will vomit." Taeyang said with a shrug. He was nervous. They were changing the past and while it seemed like a small thing, it never was. "Honestly," he said and drank some of the wine from a bottle. Didn't even use a glass. "There might be something here you need, so go through it. He's up there." He said, pointing to the statue of himself. It was pretty glorious.

Lucian looked up. He couldn't see the boy from where they were standing. That was probably the point. "I'll go through it," he finally said. "And stay out of your way with him. I do hope you have a plan to convince yourself of this time to take him smoothly."

"I'm always smooth." Taeyang snorted, but he was actually going to be his usual dork self. "this temple is known for leaving me good books." He said, because Lucian had caved. There would likely be loads of old texts and such, that could benefit such a man as Lucian who liked to collect favours. But then he started to climb the statue to find Gaius. It didn't take long. Not really. He didn't wake him though, just looked at his wound before scurrying back down.

"Do you see a health potion?" He asked as he looked through it.

"Potion? There's a few," Lucian said and looked through them. He finally found a red one. "Here," he said and tossed it to Taeyang. Then he took one of the bags that had been left with goods and began to fill it with things they might actually find useful. Books, potions, other rarities.

"Cheers," Taeyang said, he tucked it into his trouser pockets and climbed back up. He opened the bottle and held Gaius' head back so he could make him drink it. Hopefully without scaring him.

Gaius had been quite happily sleeping. The movement of his head wasn't enough to wake him. The liquid suddenly filling his mouth was. He swallowed it automatically to avoid choking and moved backwards to get away from whatever had caused it. There was nowhere to go up there. Nowhere but down, that is, and he grabbed wildly to keep from falling.

Taeyang wrapped his arms around Gaius and pulled him back, he held onto him as well. "Saved your life," he said in a silly way. He was keeping an eye on that wound though.

Gaius laughed. It was a free laughed filled with nerves from almost falling off a massive statue onto cold, hard and unforgiving ground. "So you have! Thank you. Who are you?" He asked a moment later after he'd gotten a look at his rescuer. The wound healed up from the potion. The lack of pain there startled him and he looked down at it. He had no negative reaction to such close contact with another.

"Oh, you're in my temple and you are asking who I am?" Taeyang asked, obviously still being silly. "My name is Zekrom, but everyone calls me Taeyang. After snuggling so close to the fake version of me, I thought you'd at least know my name."

"Oh. Oh no," Gaius said as that clicked in his head. "So just to be honest here with you, I may have taken some of your food. And I would give it back but you probably don't want it now. But I can get you more. Although...probably not legally so if that's a problem you're going to have to give me extra time."

Taeyang started to laugh, he couldn't help it. Gaius was so adorable and spazzy in this time. "How about.... You owe me dinner but I cook?" He suggested.

"Okay...I'm not sure how that works..." Gaius looked puzzled. "Wait. That's not some complicated way of saying that you're going to eat me is it? Because I do not taste that good. And I'm a little dirty if you like clean food..."

"No," Taeyang laughed, oh gods. He was struggling and his own wounds pulled and twinged from how he was sitting. "That's my way of saying you owe me a date, I guess, Gaius."

"Oh. Cool. I guess. That's a new one for me. Not the date thing, the being asked out by a god whose temple I'm squatting in anddd you know my name," Gaius realized.

"I just have this feeling about you," Taeyang laughed, he realised that was a little weird. But he was okay with it. "A good one. I'm a god, I know many things." He said mysteriously.

"I am not going to question that," Gaius said. Because he believed it. The gods were mysterious like that. "Um...no offense but you kind of smell like blood." But not from his breath which was a relief for the fox.