Morgan always caught others off guard – including his friends – when he told them that he didn’t really believe in a preordained destiny. To him, life was a road where, at any moment, a man had the option to step away from the beaten path and forge a new road. Maybe he would arrive at his originally intended destination, maybe he would end up in somewhere not even highlighted on a map, maybe he might just wind up in the same place he had started his journey, but he always had the choice.

“Fool, you think you know better than the heavens?” Cerdric, the ornery sorcerer would lambast every time he heard Morgan speak such ‘nonsense’. “The Prophecy was etched in stone by the divine! Just why do you think you wound up in this world in the first place?”

It was true, Morgan Moon was the Chosen One, a boy From another world conjured by the Powers That Be to restore balance to Validar; so it was prophesized. And the hero had done well in fulfilling that prophecy. Not long after his fourteenth birthday, Morgan died in a plane crash into Puget Sound. Rather than the afterlife, he arrived in Validar, a world of spellcasters, dragons, demons, and fae. He was first met by Cerdric, a wandering sorcerer who was exiled from his homeland of Zokaria long ago, and who was the first to realize that the fourteen-year-old was the Chosen One of who the Prophecy foretold. Knowing that the boy’s identity put his life at risk, Cerdric brought him along with him on what would be the start of a long and arduous saga for Morgan throughout the Nine Realms.

A biography of Morgan’s adventures could fill several volumes, front to back. The people he met, the friends he made, the foes and monsters he slew, the legends he created – they were all too numerous for him to count. Sometimes Morgan didn’t even feel like most of it was real. That perhaps he really had just died in that plane that crashed off the sound and was just dreaming all of this up. But the adrenaline, more so than any other sensation, was what reminded him that this was his reality.

And in his ten years’ worth of adventures in Validar, there was never more adrenaline rushing through him than when he faced the almighty Dragon King Raikō himself. In his dragon form, Raikō was enormous – his serpentine body, covered with pearly white scales, hovered over his burning golden palace. Morgan always thought the prophecy was exaggerating when it said “The clouds would scatter and the sky would weep when the Chosen One finally faced the Tyrant of the Golden Palace,” but sure enough; the pair generated a calamity with their battle.

Like Zeus from the peak of Olympus, Raikō shot down countless bolts of thunder. The cackling from the king's thunder was ceaseless, as was the heat his bolts gave off. Anyone else would have been killed a dozen times over, but the hero was quite literally born to fight this battle. He dodged the strikes while closing the distance between him and his colossal opponent. He even deflected some with his hand. With his sword Galahad brimming with power, he bounded after Raikō with a great leap and struck at his right claw. The blow resounded, blowing away the tops of nearby buildings with its aftershock. It also caused Raikō to briefly reel back in pain as his left hand fell to the earth. The king's palace was all that stopped him from hitting the ground like his dismembered hand. When Raikō regained his steadiness, he didn’t become wrathful, rather, he began to laugh.

“How long has it been since someone actually hurt me?” he asked, his voice booming like thunder. “Whole armies have failed to do what you just did alone, Hero of Eight Realms.”

Morgan breathed heavily. “Thanks for the flattery. But I’d rather you just take a dive already.”

The hero was bleeding and sweating profusely. No one but him could claim to have fought alone against Raikō like this, but even he had his limits while the Dragon King seemed to have none. Morgan watched as, once again, a golden aura encompassed Raikō’s wounded limb. A new arm manifested, free of any wounds.

“…Shit,” Morgan sighed.

For nearly an hour, he and Raikō had been battling. The Chosen One gave all that he could muster: a decade’s worth of prodigious mastery of the martial and magical arts. Indeed, no one else in Validar would have lasted as long against Raikō alone as the Chosen did, but that didn’t change the fact that the Dragon King could not be bested by one man alone. Raikō was the son of a high priestess and a divine dragon she worshipped. He was a demigod. His power was beyond ‘awesome’, it seemed to border on ‘almighty’. Not only could he manipulate the elements to his whim, not only could make the earth beneath him quake with just the force of his voice, his divine Quintessence made him virtually immortal.

“I’ve fought vampires and liches who were easier to kill than this bastard…” the Chosen swore while using Galahad to keep himself standing.

“Just what did you expect when you came to fight me alone? I am as familiar with the Prophecy as you, Morgan, and I know that it said that the Chosen One would overthrow the Tyrant with his ‘comrades-in-arms’. I always planned, if our battle ever drew near, to separate you from your friends and kill you apart in detail, but you did a lot of the work for me. The barrier I set up around the heart of the palace; only someone with your power could have penetrated it, and you did. Except… you then entered alone and left your friends behind as the barrier restored itself. You have that little faith in those around you, Chosen? Don’t worry, I understand the sentiment. Often, you have to do something yourself if you want it done right.”

“…don’t do that.”

Raikō hovered over him as storm clouds continued to gather. “Do what?”

“Act like you and I share any values. I don’t give a shit what the Prophecy says – you and I are not ‘two sides of the same coin.’ You’re a despot who treats people – whether they’re humans, elves, dwarves, mermen, or whatever – like they’re your cattle to be herded or slaves to whose only purpose is to serve you. We’ve got nothing in common. I didn’t come to fight you alone because I have no faith in my friends. I’ve got plenty. You forgot what the rest of the Prophecy said: That the Chose One would overthrow the Tyrant with his comrades-in-arms who would ‘fall valiantly in battle’ beside him.”

It was a detail Morgan had not caught onto initially. It took someone, an enemy at that, to point this out to him. Anyone who accompanied the hero in his battle against the worst of all tyrants in Validar would be embarking on a suicide mission all for his sake. For the rest of his journeys throughout Validar, the Chosen never could shake this realization; that it was inevitable that his comrades he was making on his many adventures, people he would consider dear friends, were predestined to be essentially his cannon fodder. Most of them didn’t realize it, but even those who did readily accepted their fate. Morgan, in their minds, was someone worth putting one’s life on the line for. Not because he was the Chosen One, the Boy of Destiny, the Hero of Eight Realms, or the litany of other titles he had been given over the years. They thought so because he was Morgan Moon, the boy from a foreign world, the boy who foolishly talked of defying fate despite his entire life revolving around it, and the boy who had proved to be a great friend to many throughout Validar’s Nine Realms.

Unfortunately for Morgan’s friends, he felt the exact same for them as they did for him. He recalled how they shouted at him when he started to get too far ahead of them, how they barked at him for making the breach in Raikō’s barrier so small, and finally how they desperately tried to tear open the barrier when he started to head in Raikō’s direction himself. Nobody, especially not one of his friends, was going to be a sacrifice for him.

“Nope. The only people who are going to die tonight are you…” the hero finally caught his second wind and retook his stance. “And me.”

The ground rumbled as Raikō laughed at Morgan’s bravado.

“So your plan was for us to kill each other? Brave, but a miscalculation on your part. You, Morgan, are the greatest mortal to each point a weapon at me, but you cannot win. In trying to defy fate, you just orchestrated your suicide.”

“Not quite.”

Morgan rummaged around himself and withdrew a small object that, upon quick appraisal, immediately made the Dragon King unsettled.

“…Where did you get that?” the king asked, failing to mask his unease.

“You sound a little scared, Raikō. Bet you thought you were the only one who knew how to create one of these, didn’t ya? Bet you didn’t want anybody else to know the secret of how you got so powerful. I know it’s not just your divine dragon’s blood.”

“Then you also know that can’t possibly handle the power that’s within that jewel.”

Morgan smirked. “Do I know that?”

Raikō hurled a thunderbolt down at Morgan, who nimbly sidestepped it.

“How many did you have to sacrifice to get that Philosopher’s Stone?”

“Only one… and she was already on death’s door before the ritual was even proposed. Even though she’s the one who volunteered, that ritual was still the most disgusting shit I’ve done in Validar. How you were able to do that time after time, I just don’t get. I guess demigods are just natural-born monsters.”

Raikō hurled as much power at Morgan as he could, but he couldn’t attack faster than the Chosen One could resonate his Quintessence with that of the Philosopher’s Stone. His soul burned like a furnace as the power infused itself with his own. With a single raised hand and without even reciting an incantation in his hand, Morgan conjured a magical barrier that absorbed Raikō’s attack in its entirety.

A pair of wings that appeared like butterfly wings forged of pure light, much like a fae’s, emerged from his back. The aura that now radiated from the Chosen One was both terribly powerful and terribly pure. Too pure. Morgan may have been the Chosen One but he was no demigod. His body couldn’t handle power this awesome and distilled in this amount for too long. This strength, this form – it would only last a few moments longer.

And so would he.

“Alright… Let’s finish this.”

The Dragon King let out a roar that shook the heavens as the hero bounded at him for a final time. Just as the Prophecy said, the sky wept. It was the fiercest fighting of Morgan’s life. In a life so full of epic bouts, he honestly couldn’t recall one that came close to this. Where he to have fought Raikō with his comrades, he knew for certain that most if not all of them would die. But, with the last ounce of his strength, the Chosen One struck the final blow alone.

Almost nothing was left of the palace when their battle concluded, and Raikō crushed much the remainder of it when his serpentine body hit the ground with a thud as loud as his thunderbolts. The dragon king's body dissolved and all that was left behind was a man with golden antlers protruding from his snow-white hair.

"You're insane... Are you aware… of what that just cost you?" the dying monarch asked.

"Of course, I do. And it was worth it."

Raikō glared at the hero for a long while, but just as the last light was leaving his divine eyes, a slight smile crept across his lips as he slowly shut his eyes. The barrier around them disintegrated now that its creator was dead. Morgan Moon, the Chosen One, had slain Raikō and spared all of Validar from his tyranny. But he had defied the Prophecy – his fate – to do so, and that came at a cost.

It started with a splutter; just enough blood for Morgan to wipe away with his torn shirt. But then he began coughing up so much blood, it drenched the whole front of his apparel as well as part of Raikō’s.

“Damn… That kickback’s… no joke, is it? I didn’t think it would start… so soon…”

He wobbled where he stood. He tried to use Galahad as a cane once again, but he didn’t even have the strength to hold the sword. His entire body trembled and ran cold. His eyes lost their sight. Did he even have seconds left to live?

The Chosen’s balance left him and he found himself falling back. Halfway down, a pair of soft hands caught him.

“Morgan… Why?”

He knew without even seeing her face.

“Ah. Hey… mom.”

Morgan’s mother gently brought her son down and placed his head on her lap. She caressed his hair while around them Morgan’s comrades gathered.

“I had a feeling you would try to do something crazy, but I wasn’t certain,” she said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s now or back when you were a little boy, I could never know what was going through that head of yours.”

Morgan gave a weak laugh.

Back on Earth, his mother’s name was Emily Honda, a young florist his father met in his senior year of high school. According to Morgan’s dad, she was an ice queen who rarely gave anybody who wasn’t elderly, a child, or a customer anything other than a cold shoulder. How they ended up marrying and having a baby only two years later after meeting remained a mystery to him. For the first ten years of his life, Morgan and his mother and father were a perfect family, but one day, she just disappeared. Her car was still parked in the garage, but a note that said “Goodbye” with her wedding band placed on top was left behind on the kitchen counter. In spite of the message, Morgan’s father did try for nearly a year to find her again, but with no family or close friends for him to contact and attempt to reach her through, he had to accept the fact that his wife of ten years had simply left her family to start a new life. It was something Morgan watched him cope with for four years until his plane crash and arrival in Validar.

But during his adventures in this mythical world, he eventually reunited with his mother and learned that not all was what it seemed. Firstly that his mother was not an Earthling, she was a Validaran. Secondly, she was not human, but a fae, making Morgan half-fae himself. And thirdly, her true name was not Emily Honda; it was Himiko, Princess of the Northern Fae Tribe.

She had estranged herself from Validar through a unique ritual only her people knew to escape an invasion of her people’s lands by Raikō. Like the many other ‘tyrants’ of Validar, he had learned that one of the fae princesses would give birth to the Child of Prophecy and was doing his part to prevent it. After years of lying low on Earth, Himiko was eventually discovered by a fellow member of her tribe forced by Raikō to use their ritual and bring her back to their world, leaving her husband and only child none the wiser of what had truly transpired. Also, nobody in Validar, including Himiko herself, was none the wiser to the fact that the Child of Prophecy had already been born in another world. That child would arrive in his mother’s world four years later and put that completion of the Prophecy into motion.

At least, he completed most of it. Though he could no longer see their faces, the whimpers coming from the men and women who gathered around him told him everything. They were elite members of the army that had besieged the palace, and each had followed the Chosen One there prepared to sacrifice themselves for his cause if need be. In his final moments, they could do nothing but look down on their leader, their hero, and most importantly their friend with forlorn.

“Sorry we didn’t… get more time to spend together… Mom.”

Morgan felt a tear fall on his face. It was the final thing he felt before the last of his strength left him.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It surprised Morgan how nostalgic this felt. Just like after his plane crash, he was lost in an abyss of darkness where he just kept drifting eternally further and further into oblivion. Morgan supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised. He had technically died once before already. His first time experience with death was much like this until he finally realized he had arrived in a forest in the middle of Validar.

No such thing happened this time. The hero just kept drifting forever like he was underwater. It actually did feel like he was underwater. It even felt like he was drowning.

…Then it really felt like he was drowning.

‘…I’m drowning!’

His suffocating lungs forced Morgan to consciousness and to the realization that he really was submerged in a body of water, the sea going by the saltiness. But why was he in the damn ocean of all places? Had he survived and had his body thrown into one of the Twelve Seas?

‘Shit, I need air!’

With great urgency, Morgan made a break for the surface. As soon as his head emerged, he swallowed all the oxygen his lungs would allow. He then took a moment to gauge his surroundings. Just where was he? There was no distinct ‘magical essence’ in the air to help him distinguish what region he had awoken near. Just where was he closest to? Zokaria? Chamilia? Barclave? Toragashima? An Xiao? He wasn’t sure. Peering around him, he saw dim lights in the distance. Mist as thick as it was, it was hard for him to discern exactly what he was looking at. But, with those lights being the only thing to guide him, Morgan swam towards them.

With no technique whatsoever or even quintessence to bolster his speed, he lapped toward the lights with little time to spare. Eventually, he got quick enough that he could discern what it was he was swimming towards – a beach. He soon reached it and emerged at last from the ocean. The beach itself was devoid of any beachgoers that night; no surprise considering how late it must have been.

“Alright, but just which realm’s beach am I at? Obviously not any of the landlocked ones,” he mumbled to himself. “Maybe I’m closest near-“

It took Morgan a few steps from the shore to realize an unpleasant detail – he was streaking.

“Woah! W-where are my clothes?!”

He promptly threw his hands over his immodesty while scanning his surrounding for anything to cover himself with. Through the fog, he spotted a peculiarly colorful flag fluttering off the pier.

“…Beggars can’t be choosers,” the hero said before dashing to it.

He scaled the pier without using his hands, quite literally running straight up it. Snatching the flag, he made a makeshift kilt he would have to make do with until he could find real clothes. But as he tied the flag around his waist, its design caught him off guard. It was stars and stripes while its colors were red, white, and blue.

“Is this… an American flag? What country in Validar has a flag that looks this much like the US’s?”

“Uh…” a stranger muttered behind him.

Morgan whipped his head around. Standing behind him on the pier was a man he had not noticed earlier. How that was possible, Morgan had no idea. Just how was this man masking his Quintessence or magical energy so completely that somebody like Morgan couldn’t detect it all? Was he a grand magus? An elite assassin? A master martial artist? Going off just looks, the man looked to Morgan to be… well, as just a fisherman. His overalls and doughy figure didn’t give off much the impression of him being potentially dangerous, nor did his fishing rod seem like a particularly powerful weapon. Still, Morgan had been caught with his guard down by less intimidating foes before.

With his guard slightly up, Morgan asked the man “”

The man blinked. He hadn’t understood what Morgan had just said. The hero assumed the man just didn’t understand the Agnathian he was speaking. He tried a different tongue this time – Zokarian. When that didn’t work, he tried Tyvarnese. When that failed, he tried elvish and then high dwarven, low dwarven, and middle dwarven dialects. Suspecting the man might not be a humanoid at all and was only disguising himself as such, Morgan finally tried some draconic.

The fisherman stared like a deer in the headlights at him throughout. The hero didn’t get it, his lexicon had been completely exhausted and this man didn’t understand anything he said? Just where the hell was he that nobody understood any of the Common Tongues of the Realms and a few of the uncommon ones.

"Look son, I don’t understand any of that craziness that just came out your mouth, but I do know that you need pants. I got a spare pair of pants in my truck, and I would really appreciate it if you’d let me lend ‘em to you.”

Now, it was Morgan who blinked. He couldn’t believe it. For the first time in ten years, someone had just spoken to him in English.

"That’s English. You just spoke English! …I’m speaking English with someone who understands what I’m saying!”

Tears welled up in the hero’s eyes. He couldn’t believe it. After a decade, he was back on Earth. He threw his arms around the fisherman who was too bewildered to stop him. For a few moments, he watched Morgan wipe his tears on his shoulders in silence.

"...I can just give you a shirt too if you want.”