Deceiving Souls

Chapter 26 - Preperation

Aphrodite opened his eyes to darkness. Most of his dreams were bright and colorful, this one was strange to him. Aphrodite looked around, feeling a bit uneasy. He felt a warm light behind him and turned around to face a large white rabbit with grey splotches, grey feathered wings, and two dragon whiskers coming from her snout, floating in the air in front of him.

"Hello?" Aphrodite called to the creature, nervous and confused. The creature stared down at him with her calm green eyes.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"My name is Arnozith." She answered. Aphrodite stared at her, curious. Suddenly, Aphrodite felt a warm red light appear behind him and turned around to face a light brown fox anthropomorphic with orange splotches and a red cross symbol on her left eye, Lexi, as he remembered. She was standing next to a giant pheonix fox creature. Lexi looked at Aphrodite and Arnozith, reflecting his own confusion. A blue light appeared beside them and Aphrodite saw a white wolf anthropomorphic with blue hair and underfur, one eye green and one eye blue, Orbit. She was standing next to a dark grey ram creature with a long blue shark tail and blue ram horns. Orbit looked at the others, Aphrodite realized this wasn't a regular dream and that they were all there for real. A soft yellow light appeared, completing the circle they created. A brown otter anthropomorphic with light brown underfur and pink edges on her hair, Leela. She was accompanied by a brown dragon with stern yellow eyes.
"The four..." Aphrodite realized all of the four members were here now, along with the past Keepers. Suddenly, to Aphrodite's surprise, a purple light appeared in the middle of the circle, revealing Galaxy. He was accompanied by two figures, one a white color with blue eyes and a diamond on its forehead, the other, a lot more of a menacing presence, fully black with white eyes. Galaxy looked around at the others, and then at the figures standing next to him, he seemed alarmed.
"What's going on?" Galaxy spoke.
"The darkness is closing in." The pheonix fox, Aferno, spoke.
"The four must prepare, you must be ready." Kantun said.
"Why?" Aphrodite spoke up. "Why me? Why us? We're kids!" Ferrox, the brown dragon with stone scales, looked at him.
"Sometimes only the youth have the kindest souls." Ferrox said in a calm, even voice.
"You must choose now Aphrodite, or darkness will consume the world." Arnozith hovered above him, her gaze never faltering. The others looked at him, he could tell they wanted him to choose to fight with them.
"Alright, fine... What do we do?" Aphrodite finally decided.
"Train, train until the darkness comes, don't let your guard down, ever." Arnozith spoke, her and the other past keepers faded away, along with the white figure that stood next to Galaxy, the menacing black figure still lingering around them.
"My house, tomorrow." Galaxy addressed to the others. Aphrodite didn't know what role Galaxy played in this, he wasn't one of the four but he seemed to be apart of it some how. Aphrodite realized the others were fading away, soon he was standing alone as the empty darkness consumed him.

Aphrodite opened his eyes, staring at his bedroom ceiling, it was covered in pictures of him and his family and friends. He shifted his gaze to a picture of him and two others, his boyfriends, a calm looking grey fox anthropomorphic, he had black diamond earrings on his long, light grey ears and he had pretty hazel eyes. On the other side of the picture there was a hyper looking rabbit anthropomorphic with white fur and perked up ears that hovered over his head, he had bright lime-green eyes. Aphrodite, in the image, was in the middle of the two making a peace sign with one hand.