KrakenKid

"So this is where you live?"

The question left my mouth when we arrived. The younger Cody had lead me to where he was staying and I was actually very surprised. Cody lived in a cave in the side of a mountain, the area was wide open and could easily fit a whole family living here. However, there was no one else here.

He had an air blown mattress off to the side and a pile of stuff next to it. There was some toys and tools jumbled up in the pile. Shock kept me from talking for more than I thought possible. "Do-... Do you live alone?" I locked onto the child, searching him for answers. His eyes didn't meet mine and suddenly became very interested in the rocky floor.

"Well... Not normally and not here but now, yes." I was taken back. Maybe I had more in common with him than I thought. "What? Why?" He cleared his throat. "I kinda... Ran away from home."

My eyes widened. "What? Why would you choose to live on your own when you could spend time with your mom?" Just the thought of it was crazy to me. The tiny penguin just sighed. "I got into a fight with my mom and to be honest, I don't want to deal with it. So, I decided I'd run off."

It took every ounce of strength in me to stop myself from saying something that would make him cry.

Instead I just shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around his words. When I opened my mouth to speak again, he stopped me. "I don't want to talk about it." He insisted. "But anyways, this is my base! Pretty cool huh? I took what I brought and made it into this whole place! It has plenty of room for both of us."

Looking around, I couldn't help but feel a strange amount of envy. I nodded along. "Yeah, it's good." He grinned and whipped around, heading for the air blown mattress. "Come on Kranky!" He called. I sighed at the sound of my nickname. "Can you stop calling me that?" He just laughed. "No! Come on, admit it! You kinda like it!" The small version of Cody turned his head and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"I'd rather you set me on fire than call me KrankyKid."

Surprisingly, he snorted. "You've got some serious problems man! Anyways, it's time for bed!" I glanced outside, seeing the sun fading from view. It had been a long time since I've seen the sun in person. "But the sun is just setting. We can stay up for a while." However, the penguin disagreed. "No, no. It's getting late. I mean, it's almost 9 PM!" He exclaimed loudly.

It was at that moment when I realized that this was a kid. Staying up until twelve must have been like a fairy tale to him. Strolling over to the bed, I stood next to the small being, who was loudly saying 'Hmm...' with his hand on his chin. Then he nodded. "Okay so if we have three pillows, two blankets and one bed, I think I'll take two pillows and a blanket and you get the rest?" The child looked up at me for some sort of answer. "Yeah that sounds good." I responded making him smile.

The kid took his stuff and on the other side of the cave, started to set up where he would sleep. I did the same and laid down.

I didn't sleep for a while, but the other one was snoring within seconds of laying down. I was stuck, irritated and unable to sleep with all the noise he was making. I huffed and shifted in the bed again, forcing myself to become comfortable. It wasn't going so well.

My mind wandered as I waited for my eyelids to become heavy from sleep. Being stuck in the past was certainly interesting. Why I was here was the main question on my mind. How I got here was easy to answer: The Nexus transported me here. However, why in the world it decided to send me back in time was beyond me. Did it have something to do with Cody? From what I know, he has that one weapon, the spear, that can draw power from the Nexus. Is it possible that he could have sent me back?

"Is... This you?"

"I thought this was your doing!"

I dismissed the thought. That penguin was too surprised for him to have done this to me purposely. Not to mention that the penguin was never too bright anyways.

None of this answered what I was doing here in the past. I don't think I have any reason to be here. At least I'm not in the past in Atlantis. I lightly chuckled to myself.

That would have been a true nightmare.

Some time in the night, I found myself asleep, finally able to ignore all the snoring. But my beauty sleep did not last long.

"Kraken? KrakenKid wake up!" A soft voice began to shake me out of my sleep. "Wha- who?" I murmured, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and trying to grasp on reality. It was still night and was pretty dark out. A form was in front, and it reached out and tugged on my arm gently. "Psst! Hey!" It whispered. Still groggy, instead of responding, I waited until I was actually functional. Eventually, the yellow eyes worked and I was able to identify the figure as Cody, holding a blanket in his arms. "WHAT! CODY?" My whole body jerked up and backwards. The penguin flinched at the sudden movement. "WHAT ARE YOU- WHOA!" Still moving back, I ran out of room on the bed and landed on flat on my back on the floor. I let out a groan and just shut my eyes for a minute.

Finally, memories flooded back and I remembered why I was with Cody, or rather child Cody. I'm still in the past. I pulled myself up and back on the bed, and tried to get used to the sight of the penguin. "Oh uh... Sorry." I stumbled out, trying to find an answer for my actions other than the truth. "You surprised me." I decided on. White lies never hurt anyone, right?

The penguin waved it off. "Sorry but..." The brown eyes looked down, and kicked the ground. They were stumbling for the right words. My impatience kicking in, I prompted them along. "But?"

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" I blinked at the question. "What?" I got out. "I had a nightmare." Their shoulders slumped down as he wrapped himself with a blanket. "A really bad one." The penguin murmured and refused to meet my eyes. I took in a deep breath. It's okay KrakenKid, this is not the Cody Maverick that you know. It's just a child. You don't mess with children and this one isn't an exception just because it's him.

"Okay..." I said finally making the child perk up. "If you really need to I guess I can let you but I swear, if you try to cuddle me I swear!" I growled, trying to be intimidating. However, for some reason, this kid really did not care and just smiled brightly and climbed under the covers. I sighed when he popped his head up, grinning from ear to ear. "Just.. You stay on the left, I will stay on the right and we won't interact. Deal?" The kid then frowned and started to make puppy dog eyes at me. "But... I wanted the right..."

Groaning, I slammed my head against the pillow and covered my eyes with my arms. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME PENGUIN?" I screeched into the night sky. He laughed a bit. "I'm just joking with you man! You can totally have right!" I took my hands off of my face slowly and looked at him. "I didn't care about- Never mind..." I rubbed my entire face with my hands and huffed.

"What was your nightmare about anyways?"

He didn't answer. For the longest time, silence filled the air. Though he did shut up, I was a little frightened about what could have possibly caused him to stop talking all together, not to mention curious. I could almost never get Cody to shut up for this long. Taking the tentacles off of my face, I stared right at him. Cody wasn't looking at me, and instead was just gazing at the wall, in horror. I glance where his eyes were but didn't find anything wrong with it. "What? What's wrong?"

Some sort of weird hiccup occurred in his chest and I started to notice the tears forming in his eyes as he began to break down. "Whoa whoa whoa hey!" I attempted to stop him but I noticed too late. He full on broke down and began to sob noisily. I froze up. This was the child version of my greatest enemy. I was never his friend so calming him down was something I had never done or had any idea how to do. My mind sped up, trying to find a solution. I knew how to frustrate Cody and how to make him fear me. I knew how to make him give up hope and how to make him question everything he knew.

None of that was going to help me.

"Hey, uh. Don't cry!" I spoke out but that did little to nothing. Panic flared up. Cody made no sign of stopping.

Crap crap crap crap! "Arg! What would I do if it was Blooper?" I spoke to myself, doing whatever I could to find a solution. "Oh!" An idea sparked in my mind. Carefully, I wrapped my arms around the black and white body and enveloped him into a hug. "Shhh... It was just a dream!" I hushed the hysterical child. I could feel him slowly down. "Everything's okay." I reassured him as the noise faltered. "B-but it felt so real.." His voice trailed off. I shook my head. "Just a dream. It's okay."

Neither of us made any noise for the longest time. Thank goodness that what works on Blooper works on him too. Finally, after an appropriate amount of time, I pulled away and faced him head on. "Are you going to talk about it now?" Young Cody sniffed and nodded. "Y-yeah. Okay." He cleared his throat before talking.

"I-I had a dream where I was in somewhere I didn't recognize... The ground beneath me was brownish and kinda like a cliff. I-I don't know why but I stabbed something. Then, I took the blade out of it and they fell, and they were gone! I didn't really get a good look at them but there was blood on my blade. I-" The crying started up again. "I KILLED SOMEONE! IT FELT SO REAL AND I KILLED SOMEONE! I- I.." His voice faded until it was barely a whisper. "I don't want to kill anybody..."

I almost stopped breathing. Did he just describe... I pushed it out of my head. "It's just a dream. Don't worry, you don't have to kill anyone if you don't want to." I spoke but the thought just started to come back over and over. Did he dream about.. The kid sniffed and wiped his tears away. "I really don't want to kill anyone or even hurt them! I really want to be a doctor!" The smile came back as he laughed to himself. "And... Thank you! I needed that!"

He flew at me and before I could stop him, he hugged me tightly. I flailed around. "Hey! I said no cuddling!" He giggled. "You started it! Come on, hug back... I won't stop until you hug back!" The future king threatened. I groaned and rolled my eyes playfully. "Fine." I gave a quick hug and he let go, still grinning like the maniac he was. "See? Was that so hard?" I huffed and crossed my arms. "Yes it was now let's sleep. Us krakens need as much sleep as possible." He nodded and buried himself in the pillow.

Turning the other way, I did the same. My body settled and I was out before I knew it.

My eyes flickered open and I found myself on my back and staring up at nothing. There was nothing but some sort of glow coming from in front of me.

I sat up, using my tentacles to support my body and processed what I was seeing. The light source was brighter than normal and was almost blinding, but I could still make out what it was. There was only one thing it could have been after all.

The Nexus. Unmistakably the Nexus.

I found myself standing and being drawn towards it. I hadn't been this close to it in a long time. Getting closer and closer, only common sense stopped me from reaching out and touching the power source. I didn't dare to do it. Who knows what would happen.

Instead, I looked into it. When I did, my eyes widened and my heart stopped.

There, staring back was Cody. The one from my time. Our eyes locked and he looked just as surprised as me, if not more. He seemed to jump back and before I did the same, the world seemed to flash before my eyes.

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I jerked awake and sat up. I was back in the bed, breathing heavily. Shaking my head, I absorbed that I was still in the cave on an air mattress. To my left, Cody was sleeping peacefully on the bed. I sighed and blinked several times in confusion.

"What just happened?" I said out loud and took deep breaths. Soon, the penguin stirred besides me. His eyes flashed open and right at me, then smiled.

"Good morning Kraken! Did you sleep well?" He asked cheerily. I chuckled. "Pretty okay. I've had better but then again, I've had worse too." Cody nodded along and got out some more of the black fruit I had yesterday. "Well, here's breakfast! Enjoy!" I took it and immediately started to eat. While I was, he kept talking. "So, do you have anywhere to go?" I paused to think. "Not really. Why?" I took another bite.

The penguin winked at me. "Because now that you don't, we now have a big day ahead of us!" I nearly choked on the food. "Wait.. What do you mean by that?"

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And that is it for this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it because I liked the way it turned out. Be sure to comment to tell me how I did and Farewell! We will meet again later.

--JustAnAtlantisWriter