Link: http://catthedrawer.deviantart.com/art/Ian-Sharp-578913389

~~~~~

Starting now everything will be written in 3rd person.
This is over the course of 8 months after the battle. There are frequent skips since a lot happen and this only gives you the gist of what happens to Ian.

~~~~~

It wasn't long, before someone found both an almost unconscious Ian and the dead body of their leader in the woods.

"Sir! Sir!" a small group of soldiers swarmed over the body of their fallen leader, the shook him, their eyes pleading for him to wake up, the dagger still embedded in his chest. Ian could only glance quietly through half closed eyes, he'd somehow successfully stopped his bleeding, but he still lost a lot of blood, to much. He knew without medical attention, he would die.

"There's a soldier here!" A man came rushing over to Ian's side, first looking at the wounds in his leg and shoulder, "He's alive!"

"G-Get away from him, T-that's him." another soldier shouted.

The soldier by Ian's side fell backwards, "H-he killed the general! He must've killed him!"

"K-kill him! We have too!"

"Wait! We'll take him back to the camp, he can be punished there, our general comes first, maybe one of the sorcerers can do something to still save him." Without waiting two soldiers carried the body of their fallen leader, and the other two carelessly carried Ian's body back to camp where he was laid to rest in one of the infirmary tents. The general was taken elsewhere for immediate treatment, if he could still be saved.

~~~~~

"Dammit! Adam is losing a lot of blood, and Jason's still out cold! Where the hell is the d*mn camp!" Mitch yelled while blood poured from Adam's wound to his back.

"I thought you guys would know where the h*ll we're going!" Ty yelled, they kept running through the forest,

"Don't yell at me! We were following Seto! We had absolutely no idea where the hell he was leading us!" Mitch yelled back to Ty and glared. Ty glared back then turned his attention ahead of him, he focused on running instead.

"Guys! That's it! The camp! We found it!" Jerome cheered. The group broke through the trees and into the clearing. The camp was practically in shambles, the ground was cracked and broken up, some tents were ripped and torn. So many refuges of the forest were huddled in small groups while soldiers ran around with an assortment of items.

"We need medical attention quickly!" Quentin yelled. One soldier stopped what he was doing and looked at them. His eyes widened as he rushed over.

"Th-this way! Hurry!" The guard lead them through the maze of destruction and people to a tent. It was one of the few still intact, it was empty mainly, only a few people were lying on the cots, all heavily wounded. "Put the here."

Mitch placed Adam down and Quentin placed Jason down, before rushing out of the tent.

"Dammit! This is my fault! Adam could die because of me!" Ty screamed.

Jerome punched him, "Shut up, you could wake other people up, we can only wait, and you know it."

"But if he dies, it's my fault...You know it...I wish I knew more magic, that way I could heal him, heal him and Jason." Ty began to cry, he clutched his right arm, the arm he'd placed his alter's red bracelet on. It was comforting.

"G-guys?" A hoarse but quiet whisper was heard. The three men perked up and looked to their left, several cots down was Ian.

"Ian!" Mitch yelled, he rushed over in second and gripped his shoulder. He noticed Ian weakly wince and Mitch let go immediately when he noticed the wound on his shoulder and the nasty gash in his leg.

"What on earth happened!" Jerome said.

Ian didn't answer, he was awake so he didn't slip back into unconsciousness, but he wasn't answering.

"Ian? Is something wrong." Ty asked concern filling his eyes.

"I couldn't save him," He muttered, they notice the sight of tears filling his eyes before Ian slipped out of consciousness again.

Ty looked at Mitch and Jerome as the looked at him and then each other, all three of them were confused. Just then, Quentin came rushing back in, his arms filled with plants and bowls.

"Out! Out! Out!" Quentin said as he dropped all the stuff on an empty bed and pushed everyone out

~~~~~

Stars.

He saw stars.

Ian wondered if he had died, died and was amongst the stars. He felt tingly all over. No that wasn't it. He felt the tingling sensation focused on one spot, but he couldn't tell where.

The last thing he saw was Ty, Jerome, and Mitch's face. They did it, he could assume. They saved everyone, but he couldn't even save one man. Things would be better if he died, but there was something he had to do. Something he knew he had to say and then, he would let fate take over. Whether he lived or died after wouldn't matter to him.

~~~~~

Ian was met with light. He blinked, and held his hand over his face, the rays of light filtering the gaps around his fingers. This little action on aggravated him as he felt a spiking pain in his shoulder.

Right, I was cut there...

He realized this meant he hadn't died and gone to the Aether, or the Nether for that matter. No, he was very much alive, and as real as the pain in his shoulder.

As his eyes adjusted he came to a shocking realization.

He was home.

Home to the TeamCrafted base, in the infirmary there. How in the Nether did he end up here? He was sure he was in the Dryhx woods, in a tent, how was he here, and why. No way would those soldiers just let him out of their sight, especially after what he'd done, he killed their leader.

Ian groaned, the bright redstone lights of the base were killing him. Using his non-injured arm, Ian pushed himself up. A wave of dizziness caused his vision to black out and he waited for his sight to clear up again.

What he saw almost made him scream.

The shock was still registered on his face as he processed through his memories. Something in his memories, anything that could clue him in.

That day, when he fought Adam's dad, the rush of adrenaline moments before he stuck the dagger through his he--no it was earlier than that.

After the shoulder wound. He drove a sword through his leg, shattering the arrow, the wood fragments embedding itself in Ian's muscle, the split second of pain as the sword drove through his bone, then nothing.

It was then. That moment. The reason he was without a leg now.

Just a pale pink stub, just below the waist. No leg was attached, no toes attached to that leg. Adam's dad must've torn through the nerves, through the bone, enabling his leg just useless muscle.

That must've been the tingling feeling he felt in his dream, where every part of his body tingled, but one area just felt weirder, it was hard to tell.

Instinctively he tried to move both of his legs, but only managed to bend one of them, the only leg he still had to his name.

He heard the door open and looked up to see Quentin.

"Oh my Notch, Ian, you're awake! I was just coming in to look over your prog--"

"What happened?" he said hoarsely.

"To your leg?"

"About everything. My leg, the battle, how and why we're back here, what happened while I was out."

Quentin pulled up a chair beside Ian's bed, "Well, it's a long story."

"Not like I'm going anywhere anytime soon," Ian glanced at his leg and Quentin chuckled dryly.

"Right..."

~~~~~

"This is might hurt," Jason said next to Ian. He was working to strap a completely robotic leg to his body. Designed and built by him, "I haven't tested it, I don't know if it will work, ok?"

"Right, but you need this more."

Jason laughed, he was never one to be sad or down in any situation, it was amazing how he remained cheerful in his, "Oh, you mean this?" He gestured to his own two legs. From what his friends had told him in the weeks since he'd woken up, the battle with the dragon was tough. Leaving many of them scarred forever.

Not only had Seto died, Jason was reduced to a crippled, he shattered almost every bone in both his legs in the fall, and fractured his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Adam had suffered an almost deadly wound that placed him in a coma almost as long as the one he'd been in. And when Adam had woken up, Quentin had told him the straining his muscles could lead to internal bleed if he was not careful. So Adam could pretty much no longer fight. Not even the strongest of sorcerers or mightiest of health potions could fix their injuries, let alone his.

"Don't worry Ian, you went through a lot too, I can only imagine what happened for you to get a wound like this."

Yea... if only you knew...

~~~~~

Ian has steadily been working to gain the courage to confess to Adam, however, between learning how to use a robotic leg and Adam running his father's army, now called the Sky Army, there's been no time to talk to Adam alone.

Ian couldn't push this problem away anymore. Slowly the team was pushing each other away, and though this may push them even farther apart, Ian had to take that risk.

Ian walked quickly, the metal leg of his clanging down the halls. This was part of the new building Adam was having constructed for all the soldiers. He said the soldiers had only ever known tents, so it was time to give them a more permanent place to rest and train.

Ian reached the door to Adam's office, he knocked and no one answered. Just as he was about to open the door anyways, Adam came walking down the adjacent hallway with two soldiers following him. His face looked stern.

"Adam!" Ian started but Adam kept walking past him.

"Not now Ian, there are reports of an explosion in the East side of the building."

"I just came from there, there was nothing." I matched Adam's fast pace until we reached the area I was just training in only 2 hours ago. There was a gaping hole in both the ceiling and the wall, broken rubble lay everywhere.

"Jason! You blew another hole in the wall!" Adam coughed as he and the two soldiers walked in over the rubble, "What if someone got hurt this time."

"Oh quit it Adam! You know I always do this when no one is in the room next to mine!"

"I can't quit it! Not when this keeps happening!"

"Just lay off me!" the smoke cleared, on the other side of the hole in the wall was Jason sprawled on the floor, "It's not like you're paralyzed with no hope of recovering!" Jason pushed himself up and used his hands to upright his fallen chair. He pulled himself back into the chair, both of his legs dragged uselessly behind him.

"And I didn't even cause the stupid explosion this time! How do you explain the hole in the ceiling!"

"Sir, this boy was caught in the explosion," A soldier walked up to Adam and pointed his finger to the far side of the vast room. The area unaffected by the blast, three soldiers were huddled around a boy. Adam rushed over and Ian followed, his plan to talk with Adam erased from his mind.

From behind, the sound of three pairs of feet came rushing in, "Is anyone hurt?" Quentin yelled.

"We have someone here who might be," Ian answered him. Quentin hurried over, Mitch and Jerome started to help the soldiers clear the rubble. Now if only Ty was here, it would almost seem like that day. They day they were searching through the rubble getting ready to fight a monster no one had anticipated.

"Help Mitch and Jerome start making repairs," Adam dismissed the soldiers around him and the boy. Ian had never seen his face, but he was probably a recruit.

"What's your name?" Quentin asked as he began to look over the boy for any injuries, to Ian, the boy looked like he was extremely lucky, not a single scratch on him. But he was no doctor, he couldn't say for sure.

The boy only looked at them, his red colored eyes were dull and he didn't smile, didn't even speak. It wasn't until another voice shouted from down the hall and came rushing into the room that the boy even looked up, "Is everyone ok! I saw something fall from the sky!"

Now, now all of TeamCrafted was here, minus Seto.

But Ian still never got the chance to tell Adam, not after that day, and not for a long time would he finally be able to.

Uh, so yea. Mystery solved, Ian didn't die, but now he has a robotic leg.

But now there is a new mystery, and sorry to say, but that is for the second book and will remain unsolved. I will say that the next book takes place 8 months after the first, and this short story was over a period of 8 months.

Do you guys have anything you all want to see. Another short story topic, it can be after the battle or maybe before the book itself. I can go a bit into childhood. :)

~WrittenDarkness