Jacy: I'm fairly certain that this is the longest chapter I've ever written and I'm not going to delay you from reading it.
Wolf: I don't think they even read these things to begin with…
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted things I use; I do own my OCs and this story.
Extra Disclaimers: Stardust and Dax belong to Alec the Dark Angel, Arana and Azimuth belong to Shining Darkness Dragon, and Serenity belongs to phoenix firewing. NOT ME.
IMPORTANT NOTICE AT THE BOTTOM A/N!
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Chapter 14: Sorrowful Goodbyes
Merikh watched as all the figurines of his army turned to dust in front of him. He cocked his head to the side, as if he was confused, before brushing it all away and let his gaze fall on the figurine in the middle of the board. It looked like Blane, but was slowly draining of all color, even the ones that the Destruction Marked One had seen him suddenly gain.
He reached for the statuette just as a hesitant voice spoke out from behind him, "M-master Merikh, sir? I-I have a-a message f-from H-High P-Priestess M-Mara."
Merikh turned around slowly to look at a trembling young man with gray eyes. The scarred man recognized him as one of the vampires that had signed onto his cause with the promise of an entire continent full of humans to themselves to feast on. This one was one of the newly-turned, a fledgling if Merikh remembered the blood-drinkers' terminology correctly, and was still a little wet behind the ears.
"What is her message?" he asked calmly, but that didn't do anything to comfort the vampire.
"S-she said that she isn't coming back," he told him, making Merikh narrow his eyes, "a-and that she's going to claim that realm f-for her and the r-rest of D-Death's E-Embrace."
"Is she now?" Merikh asked slowly, getting to his feet. He was nearly seven feet tall when he was standing and this made the shaking vampire shiver even more. He walked over to him leisurely, each step of his black boots making an echo that went through the entire room. Merikh came to a stop in front of the brown-haired blood-drinker and looked down at him before saying, "She just sent a message saying 'I quit'?"
"I-i-it s-s-seems th-that w-way," he said nervously, looking away from his master's scorching red eyes. Without even a change in the calm look on his face, Merikh picked up the vampire by his throat and help him up against the stone wall. The man's gray eyes widened as this happened and he instinctively began to gasp for the air he no longer needed.
"Then it seems I have to send someone to tell her that she can't just 'quit', doesn't it?" he said, his voice sounding almost tired.
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Jacy and Wolf watched as the sphere that had engulfed them extended until it covered the entire mall, inside and out. The colors inside the ball were making everything appear oddly-shaded for a moment before the two noticed that it was beginning to shrink again. They turned to look at Blane and even from the distance they could tell that he was panting from the exertion of doing what he'd done. The color, all color, was draining from him and leaving him white, making Jacy realize what was happening.
"He's used up all of his energy…" the brown-haired Creation Marked One murmured, taking slow steps toward the half-dragon before breaking into a full-out sprint with Wolf at his heels, "He's dying!"
"Why?" the canine asked as he jumped over the body of a man whose disemboweled organs were being pulled back into his body with the gash beginning to heal over, "Shouldn't he have all that extra energy he got from your girlfriend and whoever else helped?"
"Even all that was used up, and now he's using up his own life force to try to keep it up," Jacy explained as they reached just under where Blane was hovering, "It's killing him, but he doesn't know it!"
Before either of them could say anything more, the sphere shattered and Blane began to fall down towards them. Jacy placed himself where he believed he would land on the ground and braced himself to hold the weight of the half-dragon and keep him from hitting the floor. He managed to catch him, but the weight knocked him down and he held the scaled man's torso and head above the ground with his head in his arms and his shoulder against his own chest.
"J-Jacy?" Blane asked, his voice hardly above a whisper. His eyes had settled on a blue so light they were almost white and they were barely open.
"Hey, Blane?" Jacy asked, smiling weakly with tears at the corner of his eyes, "How've you been? How're Dextran and Talea?"
"I've been better, and when I left the two of them were doing fine," Blane chuckled feebly, looking up at his friend, "I'm dying, aren't I?"
"No, no you're not," Jacy told him firmly, holding back his tears and sniffling slightly, "I'm not going to let you."
"I spent five years with you, Jace," Blane said, shaking his head slowly, "I know when you're lying and I know how your abilities work. You can only bring someone back once, after that they're dead no matter what you do. Kera's abilities can't help either, she can only revive people who died in battle."
"Stop talking!" Jacy shouted, his voice cracking as tears began to stream down his face, "Save your strength. Fight for your life, don't leave Dextran without a father or Talea without a mate!"
A crowd had begun to form around the two of them, with familiar faces being the closest. Kain, Hanna, Kera, Aidan, Fera, Marie, Acelan, Smoke, Wolf, and everyone else watched in sorrowful silence as they saw the hero they were expecting lying there dying and the hero that brought them all together and gave them hope falling apart as he held him. Wolf let out a mournful howl in instinct of the sight, and every person felt their hearts doing the same.
"Jacy…" Kera murmured softly, taking a step towards her now-fiancé, "I'm sorry, so sorry. I shouldn't have let him do it, I shouldn't have even suggested it! I—"
"I would've done it anyways and you know it," Blane said softly, looking over at the green-haired woman with his half-lidded eyes, "Don't blame yourself."
"I told you to stop talking," Jacy said, looking at him, "I WILL find a way to help you."
"Well, there is…one thing that could work," Aidan said slowly, taking a few steps forward to stand next to his sister. Everyone turned their gazes to him, though Jacy's moved the fastest. Aidan continued to speak sluggishly, "It's risky, and some people even claim it's just a myth, but…"
"Just spit it out, man!" Jacy shouted, not in the mood to wait.
"A lost relic, one of the many Forgotten Ones' relics, before they became the mindless beasts they are now," Aidan explained, walking over to the Creation Marked One and kneeled down next to him, "It's called the Dragon's Claw."
"It's just a story, Aidan," Kera hissed at him, "Don't give them false hope!"
"Last time I checked, so was your boyfriend and the bastard who bent all of those dark creatures to his will, Ke-Ke," Aidan said, using her old childhood nickname just to annoy her into shutting up, "but I know it's not a story."
"How do you know, Ai-Ai?" Fera asked, annoying the blue-haired man for their sister.
"Because, dear sister," Aidan said, making his right hand shift into a dragon-like paw to reveal that his middle claw was crimson with blue and green twirling around it, "I found it while looking for the Temporal Marked One."
"What does it do, exactly?" Jacy asked, still a bit lost.
"It acts as a transfer for energy, using the wielder like a battery, though," Aidan said, looking at the claw, "And with how much of his life force he burned up, it looks like he'll be draining all of mine."
"NO!" Fera and Kera said simultaneously before the green-haired sister kept going, "We just got you back, we can't lose you again!"
"You didn't let me finish, you two never do," Aidan said, shaking his head, "While drains the wielder like a battery, a rechargeable battery."
"So, if everyone here gave you energy," Marie said hypothetically.
"Then it would transfer into our dying friend, there," Aidan said, turning around to look at the crowd as he motioned to Blane, "Though he'd likely gain a small bit of everyone who donated, but that little bit of bad is far outweighed by the good."
Everyone walked closer until the people in the front could lay a hand on Aidan and everyone behind them placed a hand on their shoulders all the way to the back. Aidan felt a hand gasp his right arm and saw Jacy was the one it belonged to. He knew that Jacy would be giving far more than anyone else, due to where his hand was as well how much he blamed himself, but didn't speak a word of it. Instead, he placed the tip of the claw onto Blane's head and felt the energy from everyone begin to pour through him and into the dying half-dragon.
Blane's eyes opened wide at the sudden burst of life going through him and this gave everyone a chance to watch in awe as his eyes slowly regained their natural, dark-brown color. His colorless scales recovered their silverish-grey sheen and his wing membranes became black once more. His pale, pallid hair re-claimed its sandy-blonde color. His breath turned from shallow gasps to full, deep breaths and the wounds he'd sustained during the battle began to heal until there were hardly scars left.
And then everyone began to let go as they realized that he needed no more, except Jacy who also prevented Aidan from letting go. A golden aura tinged with jade-green began to cover the Creation Marked One's entire form and Aidan found that the claw began to burn where it was attached to his paw/hand. He had to struggle for a moment before he was able to pry his hand free of the half-dragon's forehead and the glow faded from Jacy's body, showing that he had given far more than even Aidan had expected as he passed out a moment after. Blane was able to keep his head from hitting the ground with his quick reaction, no one noticing the glimmering that came from his left shoulder for a moment before it disappeared.
"Why did he do that? I was fine!" Blane demanded as Kera took her fiancé's weight and laid his head in her lap.
"He felt like he owed you after all he put you through," she said quietly, brushing a few stray hairs out of her love's face, "even though he knew you were fine. He gave you a part of himself, a part of his very being. And with it…"
She trailed off and Blane realized what she was going to say. He began to roll up his left sleeve to reveal that there was a Mark, similar to Jacy's Creation Mark, burned onto his arm. It wasn't colored like the unconscious brown-haired man's, and there was something more to his. The only color to his was a pair of dragons that were making up the spiral, there were a pale blue and silverish gray.
"A part of his ability," he said in awe, looking up from it to Kera, "but doesn't this mean he's weaker?"
"Not at all," Fera said, kneeling beside the half-dragon, "He'll be back to full strength when he wakes up, and you're almost as strong as him with it now, too. But yours is a bit different than his, I noticed."
"Yeah, why is that?" Blane asked, confused.
"Each Mark, no matter what kind, always has a special meaning to the one who has it," Kera explained, not looking up from where her gaze was on Jacy, "His is a spiral to represent the struggle that he went through to get where he is today, yours is you and Talea because…"
"She's the one I died the first time for, and would gladly do again," the half-dragon said, sounding as if he just realized it himself.
"And she plays a key role through all the struggles you've faced, or will face, in your entire life," Aidan said, "And no, we can't tell you how we know this."
"Then tell me this," Blane said, getting to his feet and shuffling his wings to get the blood flowing in them again, "Where does this Merikh live? 'Cause I want to pay him a little visit and introduce myself."
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Stardust and Azimuth had a stare down for a few moments before one of the Guardians spoke up, specifically Terrador.
"Can this be held off until we get out of these cursed dungeons?" he asked in his deep, baritone voice. This seemed to snap the two out of whatever trance they seemed to be in and Stardust spoke up first.
"Right, yes, right," he said, turning around to lead everyone out of the dungeons, "This way, before someone does something stupid."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Cynder asked indignantly, as though he was specifically talking about her.
"Nothing, but everyone seems to do something stupid around me," the onyx-eyed dragon said calmly just as he heard a deep growling from behind him. He turned around to see a pale-blue wyvern the size of a small elephant backing Azimuth, the Guardians, and Kepesk into a corner. Stardust groaned, "Like that."
He reached out to it with his control of Space to crush it into nothing, but found his ability went right through the ghost of a beast. His eyes widened in shock at this realization and he tried to freeze it in Time, but found it useless as well. It was as if the creature was there and wasn't there at the same time, like it was still a…
"Ghost!" he shouted, making everyone turn their attention to him, "It's a ghost, probably playing out a piece of the past, you can run through it and it wouldn't even know it!"
"How do you know that?" Azimuth demanded as he and the dragons he was trying to rescue backed further into the corner, "The thing looks pretty solid from where I'm standing!"
"You just have to trust me on this!" the black dragon told him urgently, looking into the dragon's yellow eyes. The blue dragon paused for a moment as he saw something…familiar in the Celestial Dragon's eyes before nodding and motioning for the Guardians and Kepesk to follow him. The four older dragons bowed their heads in agreement before all of them turned to look at the overgrown wyvern with determination before the five of them ran at the beast after a moment. Just as they were about to hit the creature, they passed through it just as Stardust said they would.
"Don't stop until you get through the entrance!" he called to them as they began to slow, only to speed up again after he spoke, "You'll find Talea waiting there with her son and Cynder's daughter!"
The group did as he said and the onyx-eyed dragon motioned with his head for his own group to follow before he took off after the others. The other three tailed after him at their own speeds, Ixenra and Edarin being the slowest due to the fire dragoness's injuries, but they all reached the entrance without getting bothered by any of the spirits. When they went through it, the apparitions faded and all the blue-flamed torches went out, leaving the dungeons dark once again.
"Now," Stardust said, turning to look at Azimuth and his group, "Who tried to mess with one of the ghosts?"
"You said it was playing out a piece of the past!" the blue dragon said defensively, stepping towards the child-looking onyx dragon.
"It was focused on one of you in that piece of the past, and I have a hunch you tried to help one of the spirits so it focused the past onto you," he said, shuffling his over-sized wings indifferently, "And with how defensive you're being, I think it was you who tried to do something."
The room was silent for a moment before Talea broke it by speaking, "Can this wait? I think getting everyone to safety is higher on the to-do list than figuring out whatever happened in there."
Stardust wanted to disagree, but relented and nodded his agreement, "Fine, but this isn't getting forgotten."
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Rosangela held Daniel's head in her arms and his torso on her lap as she knelt on the ground, rocking him back and forth. The resurrected Learning Marked One's body was slowly turning to dust from his feet up as the sphere of elements that Blane had unleashed had made the dark spell keeping him alive start to fail. He was returning to death, and, once again, there would be nothing left to bury. He reached a hand up to weakly stroke her cheek and she brought her own hand to hold his in hers.
"What does she look like?" he asked softly, looking up at the winged woman with his light-blue gaze.
"She's got your eyes," she whispered, rubbing his hand that still rested against her cheek with her thumb and smiling sadly, "And my hair. She's a little shy, kinda like you before you became the leader of our little survivor group before we met Jacy's. She sometimes hugs your old teddy bear like her life depends on it."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for her, or you," Daniel said, quietly, "but I'm glad you found someone that cares for you like I do, and always will."
His gaze had moved behind her where Aingeru stood there, holding Sarah. She was looking at him with the same eyes that looked at her, though hers were a lot wider. Just like Rosangela had said, she was clutching onto the teddy for dear life, and partially hiding her face with it. Rosangela turned her head to where Daniel was looking just as Aingeru placed Sarah down on her feet.
"Sarah, sweetie," the black-haired woman said gently, holding her hand out to her daughter, "Come here, there's someone I want you to meet."
The little girl slowly walked over to her mother and, even though she didn't know it, her father as well. She took her Rosangela's hand when she reached her and the winged woman moved her hand to the dying Learning Marked One's chest.
"Sarah, this is Daniel Grady," Rosangela said softly, smiling at her daughter with tears streaming down her cheeks, "He's your daddy."
"Daddy?" she whispered, looking down at Daniel with her eyes wide, "Then who's the other winged man?"
"He's your daddy, too," Daniel said feebly, "but I was here when your mommy and I decided to have you."
Sarah sniffled as tears formed at the corner of her eyes and her hand bunched up her father's shirt. Tears from both mother and daughter began to fall onto Daniel's shirt as his waist turned to dust. Aingeru walked over to the three, having stayed back to honor the father of his adopted daughter and his wife's old love.
"Aingeru," Daniel said faintly, looking up at the silver-haired man, "Thank you for being there for the both of them and I ask you to remain with them for me."
"I wouldn't," Aingeru said softly, kneeling down next to him, "I may not be able to take your place in either of their hearts, but I will do my best to try."
"Thank you, my friend," he said, nodding as his hands and chest began to turn to dust, "it's time for me to die again. But, at least this time, I get a chance to say goodbye."
"I love you, Daniel," Rosangela whispered, "I never forgot about you, and I still won't."
"Daddy," Sarah whimpered as Daniel's neck began to turn to dust, "Don't go."
"Sweetheart," he said, smiling weakly, "I'll always be with you, in your mind and in your heart."
And just as he finished, his head turned to dust as well, leaving nothing but the dark clothing he'd been wearing. Aingeru wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his wife and adopted daughter as they both continued to sob. He, too, had tears going down his face as he saw one of his best friends die right in front of him again.
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Cain hit Ragnarok and the two of them began to roll and claw at each other in reaction. Everyone else watched in stunned silence as the two began their struggle, the only thing they did was take several steps back to give the two dragons room to brawl it out. Claws ripped into scale and flesh, sending crimson blood splattering all over the floor. Roars of pain and fury echoed throughout the room and the temple as the fight went on.
Despite his previous injuries, Cain fought as though he was fully refreshed and ready to fight. His blue eyes glinted as blood flew by his face, both his own and Ragnarok's, and his ivory claws were stained with the liquid from the large black dragon. He and the darkness dragon separated and began to circle around one another after what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes.
Both of them had a variety of wounds that made both of them weaker than when the fight had started. Cain was limping as there was a chunk of flesh missing from his right foreleg and there was a large gash over Ragnarok's left eye that bled down and made him close it to keep the crimson liquid out. There were several bites on both dragons' necks that bled and the black dragon had a long gash down his back that also seeped the fluid.
"You may have somehow gained the power of a Light Dragon, but you're nothing like the two that I've already fought," Ragnarok taunted him, spitting out blood.
"You're right, I'm nothing like any Light Dragon you've ever seen," Cain chuckled, his blue eyes seeming to be full of fire, "Because I'm a Fire Dragon with the power of one!"
He let loose a blast of white fire at the darkness dragon while he also charged at him full speed. Ragnarok let loose a blast of shadow fire to counter the Fire-Dragon-turned-Light-Dragon's attack only to find himself impaled through the throat with Cain's horns. Blood began to leak out from the holes from around the horns as Cain began to pull them loose. Once he did, he looked at Ragnarok as he began to choke on his own blood.
"That's three times you've been beaten by a Light Dragon," the red-and-silver dragon said, taking a step back from the dying dragon, "I suggest you stop messing with them."
"You may have killed me," Ragnarok gurgled, making the blood from his throat spatter out a bit, "but you all will still die."
The dark dragon's body began to glow with a dark, ethereal light and Cain's eyes widened in shock. All the others began to back away from the perishing dragon as they all got a sense of unease. Cain turned to look at the ones he'd been protecting with wide-eyed shock apparent on his face.
"He's building up energy inside his own body," he said, "He's going to blow up the whole temple! Run!"
Everyone did as they told, until the only people left in the room were the Death's Embrace members, the about-to-explode Ragnarok, Cain, and the two Purple Dragons. Cain knew that the Death's Embrace members had recognized their failure and welcomed their deaths, but he was confused as to why Malefor and Spyro were still there.
"Why didn't you two run?" he demanded, looking back and forth between the two.
"The same reason you're still here," Malefor told him, "We're not going to let the temple just get destroyed."
"We're going to stop it, or at least contain it," Spyro said, nodding.
"I'm not going to let you two risk your lives!" Cain told them angrily, "Malefor, you need to show everyone that you aren't the Dark Master. And Spyro, you have a family; you can't just abandon them!"
"What about you?" the older Purple Dragon asked, "What makes you less than us that you should?"
"Well…" the new Light Dragon trailed off.
"There seemed to be something between you and that one dragoness, Arana," Spyro added, "Which means you have someone that's waiting for you, too."
"I don't know if you noticed," Cain chuckled, shaking his head, "She's not all that fond of me. 'Sides, I'm nowhere as important as two Purple Dragons."
"Cain—" the younger of the Purple Dragons began to argue, but his elder cut him off.
"He's right, Spyro," Malefor agreed, "Two Purple Dragons are more important than one new Light Dragon."
"But—" Spyro tried to say, but Malefor cut him off again.
"But, he's not as important as one Purple Dragon with a past so dark that he won't ever be accepted into society," he continued before he placed a wing on either dragon and they began to glow with purple light, "So I'm sending the both of you outside with the others."
"Malef—" Cain tried to speak but he and Spyro vanished before he could finish. Malefor began to walk towards Ragnarok, who was beginning to swell with the amount of energy contained within his body.
"You won't take any more lives," the Purple Dragon whispered to him as a purple sphere began to come out of him and cover the entire room, stopping at the doorway.
"You'll give up your life to save those who were once your enemies?" Mara asked from where stood on the platform in front of him. He turned his blue eyes to look at the High Priestess who spoke again, "Why?"
"They were never my enemies," he answered her, "They set me free. They are my saviors, my rescuers. My…friends."
"Friends…" Mara murmured, looking down as her eyes became green around the middle, "I forgot what it's like to have friends…And now I'll die without remembering how it feels, instead all I have is loneliness."
"I'll be your friend, Mara," Malefor said kindly, making the woman look at him in surprise, "That way, we can both die with our wishes fulfilled."
"I…thank you," she said, smiling as Ragnarok's body began to rip apart from the buildup of so much energy without release.
"You're welcome," the Purple Dragon responded with a smile of his own just as the black dragon exploded, incinerating everyone inside the room and eventually breaking the purple sphere of energy. However, it had taken so much of the power to shatter it that all that happened was the wall exploded outward.
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"—or!" Cain finished as he reappeared next Spyro out in the temple courtyard. He looked around and saw that Hunter and Deryx were trying to subdue a conscious Elana while a struggling Lilia egged the younger Death's Embrace member on. They then heard running from behind them and turned to see a large group of dragons running out of the temple, most of them recognizable as the ones they had gone in to rescue and the ones that also went in to do the same. They all came to a halt in front of the two just as an explosion rang out and they all looked up to see that the room that Cain and Spyro had been in previously had been blown to pieces.
"Spyro!" Cynder shouted running over to her mate with their daughter at her heels. She nuzzled him under his head while his gaze was still locked onto the unnatural fire that was beginning burn the temple. She took her head from under his and spoke, "I'm so glad you're alright."
"Where's Malefor?" Talea questioned as she walked over to Cain and Spyro. Neither of them responded, only continued to watch the flames. Eyes widening in realization, the blue dragoness spun around, nearly causing Dextran, who was lying on her back, to fly off and she gasped, "Oh no…"
"He sacrificed himself to contain the explosion," Spyro said finally, still looking at the fire and noticed that it was turning black, "I understand now why I had to trust him. To trust that he'd changed, trust that he'd get here. He died a hero and everyone will remember that although the Dark Master died at the hands of myself and Cynder, Malefor died to save the temple and everyone still in it."
"One couldn't ask for a more honorable death than to protect the lives of others," Cain said, unconsciously repeating the dying words of the Elder he'd killed back in his own realm that had battled him alone so that the others could escape.
"I wish I had asked him what his life was like before, you know," Spyro said to no one in particular, "Not what the legends say, but what really happened through his eyes."
"I guess he'll be taking that secret and any others he knew with him to the grave," Cynder said, nuzzling her mate again.
"How long has she been awake?" Cain asked, turning to look at the two humans and lone Avalarian.
"It depends on what you mean by 'awake,'" Deryx said cryptically as he and Hunter finally managed to get some of the spare magic-dampening rope around her wrists after they got them behind her back.
Before Cain could ask what he was talking about, there was a growl from behind him. He turned to see Arana standing there, a look of indecision on her face. The blue-eyed dragon watched her with a calm look and let her take her time before she spoke. After what seemed like an eternity, she did.
"Thank you," she said, though a bit begrudgingly, "for protecting me after everything I did and said."
"You're welcome," Cain said slowly, watching her carefully, "Though it doesn't look like that's all you wanted to say."
"It's not," she said before taking a deep breath and continuing, "I'm going to help you, at least until Merikh's dealt with. After that, I'm going on my own, and no one is going to stop me."
"Alright," the red-and-silver dragon agreed, smirking, "If you still want to at that time, anyways."
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So, battles were fought, battles were won, friends were lost, and new developments have happened. What will happen next? Why are you asking me? I make this all up as I go!
Side note: Because of the length of this chapter, as well as the lack of reviews I'm getting, I'm keeping the story hostage until I reach at least 20 reviews.
K bai!