Chevron battle #5 (Fear)

Under normal circumstances flying all day would be exhausting, but for Sei it was easy; especially at this altitude. He had grown up at the midnight temple, hiding from the Dark Master in the bitter cold, the thin air, and the low oxygen. His mother had been unaffected being an ice dragon who had also grown up in those conditions, but for him it was a torturous childhood. But it had made him strong.

At this altitude, the air was thick against his wings, there was more oxygen then he knew what to do with, and it was blessedly warm. He would never take that for granted. So when he saw the spire in the distance that marked the end of his long journey, he put on more speed.

The Chevron was somewhere nearby. It was still out of sight, yet Sei could feel it. It had a dark aura that resonated with him somehow. As he flew on, he could see an object jutting into the sky. Sei angled toward it. As he grew closer, the object grew in clarity until he landed in front of it.

The chevron, like the others, was several hundred feet tall, with arcane markings adorning the surface. At the base was a glowing panel. Surrounding the chevron was a paved section of earth.

As Sei stepped on the cobblestone, he felt a pulse emit from the chevron and pass through him. Sei looked himself over and determined that it hadn't done anything to him. Shrugging, Sei stepped forward and placed his paw on the panel.

Nothing happened.

Confused, Sei patted the panel several more times before he heard laughter behind him. He turned to face this newcomer.

The dragon had maroon scales, his wings, belly and ridges were black with silver accents either bordering the edges or bisecting the horns. The "whites" of his eyes were black, while his pupils were crimson. And his tail was spiked like a stegosaur.

Seis eyes grew wide. "you-you're…"

"I'm you." The dragon finished. "More accurately, I'm a very special part of you."

"So… I'm assuming the chevron made you?" Sei asked

"That's right. As its defense." He grew a wide grin. "Are you ready?"

Readying to fight, Sei got a surprise. "Why can't I access my element?"

Fear pursed his lips and a small ring of red floated out and wrapped its way around Sei, who shuddered as the power instantly brought to mind his every fear, things he had long ago quelled and forgotten. "Because." He said. "That's the special part of you that I am, I'm the physical manifestation of your element. You may call me Fear."

Sei shook his head, pulling the thoughts of death and fire back into the recesses of his mind. Sei laughed. "That's original. And by the way, I've learned long ago through childhood idiocy how to master my own fear,

Fear shrugged."I only exist as long as you're here, so why do I need a fancy name? It's only for your convenience anyways."

"Heh. I kind of imagined the chevrons defense to be less… polite."

Fear smiled. "You won't leave this place, so why be rude, I'll be the last person you ever see, might as well make it pleasant…ish"

Sei lowered himself into a crouch. "Lets go then." And he leapt at Fear.

"Stop."

Sei skidded to a stop, his claw mere inches from Fears face, who hadn't moved at all, or shown any signs of aggression. He slowly lowered his paw, a confused look on his face. "Why?"

"Because," Fear said. "This isn't how we're going to settle this. I've changed my mind, even if you lose, you can leave, but you won't care."

"What do you mean?" Sei asked.

"The way this works, is I'll use my- er, I mean, our fear element to a degree you've never imagined, since I'm no longer limited by your strength, I can do things impossible even if your strength was infinite. We will play a game."

"What game?" Sei asked.

Fear laughed. "We will see who can endure the most pain. You call it self-mutilation, but when you leave, your injuries will heal, so long as you don't damage anything vital, you will not die."

"And the wages?" Sei asked.

Fears smile grew a bit cruel as he said "Everything you hold dear, If you want to know more, then accept my challenge."

"And if I refuse?"

"If you kill me instead, or time runs out and I dissipate you will never get your fear element back, and never open the chevron."

Sei growled. "Fine, how does this work?"

"Like this." Fear said, and then he brought his tail swinging around and left three shallow holes in his own flank, which gently oozed blood. "Match or beat it."

"How do I know you feel pain?" Sei asked.

Fear shrugged. "I'm a part of you, not some illusion, just as you feel, so do I."

"Fine." Sei growled, then squeezed his eyes and swung his tail, leaving three deep gashes along his side, he roared at the sudden blast of pain. In the background, Fear laughed.

"Ha! Not too steady are you?"

Sei opened his eyes and grinned. "Not really, I'm used to swinging to kill, on the bright side though, you have to beat that."

Fear eyed the rivulets of blood flowing down Seis side with distaste, before bending down and ripping a chunk out of his foreleg with his teeth, growling, then spitting it at Seis feet with a roar of pain. "Believe me now?" he growled through clenched teeth. "Can you bite yourself?"

"Sei looked at the chunk of flesh at his feet, he could almost feel the flesh being torn from his arm, just the thought was too much, he hung his head. "No, I can't."

Fears eyes grew maniacal. "Then you lose this round, now, see what you lose."

As Sei watched their wounds sealed before his eyes; leaving no trace, and no pain behind. And a tendril of black liquid seemed to seep from his forehead and form into a sphere in front of him.

"What is that Fear?" Sei asked.

"What, it's a memory. Don't you remember?" He said in a mocking tone. "You still have access to it, for now." The sphere floated to Fears side.

"Which memory?" Sei demanded, his calm demeanor starting to crack. As he watched, the orb lit up, revealing Cynders face. She turned to look at him before the orb went dark again." "What the-" Sei gasped.

"That's right." Fear said. If you lose, then I break this orb, and you forget Cynder ever existed, even if you were to stumble across her again, she would be a perfect stranger with an odd obsession with you."

"You beast!" Sei yelled. "Don't you dare! If you do anything, I'll-"

"You'll what? Kill me? I stop existing in a while anyways, what do I care? And if you kill me now, the orb crumbles on its own, and your fear element disappears with me. Now then, will you bee a good sport and continue?"

Seis eyes radiated hatred. He said nothing, but instead whipped out with his left paw and slashed his Achilles tendon, his right leg suddenly going limp and pooling blood.

"Your turn."

Fear growled and slashed his own wrist, then as he collapsed, used the momentum to bring his right paw across his left ankle, severing his other leg, he collapsed on his face, then fell to his side, looking up at Sei. "Your… turn." He growled.

Sei looked at his wrist, and unable to move his right paw, bent down and tore his wrist out with his teeth. As he collapsed, he realized what a costly mistake that was; his mouth tore far too deep, he would bleed out now. As his vision faded, he felt the pain fade. He thought that at least he would die with his mind intact, but his vision returned as the pain vanished.

"Get up." Fear commanded, his wounds gone. Sei looked down and realized his legs were once again intact. As he stood, a white tendril seeped from his head to join the white orb, this one momentarily showing Iceras face.

"No… not her too. That's my family…" Sei moaned. Fear shrugged. Next is your sister's mate, along with their children. I figure three rounds are enough to prove you lost. Then you can wander the earth until it's a dead orb, not knowing anyone, eventually you will even forget yourself.

Sei looked directly at Fear, eyes burning with hate, and determination. "Fine, you want to play this sick game so badly? Well here's the lightning round." Sei smiled cruelly, he had an advantage Fear didn't seem to know about or he would never have challenged him to this contest. While spying on Byancyra all those years ago, part of his training in her army to get higher in rank was learning the anatomy of dragons in exquisite detail.

So Sei positioned his seventh and eighth spikes pointing straight out from his tail tip up at himself, and thrust.

The pain was excruciating. The burning, stabbing, slashing cold pain was so intense he could almost feel the cellular bonds being broken, nerve fibers being exposed to the air before being torn themselves. It seemed to him the motion was in slow motion, each second that passed he could feel his spikes entering deeper and deeper. Even though it lasted only a fraction of a second.

Fear Looked in amazement at Seis tail, all two and a half feet of the spikes were buried in his belly. Sei winced at what had to come next, the withdrawal. This was when he found out if his training had saved himself, or if he had punctured a kidney, stomach, blood vessel, or the like. His spikes curved gently, so when he tensed and ripped them from his body, they tore more flesh, blood spurting on the ground and Fears face.

Sei collapsed to the ground in the burning pain, but pushed it aside and stood up, blood

dripping from the wounds. "Beat… that." He said.

Fear looked at the wound, then shook his head and thrust, His tail penetrated his belly just like Sei, but then he collapsed. He tried to get up, but seemed too weak

Sei limped over to Fear, "If you can remove your tail, we can continue." Fear tried, but it seemed stuck."

"What's wrong with me?" Fear yelled. Sei smiled sadistically. "You didn't know about where you were stabbing. You recklessly went in and guess what? You severed your spinal cord. You're paralyzed from that point down. You can't continue, so I win by default.

Then it happened, their bodies began healing, their blood returning. Seis head screamed in pain as his blood pressure rocketed, then when he thought he would die from the pain alone, it equalized, settling to a dull throb.

As Fear got up, a crimson stream flowed from his head and flew to Sei, whose grin had grown cruel. "Now you pay Fear."

"Why? What memory did you take?"

The crimson orb liquefied again and flowed into Sei, who suddenly burst with red power.

As he opened his eyes, they glowed red. "I took your memories on using the fear element." As he said this, everything seemed to turn grayscale and Sei was gone.

Fear looked around. "Wh-where am I?" a voice came from all around him.

"You're here."

"Where's here? Show your-" Fear was cut short by Sei, who had appeared out of nowhere. There was a thud and Fear looked down. He saw the blood about the same time he registered the pain. He let out a howl of pain before Sei withdrew his claws and stabbed him again.

Amid Fears cries of pain, Sei said "This is my fury, by the time I'm done with you here, you'll be a shell of your former self."

"You can't! What about Ôumí Jiâ?"

"You threatened my family, At this point I don't care about anything but making you pay." Fears eyes widened, then he let out a scream as Sei swung his tail, sending the two long spikes on the tip into Fears belly. Then Sei twisted as he drew them out, eliciting another scream from Fear. Then Sei stood on his hind legs and thrust his fists into the holes, tearing them wider and opening his claws inside, grinding bones and twisting organs.

Again and again Sei took out his anger, rage, fury on Fear, each time Fear thought it couldn't get worse, Sei found a new way to increase his pain, whether it was stabbing him, cutting him, chewing parts off, or grinding stones into the gashes, Somehow Seis power kept him from dying and he was made to endure the endless pain. Fear watched the sun, hoping he would quit.

He didn't. For two weeks he kept it up, Fears pain only subsiding at night while Sei slept, then the sun rose and the pain began anew, his screams of agony heralding the coming of dawn. Sei even built a fire and heated iron, which he used to brand and mutilate Fear.

Finally, when the screams stopped, Sei walked over to Fears torn and twisted body, there wasn't much left, and only his power was keeping Fear alive. He lifted Fears limp head. "I'm just getting started, don't you care?"

"No… I can't… feel."

"Hmph. Good." Sei said, the world flashed and color returned to everything, the first thing Fear noticed was the lack of pain, he looked down, there wasn't a scratch on him.

"What the?" he stammered, Sei walked past him to the white and black orbs, which reabsorbed into his mind.

Then Sei turned to face him. "That was my fury, do you know how much time passed? About five seconds." Fear gaped at Sei. "Then all that I endured…"

"Never really happened." Sei finished. Sei stepped forward and pressed his paw to the panel. This time crimson energy pulsed into the ground, and shot up the chevron, which split into a massive V shape. The energy then arced between the points, gathered into a large ball, and shot into the sky. Sei turned around to see that Fear, along with all his blood, was gone.

"That's what you get for messing with my family." Sei whispered, and took off, back home.

Chevron Battle #6 (Earth)

Kwaik was still getting over the shock. He had been pulled through some kind of portal to the future, a future where his own son was hundreds of years older than him In this time, Malefor, A childhood friend had apparently taken the path of darkness and tried to destroy everything. Kwaik just couldn't wrap his head around it.

Thankfully he had been stopped, another purple dragon, then only a child had defeated Malefor, and when he returned years later had defeated him again.

Now Kwaik was a guardian, replacing his own son, Terrador. And since this new evil, Oûmi Jiâ was threatening his new home; he would do everything to stop it.

As Kwaik flew onwards, he saw someone collapsed on the ground. He partially folded his wings and dived down, flaring them out at the last moment to swoop upwards, cutting the rest of his speed, he then fell the few feet to the ground and stared in utter shock at the dragon child before him.

He couldn't have been older than fifteen, barely older than Spyro the first time he defeated Malefor. The child's scales were a forest green; his orange wings were torn and bloody, matching the rest of his body. His ridges looked like small stones poking from his spine and his tail ended in a smooth sphere, the spikes had yet to grow in.

Kwaik stood; petrified as the phantom Terrador, the age he was when Kwaik vanished looked up with tear filled eyes. As the tears rolled down his face and mixed with blood he said "Why? Why did you leave?"

Kwaiks eyes blurred with tears as he said "I didn't mean to…"

"Why did you leave…" the phantom whispered before slumping to the ground, it's eyes closed and it's breathing stopped.

"Terry…" Kwaik whispered, he reached out to touch his son, but his paw passed through, the phantom rippling like a disturbed reflection before fading.

For the longest while Kwaik stared at the ground the phantom Terrador died on, trying to think. About what, he didn't know. He just knew he couldn't focus; the waves of guilt that surged through his were too strong to do anything. It was then that Kwaik eard a familiar voice behind him.

"It's your fault you know."

Kwaik turned to face his best friend growing up, his purple scales were lighter than in his later years, and his eyes were white; not yellow, but other than that Malefor looked the same as he did when Spyro faced off against him years later.

"Malefor?" Kwaik said, drying his tears. "It's been so long."

"Too long." Malefor replied. "You know how reckless I was, you always kept me from doing stupid things. With you gone, I made horrible choices. Look what became of the world because of me." He said, looking around.

"Malefor, I didn't have a choice in what happened, it just happened, you can't pin your choices on me."

Malefor snorted. "I'm not pinning anything, it's just a fact. After you left, I threw the world into chaos." Malefor looked up at a passing cloud.

"You didn't have to, just because I left don't mean it wasn't you who decided to walk the path of darkness."

Still looking up, Malefor said "So, you admit that you left on purpose?"

"No! I-" Kwaik stopped as Malefor lowered his gaze to him, his eyes were yellow.

"Did anyone ever tell you it was I who killed your mate?" Malefor grinned at Kwaiks shocked look. "Now it's time to finish it!" Malefor leapt at Kwaik, turning black as pitch as he did so. Kwaik yelled and covered himself with his wings, but the impact never came. He slowly lowered his wings to find Malefor had vanished.

What's going on? He thought to himself

"The Chevron is trying to warn you, father." A baritone voice said from behind him.

Kwaik wheeled around to see Terrador, the adult one standing behind him. Further on was the chevron, so absorbed was he with the phantoms that he hadn't even noticed it.

"Warn me of what?" Kwaik asked.

"Of the mistake your making. Think about it, if you wait to activate the chevron, the super portal can go anywhere, or anywhen. You can go back, save mother, stop Malefor from making that choice, stop all this from happening.

Kwaik nodded, it made sense. "But how can we get the other's cooperation?"

"That's… the other thing. Flame was… killed by the chevron. It wont work now anyways, there are pleny of other dragons though, I'm sure we can get the cooperation of the seven we need."

Kwaiks head hung, now even his new friends were dying. Suddenly an idea struck him. "Terry, what if we got James to use his chaos powers to open a portal back home? We wouldn't need to go through all that."

"James died too."

Kwaik nodded "And what of Spyro? He taught his son how to use his light powers and he can also use shadow, couldn't he also use chaos and make a portal?"

"Spyro died too."

Kwaik grinned. "What about using the power gems?"

"You'll never find them in time."

"Of course not Terry, they don't exist anymore, Spyro destroyed them, I thought you knew that?"

Beads of sweat started to form on Terradors brow. "O-of course I knew that. I was testing you of course."

"Uh-huh." Kwaik said. "The Terrador I knew would never test someone like that, he'd confront them directly about it."

"It's been many years since you last saw him." Terrador said.

Kwaik began walking past "And he would never, EVER talk in the third person, I don't know or care who you are, but you're getting out of my way."

The phantom Terrador stepped in front of Kwaik, who sighed, "Seriously? They didn't make me a guardian for nothing, and since you're not real, I have no qualms against utterly destroying you."

The phantom squared it's shoulders and shot an earth missile at Kwaik, just as powerful as the real Terrador.

Kwaik, who was smaller and younger, nimbly jumped out of the way and shot a missile of his own, which passed through. Frowning, he used his powers to form an earth sphere and spun at high speeds, preparing to shoot at the phantom with incredible force.

Before he could though, the phantom opened his mouth and an orb of green energy shot out, shattering the sphere and knocking Kwaik back a few paces, leaving claw marks in the earth.

Kwaik opened his mouth, a pulse of en energy shot out with a thunderous repot that echoed across the land. The blast obliterated the earth in front of Kwaik, sending debris into the deadly storm of earth energy that raced toward the phantom.

The phantom opened his mouth and another massive concussion ripped through the air as he shot his own blast, which hit Kwaiks, causing them to combine and explode between them with enough force to leave a crater in the ground.

Kwaik nodded and shot a second blast at his own feet, sending up a smokescreen of dust. The phantom ran forward, intent on preventing Kwaik from escaping; he loosed an orb of energy that erupted into a cyclone that swept away the dust.

Kwaik was gone. The phantom heard laughing and turned to see Kwaik at the chevrons base.

"That was a good fight; our strength is about equal, so I figure it's a big waste of time to fight." The phantom shouted something, but Kwaik didn't listen, but placed his paw on the panel.

A surge of green energy shot from him and up the chevron as the phantom faded. The chevron split into a massive V shape and fired an arc of energy skyward. As Kwaik watched it, he thought I was sent here for a reason, some bad things may have happened, but if that's the cost, then the reward must be good. After he watched the energy bolt fade into the sky, he returned to the air and started home.