I will hope to keep this pace up.
"This is the power of Sound—pure, unrelenting Sound," I said to the assembled Fear dragons and dragonesses, and let loose a scream that could turn rock to splinters. The poor target dummy did just that.
"Everything you think you know about Fear elemental energy: forget it when using Sound. It can—and if you're not careful it will—kill you without a moment's hesitation." I watched a few wince at the reverberating scream.
"How do we summon it?" asked a young dragoness. Against my wishes, Spyro was allowing younger dragons to train.
"When you use Fear to paralyze, even kill enemies, you get in their head and turn their mind into an enemy. With Sound, you must turn your power inward. I simply think of something, and focus on it and nothing else. A sound, a sight, something that terrifies you to your core. That is where the great and terrible power comes from," I said, and the small dragoness lowered her head.
"Sound," I continued, "is a refined power. Fear is primal. Fear is brute force. Sound shakes the target apart. You can guide it, but not force it. It will work for you, but only if you can control it through sheer force of will."
A few dragons turned pale, but others looked almost eager.
"So, who wants to go first?" I asked, hoping to not see any of my...students disintegrate today. Looking over, I could mentally count those who I believed could at least summon up this power and, out of them, less then five who could control it.
"I will," the same small dragoness walked forward. She had strange markings along her entire body, a mix of scars, patterns and tattoos. I realized, though she was young, she was a veteran to war. Another sin we would all pay for.
I offered no encouragement. She had to do it alone or she would fail, possibly fatally.
"Bring your fears to your mind's eye and embrace them. Drown in the darkest corner of your mind," I said, watching her eyes glow red then clear up, until they were nothing but crystalline. "And now release your fury."
I covered my ears.
Thunder in a bubble—that was really the only way to describe the sound. Every dragon is different. Every user's power manifests in a different way. Mine was a massive shriek. Hers was a vibrating globe of sound that flew at amazing speed towards the target, grinding the floor between her and the target into a glass-smooth trench. When it hit the target, it simply vanished. The globe of energy and the target were just gone, replaced by a sugar-fine powder that slowly drifted to the ground.
"Impressive. What's your name?" I asked the panting dragoness. She was staring wide-eyed at the now vaporized target. Her body had a sort of afterglow that most dragons only had after unleashing a Fury attack. In retrospect, she may well have done just that.
"Hope. My mother named me Hope," she said softly—or perhaps loudly, as my ears were ringing, and most likely everyone else's were as well. She was drained, that was easy to tell, and rightly so from the amount of damage she had caused.
"Well, Hope, you can control the power of sound, and well enough that you didn't kill yourself. Report to Commander Cynder and tell her what I have said."
She saluted me with her tail and left the training room. I turned back to the rest of the assembled crowd.
"Which of you thinks they can repeat this performance?"
