My Darkest Time

by DarkRemains

The Dark Master is defeated, but the real enemy has been lurking in the shadows, undisturbed. She had took control over the Purple Dragon of the Legend, and she had been using him since then to spread fear and terror throughout the world, ruling uncontested with an iron fist and entering the Dragon Realms into the darkest time ever seen. My Darkest Time.

35. Betrayed

Betrayed

Phantom knew their position was desperate. They were trapped in a room with no other exit than the one that the apes occupied after they had unhinged the door that slipped scrapping noisily until it reached his paws. He missed a breath.

Phantom instinct immediately kicked in. He took a combat position, his wings widened just to look larger, his legs too, his white fangs sharp and menacingly exposed to the enemy with a growl ready in the back of his throat.

He could not say that he was exactly astonished. He warned multiple times about the dangers of such a trip and surely now it was not the right time for this, but he couldn't shake the sensation that there was more underneath. After all, there was the probability that they have been caught by a single guard during the patrol, or perhaps they left some traces that they hadn't been careful enough to hide. But, from his point of view, what was outside of that door, a flotilla of howling apes, was far too much men power to arrange in such a small amount of time. They saw the patrols, they saw the numbers of apes on every floor from the base all the way to the top, and there weren't so many of them.

Patrols of two apes or grublings for each floor couldn't become…this swarming sea of monsters. It didn't make any sense! How the hell did they arrange so many of them so fast?

His thoughts were interrupted by a fierce growl to his right. He turned. Batch stood by his side, maintaining the same combat position and a fierce and battle-ready look too. If he too had been amazed at what had just happened, he wouldn't show it in the slightest. He was preparing his element to strike to fight his way out.

"We can't fight them in here," he said as he began firing a few roaring electrical shots at the enemies. "Not for long, at least. It's too close here and they're between us and our escape route."

Phantom took the leader's attack as a signal to do the same. He pointed straight at the door where the apes were with shields that absorbed elemental blows and served as a defense for the back lines. That way they were trying to advance on them, but he would not have allowed it. If he couldn't hit them directly…

Loading a powerful shot Phantom fired a dark fireball directly at the floor just before the first line of apes and their shields. The blow exploded deafeningly, and the shockwave threw the shielded apes back into the back line with their shields scattered on the ground, useless.

With this move, the attackers' first defense was weakened and the apes holding the shields were eliminated by loud bursts of thunder that connected directly with their heads to kill them on the spot. In this way, the road was free to eliminate the next row of enemies who camped on the door with their elemental weapons.

Unfortunately, luck that night was not with them.

Another row of apes with the same elemental shield came forward among the ranks of their allies, to reposition themselves in the front row recreating the same problem as before. They fought using a defense tactic. It was a good idea. Too good for the apes themselves to come up with if someone asked Phantom. That was the second problem that night. They were far too organized to be just a bunch of apes finding intruders in their mountain.

Sooner or later they would be overwhelmed. They were trapped.

"We can't keep up with them," said Phantom out loud for everyone to hear. "We must find a way to get out of this prison if we do not want it to become our grave."

Batch fired another shot to the floor as the purple dragon did before to slow the advance of the enemies before talking to him.

"I sent Kohle to search through the crates, the corners, anything that might help us," he informed him. "If he comes back that he hasn't found anything, the only way for us is to push all together towards the one exit," he stopped for another shot, before adding darkly. "But I don't know how many of them are waiting for us on the other side..."

Suddenly a slab of ice formed at the feet of the apes who had started to advance again, making the very floor unwalkable and so blocking their advance again. Many of the apes slipped to the ground and were soon served with large spikes of ice that impaled them with other enemies behind them, creating a chasm in the pile of attackers that was soon filled by new soldiers who, from behind, came forward to keep pressing the intruders.

Phantom shifted his gaze to find Ahmos attacking and eliminating enemies in a row. No hesitation or mercy in his blue eyes as the Guardian's training kicked in and he fought for both his and his friend's survival.

He shot another dark fireball at the ceiling this time, hoping to make it fall and kill the apes. It didn't work as the ceiling of this Mountain seemed very resistant. He tried again, hoping that it would finally cede, but it seemed not as only debris and small rocks started falling from it, just a nuisance for the apes down there. He huffed at some good mole who surely built that place before another draconian form appeared behind them, him and Batch. The massive shape of the black dragon could hardly be mistaken for anything else. He seemed agitated, something that the dark purple dragon learned wasn't exactly like him.

So the situation was really desperate.

"I found a side opening," he reported, sounding wary. "I don't know where it leads. It could be out of here, in a dead end, or anywhere else in the mountain that will lead us to death."

He did not seem optimistic, but that was Kohle they were hearing from.

"We don't have too much of a choice," Batch replied, equally wary as the black dragon was. "It's either that tunnel or that door," he said, pointing at the door full of apes breaking through. "We'd have to see what awaits us in that tunnel," he declared before he paused as he saw an opening to shoot and kill a grubling. Then he started again. "Get the others evacuated inside that tunnel then. Phantom and I will cover your retreat," he ordered.

The dragon nodded as he turned and did as he was told. At the same time, Phantom noticed that the yellow dragon beckoned him to fall back slowly, letting them be the last of them to come out of that hell on earth. Retreating at the bottom of the room, he turned a moment to check on the situation: the opening Kohle found had been hidden by a few now moved-out-of-the-way crates in the left corner of the room. On the opening were Kohle and Ahmos arguing with each other, while not far away he could see Sonohra, Licht, and Fire moving to the door to leave while firing shots against the enemies. The white dragoness, he noted, carried a bright red egg between her jaws, and the red female was telling her something he could not hear. But he could have guessed what it was she was saying.

"Go now!" ordered Batch after another bolt of lightning.

He didn't have to hear it twice and he headed for the dragonesses, encouraging them to hurry.

"Come on girls, you have to get in now!" he said in an urgent tone of voice. "We have to get out of here, and Batch won't be able to keep them all for long."

Sonohra just took a good look at him. She didn't look happy at all, and she was kind of "and you think I don't know that". Nevertheless, she did not say anything as the egg she was carrying in her jaws prevented her to. On the contrary, however, her eyes spoke quite fairly: she was frightened, disappointed, and very hurt. He could understand her. She felt this was her mission, her responsibility, to save those eggs from becoming slaves of the Empire, and this turn of events destroyed everything as they were now leaving them all behind to escape.

It shouldn't have got that way.

However, Sonohra was the strongest dragoness he had ever known, and if there was anyone who could put away the worries and think about survival, it would be her. The time to commiserate would come later when they were alive and somewhere safe.

At her side, Fire showed that frightened and restless look as a caged animal on the verge of being beaten. And that was kind of the situation for them, even worse, but the fire dragoness in that state of mind bore nothing good. He just hoped that she would hold her emotions back long enough for them to escape successfully.

Soon both dragonesses and hatchlings were at the entrance, and the two other males quickly followed them. With everyone out, there were only two dragons left, so Phantom reached Batch, who wasn't too far away and had backed down enough since he left him.

"They're all in! Let's get out of here!"

Batch nodded and snapped to head for the opening. Phantom fired one last shot at the apes and then did the same thing by entering immediately after the tip of the other dragon's blue tail. The two closed the opening behind them, leaving them in total darkness, inside an unknown tunnel, in a deadly mountain, with an army of enemies right on their tail to kill them all, separated only by a little iron opening.

Fire's reddish torch sent away the darkness allowing them to see their surroundings. Ahmos froze the opening to give them some more time before the dark army knocked it down, and then all the dragons ran down the aisle with Batch and Fire at their head. The first leading them and the second to light up the way.

They knew that the ice wall wouldn't hold up much, but they just needed a little more time...

A huge explosion behind them signaled them that their time was over, and they had not put enough space between them and their chasers. They had to increase their speed. But in front of them it was so dark, and even with the light provided by Fire, advancing into the dark and narrow tunnel while also paying attention to any traps or turns was not the easiest and fastest of things to do.

Phantom closed the line. He could see as he ran the reddish light ahead blocked by the figures in front of him but amplified upwards towards the ceiling. It showed how high the corridor was so that the darkness at the top was not completely broken by the light. It gave the effect of being inside a kind of carousel, running forward so fast that he cannot focus well on the environment around him, that he had already passed through it. He followed the column of dragons, turning right, left, right, left, and leaping past what looked like a small chasm in the earth that he didn't know where it went, and he didn't even think he wanted to know.

Unexpectedly something whizzed by his right horn, ending up crashing into the wall just ahead with a brilliant explosion. Phantom closed his eyes for the sudden light and almost lost his pace.

He knew they were not hallucinations. The colored blows kept coming from behind them, exploding on the walls around them like fireworks. But they were not fireworks. They were something far more dangerous than that.

Behind them, animal growls and shouts followed the blows that came from the elemental weapons of the dark army following them. Now that there were no more crates of eggs in between, they were not sparing shoots.

Phantom took the situation into its paws. It was he who closed the formation, so he was the last defensive barrier to allow those in front to be able to advance at a fast pace without being interrupted. He had to defend and fire back.

He stopped, turned, and fired back, before running again after the others. He was trying both to hit the enemy and block them. Behind him explosions and cries of bestial suffering echoed in the long corridor, making the groans stop for a while. It was clear that the imperials had placed their shields for their weapons, a thing that made them more vulnerable to his shots. However, as if nothing happened, the cries and gunshots resumed. The purple dragon struck a second time and the same thing happened.

There were practically so many that he could kill as many as he wanted, but he could only slow them down so much. He would never stop them for good, no matter how he tried.

Deciding to keep his energy for something more fruitful, Phantom looked around in search of a different solution. But all he saw were sheer walls in a cosmic void above them that could not even be broken by Fire's light. It was so damn frustrating! If only he could see something around him, even the ceiling was too high to be seen…

Suddenly the idea came to him as well as fears about its repercussions. The idea was quite simple and recycled from their escape from the base weeks ago. After all the situation was similar. They were escaping in a long and dark corridor from a ravine trying to kill all the imperials and now they were being chased down a long corridor by the imperials and they could again use the same trick, bringing down the ceiling behind them to kill, or at least trap, their pursuers and get a chance.

"It worked once, it can work twice…"

But the problem this time was that, unlike the previous time when they could see the ceiling and were to hit to trigger a collapse, the ceiling was too high to be seen and he had no idea where to aim to do just thing. Not to speak about the possible resistance of the tunnel's ceiling as it happened in the room a few minutes earlier. If it was the same moles that had built both, they would be screwed.

A hot burning red elemental blow pierced his right cheek, almost taking away his head with it hadn't it been a little more precise. At that moment, he decided that there was no other chance. He had to hope that the ceiling would cooperate with his plan.

Preparing himself for the biggest shot he had ever fired, despite the fatigue of running, the dragon started loading and concentrating its element into its jaws in a great purple energy fireball. Not only was he loading a fairly strong blow, but he was also running in a dark corridor not being able to see clearly in front of him and not being able to predict curves or obstacles on his way.

One shot from behind took him to his left back paw and he almost risked dropping the shot. He closed his eyes suppressing his pain and the desire to scream, just making sure he still had his paw. Despite his pain, the adrenaline could make him move forward so he raised his head just enough to aim high in front of them and tried to take aim. He wanted to fire to a point distant enough for them to surpass and block the pass behind them with the collapse.

A difficult calculation, based entirely on his instinct.

Another blow whizzed to the upper left of his head this time, and the shot was beginning to be difficult to handle. His pace has become slower, and the purple energy light illuminated all the space around him so much so that the dragon in front of him, Kohle, noticed that something was wrong and turned his head slightly to face him.

Their eyes met for a small moment, but that was all the black dragon needed to understand what the dark purple dragon was thinking to do. He simply nodded. Phantom was ready.

Praying every Ancestors up there, Phantom fired a small but charged ball of black and purple energy towards the ceiling high before them. The blow was bright and certainly unmissable for both those fleeing and those chasing. It made its way up in the darkness, illuminating like a small dark sun the tunnel with its purple and whitish aura as it climbed higher and higher, soon disappearing into the darkness.

The seconds passed and Phantom started wondering if this place had a ceiling above to hit and destroy. They were at the top of a mountain, and it could even go as far as the summit, but maybe it was far from the tip of so much that-

Abruptly a glowing explosion lit up the whole space over them, showing the outlines and shadows of the place they were running in. With the light of the deflagration disappearing, Phantom also noticed a mass of black forms descending at great speed downwards, passing so quickly into the light that remained, that they were not even fully visible to his eyes. But Phantom had the feeling that he saw them well enough to say what they were, and if those black figures were what he thought they were, they were in deep trouble.

Behind them, a loud noise made the ground tremble like an earthquake. A giant rock hit the floor and shattered completely in small flying debris all over at an incredibly high speed. Tall enough to kill by going through the victim...

A loud cry of suffering cries in the distance.

Then another earthquake, another deflagration, and another cry of pain. And another, and another until the rain of boulders falling from above became impossible to ignore. Behind screams and yells of pain interrupted the shots of the pursuers.

Something fell on them too, but it was only minor pebbles and dust that they could well bear, because the bulk of the rocks had fallen behind them, where the ape's and grublings' screams had now stopped, and soon even the rocks in their breaking noise had stopped too, putting an end to the chase.

Silence reigned, if not the noise of their claws scraping on the ground, if not the noise of their breathless breath, especially his that after such a long run, a wound to his paw, and an elemental blow heavily loaded, was beginning to feel the tiredness of the night spent sleepless.

But behind them, the silence and the darkness reigned. Or at least that's what Phantom saw when he turned slightly with one eye to see if any pursuers had survived.

He saw only darkness and heard only silence.

It was a strange feeling to him. His plan worked just fine. He stopped the pursuers. He killed them all, and now there was silence. An odd silence, but still a silence he didn't know he was craving for after so many screams and yells and roars for their blood.

Finally, the infinite corridor ended and the group of surviving dragons entered a large room. It was half-illuminated as the other part of the room was completely dark. But the dragons did not give too much weight to this detail, for what mattered was in their part of the room, not in the darkness's:

A large window.

A large window that would surely lead outside!

Phantom, who came last, locked the opening behind him and, to be sure, had Ahmos completely freeze it so they would have more time in case any survivors managed to chase them in there. Then he headed to the large window decorated with different geometric figures. Probably, Phantom thought, that was one of the highest rooms in the whole mountain and so one of the higher exits.

"Good shot there, Phantom" approved Batch as he threw a little smile at him. Their leader was breathless too, like everyone else in there, but at least he could manage a small smile despite the situation.

"Ok, now we have to find a way out of here," he continued, heading to the window to look out. It was still night, or so it seemed, though the sky here was always black but it was taking an increasingly clear tinge which meant it would soon be day. They hadn't much time left.

"We can't go away like that!" urged Sonohra after she had freed her mouth gently placing the red egg on the ground in front of her. She was now looking at them all, Batch in particular, with a desperate look. "We must save the other eggs, remember?! So many are trapped in this mountain, and who knows what they're going to do to them! We can't leave them here! We have come all this way for them!"

Phantom decided that was enough. He could understand the white dragoness, and he too had agreed to embark on this mission, save the eggs, and even damage the Empire while they were there. But there would have been no rescue now that they had been discovered, and they could not waste their lives fighting for anything.

"Sonohra," he said, his voice higher than he intended. "There's nothing we can do now, we've been caught, and more will come soon. We have to leave until we still can."

"And who thinks of them, huh?" Sonohra asked, disgusted, now seeming angrier than desperate. "Who's going to save these eggs when we're gone?" she was growling now. "Don't you understand? We won't have another chance! We won't be able to get in again because next time they'll expect it and-"

Her speech was interrupted when a chillingly amused new voice joined the conversation from the dark.

"Oh, but we have been expecting you this time already."

The dragons stiffened on the spot, turning to the suffocating darkness from which the voice came.

The sound of claws dramatically scratching on the ground was the only thing that allowed the detection of someone walking in the shadows. Someone that soon came out of the shadows as if these were attached to him, letting him go slowly, sliding smoothly over him and then behind him, abandoning him to the light. Two feral and cunning yellow eyes first appeared bright in the darkness, then the draconian shape of a dragon showed itself to their eyes, and finally, the furry features that covered his body, the lack of horns, and the presence in their place of two large, pointed ears like that of the wolves, completely defined the figure that was in the nightmares of all the dragons there, someone more than others.

Fenris came out of the darkness, in all his splendor, showing off a mischievous and amused smile on his muzzle. Behind him, in the shadows, small lights of red and blue and yellow and green color lit the darkness where there were hidden other sneering figures. Apes and grublings, surely well-armed, and making an immense effort to restrain their grunts and battle cries.

"Well, hello there," Fenris said as he stared amused with his shining feral eyes at the intruders. "Did you miss me?"

MDT - MDT - MDT

The moment of surprise lasted a few seconds until they were awakened by a furious growl that, like a sharp sound pierces the eardrums of the dragons and penetrates directly into the skull.

Phantom slowly turned to his left, but there was no need to look to see to whom that sound belonged. He haven't heard it coming from this dragoness specifically before in the small amount of time he has known her, so this meant that the situation was even worse than it already seemed.

Sonohra was in a combat position with her teeth exposed and her eyes burning with hot anger as he had never seen her before. Behind her, slightly covered the female, was a very-frightened-looking Licht keeping the egg they stole from the eggs' room between his paws as if it was his own.

Phantom knew the mission was important to her, but he certainly didn't expect anything like that to happen. He would expect more Fire to react that way, but looking at the red dragoness, she seemed still frozen on the spot despite all the noise they were doing.

"Fenris!" growled Sonohra, contempt dripping from her teeth like venom. "I should have expected that behind such a plan there could be no other than you," she spat. "After all, you never seem to appreciate the encounter face-to-face."

The furry dragon, for his part, merely made a feral smile completely ignoring the insults of the dragoness seeming completely satisfied with himself instead.

"It's funny that you say this," he told her with his usual mischievous tone. "For this time neither the plan nor the betrayal is mine to reclaim. It is not towards me that your anger should go as, without a little help, I would never have been able to discover your intentions, nor that you of all the dragons, were the ones heading to this place..." he smiled gloomily, his sharp teeth visible in his mouth. Then his expression suddenly changed as if he were completely another dragon, completely innocent, his eyes wide and his ears lowered. "It is not me that you have to blame, guys. I am not the spy or the betrayer."

"What the hell are you talking about, you abomination!" growled Sonohra, clearly fed up with the other dragon's games. "There are no spies between us."

The expression of the hairy dragon had remained pretendingly innocent. "And then how do you explain this well-planned in-advance ambush?" he paused smiling evilly. "Very much in advance."

Phantom frowned at this. A spy? Who? Who of them could be a spy, it was hard to believe. And even if something like that was possible, how this spy would have contacted the other dragon to explain their plan. It was impossible, there wasn't material time to do something like that for any of them.

Sonohra wasn't believing him. "You're lying," she said vehemently. "There is no spy between us. So the way I see it, you had your lucky night, nothing else."

Phantom thought about what the furry dragon just said. He knew it was a petty move from him to put one against the other, trying to find the spy, but it was important to him to understand if someone outside their group might have given up information about them. However, aside from Asla, there was no one else who knew about this and he didn't believe the furry dragon managed to set her up and capture her.

This did not change the severity of their situation though…

Fenris didn't seem to give up on his lie, anyway. If possible, his smile became even more malevolent for some obscure reason which was certainly not good news for them.

"I beg to differ, white one," he said, gaining a small growl of warning from the white dragoness but ignoring it completely. "There was another who knew about all this. Of course, maybe it wasn't your intention to let this one find out, but I was told you were very upset at the time that you didn't consider what you were saying... very irresponsible of you, I must say," he grinned crookedly.

The dragons looked at each other, confused. None of them remembered a moment where any of them had said anything about their mission in public places. Either the hairy dragon was trying to rip them off, or he was right, and they had not been careful enough. Phantom didn't know which of the two things was worst. What he knew, even looking briefly at Batch, was that the more time Fenris wasted talking, the more their chances of survival increased as their guide seemed up to something.

Noticing with visible amusement their confused expression, Fenris decided to make the game last a bit more.

"I'll give you a clue since we're in such a warm company," he chuckled. "Blackashes Arena, does that tell you anything? Hmm? The cell in front of yours? Red one, you?" he laughed. "You look so…off tonight," he mocked her. "Have your fire extinguished along the way?" Then he turned his gaze towards the purple dragon. "What about you, purple one? Do you understand now?"

He did.

"Spaiha..." he whispered, his eyes wide open, lost as if he were in that cell again. He could see the dragoness looking at them curiously, smiling at him. Fire and he was trying to escape, then the dragoness said something about Sonohra being in danger and his heart started beating wildly. Fire had started freaking out and screaming, wiggling like a trapped animal and saying…

It had to be her.

Fenris smiled at him, slyly. "Oh, you do understand now."

"What Phantom? What did you say? Who is Spaiha?" said Sonohra.

"Spaglia?" whispered Ahmos.

"No, you idiot. He said Spaiha" admonished Kohle.

"Phantom?"

He turned slowly towards the dragon who had called him, Batch. He stood by his side and looked at him with an understanding but also demanding look on his face. He wanted to know, and the purple dragon was forced to admit his failure, their failure, as they have never said a thing about it before.

He turned for a second towards Fire. She looked petrified, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide and empty. She was probably reviewing the events of that night, too, and she was cursing herself for their stupidity, too. Or soon she would have.

Returning his gaze to their guide, he answered using the emptiest voice he had ever used.

"When Fire and I were prisoners in the cells of the Blackashes Arena, in front of us, there was this dragoness named Spaiha. We learned from her that Fenris was in town and that he was going to the Governor's house. We panicked that he might find out and kill Sonohra…" he faded silent for a moment as he was having a hard time remembering straight. "We probably said something about the eggs, or I don't know. I don't remember."

"She remembered enough," intervened again Fenris, amused and mischievous as always, his smile always-on on his muzzle. "You knew that she was the only prisoner who didn't attempt to escape? They found her in her cell, waiting for everything to return to calm. As a reward, she asked to talk with me." He sneered. "Maybe I will reward her for this, or maybe not. I'd better keep her in those prisons and let her listen to the conversations of others who end up there," he chuckled. "She would be much more useful to me down there than wherever else. Besides, she seems to enjoy it there."

An angry roar stopped him in his mockery. "Stop raking, you monster!" growled Sonohra her anger showing itself again. "No matter how you found out about us, now you're here, right? So why don't you stop talking and we fight already?"

Fernis made a small fake bow to her, holding his smile. "You are right, white one." Then he nodded his head toward the darkness behind him from where a shot of red energy materialized in the darkness and rushed forward.

Everyone was in their defensive positions, ready and concentrated upon the enemy in front of them. Someone yelped a young voice. Snapping in that direction, Phantom saw Licht, hidden behind the white dragoness' figure, terror written on his features, his body stiffened, crying over a steaming remnant of burned skin and scales surrounded by blackened pieces of shells.

When Fenris spoke again, the change in his tone was evident and sadistic. "But we should not start with suckers in the way," he said in a gloomy voice despite his smile. "The battlefield is no place for an unborn dragon..."

A furious roar broke the air almost blowing the purple dragon from his skin for the amount of fury mixed with the pain he could sense in it. He saw Sonohra leaping toward the furry dragon coated by raw fury and without any kind of control.

He knew Fenris would be protected by his army, which magical swords were already lighting the darkness. He knew Sonohra wouldn't make it to the other dragon before she ended up shot. He wanted to do something and he was going to do it when Sonohra was put out of her trajectory by a yellow and blue figure that, jumping towards the white dragoness, saved her from different colored shots and out of the way.

Batch immobilized her belly on the ground in an iron grip from which she could not get out. He blocked her paws, wings, and head as well as her tail with his upper weight holding down the female. But she seemed all but defeated and so she kept kicking and screaming, demanding to be freed, demanding the furry dragon's blood for what he did. Soon, however, anger transformed into desperation, and kicking and screaming became begging, as tears began to tarnish her expression, as she broke down crying her heart out.

All that Fenris could do at the vision of a poor, kind-hearted dragoness who had tried to save a life was nothing but stand there and smile.

Sonohra was right. He was, indeed, a monster.

Phantom knew that their chances of getting away from that damn Mountain alive were scarce. But maybe there was a possibility, maybe if they played their cards right they might survive this desperate situation.

He had to play astutely here. Fenris, though a monster, enjoyed playing with them and felt a certain sense of superiority on which he could work to convince him to accept a single combat. Of course, the furry dragon was in the position to decline and kill them all, but he was to present it as a game, a way of enjoying more his victory. After all, he seemed the kind of dragon who liked gloat. With the right words, he might convince him to fight only the two of them for the good of all. If he had won, he hoped, maybe they would have had a slight chance of getting out of there alive. Of course, no one guaranteed that a dragon like Fenris might be able to keep his word, but it was this or a completely disproportionate fight that would end with their departure from this world.

He had to try it and fast. Before Fenris could have the opportunity to give the order to destroy them. And he was just about to take a step forward to announce the challenge when a voice interrupted him before he could even start, preceding him in his intention.

"Fenris, I challenge you to a single combat!"

MDT - MDT - MDT

She was done with it.

She was done with being hunted, she was done with being chased, she was done with this dragon trying to kill them.

And above all, she was done with this mission. She didn't care about the reasons behind it, whether it was a noble cause or not they were trying to fight for. She was done with her friends, and her family, being in danger.

She would no longer allow something like that to happen, not ever.

She planned to beat this freak, escape that mountain, and hide as far away from the Empire as possible, never to confront it again.

No matter what the Resistance, the Guardians, or her mother would say. She and her friends would resign once and for all being warriors of the Resistance, being warriors at all. No matter how many would suffer from this choice, no matter how many lives they could save in other circumstances, no matter how noble was a mission.

Nothing of that mattered.

It was just too dangerous and someone in her family might end up dead.

So she was deciding for everyone this was the end of it.

Someone will fight her, Sonohra first, but she would deal with her and make her understand and even if she will not, she would keep her away from danger anyway, even from the danger of her idealism.

But that was only if she managed to win against the furry dragon. Her enemy. Her nemesis.

An internal fire burned with the energy of a thousand suns, her determination lighting her very core and igniting her power to an extent she couldn't just reach these days because of her insecurities. But now these insecurities had been locked up somewhere in the back of her mind and only resolve could be seen in her golden spheres.

She was ready for battle, giving no indication of weakness. She positioned in front of them and directly against her opponent, her old fire shining in her eyes. Sonohra often described it for her to others as her trademark, or also a Fire-thing, when she fixed her mind on an objective and stubbornly persecute it until the very end.

That was why she had this. That was why she was going to win, to escape and save everyone.

For she felt, for the first time in weeks, like herself.

Fenris seemed unconcerned at her challenge.

"You again," he malignantly sneered at her. "Hadn't I already beaten the shit out of you more than once?"

Fire maintained her composure. "Did you now? Is that why I'm still here?" she said coldly. "You must have failed more than once in this case."

Fenris chuckled amusedly. "I like you, red one. Your determination leaves me intrigued and hopeful of a battle worthy of that name," he tilted his head at her, studying her curiously. "Can you promise me one, red one?" he asked.

"I can," she said. "How about a deal?"

"I'm listening," he sneered.

"We fight," she said. "Only you and me, no other. If I win you let us go,"

Fenris snorted, not at all impressed by it. "What if I win?" he grinned.

Fire remained silent for what seemed like hours. She didn't have much she could promise the other dragon, and on his side, there was little he could be ready to accept when he found himself victorious. It had to be something he wanted, something he-. The tension filled the area, easily visible even in its aerial form, and the most charged parts of repressed energy were precisely that of the two dragons, one in front of the other, who continued to stare at each other: one smiling and the other mortally serious when finally she proposed.

"You can have me."

Multiple gasps behind her told her that her friends didn't like that kind of deal.

"Fire, no!" cried her best friend.

The red female ignored her. She kept her eyes on the dragon before her to show her seriousness about the matter. On his part, the furry dragon seemed considering her proposal.

"If I defeat you, I will still have you and all your friends as well," he pointed out, his grin growing larger. "And then I can kill you all an-"

"I'll give you information," she interrupted him.

He stopped mid-way, seeming interested. "Go on," he said.

"All I know about the Resistance, and also about that of Blackashes. I know the boss, I saw him and talked to him more than once. I can take you to him... and with my help, you can detach the bull's head with minimal effort."

"Fire, what the hell are you saying?!" this time it was Ahmos who screamed. "Are you crazy?"

"Shut up, Ahmos" hissed Kohle's voice.

"But you didn't hear what- "

"I told you to shut up!" the black dragon insisted.

Ahmos fell silent and silence took over the place as Fenris thought about her deal. But he didn't seem convinced of the offer, so Fire used her last ace up her sleeve, hoping she could leverage the slump dragon's sadism to force him to accept her proposal.

"You once told me that you were going to take me to your dungeon and together with your master, you would break me. I'm giving you what you want without all this effort, but if you like it that way, you better keep me alive to torture me all you want, and that'll be easier without my friends around bothering you."

Fenris tilted his head at her again, losing his smile for a moment and studying her as she had never seen him do before. The red dragoness' heart lost a beat at the sudden change of expression of a dangerous and potentially unstable dragon like that. He seemed to be studying her very soul to verify, stripping her with his wolfish yellow eyes, making her shiver as if a winter cold breeze struck her all of a sudden.

Fortunately, the smile returned the next moment, even wider and scarier than before if possible.

"Very well, hot head. You've got yourself a deal," he said. "Show me what you can do," he mocked the fury male without even taking a combat position

Fire narrowed her eyes. Soon after, she fired a shot.

Fenris effortlessly dodged the shot, but that was only programmed as a distraction. In fact, by the time the shot had left the dragoness's mouth, Fire threw herself forward with her claws uncovered ready to strike.

Fenris dodged a second time and the red dragoness landed on the ground, crawling her claws on the floor and using thrust, wings, and tail to turn around. She then fired another set of shots, three, but at the fourth, she had to stop because Fenris appeared exactly in front of Ahmos and Kohle, and if he dodged, she could hit them.

Fire growled cursing the cowardice of the enemy. Fenris smiled mischievously.

"What's the problem, hot head, have you already finished the shots?"

Fire growled and rushed with a leap forward. Fenris dodged, but this time only to move out of the way enough to then attack the female by hitting her with his paw on the neck. Fire fell to the ground, slamming her muzzle on the cold floor.

"Fire!" someone shouted. Sonohra.

"Oh, that was supposed to hurt," Fenris joked as he circled the dragoness on the floor like a predator around his prey.

Fire wasn't done yet. It was barely the beginning. She rose slowly, spitting blood, then she turned again towards the hairy dragon. This time, though, she took a defensive position.

"Ah, we're on the defensive now eh?" complained the dragon, shaking his head, disapprovingly. "So depressing. You were much better before."

Fire said nothing as they began to spin in a circle in what slowly turned into a macabre death dance.

"I can see you're not what you used to be, and I don't need reports from other dragons to notice it," Fenris sneered, obviously referring, once again, to the dragoness who had betrayed them. Or maybe betrayed wasn't the right word since she owed nothing to them.

No, the actual betrayal was what she did when she panicked about in that cell, in front of an audience that could see their coverage and intentions, as well as their origins. It had all been her fault. Not Spaiha's.

"I can see it myself," continued the dragon. "From how you fight compared with before and, let me say, it's much sloppy than the last time we met and much less fun," he smiled, wickedly.

Fire continued to say nothing. She was trying to understand how to take down the other dragon by surprise. It was clear that Fenris was a skilled fighter, a swift one at that, but he had to be a weak point, no dragon, even the purple dragon himself, is unbeatable.

"No…" he whispered gloomily. "I can see it in your eyes…"

Fire opened his eyes, struck by that statement, and stopped in her footsteps, motionless. The opposing dragon chuckled satisfied.

"Oh yes," purred Fenris, stopping himself. "I can see something wrong with you. You had a fire in your eyes, something that burned hot, something that genuinely struck me about you the first time I confronted you, something that made me think whether or not to kill you."

Fire growled at this. "You never managed to kill me," she took a combat position again. "And I assure you, you won't this time either."

"I never really tried to kill you, hot head. How could I kill such great potential? So much determination and willpower! That's something you don't see in many dragons nowadays, especially in that bunch of idiots I work with who are at the service of the Empire." Here she could sense a shred of real annoyance in his tone. "A bunch of idiots who only bet on their elemental power rather than on their actual combat skills. I had seen in you a crude potential that could have been shaped to become a strong warrior, a worthy opponent," he sighed seeming genuinely disappointed. "But it seems that you have lost all of this, your inner fire."

"You would like that, you freak!" she thought as she ignited her inner fire and let the familiar hot feeling flow through her, making her red scales radiate with the power, an orange color.

"My fire is perfectly fine, thank you. I can roast you whenever I want,"

Fenris gave her a wicked smile. "You understand what I really mean, hot head," he said, "I'm talking about your spirit, not your body. Even now, as you are there ready to fight me, I can see it in your eyes, the void, the absence of it," he shook his head slightly, his tone turning disgusted as he continued. "You have let your worries destroy you from the inside. You have let yourself be consumed by your own emotions, your own demons."

Fire growled. "Shut it," she ordered. "You don't even know what you're talking about!"

"Don't I?" Fenris challenged. "Is not that the emotion that I see lurking in your eyes, the emotion that guided you through all climbing up of this Mountain, the emotion that brought you on the verge of breaking in Blackashes' arena?"

"You-" she tried, but she was interrupted.

"Tell me it's not that, hot head," he challenged. "Tell me, and I will let all of you go."

Fire watched the other dragon wide-eyed. Had she heard right? He would let them all go, safely? Fire scanned her nemesis' muzzle in search of a sign of deception, but for the first time, she found nothing more than seriousness. No malice, no threats or games, only gravity.

A trail of terror ran up her spine from her very heart. She couldn't tell the other dragon what he wanted to hear, because it would be a lie and he would know. She knew that the freak was right, that she wasn't like she has been, that she lost something during their trip to Warfang, weeks ago.

She knew that she lost her inner fire, just like Fenris said, and no matter how hard she tried to get it back, to feel like she felt back then, she couldn't and she didn't feel like herself, not anymore.

Fire remained silent and Fenris got his answer.

"As I thought," he said, impassive. "You have allowed your self-destruction, your potential all destroyed," he shocked his head, seeming honestly disappointed. "Such a shame. You could have been so much more."

Fire was about to say something, anything. She wanted to spit at the other dragon and say that he was wrong, that she was something more, more than him and the evil Empire he served. She wanted to say that her friends thought differently, that her family thought differently. She was more to them, and that was all that mattered.

But before she could even try and articulate one though, the furry dragon disappeared from in front of her, and reappeared at her side, moving fast as a wraith.

Someone yelled for her to watch out.

Fenris whispered in her left ear. "Considers mine as a gesture of indulgence," he said. "I'm just putting you out of your misery and I don't grant it to everyone, trust me."

From the flakes-free paw, a freshly unsealed claw shone in the little light.

Fenris's claw struck.

MDT - MDT - MDT

"Watch out!" Sonohra yelled as Phantom leaped forward to stop the furry dragon from killing her best friend.

Fenris wasn't a fool, nor was he the dark master's right-hand dragon by sheer randomness. And it is precisely for this reason that he managed to move away with an impressive speed before Phantom could strike him down.

"Fire! Fire, are you all right?" he asked observing how the red dragon was suddenly out cold. It was impossible but the dragoness fainted for no reason in front of them. "Fire, you have to wake up!" he urged.

"She will soon, I promise you that," said Fenris, his tone amused to which the purple dragon growled. It was clear that Phantom was eager to sink his claws inside that non-draconian fur coat. Unfortunately, approaching steps cut short his growl.

Fenris smiled cruelly. "You'll all wake up on the other side. Dead!"

A red light lit up in the darkness behind the dragon. Then another, this one of yellow color, then another green, and one still blue, and one more, one more, one more, until all the darkness was filled by a series of colors that meant nothing good for them from experience. The purple dragon barely had time to scream

"Everybody out!"

He threw himself on Fire's body just before those spheres of energy began to rain on them without mercy.

Sonohra shot back, firing her bolts of lightning to cover her friend's retreat.

Phantom was trying to shield the red dragoness, firing back his dark fire, using his wings to deflect opposing shots or shield himself.

But there were too many shots, he wasn't able to defend himself from them all, and she couldn't shoot fast enough to kill the shooters. An attack hit the dark purple dragon in the left front paw, causing the dragon to grit his teeth, unbalanced him from that side, and causing him to momentarily lose the defense he had created for himself and the dragoness behind him. That was enough time to die.

"Phantom! "she screamed.

Another loud rumble broke the sound in the hall and a rapid lightning bolt, on their side of the hall, reached the opposite one, deflagrating and killing with a scream of pain in an explosion of yellowish-white light. Soon after another blow, a magma shoot this time, did the same thing, with the same effect. At the same time, a large wall of ice rose exactly between Phantom and the enemy army, defending from most of the blows.

From behind her arrived Batch and Kohle and she too joined them on the ice wall.

"Are you all right?" asked Batch to Phantom.

"Yes, I guess," he grunted, trying to stand.

"Kohle, take Fire away from here," Batch ordered. "Use the window and bring her out and toward the little forest we camped yesterday."

The black dragon nodded and proceeded to drag Fire's unconscious body back to a more defensible position.

"Licht, go with him," she ordered the little dragon as she fired shoot after shoot against the approaching enemies. She was shooting a well-charged blast of energy fueled by her rage at the enemy crowd, eliciting screams of pain and death. She knew she shouldn't feel it, but she felt satisfaction at each scream of those ugly beasts.

Licht obeyed without protesting and by her side, Ahmos covered her and the others by giving energy to the ice wall he had created.

"I won't keep it much longer!" he grimaced as he forced the wall to stay up and strong, clearly draining much energy from him.

"Keep it up, Ahmos," said Batch before turning to Phantom. "We need you and your element there," he continued as he pointed with his paw to the part of the room with the window. You have to destroy that wall to give us a hole to use to get out of here."

"And what about the dreadwings?" asked Phantom, clearly uneasy by the thought of the nightly, dark creatures.

"We'll think about the dreadwings once we get to them," Batch said with a tone that meant no more discussions about that.

Phantom nodded. After all, considering their situation, it was better to deal with one thing at a time.

Phantom put himself in position, strong of the wall behind him that Ahmos was struggling to keep up for them, ready to blow some things up.

But he hesitated.

Batch noticed the hesitation and stopped firing to encourage the dark purple dragon.

"You're the only one who can do it because of the characteristics of your element," he told him. "Fire is KO and Kohle is bringing Fire and Licht in position. Mine and Sonohra's are not fit for bringing a wall down and you have already destroyed a ceiling back in the tunnel."

"That is the problem," said Phantom, visibly nervous. "I don't know if I have enough energy left to bring that down. I may end up only damaging it, we don't know what materials compose that build or-"

"You have to try," interrupted Batch, his gaze still but at the same time reassuring, the kind of look a leader would give to his troops when they were in a desperate situation.

Which they were.

"We will cover you," the leader assured him, turning and using the thick wall of ice to fire his shots undisturbed again.

Sonohra stopped to watch his friend. They shared a glance and she nodded to him her encouragement.

Phantom clenched his teeth then he began to load the blow into his mouth.

Phantom soon reached maximum power. He closed his eyes and then he released a blow that caused the whole mountain to shake.

When the smoke cleared, they found themselves in front of a giant hole in the wall where there was a small window. He made it.

"Quick! We have to get out of here!" cried Batch as he incited them to retreat.

She growled as the failure of the mission and the ambush the furry dragon played on them woke up a bloodthirst inside of her that asked to be satiated. But after she fired two more well-charged shots she complied and headed towards their new exit with Ahmos right on her tail, Batch covering their retreat.

When they arrived in position and Batch too managed to back thanks to their cover fire, Ahmos dropped the first wall and built another one on their new position to cover their escape. But he seemed eroded by such a use of his power and it was evident that the things he was doing to keep them all safe were leaving him torn out.

"And the dreadwings?" asked Kohle, showing real apprehension, something so much unlike him, no matter how she knew him well. "Although they haven't shown up yet, that doesn't mean they're not waiting for us. Maybe it's all a trap."

The concern was valid but, as Batch said, one problem at a time.

"We have no other choice," she said herself anticipating what Batch would have said. "We must get the hell out of here!"

Kohle stared at her and Batch for a moment, evidently not so sure about what they had planned to do next. It wasn't easy for someone like him to go ahead without a plan, especially in such a dangerous situation, and she could relate to him, but they had no choice. When Kohle finally nodded his agreement, at that precise moment, a thud behind her caught her eye and she snapped to see Ahmos fall to the ground, exhausted.

Murmuring a curse, she immediately headed towards the dragon lying on the floor.

"Ahmos, Ahmos, are you all right? Can you hear me?"

The other dragon looked exhausted but, apart from that, unharmed. He managed to nod imperceptibly.

"Can you get up?" she asked him. "We must get out of here before- "

The icy wall collapsed at that very moment, leaving behind it an explosion of ice crystals. Sonohra covered them both with her white wings but was quick to recover and get back into an attack position to fire again.

A voice from her side cried the purple dragon's name.

"Phantom!" cried Batch, suddenly next to her as she was covering their escape powered by a mixture of rage and survival instincts. " You have to take Ahmos too and get out of here! I will keep them off as much as I can!"

"You?" she objected between a lightning bolt and another, genuinely offended. "You meant us!" she corrected.

"There is no we, Sonohra," he said. "You must leave too before -" but he failed to complete that sentence.

"Like hell I do!" she barked, dodging one lightning shot and firing one back with a furious shout paired with it. "The more bastards will suffer from my blows, the better I can live with myself if we get out of this alive!"

Behind them, she could hear Phantom and Kohle taking off into the night. Knowing that they were safe and well gave Sonohra enough strength to resume shooting wildly as if her life depended on it... and in a way, that was just the case.

"Sonohra!" Batch yelled at her over the noise of her lightning bolts and luminescent energy shots fired by the enemies. "We must go, now!"

She concurred and she was about to go when an evil whisper, out of the blue, froze her on the spot.

"I don't think so, white one!"

A sharp claw flashed in her lateral vision, and she had just enough time to get out of the way and avoid losing her right eye. But the furry dragon wasn't over, as he kicked her in her side, sending her with her head smashing against the wall.

Her vision blurred, her head banged from within, and her ears rang. She could hear distant and confused voices all around her as she tried to come back up and stay stable on her four.

She heard a scream, calling for her. It was Batch?

Sonohra shook her head and squinted. No, the voice was far too young, as if the voice of an hatchl-

All the numbness that assaulted her disappeared as she connected the voice she heard calling for her with the owner of that voice.

"Licht?" she whispered, trying to understand why the little dragon that was supposed to escape with the others was there with her. But as her vision cleared, she could finally see and hear right, just in time to witness a terrible scene:

Fenris with a victorious sip was a few steps away from her, a yellow and blue dragon cub lying at his paws on the floor, helpless, motionless, lifeless.

A column of desperation fell upon the white dragoness. After that immediate, boiling, vengeful fury.

"NO!" she roared, throwing herself to the furry dragon.

"Sonohra NO-!" Batch voice tried to warn her from behind but was suddenly cut off.

She didn't care. She had only one objective. Rip the furry dragon apart and nothing would be in her way to do just that.

Sonohra attacked Fenris with all she had. Claws, fangs, shoots of lighting, everything, but the blow seemed to never hit the target, her claws and teeth never tear the skin and muscles and tenders, making her growing even more frustrated in that red cloud of fury that drove her forward, adrenaline pumping in her being despite her desperation.

But Fenris limited himself to dodge her shoots and escape her reach and she couldn't be fast enough to catch the escaping dragon and destroy him. He didn't fight back, he just smiled at her and that made her even more furious.

That was until a distant voice she couldn't exactly hear or understand ordered something to the furry dragon. He disappeared.

Sonohra looked hysterically around, trying to catch a glimpse of the other dragon before his tricky and cowardly plan of hitting her from her back could become reality. But she couldn't see him, and she couldn't tear him apart, all her energy going to waste as seconds passed.

All she saw was Licht's body lying on the floor, a few paws from her, motionless.

When a broken sob escaped her, she realized something she hadn't even noticed: she was crying, crying the whole time.

She was crying because Licht was gone. After all, another hatchling was lost under her watch because she failed again.

All the energy left her as she felt a sudden weight on her back she wasn't feeling a moment before. Her paws trembled under her weight and that moment of weakness cost her a one-way ticket for the dark void of nothing at the paws of Fenris, his evil laughter following her all the way down the depths.

MDT - MDT - MDT

"Licht, no!" Phantom cried as the hatchling jumped off his back and, spreading his little wings, got back to that cursed mountain.

He turned despite Ahmos weight unbalanced his flight just in time to see something that would be printed into his memory until his last day, something that he would keep seeing all nights in his worst nightmares.

Everything went so fast, a blur.

He saw Licht going for the rescue of Sonohra, backend on the wall. He saw Licht fighting with his claws and elemental shoot the furry dragon bravely, as he saw him too being taken down for he was no match for the purple dragon's right-paw dragon. He then saw Sonohra leaping over Fenris, screaming, and fighting as Batch ready to help was abruptly sent against a wall by a powerful gust of wind, the sound of his neck breaking was hearable even from his position. And then Sonohra was down too, right in front of Licht, by Fenris' direct stroke.

Phantom wanted to scream something, but it choked automatically into his own throat at the sight of what came after, or better say who came after to the astonishment and complete terror of the dark purple dragon.

From the darkness, a dark slim figure came out as if it was made of shadows. Her body was slender, covered in black scales and magenta scales on the right spots. The figure was elegant, and feminine, something that would catch the eye of every male around the place. But that was not what froze Phantom's scream in his throat.

It was her bright, mad emerald eyes looking right at him as they tried to rob his very soul. For a moment he got in them a glimpse of red, and primordial fear struck throughout his whole body, petrifying him as a statue of stone, almost weightlessly falling from the sky.

He recognized her, even if he hasn't seen her before, even if he has heard only stories about her, he recognized her. The Empress. The Empress of the Empire in all her splendor.

Phantom saw as Fenris sneered at Sonohra's body that was there, motionless, lifeless.

He saw as Fenris took her and dragged her to the feet of her master like prey just killed for her.

The Empress broke eye contact to look down at the white dragoness' body as Fenris was saying something to her. Behind her, Licht's body was left there, abandoned as the ape and grubling army advanced toward their masters, still wielding their magical blades ready. Next, his eyes stopped on Batch's body, laying lifeless on the ground, his mouth opened in a last scream for Sonohra to escape, his eyes wide open and off, dead.

The Empress looked up towards him again and as a glimpse of red passed through those evil eyes again, terror-filled him completely so much that it managed to get him out of his petrified state and put enough pepper on his tail to make him fly away as his wings could take him, getting closer and closer to the black dragon in front of him, and far away from the corpse of their leader and that of their friend.

"I'm sorry!" he whispered. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Hot tears started to escape his eyes hit by the wind and dragged away by it. He tried to wipe them multiple times, forcing himself to concentrate, concentrate on escaping and surviving when an otherworldly roar behind him sparked his terror even more.

Roars he never heard before but immediately knew who or what belonged to:

Dreadwings.

MDT - MDT - MDT

Ahmos woke up at the feeling of the wind whipping cold on his muzzle.

He opened his eyes to the world only to find himself weightless in the sky, strong paws keeping him from the shoulders, the sound of the wind whistling in his ears.

Where was he? The last thing he remembered was that he was trying to cover their escape, keeping that ice wall intact so that his friends would flee. It wasn't difficult to create the wall, the problem was keeping it intact for a long period of time when it was hit by enemies. He tried and failed multiple times in training with Cyril which the cooky Guardian called one of the most energy-consuming technics, and even more, the ice armor.

He felt he failed again, but from the looks of it, they were escaping and that meant that he didn't do so badly after all.

A distant set of demonic roars made him focus all his attention on the sky behind them and he gasped at the big, black cloud of distant dots that were chasing them.

Dreadwings!

"They're distant," he thought. "It will be impossible for them to reach-"

Suddenly, from the swarm, a small number of dark shapes separated from the rest of the group, faster than the others, and were about to pick up on them. Ahmos knew this was not a battle they could win. He was out of elemental power and he was sure the others were too.

The only thing to do was to go faster.

"We must go faster!" he shouted at the purple dragon carrying him.

"Ahmos!" said Phantom, sounding a mixture between relieved and terrified. "You're awake. Can you fly on your own?"

Ahmos tried to move his wings in the air. It was difficult, they felt heavy like pieces of stone. They would hardly keep him in the air, not to mention keep up with them.

"Don't think so, sorry," he apologized.

He heard a curse out of the whistling wind and then the purple dragon reached the maximum speed his wings could give him at that moment.

"Kohle!" called Phantom over the wind. "They're getting too close, we have to speed up!"

Kohle was there! Awesome! Maybe he didn't do that bad after all. They were safe. He only asked himself why the dragon wasn't reporting to Batch but to Kohle. Maybe their guide had ordered them to spread the news one dragon at a time.

That was until his best friend made a strange question.

"Where are the others?" Kohle asked back. "Sonohra and Batch are behind you?"

Ahmos frowned. His friend's tone was so unlike him, a tense and frightening tone of voice that the other male had never heard of him before. Besides, he knew that Phantom was closing the chain of their group as behind them there was no one, so the question was…strange. Sonohra and Batch were supposed to stay at the head of the group as always, right?

He could feel Phantom going tense and he did not respond. This certainly did not go unnoticed by the other dragon, certainly not known to be an idiot and Ahmos was beginning to have a bad feeling about all this. Maybe it was because he fell unconscious for who knew how long, maybe because he never heard Kohle so…so scared that it made him tense too.

"Phantom, where are they!" Kohle practically yelled, a loss of demeaning so unKohle-like.

Phantom whispered something that he couldn't hear and so it seemed that even his black friend couldn't.

"Phantom!" Kohle pressed, his voice full of a harrowing urgency that made Ahmos tremble as a leaf.

"Gone!" Phantom yelled desperately, his voice broken. "They are gone! Do you understand?! Gone! Dead!"

Ahmos's heart sank upon hearing this. "W-W-Wh-at a-are you talking about?" he asked.

"You heard me!"

No, no, no!

"Phantom, how-!" Kohle tried but Ahmos cut him before his friend could finish the sentence. "We have to go back!" he yelled. "We can't leave them behind!"

"No!" growled Phantom. "They're gone! You don't understand? The Empress killed them!"

Ahmos was starting to shake and trying to free himself from the other dragon's grip. He wanted to open his wings, no matter how heavy they felt, and go back to that Mountain, saving his friends. But upon hearing that name, that title he froze his eyes open wide. He tried and opened his mouth once, then quickly closed it, then reopened it again and this time remained open, softly open. He did not know what to say, what to think. It seemed so surreal and Phantom had not yet finished.

"The Empress, I saw her myself! She was there on Sonohra's body and had just killed Batch smashing him on the wall, b-br-breaking his neck!" The dragon was practically freaking out, screaming from the top of his lungs into the wind, no longer even worrying about what was chasing them, but releasing that tension he had accumulated in days and days of events that had filled him to the top. This was just the straw that had overflowed the vase of his well-contained emotions. And Ahmos felt sick, not distant from reaching the threshold of the vase. "If we go back now we will end up the same way! We must go on and survive!" he said and without waiting for any of them to protest, he went ahead, Ahmos dangling between his paws, unable to speak or think or do anything.

The dreadwings... they were no longer chasing them. It looked like they were just going back, even those who had gained the most speed and reduced the space to capture them.

The dragons wandered for what seemed like hours, and with the adrenaline taking its course, the young dragons were completely drained of all their energies. Soon they would have to land and have to do it intelligently, finding a relatively safe place to settle down before it was too late. They already had two dragons out, if they too collapsed before they could find a safe place, it would be over for everyone there.

"Over there!" suddenly shouted Kohle.

In front of them, in the middle of the thick bush, stood a very small clearing covered by trees enough to hide them, and holding a cave that had in front of it what looked like a small stream of water. A cozy place in normal conditions, definitely more welcoming in theirs.

The dragons slowly lowered their altitude until they landed exactly at the height of the stream. Kohle landed on his feet, while Phantom let him before he landed, failing as a hatchling on his first flight as he collapsed unceremoniously on the ground. Fire was still asleep.

The dragons managed to rise and take a drink from the stream near their cave, then began dragging themselves and Fire inside the cave just as night came.

Ahmos entered and fell on the first place he found, not bothering to try to find a good position. Absent-mindedly he could hear Kohle dragging Fire inside and taking her within walking distance of him, availing her as best he could, only to drop himself on the floor, too, exhausted. Phantom was not distant from doing the same thing.

For a long time, silence dominated the cave and the night, not even a wild animal or the wind dared to disturb the survivors of a terrible trap, and Ahmols, for a moment alone, could almost think that he could also fall asleep, for tiredness, to fall into a dreamless sleep that would protect him for a while from the bitterness of the reality that surrounded him. But his hopes were in vain, the problems were far from over because at one point Fire regained consciousness and opened her eyes and, of course, she would immediately ask what had happened.

But she didn't seem to have to since she immediately noticed the lack of someone in the cave, the lack of three electric dragons, one of which was her best friend.

Fire rose her head, staring at them with wide eyes full of terror as she asked that damn question.

"Where's Batch? Where's Sonohra!?" the latter name was shouted with more force and worried terror despite her condition. "And Licht?!"

None of them spoke, there was no need for it. Ahmos lowered his head, closing his eyes, feeling all the emotions flooding in and fighting the tears that were trying to come out of his eyes.

There was no need for a verbal reply. That was enough to clarify to her what had happened, and even if they knew what would come next, they couldn't prepare for that, not in a thousand years.

A desperate cry through the jovial and serene night, rumbling in all corners of the forest.

Other three, shortly after, joined her.

MDT - MDT - MDT

The doors of the throne room opened for the two dragons and above the big, black stone throne sat the Empress, staring at the purple dragoon with the same gaze a predator would at its prey, ignoring the smaller dragon that followed the bigger one as always. Fenris didn't mind nor disturbed by this treatment. He was only interested in the wishes of his master and, if these were one day to be against the Empress', he would have gladly fought against her, her army, and her spies.

He had no loyalty to her. No matter that he worked with her to capture the rebels. Fenris reported the info directly to his master and he ordered him to inform the Empress and proceed as she wished. Again, if the order was to double-cross her he would have done it without a second thought.

But he knew that such a situation would never come from his master, too infatuated by the black female who completely dominated him in his every action. Fenris never appreciated this aspect of his master, but he had never said anything against it. Like everything he did, his master knew what he was doing, and certainly, behind those two, there was an even more impressive story than he had seen in the few representations of the past in Warfang at night.

The two dragons stopped at the beginning of the stairs leading to the throne and there they bowed with their heads to the ground and their wings completely spread out. They stayed in that position for what seemed like hours. The Empress merely stared at the purple dragon bowed before her, her eyes wide and concentrated on his prey, glowing mischievously, practically stripping him with the only glance of all his scales, muscles, and tissues arriving directly at the bones. It was a disturbing sight to assist but, again, Fenris was used to all this.

The same was true for all those representatives and bureaucrats who always filled the throne room like flies, annoying insects always present, always looking for a small advantage for their own and not for the Empire itself. These pseudo-representatives of their species in the imperial council were completely accustomed to and aware of what their Empress did with the purple dragon and, after the first protests within the newly formed Empire for a relationship that was not entirely suitable for a ruler, soon these complaints ended after major repercussions. Or rather, definitely ordered by the duo but not done directly by them. Or so it was said.

At last, the black dragoness made an almost imperceptible nod and they could rise. She focused on the purple dragon with a toothy smile that was nothing but terrifying considering what that dragoness was capable of. She probably saw it as an encouragement, though. Or maybe she knew, and she didn't care. It was always hard to say when it came to the mad dragoness.

"My beloved, you came, finally," she said, in a disgustingly sweet voice completely out of her character.

The purple dragon shuddered visibly, as always was the case on these occasions. But he recovered quickly enough to answer.

"I came as fast as I could, my love," he said, lowering his head in a small bow a second time. "You wanted to see me?"

"Indeed, I did," she said, smiling proudly. "I imagine you're second did inform you on the way here," she said, a glimmer in her emerald eyes as she moved her gaze on him that made him understand the question was only formal and she knew.

Of course, she knew.

His master nodded. "Yes, he did my Empress," he said. "He spoke proudly of how you foiled an attempt by the rebels to steal the eggs inside the Mountain that the citizens of the Empire kindly offer to you, their Empress as a tribute to strengthen the defense of both the external borders and the security of the internal ones."

Fenris wanted to snort, but he kept it for himself. "She" foiled? That was not quite right, and his master knew it, but for the sake of politics and titles, in front of all the representatives and bureaucrats… He hated politics and bureaucrats.

"I would like to be the first to congratulate with-"

"No need to, no need to, my love," the Empress interrupted him, waving his praises off with her paw as if they were nothing. "We have much more important things to discuss."

The purple dragon nodded "Yes, my Empress,"

The black dragoness smiled graciously as a young dragoness of a high family would do to greet some guests. "We have new guests and they need to be taken care of," she said.

"Of course, my love," said his master "Fenris here would be the perfect choice for-"

"No," interrupted again the black dragoness, her voice disgustingly sweet, fake. "I have other plans for him as we should prepare because soon we would have to welcome more guests."

"Yes, my Empress," nodded diligently the purple dragon. "We're here to serve you."

The black dragoness tilted her head at this. "Are you now?" she asked.

"My love?"

"There was something I wanted to talk to you about, Spyro," she said, her smile turning from gently to a fang-showing sneer. "Something you've been trying to hide from me…again."

Fenris felt a cold shiver upon hearing his master's real name. Something that was rarely used, and that only the Empress herself dared to call him by, but that when she infrequently did, it was never a good thing for him.

"I don't-"

"Silence!" ordered the Empress as her smile only widened. "Bring him in," she ordered and she nodded towards the door behind them.

The doors opened once again, and two armored apes entered the throne room. One of them was clearly older, a little pale and he didn't seem to have caught too much light in recent years. Fenris recognized him immediately as the jailer of the imperial palace's dungeons. The second was a common and much younger ape of the many that served among the rank of the Empire's army. Both were carrying a young green dragon, slightly dazed for better transportability, but certainly not unconscious.

Again, Fenris recognized that little dragon.

They made their way to the throne before the eyes of all including the two dragons. Fenris rarely saw his master's emotion so much engraved in his face as he watched the jailer giving him a cruelly amused smile. Fenris narrowed his eyes at the ape as he and his companion dropped badly the little dragon on the floor, to which he grunted in pain.

The purple dragon's reaction was immediate, growling in warning against the apes and trying to reach for the puppy, but he was beaten by both a furious and desperate roar and something, or better someone, that as a flash of black and magenta landed on him from nowhere.

In not even a blink of an eye, his master was forced on the floor by the black figure of a growling, furious-looking Empress, a bladed tail dangerously position at his neck, just above the metal collar he wore, just enough to make him feel it but not to collect blood yet, a paw placed exactly in the holes he had in the golden armor above his heart.

His master remained completely motionless under the black dragoness' threat and Fenris positioned himself for combat, growling.

"Fenris, stand down," ordered the purple dragon from his position.

The furry dragon remained shocked for one of the few times in his life. "But Master-"

"Stand down," he repeated.

He stopped growling even if he kept his combat position, eyeing closely both the treacherous apes and the empress herself as she filled the room with her hissing, like a venomous serpent ready to strike.

"I heard you went against my order and kept visiting the…puppy anyway," she spat, real green venom generating at the edge of her visible, sharp teeth. "After what I did for you, after what you promised me…" she lowered to the male's muzzle, preparing her teeth as if she wanted to bite him but refrained at the last second. "You…" she hissed with barely restrained fury. "You…!" she repeated breathlessly. "You formed with this little one... with this nullity... a... an" she seemed to struggle to say the world, and Fenris behind them kept carefully watching, ready to intervene. After all the dragoness was dangerous in normal conditions, not to mention now while she was in a clear mixture of fury and despair, maybe both.

"You formed an emotional attachment with him," she whispered, sounding heartbroken. "Didn't you?" her voice flickered for the slightest of moments.

The purple dragon did not respond, and this was all the answer the dragoness needed from him to understand. With a broken roar that many inside the room had to put their paws to their ears to try to shield themselves from the sharp sound, the black dragoness tightened her grip on the purple male, slipping like a strange sea beast. Her paw was on his chest tightened so much that she pierced completely through the holes already formed above the male's heart and slipped her claws inside his chest. All this might have seemed as if she wanted to kill him, but Fenris, who was ready to leap forward and save his too-much-fallen-in-love master, knew what was all about: a demonstration of possession.

This was confirmed by the Empress herself as she lowered her mouth to the level of the purple dragon's ear, her mouth slightly open showing some shiny and sharp and venom-tainted teeth, dangerously visible, speaking with a tone of voice loud enough to make it understandable to everyone there.

"You are mine!" she growled possessively, her eyes wide open for fury, the blink of madness inside her emerald eyes enraging. "Do you understand? Mine!" she roared to the poor purple dragon who, however, did not even blink, completely abandoned to the desires of his dragoness. "You belong to me! Just to me! You're just mine and no one else's! Mine, mine, mine!" she shouted, looking completely insane at the eyes of everyone present, many of whom would surely have liked to be anywhere else less than there at that moment. "You belong to me, and I will not let anyone, least of all a small rebellious puppy with no value, take you away from me!"

The green venom on the dragoness's sharp teeth fell directly onto the dragon's neck below her. The sound of a sizzle, of something that fried and dug into the scales, could be heard by everyone in the room. Fenris wanted to stop this madness, to leap forward but he knew that action would do no good to his master as he was too entangled by the black dragoness like a serpent. He remained still, always ready, and hoping this wasn't the time the black dragoness finally snapped and gave in completely to her madness, killing the purple dragon for his doing.

He watched as the poison drops do their job and slightly blacken the purple dragon scales on his neck. But there already were many other black dots staining the purple armor, even older scars, and newer scratches. A feline smile appeared on the black dragoness' muzzle as she was watching them too. She must recognize the, as her marks, symbols that marked the male dragon to both himself and the whole world as hers and she looked quite pleased by that.

Then, her gaze shifted to her paw over the purple dragon's heart, her claws deep inside the golden armor, drawing blood staining both the claws and the armor. She concentrated on the dragon's chest, tilting her head and twisting her paw and claws deeper into the chest, probably almost arriving at his very heart.

Here Fenris started, believing the dragoness finally lost it, when suddenly the black dragoness lost all her anger and started to purr, lovingly clutching her claws in his chest, lowering her head on the male's neck to gently rub her teeth, now poison-free, on his neck, leaving behind chills and other recent scratches. His master still blocked under her was reacting, of course, shivering visibly with pleasure.

The Empress smiled victoriously as she kept licking his master's neck.

"Tell me whom you belong to," she whispered, nibbling his right golden horn with love.

"I belong to you…" whispered back his master, under her spell.

The black female raised her head shuddering with pleasure.

"Say it again," she whispered.

"I belong to you."

"Again." She ordered.

"I belong to you!"

"Again! I want to hear you say it and let the whole world hears it!" she roared.

"I belong to you! And no one else! My Love, my Queen, my Empress, Cynder!" shouted the male dragon back with the same volume and conviction in his voice.

They both fell silent, breathing painlessly.

Fenris eased his position. The Empress looked pleased judging by the smile on her muzzle, no trace of anger left and that meant that his master played with fire and survived again. Her squeeze on his chest did not cease, but the bladed tail moved from the sharp to the flat side of his neck, rusting under his muzzle, while her face descended once more to speak to the ear of the purple dragon.

"Prove it," she whispered seductively to him. "Prove that you are mine and only mine," she pointed her gaze at the same line as the purple dragon and the hatchling on the floor a few meters from them. Her whisper turned mischievous, but still dangerous and that promised pain and death. "Kill the hatchling."

The purple dragon stiffened upon hearing those words, opening his eyes wide with astonishment.

"Kill him," whispered the black dragoness again, this time a louder and with a warning aftertaste in her voice that meant she noticed his hesitation. "He is between you and me," she explained in a tone of voice halfway between the seductive and the menacing. "Your heart is divided between me and him," she growled, clutching onto that organ she had just named on his chest. "But you are mine, and your heart must be mine alone," she licked him on the neck, where the burn marks old and new were mixed. "Prove your endless love only to me," she whispered once more. "Prove it here, now, in front of everyone."

That being said, the dragoness freed his master and went positioning herself on her throne. She just sat on it, watching. Waiting.

The purple dragon remained in the same position as when the dragoness was on top of him for a long time which seemed indefinite, before everyone's eyes. But time had not stopped, and it was the sharp claw of the Empress who beat on the stone of the throne rhythmically that punctuated its passing.

Fenris had to admit that in all the time he had been at the palace and in the presence of the black dragoness, he has never seen her looking so angry. She's gone too far. He would have liked to intervene so much, to punish the black dragoness for the humiliation constricted upon his master, who was a decent dragon, a powerful one, but one in love. But he had been ordered to stand down and forced to watch as the only figure that always believed in him abandoned himself completely to the claws of the black Witch.

He couldn't stand and see how his master looked lost, it was so unlike him. His master was a great and fierce and cunning dragon, he had the power of bringing the world down to its knees by his only will and he surely didn't need the Empire as the Empire seemed to need him, especially its Empress. He was so much a prevailing figure, a deity in his head, that having to see him blocked and afraid to move a single paw, his eyes wide open and empty as he absent-mindedly observed the hatchling he grew to care for in front of him still lying and sedated between the two smiling apes guards.

Fenris suffocated a grow at that sight and he promised himself that he would personally take care of the two traitorous apes even if it were the last thing he did in this life. There were so many apes like that in the army ranks that two more or less would make no difference to the Empire. On the contrary, their disappearance would personally make him happy and he will make sure that these two suffered... it was the least he could do for his master.

His murderous thoughts of vengeance were interrupted by the purple dragon who was rising on all fours. He looked calm and secure as he moved forward. He looked almost the same as ever. But Fenris could see something else in the dragon's eyes, something everyone could see if they wanted to, something the Empress certainly could see from her position on the throne, and, considering the smile she held, she was also pleased by seeing this.

It was as if his master was lost somewhere else, not himself, separated from reality as he slumped around the little green dragon on the floor. The hatchling opened his eyes at this and upon seeing the larger dragon around him, maybe instinctively or maybe because they had tied during their time in the dungeons, he immediately crouched himself against the golden scales in search of warmth and protection. The puppy seemed as lost as his master was. He displayed recent wounds above older ones, a symbol that they had beaten him shortly before bringing him here. Large bruises, missing scales, dry blood, and considering his soft limbs and the attitude of the little one to favor the front paws to curl up, the hind ones could be damaged or worse, broken. His eyes, for what little he could manage to open them, were redden and tired, with some darkles below, a symbol that they had made him cry probably all night without letting him rest.

It was obvious to anyone that the hatchling had been tortured and, although Fenris was not new to torture and would do so if ordered by his master, he felt anger at the mere thought that a protégé of his lord had been treated that way without a precise order by him to do so. Those damn apes had done so under the Empress's orders, and they probably did it with extreme pleasure, just for the sake of doing it and at the same time defying his master as well.

But they would pay for it.

The purple dragon raised with extreme delicacy the little green dragon's head so that they could look each other in the eyes. The puppy weakly opened one of the two eyes because the other had failed to open and stared at the adult dragon in front of him, who stared back but without really looking at him. As before, the purple dragon's gaze was distant, far, far away, not really focused on what was in front of him.

Gently then, the purple dragon reached with his right paw the hatchling's neck, unsheathing one claw and placing it on the delicate green scales on his neck. The puppy did not even blink at that, immune and fearless to what was about to happen. Probably he was just tired of fighting knowing that he should have been killed a long time ago, or maybe he was showing his defiance, he was showing to the world that he would fight him and what he represented to the end without showing fear. Whatever reason it was, this little earth dragon has something that had attracted the attention of his master, and knowing him it must be connected to his inner strength.

Suddenly a flash of the claw, a sharp cut, and the delicate green scales on the hatchling's neck got separated from each other from one side to the other on his neck. The dragon gulped, opening his eyes slightly, even the most closed one.

He soon began to breathe with more visible fatigue, spasms going from the center of the body to the throat, letting out the blood like a small waterfall from the cut on his neck and leaving it to run densely on his green scales, staining them and even splashing on the golden ones of the dragon's chest in front of him, who however did not seem to notice it. From his mouth, slightly open, he began to drip blood as well that was brought down by the force of gravity only to join the pool that had already formed at his paws on the floor.

Soon it was all over, though. The little dragon's breath faded until he stopped completely with a final, little choked sound.

He was gone.

But his master continued keeping the little dragon between his paws. He didn't seem to mind the stench of death that was starting to spread out in the hall. He didn't seem to notice even what he had just done as in all of this, the purple dragon had not even blinked, still lost.

The little one was at peace and now his master deserved a moment with him, but the Empress rose from her throne right away with a victorious and satisfied smile on her face and she approached bright and solar the purple male as if she did not recognize the death in the room. She just got to the purple male lovingly rubbing herself under the neck of the still distant dragon, purring completely careless of the situation.

"You did well, my love," she said, proudly. "Now get rid of the body and reach me in my rooms as soon as possible," her face and tone of voice quickly becoming mischievous, and seductive, with a glitter in her eyes that meant only unbridled desire. "As you have proved me your love now, I will prove mine to you in my quarters."

That being said, as if nothing had just happened, she cheerfully got out of the room, happily wagging her hips for the male to see, her dangerously sharp tail moving as well behind her.

Fenris grimaced at the black dragoness' attitude. Everyone knew that it was important a moment of due silence for the dead, even for the greatest enemy, to respect his or her life, to acknowledge that he had been and that now he or she is no more.

But there had been no silence after the hatchling's death, so there had been no respect.

When the doors finally closed behind the black dragoness, for a moment the silence that the situation deserved remained the only presence in the room. The bureaucrats and other parasites disappeared into the shadows as they were accustomed to doing, and the apes got away right after the Empress, afraid of how the purple dragon could retaliate for their treason.

Bureaucrats, Apes, it didn't matter. Everyone just stood there, observing with different expressions but all the same doing nothing, and then retreated on the first occasion, not wanting to acknowledge the purple dragon's pain.

The two dragons were left alone in the room.

Fenris observed his master. He remained still in his position, the hatchling still between his paws, getting colder with each passing second, and his eyes stared at a casual point on the floor, not concentrated on it but distant as they had been for the past minutes.

But something changed and the furry dragon couldn't understand what from his position, so he got closer trying not to disturb his master in his mourning.

The purple dragon's eyes turned troubled, terrified, an emotion he never expected to see on such a mighty dragon, not in a thousand years. But that was not all, as his master began muttering something in a low tone of voice, almost imperceptible, gasping like a fish and repeating the same sentences:

"I failed it," he kept muttering over and over again. "It was right. I'll never discover what's on the other side of the lake. I'm not worthy, I've failed. I'll never…I'll never…"

Fenris didn't know what the dragon was talking about and he started to worry about his master's emotional condition as he seemed in a trance state that he was starting to doubt he could never break through.

"I'll never…I'll never…"

"I'll never…I'll never…"

"…never…"

Unexpectedly, as he began muttering, he stopped. Fenris let out a breath he didn't even know he was keeping. His master stopped, maybe he was right, maybe he was not so broken.

He was thinking this when his sharp yellow, wolfish eyes noticed a change in the eyes of the purple dragon, more precisely in his left eye:

The white part of the eye began to blush with impressive speed, while the purple iris began to blur and sway as would do the reflection of the sun setting in the seawater in slight movement. Then the water started accumulating in the lower eyelid until the weight became excessive and, as a river would do, from the watery mass a stream of salt water made its way down the valley of purple flakes to the chin where, with the same accumulation effect, too much weight caused a large drop of rain to come off and crashed exactly inside the pool of red and ferrous blood on the floor beneath him, mixing with it, losing itself in it.

A single tear.

No more came out.

Fenris turned to the doors to get out.

He had bills to settle.

End of Act 2