"Black Wings"

By: Vanpi

Disclaimer: Unfortunately all of the characters here that are from Dragon Knights do not belong to me. A rare thing, but I'm using them at the moment to satisfy my always-twisting imagination. - Usually it only includes my characters but this time it spewed this up and I'm unfortunately only along for the ride.

Parings: None so fare, and I don't know what's going to happen down the road.

Notes: The sentences written in Italics are thoughts.

"Black Wings…"

Chapter 2

Surrounded in Darkness

Kai-Stern's green coat whipped across the ground as he ran further and further into the forests of Kainaldia. His green eyes flashed across the landscape as he ran in search of the Dragon Knights. Demons everywhere were stirring due to the smell of blood lingering in the air, this only making the Blue Dragon Officer more intent on finding the three guys.

As he came to a slight clearing in this landscape surrounded by trees and demons, the sight of which he fell upon sickened him. Demon body parts where scattered everywhere. But most of all there was blood, and lots of it, everywhere. It was scattered all over the ground and even on the bottom of the nearest trees, to the boulders just hidden from view.

'God...What has happened here? Did the three Dragon Knights do this? Plus, where are they if...' His thoughts trailed off as he took a closer look at all the bodies hidden in the clearing.

There seemed to be what looked like two human forms spread out on the ground by two of the closes trees. One looked as though he was curled up in a fetal position with his hair a shade of dark brown. The other boy laying to the right of him had golden blonde hair with long strands that fell everywhere. Kai-Stern could tell that they were Rune and Thatz at first glance.

"Shit! Rune, Thatz! What the hell happened to you guys?" The blonde screamed as he ran towards their unconscious bodies. Thatz was in a small pool of blood, proof that he had been hit in the abdomen with something or someone that was trying to tare at his insides before he fell unconscious. Rune on the other hand, seamed to be the best off of the two with only a scrap on the right side of his face, although he must have been hit hard enough to get knocked unconscious in the process.

As Kai-Stern leaned over he picked up Thatz and placed him in his arms, as he lay there unconscious. The boy's wounds needed to be tended to soon due to the fact that they were still in the process of bleeding and hadn't stopped yet. His abdomen had been sliced into several times in a matter of seconds and with the way Thatz's body was laid out when he found him, the blue Dragon Officer could tell that the boy had sheltered it as much as possible before falling unconscious. Now, the brown-haired boy lay there in his arms as helpless as ever.

A few feet from Kai-Stern's dark green trench coat, Rune began to stir from his forced sleep. The side of his face was throbbing with pain and this was the only thing annoying him at the moment as he awoke. His ears had just seconds before picked up the voice of someone who sounded familiar. As he thought to himself, that someone sounded like... 'Kai-Stern!'

At the thought, Rune's light blue eyes flew open and darted around in search of the voice's sender. As he stared up into the trees he noticed the sky was a dark shade of blue fading into black with only the moon there to highlight everything around that lay quietly in existence. This sent the message to him that it was very late in the day and due to this he must have been out for a while now.

The blonde Dragon Knight looked over to his left to see the figure of Kai-Stern bent over, holding the limp figure of Thatz in his arms. From what Rune could see, the brown-haired Dragon Knight looked to be pretty badly beaten, with blood all over the front of his cloths and down his side. He looked so helpless in this position with his brown hair laying partially on his face that carried the expression of exhaustion written all over it.

With the mixture of this sight unraveling before him and the scent of blood mixed into the air, Rune began to remember parts of what had happened before he had fallen unconscious. A demon unleashed by Shydeman had come after them while destroying everything in its path. It had come up to them from behind with such a speed that it had caught them all off guard and in it's fury, it had killed all the demons in it's path. Even though Rune didn't get a good look at it before falling unconscious, he was able to get a glimpse of Rath fighting it before it lashed out at its victim several times, leaving the dragon knight on the ground. After that Rune had screamed out to Rath in hopes of a reply, but before he knew it the dragon-like-creature was on him and then something had hit him in the temple just hard enough to send him into a pit of darkness. After that, everything had turned pitch black for the blonde Dragon Knight of Water up until this moment.

As Rune sat up, he placed his right hand on his face where he had been hit. His face was now throbbing with pain to the extent that he thought that, in time he might get a headache due to the impact that had left him unconscious. Other then this, he was glad that a blow to the head was the only injury he had been given aside from a few minor scraps and bruises. Seeing the extent of damage done around him it could have been much worse.

As he sat up, Kai-Stern caught a glimpse of the now fully awakened Rune. From what he could see the dragon knight looked to be a little disheveled, but other then that, fine by all means, aside from the scrap on his face. The blonde's hair was now slightly dangling in his face and in the process, hiding a part of the scratch on the right side of it. Aside from this, Runes eyes seemed to be intently peering on the unconscious Thatz sitting in his arms.

"How is he?" Rune asked intently, not letting his gaze slip off the boy.

"Pretty badly beaten up I should say, but he'll pull through once we've tended to his wounds. But first we need to stop the bleeding soon so his situation doesn't decrease." As Kai-stern replied to the question Rune had let ride on the air, he then fixed his gaze once again on the sleeping boy in his hands. He was becoming more worried about him as the seconds passed due to the fact of how severe his wounds were even though he wouldn't allow his actual feelings on the subject to be cast into the air. He just knew somewhere deep, down in his heart that Thatz would pull out of this for he had come through with just as bad or worse scraps then this before.

Hearing the tension in Kai-Stern's voice as he spoke, Rune could tell that Thatz was worst off then he had said. Looking intently at Thatz's wounds, Rune could tell that they hadn't stopped bleeding by now and some kind of action had to be taken, and taken soon if they were going to save him.

Contemplating in his head, the blonde tried to think of any way possible to help out his friend. "Wait…what about my healing powers? I could use just enough of my energy to stop his bleeding until we get him to a safer place to stitch up his wounds, then he would be able to rest calmly and in time, recover."

With that, the blonde haired dragon knight slowly arose to his feet and walked over to his friends' side. As he bent down the blonde gently raised his hands and placed them on Thatz's chest while Kai-Stern closely looked on as all he could do was put all his trust in Rune's powers at the moment.

The Dragon Knight then summoned up as much power as he could in his body and directed it in the process of helping to heal Thatz's wounds, just enough to stop the bleeding. As he did, his unconscious friend seemed to relax just a bit in the Blue Dragon Officer's arms. Hopefully this would do for now, even though Rune really wanted to fully heal his ally. But, unfortunately, Rune had run low on power himself after this last fight and if he directed the rest of it all on his friend he might end up falling unconscious once again. If this were to happen he could risk himself of dying from exhaustion in the process without having enough power to survive at the moment. Plus, without any outsiders' help this could be tragic.

The tension in Kai-Stern's heart dropped as he saw Rune summon up as much power as he could manage to heal Thatz. Relived of this fact, the Blue Dragon Officer quickly realized that they needed to get to a safer place were all four of the dragon clan could rest peacefully.

" Now that Thatz is taken care of we need to get to safer ground for the four of us to rest. Wait, I said four, but there is only three of us. Where's Rath?" Suddenly realizing that Rath was missing, Kai-Stern's eyes quickly darted around in search of the black-haired boy. His effort eventually came up empty when he couldn't see any glimpse of Rath anywhere.

"Rune, do you think that maybe he took off after the demon when you guys were in battle?" This was the only thing Kai-Stern could think of at the moment except for the fact that he might have been dragged off by someone, but the Dragon Officer didn't want to allow these thoughts to fill his head at this moment.

After hearing what Kai-Stern had to say a confused look spread across Rune's gentle face. "I don't think that is what happened because he was right over there, unconscious on the ground right before I fell unconscious as well."

With this, the young Dragon Knight pointed towards were Rath had fallen only hours before and followed his gaze with his finger as well. Now there was no sign of their friend were he had lain as Rune and Kai-Stern looked on, except for the pool of blood in his place. Something must have happened after he had fallen unconscious. Plus, from the looks of it, Rath had either been dragged or somehow he had staggered out of the clearing from were he had laid due to the little trail of blood leading away from the puddle and deeper into the forest.

Coming to the realization that Rath was no longer around, both Kai-Stern and Rune reluctantly turned to the fact that they needed to get to safer ground and get their friend some advanced help before pursuing a search for Rath. For all they knew, he could've been dead by now and their number one priority at the moment was staying alive themselves. In dong so, they both helped each other carry Thatz as they slowly made their way deeper into the forest in search of a safe place to hide before Thatz was well enough to travel.

It wasn't long before they disappeared into the night as they went deeper and deeper into the forest, not knowing what lay ahead for them in the end. The moon was in a shade of the deepest red, shining brightly over them as they continued their journey in an effort to survive the night in this forest infested with demons around every turn.

"To be continued in chapter three..."

An: Hello! It's me once again. I really don't know what to do when with my plot bunnies when it comes to this spin on this story but I think its getting somewhere. Poor Thatz….-. I hated him have to get hurt. I hope that things start to look up for him further on here. Anyway, if your wondering; Yes, Rath will appear in the next chapter, I promise. I guess that's a little incentive to keep you guys reading for now. - Until then, I guess this is bye bye for now.