The Dark Side of Ambition

AN: I know this is rather short, but I do have a reason(-ish) for it. It was originally going to be almost twice this length, but I felt that the second half would've revealed too much stuff that I didn't want to reveal yet. So I decided to just leave it as is.

I also want to remind everyone that there's a poll on my profile for which Dragons Change universe story you want next. If you have a spare twenty seconds to vote, it would be much appreciated.

Edit (8/6/2021): I added a few sentences near the end to make things a bit clearer and to make things consistent with something that happens in Chapter 32.

Disclaimer: I do not own Wings of Fire. My OCs Aurora and the Spirits, Urfael, and Faredir belong to me.

Stratos:

The Spirit Realm was supposed to be one of peace. For those who died in the mortal realm, it was a utopia without responsibility. The inhabitants were free to do whatever they wished in any environment their imaginations could dream up. Some residents compared it to living their dream life—and in a way, it was.

The lowest peasant could live as a noble while others simply chose to pursue hobbies they either couldn't in life or continued hobbies they did. Despite the complex use of personal pocket dimensions, it looked like a sprawling metropolis. Everyone called this area the 'hub', and it functioned like a normal city. Those spirits who wished to have something to do would volunteer for jobs in the city. There was no monetary system to prevent division among the populace.

There were many things to do in the hub. There were stores and crafts-dragons and restaurants and bars and sports arenas and gladiator pits. Any form of entertainment imaginable could be found in the hub, and it would take a lifetime or two to explore the entire place. As for how it worked without money? It was quite simple really. In the shops, dragons could just take what they want. For restaurants, chefs would still cook meals and spirits would still eat them—despite the fact that food wasn't necessary anymore, most spirits still liked to eat. Crafts-dragons dealt in commissions, creating things that others hired them to make.

And since everything in the Spirit Realm was infinite, the shops didn't have to worry about running out of inventory while the restaurants didn't have to worry about food shortages. Other sources of entertainment, like music and sports, had daily shows and games to give spirits something to do while in the hub. It was also a great place to find old friends and make new ones, and it was the only place to hang out with them really.

Each spirit could choose to have their own house or to live in a single house with their family or loved ones. There were eight districts with houses—one for each tribe and one for hybrids or those in intertribal relationships. To get to the districts from the hub or vice versa, one simply needed to hitch a ride along the Spirit paths between them. Travel along the paths was near instantaneous, so there was no waiting involved to get to one's destination.

Each house looked normal on the outside, but the inside was a completely different story. The front door acted like a portal to a personal pocket dimension where they lived their own dream lives. However, since the pocket dimensions were personal, no other spirits could enter them. Hence, the reason the hub existed.

For most spirits it was a paradise.

But Stratos hated it. Every time he was forced to be here was absolute torture for him. The other Spirits tried to keep everyone equal, yet had he his way, the strong would rule the weak. That was the true nature of things. The one positive thing he could say was that he got to live in a palace, at least. Of course, he hated everyone else that lived there, too.

That hatred had been steadily rising over the past thousand years or so, but this humiliating position he was in was making his hatred surge to unseen heights. And it felt good. He had been feeling a change within him over the last few hundred years—a change only one Spirit had gone through before. His powers had been steadily growing along with his anger and hatred, but he had kept his abilities hidden from the others.

He had been debating whether or not to break with the Spirits and join Faredir for a while now, but something in his gut told him to wait. And he was glad he did. It seemed the Changewing 'Lord' had gone soft over the years, and he now doted over Aurora's pathetic Champion.

Which left Urfael himself. Stratos would ally himself with the fallen Spirit, and he would serve him for a time. But he wasn't content to merely serve. He would only serve Urfael until the day he became stronger than him.

And then he would replace him.

He was, quite literally, smacked out of his brooding by a smug Arena. "Are you paying attention, whelp?" he snapped. The Sandwing and Seawing Spirits had been escorting him through the palace to his quarters like some mere…whelp. He stopped moving and growled in pure fury, his gaze slowly turning to pin Arena with a hate-filled glare. "Don't give me that look," he warned. "This is your own fault."

"Arena, don't provoke him," she chastised the Sandwing.

"Why not?" the Sandwing asked, his own smug gaze never leaving Stratos' furious eyes. "He won't do anything. Aurora told us to kill him if he tried anything, and he knows he can't defeat both of us." Stratos stared him down for a tense minute before finally bowing his head. To the others, it looked like he was submitting to the Sandwing, but he could almost picture the confusion on their faces when he started laughing.

It started out as a chuckle, but soon enough it turned maniacal. When the spontaneous laughing fit subsided, he fixed his glare back on a thoroughly confused Arena. That confusion quickly turned to surprise and anger when Stratos grabbed the Sandwing by the neck.

"Stratos, stop!" Oceania yelled at him, but he didn't pay her any heed.

He kept his attention solely on Arena. The hatred he held for this dragon had finally reached its apex. He had suffered through millennia of the Sandwing's constant animosity, and he had finally had enough… "You think you can kill me?" he growled.

"Easily," was Arena's confident reply.

Stratos chuckled maliciously, closing his eyes and shaking his head in a show of superiority. When he opened his eyes, Arena's own widened as the first traces of fear began to show in his expression. "I'd like to see you try," he challenged, releasing his neck forcefully, causing Arena to stumble backwards a few steps.

"Enough, you two!" Oceania tried to intervene. Apparently, she hadn't picked up on his subtle cues, so he decided that more…obvious show of his abilities was in order. "We shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves! We—" she was cut off with a fearful gasp as he revealed his true power.

An aura of purple flames danced along his red scales, and he took a moment to raise one of his talons and study it with genuine interest. He looked between his two enemies with a smirk. "What's wrong? I thought you could kill me easily?"

Arena growled, openly hostile now. "You're no Urfael yet, whelp," he sneered. "And you won't live long enough to have the chance to develop those new powers of yours."

"Like I said…I'd like to see you try," Stratos challenged, all sense of humor gone.

Arena charged with a roar, just as he expected the overconfident Sandwing to do. Arena may have been the best single combatant among the Spirits, but that fact often went to his head. He usually became cocky if he believed himself better than his opponent, and his anger usually caused him to make mistakes.

Oceania summoned a shield of water and was no doubt waiting for Arena to make the first attack. The Seawing was a skilled fighter, too, but unlike Arena, she preferred to fight defensively or with a partner. And she had one fatal weakness. Oceania could only create freshwater. She could control salt water if there was a source of it near her, but she couldn't summon it.

Taking advantage of this, he used a blend of his new powers and his natural powers as Skywing Spirit to send a massive bolt of purple lightning at her while jumping out of Arena's way. He heard her scream in pain, and he risked a quick glance to see that she was already out cold. "She really should have known better," he snarked to Arena's surprised expression.

"And we should have killed you millennia ago," Arena shot back, getting into a ready stance once again.

Stratos didn't even bother. "You can't beat me alone, whelp," he pointed out, taking great satisfaction at throwing Arena's favorite insult back at him. He took this opportunity to show off one of the abilities he had practiced and perfected over the millennia. A perfect clone of himself made of wind and lightning appeared next to him—one he could control with extreme ease. "Or should I say you can't beat us." A second clone appeared on his other side.

Arena looked between his now three opponents warily, taking a few steps back as his clones advanced. He took great pleasure in defeating Arena without even lifting a claw. He merely sat back and watched as his two clones beat the overwhelmed Sandwing into submission. And it didn't take too long, either. Despite all his bluster, Arena hadn't even lasted two minutes.

He dismissed his two clones with a quick flick of his wrist and walked up to the downed Spirit. He pressed one of his claws down on the Sandwing Spirit's neck and lowered his head to better look into his eyes. They still held defiance—no surprise there—but there was no hiding the fear he now had of him, either. "Go ahead, then! Finish me off!"

He chuckled. "I'm not going to kill you, Arena…yet. Dead drakes tell no tales, after all. No, I want you to tell Aurora what happened. And I want you to tell her Urfael isn't the only one she should be afraid of." With that, he released the Sandwing, who immediately disappeared back to the mortal plane.

As for Stratos, he decided to return to the mortal realm as well. Since he wasn't a Spirit anymore, he couldn't simply pop down there, so he had make a portal using Dark Magic. It was difficult and used pretty much all of his power to make, but he was able to do it. Although, he probably wouldn't use such a technique again if he could help it as it took far too much energy to do.

Nevertheless, he appeared within the mountain range on the eastern border of the Ice Kingdom with a single goal and destination in mind. He took a moment to breathe in the cold air, feeling it fill his lungs and blow across his wings and scales. He had forgotten what it was like to be mortal—it had been almost seventeen thousand years since he died—though he wasn't sure that 'mortal' was the right term in his case.

It was almost enough to make him shed a tear. Almost.

He took to the skies, his powerful wings propelling him through the air, and angled himself northwest towards the Ice Kingdom's palace. Once he arrived there, he would find the Changewing in charge, and he would demand to speak with the only dragon worth speaking to.

AN: I know it's short, but I do have a question that may warrant a future revision to this chapter. I have the fight scene so short to make it seem that Stratos is much stronger that Arena and Oceania combined, but I was wondering if he seems too OP. Tell me your thoughts in a review, and I might change it in the future depending on everyone's opinions.

Until Next Time

AdmiralCole22