Kenji stood on a cliff overlooking his forces and sighed. "They're not ready for this." He thought as he reviewed what had been happening the past few weeks.

Kenji had been made a general of some kind of Special Forces unit designed to take out remnants of dark forces scattered around the world. His first assignment had been to destroy what had been described as lost souls wandering the land, unable to die and killing all that they came across. Kenjis force of one hundred "Trained" Cheetahs, two hundred moles armed with experimental hand cannons and twenty dragons had engaged these creatures only to find they were what Kenji knew as "Zombies."

They had fought valiantly, but in the end they had to retreat, half their numbers gone and not a single zombie killed. The zombies were originally cheetahs, slow and stumbling, but no matter what happened, they wouldn't stay down. A few nights later they heard the moans and prepared for an attack, only to find their fallen comrades had added to the ranks, even the few dragons that had fallen from infection rose again, and still able to use their elements!

During that second fight, Kenjis force was in chaos, they were shocked at having to fight their own brothers, though in the end it didn't make any difference, They found the only way to kill a zombie when one cheetahs arrow pierced an ex-dragons eye socket, dropping the beast. After that they had tried to get head shots, but it was difficult at best, arrows and even the hand cannons were too weak to penetrate dragon skull and the cheetah and mole heads were too small to hit with any reliability. Kenji and others trained in close combat managed to behead and brain a good amount, but every fight their forces grew smaller, and the horde bigger.

Now there were a mere fifty left, the moles all gone, and five dragons remaining. Kenji ha sent a hawk to Warfang weeks ago for reinforcements, but at this point he didn't expect a reply. This last night was worse, the horde had been bolstered with voidlings, creatures made of living stone, stone that absorbed all mana, element attacks were completely useless and they moved with speed and strength to match the dragons. Kenji had thought about pulling out, but his forces refused, saying they weren't letting these things advance unhindered, and Kenji refused to simply leave them to their fate. He would fight to the last man. They all would.

Warfang, guardian temple

I was preparing myself for the fight. As emissary… thing… I was supposed to duel Icera, if she won, she would become the new ice guardian. I reviewed all I knew about Ice dragons, they fought like their namesake, with cold precision, never making an unnecessary movement and every strike deadly accurate. Icera on the other hand from what little I've seen lets her emotions take over and fights like a berserker. She avoids attacks sure, but when it comes to attacking, she went all out, putting all her strength into every blow. I knew that was my strategy, if she didn't change her fighting style She would tire herself out long before me, then I would simply take the win by default. It was underhanded, but that was the entire point of the fight.

As I walked out onto the training field inside the temple, I looked around, all my friends were there to watch, Spyro and Cynder, who didn't know who to support, My siblings, Fever, Selena and their loves, Spyder and Ryan. Perrin, Jacy, Sparx, Shimmer and their son, Lumi, now nine. Terrador, Cyril, Volteer, Flame and Ember along with Hunter and Sei. I looked around, curious as to why Zoulu was nowhere to be found. I shrugged. The guardians looked troubled, too troubled for a simple spar. I put it aside and focused on my upcoming battle.

Icera walked out of the opposite tunnel and strode to the field in front of me. She wore some kind of clear armor, it clad her most vulnerable places, her neck and underbelly, as well as wrist pieces that covered her paws, lending large metal claws that gleamed with the curious transparency.

We stood there for a while, waiting for the other to strike. I could tell from her eyes that she would be my hardest fight yet, Spyro may be stronger, but she had more experience that him and Cynder put together.

Suddenly she moved, there was a blur where she was, then she was gone. I barely had time to jump in a random direction before she blurred behind me, I could see three glowing marks where her claws and myself had just been a moment ago. "That's not teleportation! How can she move that fast?" I touched ground and jumped again as her claws streaked through the air again, the whole time I couldn't even see her. The next time I touched I let loose a flare of light that even blinded me. I heard he stumble and shot a beam of light in her direction, making it as wide as I could. I heard the rapid pounding sound that meant I had made contact, almost like a muffled AK-47.

The next thing I knew though she was lunging at me, her clear metal claws extended and seemingly dividing my attack. I stopped and jumped into the air only to be hit by the flat of her tail blade, sending me sprawling. I looked up to se her diving at me, I waited until the last moment then teleported behind her and let loose a barrage of light missiles that exploded on contact. She jumped away with amazing speed, then blurred again, I had no time to react as I felt a colossal impact on my gut, sending me to the ceiling where I stayed.

I looked at myself in confusion; I was frozen to the ceiling! My midsection was encased in a still expanding sheet of ice. I looked down to See Icera coming up again; I turned myself to black mist and drifted away as she stabbed with those claws where my wing had been. As I materialized, I watched in wonder as the point where the claws had hit began to freeze, she pulled her claws free and came at me again. I teleported to the side and shot a light beam at her, She twisted in midair and countered with a rainbow beam of ice energy. The attacks hit and to my surprise hers quickly overwhelmed mine. I felt both hit me, my light blast was like being hit by a train, then I felt nothing but the most intense cold you can imagine.

As I hit the ground, I opened my eyes and everything was distorted. At first, I thought it was my vision, but when I tried to lift my head, I found I couldn't move. I was frozen solid! I started panicking and felt my oxygen quickly vanishing. My vision fading I tried turning to mist to escape, but I found no way out of the ice and solidified. Quickly running out of time I turned to desperate measures. I forced myself to calm down and felt the energy inside me. I felt deeper and found the chaotic swirl of energy was actually ordered by a perfect balance of light and shadow, yin and yang. I exerted my will, took the swirl of light and darkness, and separated it into its two components. The light and dark wanted to re-join and were creating massive energy to try to do so. I channeled it all outward and let it slam back together.

"JAMES!" Perrin screamed as she watched as he got hit by the ice blast and fall to the floor. She jumped up to catch him but Spyro held her back, shaking his head. She turned back to watch as he hit the ground and was quickly covered in ice. Perrin was sobbing as she desperately tried to free herself from Spyros grip.

"Perrin, get a hold of yourself, This fight isn't over yet." Spyro said, Perrin stopped struggling and turned to him.

"What?"

Spyro smiled. "If I know him, he'll find a way out, just watch." She turned and watched as he did that smoke thing, but couldn't find an opening in the ever expanding ice. He went back to normal and seemed to fall unconscious. Perrin heard Spyro gently curse under his breath and let go of Perrin. With a growing sense of horror, she flew across the field to James' side. AS far as she could tell, it was over. At that point, she broke down the rest of the way and started crying uncontrollably. Suddenly she felt herself violently yanked into the air by some unseen force and come to a halt next to Selena, whose eyes glowed with energy.

Just after Perrin was safe, the ice prison glowed with a color she had never seen before, it was bright, but seemed to be the opposite of color, and it hurt her eyes to look at it. Then the not-light grew until it completely covered the ice, they felt an amazing energy, as if all the power in the world was compressed into that one place. Suddenly it shrunk until it was a tiny point inside the ice, then shot out in a massive shockwave that shattered the ice, a column of pure not-light shooting to the ceiling, James in the middle of it, He looked like his dark form, but instead of black, he glowed white, his eyes inky voids.

James raised a claw and a spiral of not-light gathered into a ball, which shrunk till it was invisible, He grabbed it, then hurled it at Icera, She dodged just as the place where she was hovering exploded in a flash of light and a thundering boom, then folded in on itself and disappeared, creating a massive vacuum. Icera flew at James, who didn't move, but a wall of not-light came into being and Icera flew right into it, bouncing off like a fly on a windshield. She opened her mouth and a ball of cyan light formed in he mouth and ice missiles flew out, The storm made it to James, but a thousand vortex's opened and swallowed every last missile, another vortex opening behind him and the ice flying out only to shatter on the opposite wall.

Icera shot a rainbow beam and a larger vortex swallowed it, and opened behind her, she heard it coming and used her speed spell to move out of the way. She then focused on all her frustration at this battle, and everything Byancyra and the Dark Master had done to her, and prepared her fury, before she could though, James looked at her and suddenly he was right there! AS she flew from the impact she realized that speed put her spell to shame, she hit the wall and her diamond armor saved her, sapping her strength to create a cushion of energy that stopped her. She turned back to James as he reverted to normal, all the not-light dissipating, He Fell and hit the ground, too exhausted to move.

As I hit the ground, I prayed my bluff would work. I hadn't expected that kind of control over the chaos energy, I half expected to blow myself up, but I had let my instincts take over and my body seemed to know how to use it. On top of that, chaos seemed to make its own energy, so I was barely taxed by that fury. I extended my mind and felt Iceras mind; she was coming in for the finish. I smiled and turned to shadow just as she hit, I floated above her and focused on the negative energy in me; shooting a stream of black fire at her. It hit her back, pushing her to the ground and causing her own ice attack to imprison her from neck to tail.

I glided to a halt next to her. "Give up?"

The battle lust in her eyes was unchanged, however. "Never." She growled. The ice started cracking and before I could react, it shattered and hit me with razor sharp shards of ice, giving me several small cuts. I jumped back just as she swiped with her tail blade and in the same motion swept an ice beam from right to left, right where my head was a moment ago.

Icera charged me, using all combinations of element and physical attacks. I had to admit, she was strong, but I pointed out her weakness easily as she over swung, again. I rushed in and pressed my wing blades to her throat in an X shape. "You're leaving yourself too open." I told her. She lunged for me, jaws open. I jumped back and she tried to charge an ice fury. I sighed and prepared for it. As she released it there was a surge of energy and everything around her gained a layer of frost and an icy blue tint, then everything, floor and all shattered like dropped crystal, hovering and orbiting her like a deadly galaxy. Then it flew outwards at such speed there were several thousand cracks as they broke the sound barrier, As the projectiles reached me, they phased through me, my body turning to smoke and solidifying.

Icera stared at me. I shrugged, "What use are strong attacks if they don't hit? You need to think of something else." I told her, placing emphasis on "Think."

She then resumed her all out assault while I just stood there, every blow phasing through me, then after a particularly powerful ice blast turned my entire body to shadow, (It's weird feeling, I'm telling you.) I condensed the shadow into a solid sphere and rammed her, sending her flying a few yards. From the shadow ball I morphed back into my body and stood there, looking bored.

Icera came at me then, but differently, instead of charging, she walked toward me at an angle, Like a predator examining a possible meal. Then she moved in a blur and was gone. I was prepared for this and jumped, anticipating the attack from the rear, but it never came. Instead she appeared above me, claws outstretched. I transformed to shadow, but an instant later re-solidified. "What-" I started as Icera hit me, driving me to the ground. A mind numbing pain shot through my back and was gone.

I looked at myself after Icera had gotten off. My chest was once again encased in ice, six rends in my flesh frozen shut. I tried to turn to shadow but nothing happened. I got dizzy, but that was it. I opened my mouth and shot a blast of light that shattered the ice. I got up and started to prepare a counterattack, but my legs gave from under me. As I hit the ground, I was blinded and deafened by pure pain. I faintly heard someone screaming and forced myself to come back. I then realized the person screaming was me. I looked down, the ice gone, my wounds were bleeding freely, causing my weakness. As I moved my neck, I felt the terrible grinding pain again and realized there must still be shattered ice inside, shredding my insides like broken glass.

I quickly stopped moving and focused my mana and will to try and stop the bleeding, It only helped because my pulse slowed slightly. I was feeling faint, as my vision blurred I thought a word better left unsaid, then my head fell to the floor with one last blast of pain.

I woke up later in the infirmary; I tried to get up, but was too weak. I looked at myself, my smaller wounds were healed, but my chest was bandaged, a dull ache throbbing deep inside my chest. I groaned as I raised my head and saw Perrin and Selena walk over, they had been reading some sort of medical book.

Perrin reached my side first. "James, are you ok?" Before I could answer, Selena reached us.

"James, how are you feeling?"

I chuckled. "You two sound like doctors."

Selena smiled, "We ARE healing dragons."

"And I am a doctor!" Perrin said.

"Makes sense I guess." I said. "I feel a bit weak, and my chest hurts, but other than that I'm fine. What happened with my chest?"

"I think I can answer that." said a voice behind me. I turned to see Icera lying down by the window, her freezing armor gone. She looked at me, a fire in her eyes. "That was a great fight you put up James, but I'm afraid I'm too much for you."

"That's bull." I said "I could have beaten you and you know it."

"But you didn't, did you?" She said, a smile playing across her face.

"Can you get out of here?" Perrin said. "You did this to him."

Icera shook her head, "No, James did this to himself, He hasn't trained enough to learn the simple technique of gauging ones energy."

I looked quizzically at her. Icera smiled again.

"You thought you were testing me, thought I was fighting berserk, right? I wanted you to think that. I have more energy than you know, nephew. I knew about your shadow technique and knew you used it as an ultimate defense, But you don't even know yourself enough to know how much energy that move uses. I knew you would run out of energy sooner or later and just fought until you overused your power."

"What? But that's impossible! Right after that I used light to break the ice!"

This time it was Selena who shook her head like I was an idiot. "After that display of chaos back there, you should know as well as I that shadow and light elements use different energies, You have roughly the same amount of each in you, Yin and Yang. Positive and negative, Most dragons consume both at once to fuel their element. But you only use positive energy for light and negative for shadow. You ran out of energy for two reasons: One, That move uses a large amount of energy and two, every dragon has differing amounts of energy in them, and because of your heart, you have more light energy than dark. Malefor for instance had almost no light in him, which is why all his elements were tainted by shadow."

I began to understand why I lost, but something else bugged me. "Alright, but what about this wound? I would think two healers, one of them a spellcaster could heal this."

"Both of us are to blame there." Icera said. "My crystal claws left razor sharp ice in your body, the damage caused by them made it difficult for these two to heal you, that and your energy balance is upset, meaning your body will take much longer to heal and most of the energy they sent to you was siphoned into resetting the balance. If you hadn't used every last iota of shadow in your body, that wouldn't be the case."

I nodded. "So what? I wait for my energy to come back?"

"Pretty much." She said. She turned to leave, but at the door she turned and said "Oh yes, I almost forgot. The guardians have received word from General Kenji, He's suffered heavy losses and requests reinforcements, but only the strongest, so Myself, Flame, Perrin, Spyro and his family, a few others and Ryan will be heading out to support them. Ember will stay here to care for you." Before I could object, she said "And if you want to come, try standing, and then imagine having to fly several hundred miles in your condition." I grunted, then tried to go back to sleep.

Later that day

Everyone was ready to go, Zoulu still hadn't come out her room and just electrified the floor anytime someone asked her if she was coming. Spyro had asked Sparx to keep an eye on her. To which he said "Oh, sure buddy! Don't talk to me in months, then come ask me to baby-sit! It seems all I'm good for is menial labor! Why don't I ever get any action?"

"They're walking corpses that can't be killed, Sparx, and anyone they bite turns into one of them." Spyro said.

"….Never mind."

Spyro told Sparx to tell Hunter or a guardian if Zoulu left or a purple dragon that wasn't him showed up. After that, they jumped into the air and flew north, to the mountains. Unbeknownst to them they were also headed for an encounter at Iceras old home that would change everything forever.