A/N- A lot of people have been guessing about a very important event coming up, and how it will happen. Your answer is below...

Chapter 13

Reconciliation

"Follow the blue star to the island of Ramandoodoo, lay magic swords on some table in the middle of nowhere to break a spirit's spell. It's official: I am in the company of the clinically insane."

Eustace walked along a crumbling ridge, kicking at the rocks as he lamented his "less-than-favorable" position. Unknown to him, his position was about to become even more unfavorable, as two unseen entities were following him through the landscape. One raced ahead of him and disappeared down into a ravine, lying in wait and playing with one of Eustace's strongest weaknesses: greed.

Eustace turned the corner on the ledge, beginning to walk past the ravine, when he got a random urge to look to the side. What lay before him made him freeze in shock.

"What in the world?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes in case he was seeing things. Looking again, the image didn't disappear. Sprawled below him was the ravine, and it was sparkling from one end to the other with what appeared to be pieces of gold and gems. "I must be dreaming. Is this real-" Eustace began to say, before he lost his footing.

Below him, the demon loosened the rocks in the ledge, causing it to give way, bringing the boy above crashing down. "Augh!" Eustace yelled as he slipped and rolled down the side and into the ravine. "Owww!" he whined, holding his elbow as he sat up and glared at the cliff, still showering him with dirt. He staggered to his feet and looked around, his pain slowly forgotten at the sight before him.

Filling the ravine were piles and piles of assorted jewels, shining gold and silver wares. "I must be dead," Eustace half whispered, eyes wide. He didn't question the sudden turn of fortune, however, and immediately rushed forward, collecting the treasures he could lift and stuffing them into his pockets and shirt.

He turned another corner as he skittered through the piles of riches and reached down. Suddenly he realized, however, that he was not grabbing hold of a cup; it was a skeleton's arm. "Yaaahh!" Eustace screamed, scrambling back and falling against a misfortunately placed rock stalagmite sticking up from the ground. "Ah-howwww!" he yelped again, rubbing his sore back and glaring again at the cause of his pain, and focused on the skeleton again.

"You're definitely dead," he noted, spying the band that wrapped around the dead man's wrist and reaching forward again to pull it off. "Then I guess you won't be needing that then!" he spouted gleefully, tugging it off and putting the bracelet around his own arm. He turned and began gathering the treasure again, the frowns of earlier replaced with greedy grins. "Finally, a favorable turn of events."

He spoke too soon.

HHHSSSSSSS!

Eustace froze at the noise, sounding like the rasping hiss of some giant snake. Slowly, he turned to look down the ravine from where the noise erupted, and at first, there was nothing to be seen but more piles of riches. But then, before his disbelieving eyes, the pieces of treasure deep in the ravine began to move, at first as if something was underneath them (which was a thought scary enough to send shivers down the boy's back), but then they began to gather together.

Cups, necklaces, loose jewels and coins rolled over and up each other as an unseen force pulled them into shape. A long, thin body and hideous spear shaped head rose up from the piles, composed completely of animated treasure, a pair of massive rubies like eyes turning to look through the ravine. "Oh dear God, what have I gotten into?" Eustace whispered, finally realizing that maybe it wasn't good fortune that he'd fallen into here. Then he screamed as the apparition focused on him and shot forward, mouth open and an unnatural screech echoed from the open jaws.

Before the monstrosity could descend on the boy, a blast of black fire shot out of nowhere, engulfing the thing, metal and jewels warping and burning under the heat as ropes of shadows exploded out of the very walls of the cliff, slamming the abomination to the ground and breaking it to pieces, the dark magic holding the treasure together finally dissipating and the treasure falling inanimate to the ground again. None of this made Eustace feel better, of course, as the ropes of shadow stayed, plastering against the ravine walls.

I followed Eustace along the ledge, and watched as he tumbled down into the ravine. I sighed and slipped through the cracks into a corner of the gorge, watching with only mild interest as Eustace became overcome with greed at the sight of the treasure played out before him. My mind wandered for a moment to the reason why all these riches were piled here. The dragons I knew certainly harbored no interest in the stuff, wondering why people coveted it so much, but it was possible that a species here used it for some purpose, much like Smokebreaths gathered metal for their nests. I had a different suspicion, however, along the lines of human intervention at some point in the past, or even some form of evil gathering here as a trap.

Eustace continued to blunder through the riches, reaching around a corner blindly and groping for more, and I barely managed to hold in a snort of laughter as he grabbed the skeleton that had apparently sat against the wall for some time now.

Before I could enjoy the sight any more, however, a chill swept past me, barely audible voices whispering thoughts of deceit and danger through my head, before passing in the direction of the treasure below. I growled lowly, trying to focus on where the chill had headed. Behind me I barely noticed Eustace muttering about "Finally, a favorable turn of events," completely unaware something was hunting him. My anger rose again, not only toward the thing I had felt and the fact that it partially confirmed my suspicion, but also toward the completely obtuse boy, still thinking this was all here by chance.

HHHSSSS!

The noise echoed through the ravine and I looked back again, finally spotting faint traces of the greenish mist seeping through the pieces of treasure, dragging a pile of it together with half seen hands and dark magic, gathering it up into a hideous image, serpentine in shape but covered with bumps and spikes, and a head that looked more like a warped spear than a snake or dragon. It focused toward Eustace once it was fully built up, and he screamed as it immediately bolted for him, mouth open and screeching.

Immediately, I reached out my snout and fired at the abomination, a hideous scream erupting from it as the gold and silver items warped, but it stayed in shape still, so I threw shadow ropes around the thing and squeezed, dragging it to the ground and slamming it down hard. Finally, the dark magic broke and the treasure fell again, harmless, but as it did so, not a chill but a burning hiss passed through my mind.

"You treacherous scum! Always in the way, you always ruin everything!" it hissed, heard only by me. I shook my head hard as the presence left, arcing away from the island, hatred radiating off the entity. Well, we certainly know who it has the biggest problem with now, I thought to myself, before I turned to focus on my original mission, the oblivious boy Eustace who was still staring in fear at the smoking pile of gold on the ground, still completely unaware he'd just avoided death and that the boy he disliked most had saved his life, again.

It was past time to finish what I'd come for, so I flowed out of the shadows in the cracks, covering the ravine over with black mist and shielding it from the sight of anyone who might happened by. Eustace backed into a corner, thinking he was being attacked again by the demon, and moved as far away from the swirling shape I'd become in the middle of the ravine as he possibly could.

"Congratulations, you're a lucky one," I hissed, earning a yelp from Eustace as he heard the raspy voice I was using, keeping my own nearly unrecognizable. "You were just saved from an attack from a demon in a physical form, and without a scratch" I advanced toward him, solidifying my shape into the unmistakable form of the Shadow, the swirling black cloud of shadows still surrounding me though still blurring the image Eustace saw. "However," I continued, "you've committed a great many undesirable acts toward many, even those who were directly trying to help you, and so a price must be paid, a lesson taught."

Eustace was shivering in fear below me, focused directly on my burning red eyes. "W-what are you going to do to me?" he squeaked pathetically. I laughed venomously. "You'll see, quite soon enough."

I rose up on my hind legs and spread my wings, the black cloud around me beginning to swirl in a column as I focused the energy running through me. I spit out a single flame of black fire, and held it flickering above my paw. "You are a greedy, intolerant, arrogant fool," I quipped, speaking poetically to appear more frightening. "You've acted through this voyage as but a hindrance, a broken tool." The flame began gaining light and turning in my paw as I molded the energy in it toward the purpose I had in mind.

"You've brought to your friends, your cousins, your comrades much pain, anger, and spite, and as for help, you've given naught. So, as it is the dragons, creatures of peace you have come to hate the most, you will now see the world through their eyes, and learn that lesson you need the most." The flame now glowed almost pure white, and spinning fast enough to appear a solid crystal, sending beams of light flashing through the dark ravine.

"Should you show that you have your lesson properly learned," I began to finish, "only then will I bring you back to your proper form."

Eustace was paralyzed with anxiety, and so he did not attempt to move as I stretched out my paw and threw the glowing flame, charged with power, straight at him. It settled directly between his feet, where it burst upward and flowed across him, engulfing every inch of his body. He yelped in fear, and his eyes widened as his limbs began to lengthen and change shape, patterns of scales forming along his skin as a pair of wings and a long, sinuous tail erupted out behind him. "No! No, no no nonononono!:: he yelled, his words morphing to a roar as he changed fully.

I gave a grim smile, and dematerialized again now that it was done, pulling the mist of shadows inward like a high-speed tornado, and disappeared back into the ravine walls, leaving Eustace alone to comprehend what he'd just gone through, and to find his way back on his own.

Once the black dragon had disappeared, the demon snuck back to watch as Eustace changed fully. As the boy-turned-dragon dragged himself away and out of sight, the spirit dropped down to complicate things just a little more, leaving one more small trick in place, to upset everything even more. The act that the boy with the abilities had committed would make things hard as it was for him and his friends, but maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance to make a rift that they would never be able to fix with the new friends they had found. And the demon knew, once a team was divided, the pieces all fell twice as fast.

A/N-Eustace finally gets what's coming to him. Though, the question now is, how will he cope? And how will everyone else react? Everything now rests on unstable ground...

As always, make sure to leave a review to let me know what you think! And your predictions about what comes next are always fun to listen to, keep them coming as well!