— Chapter 17 —

Oracle

Oracle was standing for the second time in one day in the middle of the darkness, pressing tightly against the wall at the right of the entrance, his eyes barely even making out Moon's silhouette, who's pressing against the opposite side, and between the two of them almost as if it was liking the two Nightwings, there was a long black chain, both Oracle and Moonwatcher holding an extreme each, and they were both standing in silence. The chain curved upwards in an arc before the entrance, the middle section looking like it was floating mid air, so it's not visible at all from outside the cave, and the chain felt warm on their talons.

As for where did that chain come from, when they returned to the mountain not long ago, Oracle had got Turtle to follow him as they split up from the group, the two of them going back to the underground lake, where Oracle had awkwardly requested something.

"Hey Turtle, hm… I kinda need a small spell for the plan?" He had said, feeling Turtle's green eyes on him.

"I had a feeling you would ask for something like that when you clearly got me away from the others," the Seawing had admitted. "I didn't think I would be asked to do two spells in less than a week…" Turtle was able to see the wince in the Nightwing's face.

"I don't like asking you for these, I know what you feel with this. I'll assure you again that at no point you grow evil, you do hm… quite more magic and of high caliber and you're unchanged."

"That's promising to hear, but that's the future, right now I am still not very confident about this," Turtle had lamented.

"Okay so, hm… how about this, do something very multi purpose, like… "I enchant this rock to turn into a long black chain that feels warm to the touch, and upon contact it'll make Icewings lose their frostbreath and feel slightly weaker. Oh and touching this chain will always heal someone's soul, Oracle had said with a smile, and Turtle looked shocked by that.

"I actually can do that? Literally just do something to take away the whole drawback?" The Seawing questioned.

"Yep! Your gift is very easy to use to cheat the system, doesn't it sound nice? All these small spells you've done so far, if there was any consequence, you could poof it away," Oracle had agreed.

After some more hesitation, Turtle had accepted to do the spell, "Although, why just make her feel slightly weaker?" He asked curiously.

"Simple, it can't be obvious to anyone else that the chain is magical, it's a little extra for a small advantage, maybe the extra push we need for sure victory."

After some moments they both saw as a rock extended into a long black chain held on his webbed talons.

"You're touching it, feeling any different?" Oracle had asked then.

"Hm, to be fully honest… I feel the same," he replied to that.

"Good, so that just means your soul is as pure as always," Oracle quite liked the expression that appeared on Turtle's face after he said that.

Afterwards they ignored the questions of where they found it, saying Oracle just knew and they didn't question it for now.

Dragons waiting out in the dark inside Starflight's cave looks weird, but at least the blind dragon isn't actually there of course, so they just waited, holding their breaths until eventually they heard the sound of talons stepping softly against the rocky surface. And then it was even more subtle, but they heard three successive steps against the ground.

That's the signal, he locked eyes with Moon and she gave a small nod, and among the darkness of this cave they saw white scales as a head is peeking inside.

And now they both gave a small tug to their respective side of the chain, and the trap springs into motion.

Kinkajou, who's been camouflaged in the darkness on the wall above the entrance, and still is camouflaged currently, dropped down, not landing atop the head or the neck since its covered with tall upward spikes, but she had still dropped right by the side and the chain had made contact with the base of the neck.

Icicle roared angered and that's when the two Nightwings rushed forward, running past each other and right below her nose to start getting a tighter grasp with the chain, but she wasn't just going to sit still and let them do that, it's dark in here but she had heard the steps right in front of her so she had quickly raised a talon and slashed, that actually left nasty cuts across a side of her body before she moved away and she let out a pained cry.

Hearing that, it appears like it got a reaction out of Winter, who had just remained still for these 3 seconds since Icicle stepped in, just hearing what had unfolded in these quick seconds, but when Moon got slashed, suddenly from behind his sister he had tackled her from behind and pushed her fully into the cave, with him at the entrance to hopefully block the exit, and that made Icicle let out a deep growl.

"Traitor," she spat out, but didn't have time to say much more, since Oracle seeing the hit that Moonwatcher had received had bolted over, going straight below her and had raised a talon to slash right at her underbelly. Instinctively she had quickly moved one of her front talons forcefully to below her, but the small foe had assumed something like that would happen and had jumped off to a side, narrowly dodging that.

Then she felt sudden pressure on her neck as something had grabbed the extremes of the black chain at her sides and done a quick knot, Icicle couldn't see what it was even as a silhouette or a blur, but she had moved her head back and lunged with it forward to strike with it and her horns, whatever it was it yelped in pain and got sent flying towards a wall, she tried to use her frostbreath straight towards that direction, and found herself unable to do it.

She had felt the chain was quite warm, not pleasing at all, but she didn't think it was that hot that it should have left her unable to use her breath weapon, that probably didn't make a single ounce of sense to her.

Oracle tried to keep the attention on himself, Moon and Kinkajou had received quite the hit each so he had to give them a few moments at least, so he tried to get Icicle off balance with some distance so he did a quick turn to hit one of her hind legs with his tail. Not as thick as a tree so maybe this will work. He thought, and Icicle did indeed stumble for just a second but a mere moment later the end of her tail had come down and its spikes had painfully pierced on Oracle's tail, which made him be the one to cry out in pain now, she pressed harder with her tail, piercing through his tail and starting to draw out significant amounts of blood.

But she got interrupted when a sudden invisible weight had tackled against her side, it wasn't big but it was still enough to throw her off balance sideways slightly, the pressure against the Nightwing's tail had lowered, and he took this moment to turn his neck and breath out a small burst of fire, part of it reached his own tail which made him yelp in pain from his own fire, but at the same time it left some burns on Icicle's tail, which made her howl in pain and have to move her tail, which let Oracle move out of the way.

Icicle was getting even more angry, fighting several opponents in the dark that are managing to hit her and get her off balance several times is incredibly frustrating obviously. and her frostbreath was disabled, so she could blame one particular dragon.

She made a quick turn, eyes filled with rage, and charged against Winter, tackling him down to the ground. Her brother tried to fight back and get her off, but Icicle had him beat in the strength department.

"I can't believe you'd lie to me, using Hailstorm's name, somehow knowing what I've been doing, you're a disgrace, he could die because of your incompetence." She snarled quickly, and was about to claw at his face when suddenly something warm had pushed her off Winter and against a wall.

Qibli had been on wait at a side from another hallway, meant to get to her if she left the cave, he had raised his tail threateningly, but Icicle was being quick to struggle, moving her body to try freeing herself from the Sandwing's grasp and she managed to shake him off for a moment, which she took to aim her claws for his neck, he barely moved his head back to not get it sliced, but it still ended with some cuts.

And that's when Icicle hit the ground after a big brown thing had jumped down on her and slammed her against the floor, she hit her head with that and tried to wriggle free, but the Mudwing's weight was a lot and he was holding her with fierce determination in his eyes.

"It's over, nobody is going to die here," Umber spoke, glaring at her, it was obvious that after Sora's tale, knowing he had his sister's killer pinned down must have made him feel several different things at once.

Icicle struggled to no avail, she was completely pinned, could barely even move her talons, her frostbreath was disabled, she had lost.

She could very slightly turn her head at most, and so she saw three dragonets stepping out of the cave, two Nightwings and a Rainwing, Moon and Oracle were moving slowly, blood dripping from her side and from his tail. Kinkajou had a talon on her head, clearly feeling a big headache after slamming a wall. Meanwhile Qibli was at a side, softly rubbing his neck.

Winter had stood up when Qibli first appeared earlier, watching this scene with heavy breathing and an expression that Oracle couldn't decipher, he wondered what things Moon might be reading from his mind right now, what is he feeling?

He didn't have much time to wonder about that as steps were coming closer, there Tsunami and Sunny were heading towards the hallway, talking to each other, probably planning to go to their respective rooms to sleep, then they both stopped when they saw what's in front of them.

"What's going on here!?" Tsunami exclaimed, absolutely baffled as she stepped closer.

"Oh three moons, are you all okay? That's a lot of blood," Sunny asked with worry.

"H-Hm… can you bring Clay and Starflight over here? There is a lot to explain…" Oracle whispered, breathing heavily.

"Ah no, you are going to the infirmary, many of you clearly need some medical care right now," Sunny shook her head, pointing at them with a talon.

"Fine… could we talk in the infirmary then? And Icicle… she needs to be tied down or something, she was planning several murders," The small Nightwing announced, making Sunny jump back in surprise, and Tsunami stared down at the Icewing in anger.

"Seems like we got a lot of talking to do…" Tsunami grumbled to herself.

"Maybe get someone like Peril to watch over her for now," Turtle said, suddenly appearing behind them.

"And what are you doing here?" Tsunami asked surprised.

"Hm, I think I was meant to be something like the backup of the backup of the backup if somehow neither Qibli and Umber could stop her," He explained and Tsunami sighed.

"Indeed it seems like there's a lot of explaining to do, I'll ask Peril for help watching over and then we'll all talk at the infirmary," Sunny stated and walked back to search for the Skywing.

Oracle looked a bit at Winter, who winced. "And I… will stay here, I need to tell some stuff to my sister."

The next hour had been filled with awkwardness, some silence then awkward silence at the infirmary.

Moon and Oracle had quickly been patched up to stop the blood from flowing freely out of their cuts, and they had lost a good amount due to how deep an Icewing's claws can cut, and Qibli was resting at their side, being told by the healers to not talk much for some hours due to the injury on his neck, Oracle was sure that if Winter was here, he'd be a bit happy to hear the Sandwing was forced to not speak for a little time.

Oh and the Nightwings had agreed to tell everything to the founders. Well not quite everything in Oracle's case, he wasn't going to say anything about Turtle, Darkstalker, his lack of powers and his true identity, so he explained how he knew details of the future, what happened with Sora and the bomb, what was going to happen with Icicle.

Clay had fallen into deep silence and thought when Oracle explained the situation with Sora, and the Nightwing looked awkward and nervous.

"P-Please don't punish her too harshly, technically she didn't hurt anyone this time, she… did still place a bomb and scare others, but I know she regrets it now, let her stay at the academy," the Nightwing had pleaded for her.

"We are going to have to discuss what to do more thoroughly later, it's quite an odd situation," Starflight had replied while Clay still looked guilty and saddened.

When they finished their joint tale, the founders had been looking at them in thought.

"This is… really a lot to take in, first we learn that Nightwing powers aren't real, and now we have two that joined the same day with future sight, and one with mind reading," Starlfight was the first to speak, rubbing his head.

"Gah why can't the world just stick already to what the Nightwings can or can't do? And so now suddenly foresight is real? Ugh that means there could be more prophecies," Tsunami said with an annoyed tone.

"Sorry, can't really control that part," Oracle had apologized with a small shrug.

"What should we do with Icicle?" Sunny asked, worried, and clearly trying to not turn prophecies into the main topic.

"Probably should send a letter to Queen Glacier to tell she's been detained, but huh, also add that she might want to wait some weeks before asking for her return, as Prince Winter will bring back something amazing?" Oracle suggested.

"So he's going to leave? I don't know what the Icewings will think about that," Starflight said, he probably would've frowned.

The small Nightwing made the small decision to not comment right now that there would probably be more than only one temporary departure from Jade Mountain Academy.

Moon, Oracle and Qibli were allowed out of the infirmary the next morning after they all got enough rest, Kinkajou had left the previous night as she didn't get as hurt. And Qibli was able to talk normally again although the scars on his neck will remain.

"They'll fit nicely with my other scar, these just help at making me look even tougher," the Sandwing had joked with his usual humor.

Turtle had appeared to greet them, and during a moment he had shot Oracle a small look, subtly rubbing his leg where the armband is at, giving a glance at Moon, and the tiny Nightwing understood right away what he meant, the message was clear enough. "Should she know?"

So far, only Turtle and he knew about the Skyfire's mind-reading blocking properties, and just yesterday is when Turtle learned that Moon can read most minds besides of course theirs. The previous day, during the planning to deal with Icicle, Turtle had approached to ask in whispers about the whole mind reading business and asked if he was able to read them too, which he refused.

"We're the only ones that know the counter, but probably, very soon we'll have to tell her as a sign of trust, that will be important," Oracle assured back then, and the conversation had ended there.

Now, Turtle had approached Moon. "Hey, do you think we could talk for two minutes about something? It'd be quick," Turtle asked, a bit puzzled, Moon nodded and followed after him, Oracle could tell he took the path to the underground lake.

So that left Oracle with Qibli, he looked at the Sandwing now.

"So, should we go talk to your best friend for life?" He asked while heading towards the hall of sleeping caves.

"Of course, he needs my moral support after the whole ordeal with his sister." Qibli replied with a tone that Oracle didn't actually know if he was serious about that or not.

The Nightwing simply gave a nod and they went to Qibli and Winter's cave, Winter was laying down and even when lying down he looked angry and bitter.

"Hey, Winter? We're all fine and out now." Oracle called out softly, the icy dragon quickly getting up and approaching.

"You're up… I guess that's good," he muttered now.

"Hey, aren't you happier to see your clawmate after a full night at the infirmary?" Qibli asked with a smile and Winter huffed.

"Keep dreaming," the Icewing promptly responded.

"How did it go… with her? That last part of the plan?" Oracle asked, shuffling nervously on his feet.

"..." Winter let out a sigh "I think that it worked…"

For the final step of Oracle's plan, it was of utmost importance that Winter would talk to her sister before she ended asleep, and he'd have to convince her to lie. Specifically, to lie to Scarlet.

"This is extremely important, or else I don't know how long your brother will have if Scarlet may believe Icicle is trapped and out of business, you have to convince her to lie to Scarlet, to tell her she shared the whole plan with you and that you'll need some days to kill one of these dragonets, like maybe say you'll go after Glory, Scarlet hates her and should know you'd need some time to get into the rainforest," Oracle had said the previous day to Winter, this outcome may end better for Icicle and it saves everyone about four days, but they still needed to be cautious when it comes to saving Hailstorm.

"I tried very hard to convince her that I'd take over and find Hailstorm, and that she must say I'll deal with the dragonets to Scarlet or else he'll die…" Winter muttered. "If she wasn't tied down I'm sure she would've attacked me, but eventually she grumbled before falling asleep… she moved and talked at times in dreams, and a hour ago I checked on her and she said "You already are the most disappointing Icewing to exist, but you better not fail, or he'll be gone again, all because of you." He looked down after saying that.

Qibli gave him a sympathetic look. "Hey cheer up, you know exactly where he's being held, right? So it shouldn't be an issue to reach him in a little time," That was the most honest thing that Oracle has heard Qibli tell Winter since his arrival.

"I don't actually know yet…" He grumbled, staring at Oracle. "He needs to tell me, and now, then I can search for Hailstorm," The small Nightwing took a small step back after that.

"Yeah so… I know you'll just immediately take off after I give you the details, so I can't quite do that…" Winter took a menacing step towards him and he quickly continued. "Because you won't be going alone and I don't want to chase after you," he finished.

"What?" He raised an eyebrow at that. "I don't think you can tell me who's going with me or not."

"Well actually since I am the only one that knows where your brother is, and I've seen the future where you literally end in a group, I actually can," Oracle stood his ground and looked at Qibli. "Yo, Qibli, would you like to join this quest?" The Sandwing immediately gave a big grin.

"Are you joking? You want him to join?" Winter grumbled, staring down at these two.

"Yes and hm… I am betting that soon you'll see more members of the group coming over to check, everyone in the group heard the plan, you'll see soon who wants to come along or not," Oracle assured and Winter had hissed at him due to this waste of time.

Oracle was right, after some time, more dragons were coming over this way, Kinkajou arriving first as she was nearest, moving excitedly.

Then it was Turtle and Moon, based on their expressions, Oracle could tell that Turtle had revealed the meaning behind their blocked minds.

Oracle shot a small grin at Winter "So, I assume you're here because you want to help out our dear prince Winter to find his lost brother, right?"

"Well of course! Winter is… cool and part of our winglet and that!" Kinkajou replied, and Oracle recalled, based on Moon's mind reading during her book, that the Rainwing found Winter… handsome.

"I want to help, as Kinkajou said, he's part of our winglet, and he can't just possibly go alone against Scarlet if she's there," Moon agreed.

"So hm… normally I'd just prefer to sit back but I think I could maybe try going too?" Turtle had said kinda anxiously and Oracle gave him a surprised expression, he normally didn't join the team until two books later!

"Well, prince, it seems like you'll have a nice full party going with you." Oracle said happily and Winter just huffed. "And hm, I wanted to ask… what do you plan to do with your… pet?"

"... I think I'll have to release him in the wild, I can't just bring him around wherever I go, but I can't leave him here to get eaten either," Winter answered.

"I… could take care of him if you want," another voice suddenly appeared, speaking in a whisper, and now everyone turned to Sora.

"You…" Winter grumbled, taking a step closer to her. "What do you mean take care of him? Why should I trust you with anything? I don't think scavengers are very good explosives," he snarled with absolute sarcasm, but Sora didn't step back.

"I… know that it matters a lot to you, and also it seems to matter to Moon and Oracle, I want to start making up for what I've done…" She said softly and sadly.

Winter was about to retort coldly, but Oracle stepped in. "Winter, as much as I highly disagree with keeping… Scavengers in cages, just dropping him wherever and hoping for the best is not the way in a continent like this…" He admitted. "So maybe for now you could try to believe in Sora that she'll keep him safe? Either that or he might just get devoured out in the wild by another animal or dragon, if I were a scavenger, getting protection from a dragon would be wonderful." Winter still looked doubtful so he added. "If you want, I could write down a list for Sora so she knows what's good and what to do with your scavenger, or will you question my scavenger knowledge too?" He said with a shrug.

Winter grumbled to himself and admitted defeat, giving a small reluctant nod, Oracle nodded back and ran into his cave to write some stuff down in a scroll, then he gave it to Sora.

"Just follow these instructions and it should be all good, that sounds alright?" He asked, and the Mudwing gave a nod, starting to read the scroll.

With that done, Winter and the others began to walk towards the Great Hall to leave the mountain, Oracle lingered a bit to see Sora read the scroll, wanting to see her reaction to a certain part.

And indeed soon enough she raised an eyebrow and looked at him, tapping the very last thing on the list with a claw as Oracle giggled. "I am very sure that Winter would absolutely love it, imagine his face, they're smarter than you believe, so at least give it a try, holding stuff or pointing at things and repeating yourself, trust me." He said amused, the last thing on the list said Try to teach him some words in Dragon.

Oracle caught up with the others at the Great Hall, nobody else was around this early in the morning, and as he approached he could see Moon acting oddly, sometimes gazing at nothing, and softly rubbing her head at times.

It must be Darkstalker, he argued with her on the original timeline, trying to stop her from going away. He might be insisting right now, hey… we all joined Winter in a different spot, here instead of in the woods some miles away, so will she…?

Suddenly, Moon had staggered back with a cry on the way to the exit, everyone turned to look at her as she fell to the ground.

"Moon!?" Kinkajou quickly approached her with a leap, trying to help her up, to no avail, it looked like her head had a massive migraine with how she placed her talons over it, and then words with a strange intonation came out of her mouth.

Oracle felt a rush of curiosity, surprise, relief and… deep down, some disappointment upon hearing the words.

"Beware the darkness of dragons,

Beware the stalker of dreams,

Beware the talons of power and fire,

Beware one who is not what she seems.

Something is coming to shake the earth,

Something is coming to scorch the ground.

Jade Mountain will fall beneath thunder and ice

Unless the lost city of night can be found."

"By all the snakes," Qibli said, clearly sounding quite shaken. "That was a real prophecy?"

A real prophecy… and a vanilla one, it's the exact same one as always… Okay hm, now that I recall, it was due to Darkstalker that she got that prophecy, and his own prophetic powers are affected due to barely considering Turtle and I… Oracle was thinking.

But I am planning to change things a lot, will that really ever be accurate? I honestly had some hope that Moon could give us some leads into this new future…

And then, his voice of reason spoke in his mind after a minute.

Most disappointed, Oracle decided that something must be done, so with all the knowledge in his power and his qualities as a Nightwing, he chose to give a new prophecy to set a new path.

"Wha-?" Oracle had barely even managed to mutter to himself before he screamed in pain, everyone else had been talking in low volume, shocked about Moon's prophecy, so they got startled when the small Nightwing had suddenly screamed so loudly.

He grips his head with his talons, falling to the ground and shaking madly, it felt like his brain was about to melt, several strange images and words were flashing inside his head, out of nowhere his mind had gone from a safe haven to a cacophony of hundreds of images.

His eyes had closed, he could hear steps of someone trying to approach to help him up, but he was flailing wildly on the ground and they stopped, and finally, his mouth hinges open, he let out a gasp as his eyes opened wide and cold words were now coming out of his mouth.

"Seekers of a new alternative, listen,

to the last great prophecy given by the Nightwings,

before our gift expires and one can only walk into darkness,

the one who read the future has chosen a path that shouldn't exist,

but change beckons change,

so now beware the other one who remains from the ancient mixed lineage,

and look out for the changes in one's own being,

there's a web of truths and lies and if it's never untangled,

the strings will never be cut.

After forcefully spitting out these words, Oracle felt a calm within his mind as all the words and images, the sudden gift of Vision, vanished.

Then he took a deep breath, shakily standing up, he felt Turtle at his side helping him up, then he looked at everyone who looked shocked as if they were struck by lightning.

"Is it prophecies day? What is going on?" Kinkajou was the first to talk, looking at Moon and Oracle, two prophecies within two minutes.

Oracle didn't know what to think anymore.

PART TWO

A NEW FUTURE

Author's note: To Earthpatriot117, thank you for your support!