Plains, mountains, roads...castles?..."You really are an idiot"..."Must have hurt."..."It's not over...the fight goes on."..."Is he asleep or unconscious?" "There's a difference?"...Bone depth soreness…"Maybe Learn before you Wield!"...Movement? No, light!
A deep-seated groan escaped a young dragon's maw as harsh, unfriendly light battered his eyelids. And with slow movement, the head the eyes were attached to turned to no longer be under the sun's bright rays. Realizing that no, he was not sleeping and that he had indeed moved, Marshal opened his eyes.
The wind dragon blinked his eyes rapidly several times, trying to disperse the "morning grogginess" blurring his sight. Then he realized his sight was not blurring because he had just woken; it was just his natural eyesight!
He twitched, meaning to move an arm. Instead, the twitch almost caused him to flinch violently given the sharp pins and needles which racked up and down the arm. And while his arm had felt the worst of it, now aware of the pain, Marshal could feel his whole body hurt. Not in that 'ouch, I hit my funny bone' way and more in 'oh god, I think I damaged my entire skeleton' way.
And despite the pain, Marshal gritted his teeth and moved his arm. Moving anything hurt, and given who he was, the wind dragon could not sit, let alone lay, still. To his mind, something had to move, and moving meant he was going to hurt, so let's just get it over with and deal with it.
The arm was brought up to the face of the young male. His blurry eyesight was confusing him, and when he touched his face, he understood why he saw his natural vision. The 'goggles' which had been allowing him to see like most others were missing. He could not feel anything on his face at all, so he figured they must have been either lost or taken off for some reason. Or there was the possibility they had broken, and he had just been out of it so long any injuries he had, had healed.
Thinking on that, Marshal moved his arm back down and worked to raise his head. And just like his arm, every muscle involved hurt like hell. But with a grimace and scowl on his face, the wind dragon raised his head and tried to look around.
With his horrible eyesight, he could see the four walls, the 'hole' in one wall where the sun was coming through, a pawful of brown blobs lined up against the wall to his back, a discolored blob at the far side of the room and another more enormous brown blob sitting almost next to the discolored blob. Marshal could make a good guess where he was; he had been in a doctor's office before, of course, and had his fair share of school nurse visits. So he knew he was in an infirmary of some kind; the brown blobs were probably beds, the discolored one a door, and the larger brown blob an equivalent to a nurse's station. Much more than that, though, was asking for too much.
Marshal was also slightly surprised to find out that even thinking and moving as little as he did tired him out massively. But he needed/wanted more information, so forcing himself not to go back to sleep quite yet, he took a deep breath and tried to call on his magic. He stopped almost instantly.
When he had tried, it was not just his body that had complained, but something he could only describe as his very mind and soul gave a pained cry. It felt like his head, and something deep within him, had been stabbed. The only reason he had not yelped in shock and pain was because the air would not come out. Not wanting to feel that pain again, Marshal decided that experimenting in his condition was probably a horrible idea.
Not able to use his magic, not even sure where he was, and well aware his body was still trying to drag him back to sleep, the wind dragon decided that having to sleep was not a bad idea.
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Spyro let out a small huff as he opened the door to Temple Infirmary. He looked behind him as he worked too quickly, but silently, closed the door. He had only just escaped. He really wanted some peace, even if it was only for a few minutes.
He was mentally done with everything. He thought the chaos the day before had been bad, yet even on this, the second full day he and the other youngsters had been in Warfang, and you would think the world was still ending with how unorganized everything was! And on top of it was that it was not one problem; there were many separate parts of it.
Successfully closing the door without anyone being aware, the purple dragon turned to look at the only occupant of the room resting near the far end. As he moved closer, the male half of the Legendary Couple (now being brandished as an official title by more than a few parties in Warfang, much to the couple's horror) looked at the bed itself. Like most beds meant for a dragon in the infirmary, they were quite big, more than able to hold up all but the most enormous dragons. But their size was not the most important part; that was the indents halfway down the beds, indents meant to place various crystals of power. Said crystals would be placed and slowly permeate the bed and work their literal magic on the occupant. Yes, they could just shatter the crystals to get the same effect, but by using them in this slow manner, the crystals would instead eventually drain out and then be replaced with fresh crystals, allowing the drained crystals to recharge. Outside of combat, most crystals were used this way; after all, there were only so many to go around, and they needed to make the most of things.
Getting closer to the bed, Spyro could see that the bed Marshal was lying on was packed full of energy crystals, the most they could install. Last he had heard, the nurse had to replace them every six to eight hours. The wind dragon had turned into a magical black hole of sorts. But no one was complaining. When they had brought him in, his scales had looked like they were near flaking off and had almost no luster to them, almost like the magic had been drained from the wind dragon's very body to try and sustain him.
Well, that is to say, this observation was made after they had managed to get him out of the proto-armor he had been wearing. The first problem had been Marshal had never created a way to take it off; after the last time he put it together anyway. So they could not just undo a strap. Terrador had almost ordered the thing burnt off until the fact that it had taken the heat of ape explosives and was still there had been pointed out. Then they had resolved to try to find and cut the bindings, only to find that most of those had melted into the leather! It had taken a team of moles with swords to crack and then leverage the armor off finally.
Looking at the older male now, Spyro was happy to see that he looked a lot better than the dirty and cracked scaled state he had been when brought in. While there had definitely been a few which had been more significantly injured (One dragon almost had one of his forelegs removed, a few others had chunks of their muscles removed to make sure they healed correctly, and at least one fox was permanently maimed), Marshal had been the one the healers had been unsure about.
The young dragon stood over the bed, looking at who he considered a friend. He tried to check in regularly; he knew he was not the only one. Some he knew did it out of an obligation; others did it because they wanted to try to impart some sort of feeling that Marshal was not alone, and others still just wanted to be there when he woke up so they could confirm he was alright. Spyro used all of those excuses, but right now, he had been primarily looking for someplace to hide, and this was as good of an excuse as any.
"You're in my light"
Spyro blinked a few times; he thought he heard something. He looked around, but there was no one else in the room, then he finally looked back at Marshal. Only to be looking into the irritated half-laden eyes of said wind dragon glaring up at him.
"You're in my light, move."
With a jump of surprise and a cry of, "Marshal?!" the purple dragon moved to the side.
He had indeed been blocking the sunlight from reaching Marshal. And with the light glowing on the wind dragon's body again, He started to shift, looking to try and catch more of the sun's heat.
When he was done, he looked towards Spyro again, said purple dragon was to the side of the bed, looking at Marshal in surprise. The wind dragon raised an eyeridge in question.
Spyro seemed to register the question caused he found his voice again, "Marshal, I didn't realize you were awake!"
Marshal groaned as only a tired creature could, and stretched out his back and tail a bit, seeming to hiss a bit as his body complained. Once done with his stretch, and settled back into getting the most amount of sunlight as he could before responding, "Been going in and out for a bit now. At least I think It's only been a little bit—kind of hard to tell time."
"And you didn't think to talk before now? Surely someone else was in the room one of these times you had woken up."
Marshal looked to try and shrug but only got a quarter of one, "There were a few times someone else was in the room. But I always felt more tired, so I figured why not? I could probably use more sleep, especially as I felt like I was being weighed down by lead weights."
Spyro caught the wording the wind dragon had used, "Felt? As in you no longer feel like it?"
Another partial shrug, "Little of column A, little of column B. Definitely still sore, maybe some pins and needles in places, maybe some bruising. But I could probably move if I needed to."
Spyro would have responded if someone else had not gotten to it before he did.
"You will do no such thing, young dragon. Not until I say so."
Spyro's head whipped around to see the new arrival. She is a light green dragoness with a dark brown underbelly and wing membranes; her tail blade is literally made out of Earth, her horns curve slightly downwards.
Spyro realized who she was instantly and responded, partly in the hopes to give Marshal a frame of reference, "Healer Terra, I didn't hear you come in."
The healer stared at Spyro, "That's because I was trying not to be heard so that my patent could get some rest."
Spyro was starting to sputter to defend himself when Marshal spoke up, "So was he, the only thing he did wrong was standing in my light while quietly thinking to himself." The wind dragon raised an eyeridge as he looked in the direction of the healer before he continued, "You're voice though, I swear I've heard it muttering or ranting and waking me up."
Now it was the healer's turn to look embarrassed and shuffle her paws slightly while trying to figure out what to say.
The wind dragon watched for a bit before turning to look back at Spyro, "What's she doing? I see she's doing something, but that's it."
Spyro raised an eyeridge, looking between the healer and the wind dragon quickly before responding, "She is embarrassed and is doing the normal things a dragon does when embarrassed."
"Ah." The deliverance of that one sound was not only flat but was both tired and bored in equal measure.
This caused Spyro to be even more concerned, so he asked, "Can't you see Marshal?"
The wind dragon looked at Spyro and, with a deadpan expression, said, "I'm basically Blind Spyro. I see blobs of color. You're a blob; the beds are blobs," A quick point to the healer who was moving at hearing the wind dragon saying he was blind. "Even she's a blob. I can hardly see the edge of my snout right now."
Now Spyro was concerned, "Wait, how, what?"
Marshal was thankfully saved by the healer, who, after messing around with the nurse's station, was coming over, "He's Hard of Sight, Young Master. He cannot see normally without aids. It's not a common condition, but it's also not uncommon. Some develop the problem as they get older; others have gotten it from battle damage. From what I've been told, our young friend here has had the problem since he was very young, almost half his life now?"
Marshal thump pointed at the healer, who was almost next to bed now, "As she said. It's a thing. I had some goggles which were allowing me to see before now. You probably saw them but thought they were for something else before now."
Spyro could only nod; he knew he had not known Marshal as well as he would have liked. But this new information was surprising.
The healer handed something out for Marshal, "Yes, your 'goggles.' From what the Guardians were saying, your old Sight Aid had lost whatever magic was on it while also being near destroyed. You still had them on when they picked you up, but when Master Volteer grabbed them, they almost disintegrated in his paws. Thankfully there was enough left that we were able to use them as a starting point to create you some New Sight Aids. Hopefully, they work; we couldn't exactly calibrate them to you, only to your old pair."
The new "sight aids' looked similar to goggles but were more smooth and flat. And when Marshal put them on, they fit closer to the eye and thus inside the natural gaps made by the eye cavity. In short, they formed a smooth surface, and it was confirmed when Marshal ran a paw from his forehead down to his mouth. The only indication they were there was the fact that his paws had not moved inwards towards the eye and instead glided down.
His eyesight now apparently restored; Spyro watched as Marshal blinked a bit, then turned his head to look around. A smile was forming on his lips as he spoke, "Oh, these are nice. I think they are much better than my old ones. Though," He took the aids off a bit and scratched at the scales around his eyes before putting them back on. "Though I think it will take me a bit to get used to them being so close to my face. Almost makes the scales itch."
Spyro smiled lightly as the healer chuckled, "I understand, that's common when someone has to get new seeing aids. Something about them not sitting right for a bit."
Marshal shrugged; Spyro noticed it was a bit more pronounced than they had been earlier, "Sounds right."
Spyro chuckled lightly at his friend's short comment, but then a thought occurred to him. With that thought in his brain, the purple dragon put a gentle paw on Marshal's shoulder. "I really am glad you're awake. And I know others will be too. So I think I'll leave you in the...qualified paws of our healer here while I go hunt down your family. I distinctly remember one of them saying they wanted to "read you the riot act." Whatever that means." And not leaving the older male a chance, Spyro began to move out of the infirmary quickly.
Marshal's cry of "Wait? What? Family?!" coming from behind him brought a smile to his face.
He had just gotten out the door when he looked back to see the healer had moved closer to Marshal and even heard her say, "Now, I should probably take a closer look at you. After all, you are my patient."
And Marshal's apparent whimpered response of, "Please be gentle." That caused Spyro to break into laughter as he moved down the hallway.
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The healer had not been gentle. At least not in Marshal's opinion. Poking and prodding were one thing, but she forced a few limps into positions they had not wanted to go into. Waking-up mussels Marshal was sure had been happily sleeping until that point. But in the end, she got the results she had wished for. Or at least that's what it seemed like, given the happy smile on her face as she worked on something over at the nurse's station.
And while she worked, Marshal was laying on his back; his limbs spread eagle. He did not want to move, nor could he go to sleep. So he just laid there while his limps complained about the torture they had just undergone. On the plus side, he was not worried about staying awake, and there was a good chance he would be let out. While it had hurt to move around, he could, in fact, move. He would be able to walk on his own power, and he would not be damaging himself in doing so. He was just going to be very slow in his movements for a bit.
He had also been told not to use magic for a few days. Apparently, he had been suffering under an overexertion of magic and had drained every last drop of magic, and then some, to survive. Not that he knew how! When he had asked precisely what he had done, the healer had gone into detail on the Fury and even a good bit on his overall fight with the Dreadwing Army (or as some of the more art-oriented members of the city were calling it: The Storm'd Slaughter).
Marshal had not voiced it to the healer, but all throughout the battle, the wind dragon had not been entirely aware of what he was doing. He had had little time to think and was almost acting internally off of instinct and half guesses. The worst had been the Wind Fury at the end.
Marshal had been near loopy after taking an explosive to the head, then crashing into a dreadwing and then crashing into the ground. He only vaguely remembers standing up and seeing the whirlpool of flesh forming around him. What he had meant to do was try and unleash another storm around him, this time by pushing out every last bit of magic he could all at once. The method was similar to what he had done at the start of the fight, but apparently, both his intent and the timeframe had caused it to, instead of being a normal attack, it had instead turned into a Fury.
He had to make a mental note never to cast any magic with the full intent to release "everything." Because apparently, that constituted a Fury. And, from what Marshal remembered, once he had started, he had been unable to stop it. If he could not control just how much magic was used to cast, there was no way he was going to use that form of attack again. Unless there was absolutely, positively, no way to survive, and then he had better be ready to be bedridden for a few days. Oh, the joy.
The wind dragon was thankfully broken from his thoughts when he heard the infirmary doors open. Marshal was the only one besides the nurse, so he was extremely curious who would be entering.
He rolled onto his belly and turned to look at who was entering. Seeing Tribon was not a significant deal; the partial death glare she was giving him was slightly concerning on the other paw. The two adult dragons with her, those two confused him.
One was a fire dragon and the other an ice dragoness. The more Marshal looked at them, the more he swore he should recognize them. How that worked, he was still processing.
As Marshal was processing the new arrivals, the adults started to briefly speak with the nurse while Tribon walked straight up to Marshal.
Mostly to him, Marshal's sister decided to give her little brother a small piece of her mind, "Can you go five minutes without trying to give us all heart attacks. Bad enough, you kept charging into all the fighting, but you just had to go and try and outdo everyone and kill an entire army!"
Marshal scratched his chin embarrassingly, "To be fair, I was mostly winging it at the time. I kind of lost track of everything, so it never occurred to me to run."
"While that might be the case, what your sister says holds true."
The new, but highly familiar voice, broke the bubbling sibling argument. Marshal looked to the source to see the ice dragoness. The combination of hearing her voice and having a closer look at features that Marshal recognized as also being present on both himself and his sister allowed him to put two and two together.
With a nervous grin, Marshal responded, "Hello, mom. I'm guessing that's dad with you."
The glare he received from his parents, Sefon and Jone, was answer enough. Marshal silently wondered if grounding was a thing in this world.
AN: I want to clear up a few things brought up in a review. First, MysteryWriter175 (from Fanfiction), Thank you massively for your reviews. They've been a massive motivation helping me to keep typing. They've also helped me try and shape parts to answer some of your questions/comments. Usually, though, I've already had the next chapter written up before I post a chapter so responding is a bit difficult. But this time is different and does have some bearing on other's possible questions, so I figured, why not reveal to all:
"What is this, a running commentary show? He's fighting out there, and you are just watching him and commenting on useless topics.
Granted it would be a bad idea to try to help him while he's busy giving death sentences, but still.
I really want to know what makes Marshal different from others. Is he the Chosen One? How the heck did he did such a thing?
Maybe using it at the beginning would've helped."
Most were in shock and awe at the display, and those that weren't were well aware that trying to get involved would have probably caused them issues more than they would have been able to help. And with the situation changing faster than they could process, it made things even harder. So yes, It was indeed a running commentary show, one I hope I can keep doing cause I love banter, especially when I can pull it off during fights.
As for Marshal himself, well, for starters, as I stated in this chapter, even he didn't know he could do it! He's been self-taught on magic with only two and a half weeks of work to show for it. It would be better to be amazed he's made it this far with knowing so little of magic. Then again, he's cheating using a modern understanding of science to help and provide a bit of a guiding hand when he does cast spells. And even if he had known, wielding magic on this scale takes a lot out of a person and says nothing of the collateral.
One theme I aim to show whenever I write powerful characters (Spyro, Cynder, and the guardians are included in this) is the cost of wielding such power.
For Spyro, his power comes from a unique source (Convexity being location, Aether being the magic "type," but for Spyro is basically the same in this context). It results in versatility, with a genuine threat of Burn-Out, like at the end of the first game, if he overdoes it. He is the definition of Jack of all, Master of None. If he tried really hard, he might be able to do what a Guardian could do but only for a short time, or else his magic just sort of quits for a bit.
For Cynder, her power is similar to Spyro, but she is more concentrated and thus has less versatility and more skill on her smaller skill pool. She also had a standard element before everything went down (Shadow), so her versatility is more akin to a boon/curse than natural. Saying that, I now see Spyro as a Sorcerer and Cynder as a Warlock, both classes from D&D. With the Dark Master being Cynder's original patron, but Spyro has just sort of bullshitted/Nat20'd things into having her power now coming from him. And now I want to read a fanfiction that does almost exactly that; any help? Back on topic, Cynder can become, while not a true Master, can get close if she's alright with having magical problems of her own. If she doesn't balance correctly, she leaves herself open to...well, I'm not sure right now, but I want to say something along the lines of throwing her magic out of whack with the real possibility of becoming weaker overall.
On the other hand, the Guardians are the definitive Masters of their element and all that goes along with it. When I said a few chapters ago that Spyro's flame could melt metal, a guardian can do that and more. Remember Ignitus's Fire Shield, which allowed them to pass through the Ring of Fire? Spyro might be able to do that but only for a short instance and only covering himself. But the Guardians also have to be aware that if they do fight at their highest point (basically the equivalent of only casting level 6+ spells in D&D), not only will they tire themselves out quickly, but there's a good chance that their one-hit death spells could hurt an ally fighting nearby. We'll see some of that later in the story as the "Young Leaders'' figure out their powers as well, believe me.
So back to the original questions of How/Why Marshal did not, in Short: He did not have the know-how. Even if he did, considering he was massively overcharged with magic, well, then let's just say there would have been an excellent chance that what happened to the ape/dreadwing army would have also happened to any friendlies nearby. AND considering that he's been subconsciously suppressing his power to try and not hurt those around him, even he did not know his max strength was that high. Though, even as this story, and its sequels (yes, I have plans), go on you will find that very rarely does Marshal go "Full Burn." Because if he did so, then let's just say it's apocalyptic and be done with it.
Magic is impressive, but the more powerful you get, the more you have to be aware of what happens if you go "rogue." Marshal is mindful of this and will have to keep more, and more of it in mind as going "rouge" (Or Dark in this case) is a genuine threat for him.
As for the second half of How: one half is biology (and thus also "naturally" occurring); the other is Ancestry. Yes, I've thought that far ahead. If I do it correctly, you'll see hints as the story goes on, right up until what I believe should be Arc 4, "From a Current to a Storm, You Chase then Run" (Yes, that title has meaning!). During that arc, the Biology is fully revealed with parts being hinted at or given an ah-ha movement as others figure it out (The ancestry should be hinted at throughout the story, it's kind of a theme of the story after all, but I don't know if I ever fully spell it out).
Is Marshal a "Chosen-One?" To some, sure. But that opinion is going to be because of how powerful he is by happenstance. To Marshal himself, He's less of a "Chosen-One" and more of a guy in the right place, at the right time. While also being in the wrong place but the only one willing/able to do something about what's going on because of...things. Given, in the sequel, the number of times creatures try to kill him despite the fact he's only passing through, or when/because he accidentally ends up in places people really like to keep hidden, It's kind of funny that some will call him a Chosen-one. By the end, Marshal more or less ends up as his ancestors were, and that's a spoiler, so I won't reveal THAT!
In short, Marshal is the definition of "I just can't stand by and do nothing." Much like Spyro (and Cynder to some degree, but you'll see more of that as both this and the sequel go on). It just so happens that these characters are the ones with the power to do something about it (kind of like a Superhero who can do something about the guy wrecking the city and refuses just to let the said city be ravaged).
I hope that 1.1K-word "rant" helps to clarify. I'm not making characters OP to be OP. I do try and create reasons for one's strength and the downsides to it as well. If anyone feels I missed something or wants me to explain something further, then please either DM me with the question or drop a review if you want others to know the answer as well. I love these types of questions both publicly and privately; they help me flesh things out and add more depth to my writing. So never be afraid to ask, please.
Anyways, with that out of the way...Help my brain is melting! I legit thought about making this an intermission chapter, but I decided against it in the end. On with the story! But damn if the last few paragraphs didn't fight me tooth and nail.
But that's long enough for now, so until we meet again, Happy Reading.
PS. I just realized I've been working on this version of the story for over 8 years now. Damn, how time flies.