"Alright, you ready to go, Forzen?" Muras asked.
Muras had come to the front entrance of the schoolgrounds to meet up with Forzen once school was over, where they would both go to meet Torialis for some training with his sinister elements, as Torialis had ordered them yesterday that today would be the first lesson. It was the only thing Forzen had been looking forward to today, and had helped him get through yet another awful day of frequent verbal bullying and hatred at school. He wasn't at all excited for the training, but at the same time, he wanted to do it so he could try and control his sinister elements more. He was terrified of being so unable to control them, particularly an element such as plasma, which was easily his most destructive element so far.
"I wouldn't say I'm ready or excited, but I know I need to do this… I want to do this," Forzen murmured.
"Alright. Well, let's go so we don't keep Torialis waiting. We're heading out to the plainlands for training today, as per Torialis' request," Muras replied.
"The plainlands?"
"Yeah, the plains surrounding the city. We're going there so that we don't prove to be a risk to anyone while we learn how to control plasma. You can be as out of control as you need to while we start to figure out how this element works," Muras explained. "Besides, the training arena was only just repaired this morning, and the guardians didn't want to have to deal with more structural damage to the Temple."
"That makes sense, I guess," Forzen murmured. "Okay, let's go."
With that, Muras turned and took off into the air, Forzen following. As they flew, they made their way across from one side of Warfang to the other, eventually flying over the front gates, which was something Forzen had only ever seen once since he had been brought into Warfang. It was Forzen's time seeing the space outside of Warfang for the first time in four weeks, and it almost felt alien to him now. He wasn't used to so much green from the grass covering the plainlands and the thick forest that grew a little further on in the distance. He was mainly used to the neutral tones of the cobblestones and marble that were used to build all of the architecture in Warfang.
Standing in the middle of the open expanse of the plainlands stood a large earth dragon, who Forzen assumed was Torialis. The earth guardian was walking around and setting up some targets for him to shoot at. Off to the side was a small pouch, and as they got closer, Forzen could faintly see a few red and green gems sitting inside the pouch, just in case he needed any.
Beside the pouch stood Doctor Yavian, the doctor who had checked in on Forzen yesterday when his eyes had been taken out of action from the plasma blast. His vision had returned to normal by mid-morning today, and he was glad to finally be able to see properly again. He was really concerned that he would lose his vision again, which would put him pretty much out of action for the rest of the training session.
"Good afternoon, you two," Torialis called as he saw them coming in to land.
"Hey, Torialis. What's the doctor doing here?" Muras asked curiously.
"I'm here just in case we have a repeat of what happened to Forzen yesterday. I want to make sure Forzen's body is safe when using this element, and that nothing bad comes out of it," Doctor Yavian explained.
"I only had the idea to have him here until long after our meeting earlier this morning, once you had gone off to start researching the sinister element," Torialis added. "I thought it was necessary to have him here, though, particularly considering it took all of last night and half of this morning for Forzen's vision to return. I don't think it's good on his eyes if he's taking that much of a hit every time he uses plasma."
"I can't imagine that'll happen, luckily," Muras said. "I somehow managed to find a book about sinister dragon anatomy and their elemental origins, which was a book hidden very deep into the library's archives."
"How do we even have knowledge of that? Considering the tension between the sinister dragons and us regular dragons, how did we get the knowledge of how all of that works?" Torialis wondered.
"I'm sure you know sinister dragons invented torture and all that," Muras explained. "Well, during the last half of the long-lasting Sinister War, us normal dragons decided to take it upon ourselves to learn torture as well. We somehow managed to take a few sinister dragons into captivity and tortured them for information, forced them to use their elements, and used their bodies for science, regardless of if they were still dead or alive. It was the beginning of our own barbaric acts of violence that escalated beyond just fighting on a battlefield. This book is a collection of all of the information gathered from the stone tablets from six million years ago, and probably dates as far back to eight hundred millennia ago.
"The dragons of the time had taken many infants in as well, to discover what happens when they unlock their elements. According to what they saw, even young plasma dragons went through the same excruciating pain as Forzen did from when they discovered their elements, and they all experienced a brief lack of sight lasting a few hours. Upon studying the eyes of a few younglings, some before they unlocked their element, and some after, they found out that the eyes from younglings who had unlocked the plasma element had a stronger resistance to heat and the plasma element, and extra cells had opened up inside the eye to allow it to generate this superheated energy inside it."
"So… you're saying that this element has changed my biology? It's changed what's inside my eyes?" Forzen asked.
"That's very likely," Muras said.
"That growth in extra cells might also have explained the sudden white, spotty vision," Doctor Yavian added. "If these cells are meant to generate this type of energy, there's a chance that it was adjusting your body to be able to produce these, and therefore you might've had that energy firing inside your eyes that whole time after that first beam came out. Now, I don't claim to know much about elemental science, but my assumption is that your essence core has discovered this new energy, and this energy, doing its own thing, is forcing its way out through your body in its most basic, primitive attack, the eye laser, and then once the attack comes out of them, the residue energy remains, forming these extra parts of you that then learn how to create this energy on your own, which then directly links to the elemental side of you inside your essence core."
"That's not a bad hypothesis, Doctor," Torialis murmured.
"I'd have to talk with the elemental ward in the infirmary and maybe some elemental scientists as well to confirm the theory, since I'm not very knowledgeable on this particular topic, and I've never heard of an element altering a dragon's biology."
"If you could do that, that would be brilliant. Now, Forzen. Did you want to test this theory?"
"Uhhh… what did you want me to do to test it?" Forzen asked.
"Start by shooting some lasers at the targets I've set up. If this theory is to be plausible, your eyes shouldn't hurt and you shouldn't see a long-lasting white brightness each time you use it. It's all good if you need to take your time; I understand it's a new element and none of us know how to call on it or how the element feels inside your essence core."
Forzen just nodded, albeit a little hesitantly. He stepped forward, making his way in front of the targets in front of him. They were large barrels and wooden blocks stacked on stones and hay bales, with large red circles painted over them. He stood a few metres away from the targets, staring at them intently. He took a few deep breaths, before trying to reach deep into his essence core and pull out the plasma element lying dormant within him.
Plasma remained at the forefront of his mind, focusing intently on it to try and bring it out. He remained staring at the targets, barely blinking, waiting to feel the energy building up inside him and tearing out of his eyes.
Very, very faintly, he felt an almost electric tingling inside his essence core, spreading throughout his chest. It was more than just a wild, electric tingling. It was warm, and it was more concentrated, and felt almost fuzzy. Then it grew hotter, burning up in his chest, while still having that electric fizzle inside it. It felt almost like the way his eyes did when they started to burn up yesterday.
He felt it grow and fester inside his chest, before he tried to direct it up to his eyes. The strangest feeling followed, where he didn't so much feel the energy slowly moving up from his chest, up his neck, into the back of his head and then into his eyeballs, but rather an instant transmission of energy from his essence core to his eyes, as if it were being transferred directly into the new cells in his eyes. He could feel the energy zipping up into his eyes.
A faint red glow filled his peripheral vision, and he could feel the heat building up in his eyes. He could feel the concentrated fizzling energy bouncing around inside his eyes. It was the strangest feeling ever.
Once he thought he had enough energy built up, he pushed forwards and released it. It was a slightly shorter beam than he had let out yesterday, but it was a lot more moderated. As it shot out of his eyes, he watched as his vision flashed from the bright laser beam shooting out of his eyes, but he was able to watch as less than a second later, the barrel was lit up in flames with a large, but still respectable explosion, clouds of smoke billowing into the air.
He blinked, the strange tingling sensation still weird to him, but he found he could still see after using the attack, and it wasn't painful at all.
"Is everything okay? Can you see?" Muras asked him.
"Yeah… Yeah, I can see just fine," he replied.
"Did it hurt?"
"No. It tingled, but it didn't hurt."
"Great. This is really good," Torialis said. "Now, I would like to see if you could try and get familiar with the element. Just keep shooting it at the targets."
"Okay."
With that, Forzen turned and continued firing fast, blinding plasma beams at the multitude of targets scattered around the plains. Each of them went up in flames as a loud, violent explosion rocked the ground after every attack. By this point, Torialis was pretty content with what he was witnessing, and called for him to stop.
"Okay, Forzen! You can stop now!" Torialis called.
"Is there something wrong?" Forzen asked, a little worried.
"No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to see how that was feeling. Is it any easier to use or call upon?"
"Um… yeah, a little bit. Maybe? I barely used like twelve plasma beams in quick succession. It usually takes a lot longer than that for significant improvement to show, doesn't it?"
"It does, but considering how fast you gained control over wind all on your own, I think you have much more affinity and a stronger connection with your elements and your essence core than most do. I wanted to see if even a small amount of usage helped, to which it sounds like you did."
"You make it sound like I'm special. I mean, I guess I am a purple dragon, but… this all feels normal to me."
"No, your rate of elemental growth and understanding is very fast, even for a purple dragon," Muras explained. "I didn't even have that much skill with my elements at twelve. I hate to bring him up, but Spyro was even less so. He only learned the bare basics of his elements, and learned how to fight his way through my own armies with nothing but brute force and power. You may be second in line in the race of 'most powerful dragon alive', falling behind Spyro, but your skill with your elements is unmatched. I've never heard of a dragon able to learn so much without coaching, at such a fast rate, and at such a young age before."
"Oh… wow, I… I don't know what to say," Forzen murmured, unsure whether to take it as a compliment or a warning.
"Don't worry. Now, since we're all learning about this together, I think it might be beneficial to experiment with the plasma element to figure out how this thing works, if that sounds okay with you," Torialis said.
"I… sure?" Forzen replied.
"I mean, you're familiar enough with experimentation already, right? That was how you learned wind, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, I just played around with lifting things in my room and feeling the air around me, as well as just… in the moment scenarios like the venomfang fight."
"Great, well let's play around with plasma, then," Torialis said enthusiastically, before turning to Muras and Doctor Yavian. "Muras, would you be able to head into the forest and grab some game so we can see what this element does on a live subject? A deer, a bull, a rabbit even; it could be big or small."
"Okay, I'll see what I can bring back," Muras said, spreading open his wings and taking off towards the forest a little further on in the distance.
"On a live subject? Torialis, I don't like this," Forzen whimpered.
"It's fine. These are wild, feral creatures. They don't have spirits like us dragons or the cheetahs, panthers, foxes, and moles inside Warfang. Plus, it's so we can have a look at what wounds may look like and potentially how to treat them, should you accidentally hurt someone with a plasma attack," Torialis explained gently. "Doctor Yavian, you might want to stick around for that part."
"Gladly," the doctor said with a nod, a wide smile pulling at his yellow-scaled face.
"But Torialis, it… it scares me, doing that on something living," Forzen said.
"I know, but if we're to learn everything we can about this new, unfamiliar element of yours, it needs to be done," Torialis explained gently. "I know you don't intend to use it on anyone or even hurt anyone, but it would be best to be prepared if an accident should happen. Besides, unlike sound, plasma is an element Spyro is able to use, right?"
"I… yeah. Yeah, he can."
"Then this would help protect ourselves against him. If we know what plasma is capable of, and how to heal wounds caused by it, this would be very helpful for our own safety and survival. Do this for Warfang."
"Okay. Okay, for Warfang."
"Great. Before that, we need to wait for Muras to bring the game here, so how about we focus on doing something else in the meantime? I noticed each attack caused a pretty hefty explosion upon impact. There's a few targets left; I would like you to attack them but see if you can lighten up the power behind the attacks, so that the attack wouldn't explode, but rather pierce and burn its way through the targets. Can you do that?"
"I think so."
With that, Forzen turned towards the targets again, focusing intently on the wooden block sitting high up on a hay bale. He stared at it, identifying his target, before letting the power build up inside him again. He felt the tingling in his eyes as the power was transferred from his essence core into the cells inside his eyes that allowed him to store up the energy inside his eyes.
As he let the energy build within his eyes, he imagined it with a much weaker, less explosive force, and imagined it as a hot, searing force that would melt a hole through its target. He winced as he thought about it, but he tried not to let the morbid thought distract him from his goal.
He could feel the state of the energy within his eyes begin to shift, as if it was becoming thinner and more controllable, rather than the volatile, explosive energy beam that he was used to. As it became thinner, it simultaneously started to get more concentrated, even more than it usually was.
Feeling like it was ready to release, Forzen let out the energy, and thinner plasma beams tore from his pupils, however they shone brighter and sizzled aggressively. He watched as the beams shot at high speeds towards his target, before there was a loud sizzling sound, and two scorching holes were left in the wooden block standing in front of him, smoke rising slowly from the scorch marks and small embers burning inside the holes. The holes were not very large by any means, but they were very deep, the plasma beam melting its way over halfway through the wood before fizzling out.
He blinked, before focusing on the holes in the wooden block, releasing another concentrated plasma beam at it. His aim was on point, the beams slamming into the holes he had created earlier. Just less than a second later, the plasma beams had melted through the wooden block, and they burst out of the other side of the block, shooting out towards the forest in the distance.
Forzen ended his attack, watching in awe and horror as he watched the plasma beam reach out way further into the distance than he had expected it to, and at how easy it had melted through the wooden block.
"Good job, Forzen. That's kind of what I was expecting might happen if you could figure out how to do it. Now something else I thought of that I think would be cool to see is if you could release smaller shots out of your eyes rather than long continuous beams," Torialis said.
"I don't know…" Forzen said, unsure about the request.
"Think of it kind of like an earth missile. Like a ranged weapon that you fire at something rather than an endless beam that tears through air like it's nothing," Torialis clarified.
"I can't use earth so I don't really know what that feels like. I know what an earth missile is, just not what it feels like."
"Um… okay, so it's kind of like—"
"Forgive me for interrupting, Torialis, but what other elements does Forzen have?" Doctor Yavian asked.
"Wind, sound and lightning," Forzen replied.
"Great, lightning helps," the lightning dragon said with a smile. "So, think of it kind of like a lightning orb, rather than a lightning bolt. It's something with a bit more substance to it, something that's pushed forward rather than forced forward. I'd imagine it would be different with plasma since it exists in a different form, and its base attack comes out of your eyes rather than your mouth. Maybe with a plasma shot, it might help to push it out quickly, so that it comes out at the same speed and intensity, but it cuts off quickly and doesn't dissipate once you cut off its supply. The extra substance you put inside the attack would allow it to 'stay alive', if that's the best way to put it."
"Doctor, are you sure you didn't study other areas before medicine and physical anatomy? You're awfully knowledgeable about this," Torialis asked.
"Again, I'm not proficient in the area of elemental science. But my sister is an elemental scientist and studies it quite heavily. She and I started learning our own specialties at the same time, so we had a lot to talk about when we were studying our professions. I guess I still retained enough from her."
Torialis just nodded, slightly intrigued. Meanwhile Forzen nodded at Doctor Yavian's explanation, and so turned back to the wooden block, still bearing two holes that went in one side and out the other, smoke and small embers still sizzling away inside it.
He took a deep breath, before letting the plasma energy form inside his eyes again. He felt it form into a thin, concentrated form inside his eyes, before feeding more and more into it, to the point where it started to feel every so slightly heavy deep within. Was that the substance that Doctor Yavian was talking about?
Remembering the next part of what Doctor Yavian had said, instead of forcing it out in a strong, unrelenting beam that went on for who knows how long, he gently but quickly pushed the energy out of his eyes, before cutting it off a split second later. He then watched as two streaks of roaring red energy shot towards the wooden block, long tails of energy falling behind it. Two more scorch marks decorated the wooden block as the plasma shots slammed into it, melting through it before they fizzled out. The sizzling scorch holes went pretty deep into the block as well, but not as deep as the plasma beams had.
Forzen just sighed, before he decided to try it again. He let the energy build up, before pushing more substance into it, and then pushing it out of his eyes. Another pair of plasma shots sped from his eyes, slamming into the wooden block and leaving behind even more sizzling holes filled with tiny glowing embers.
"I'm curious, can you try and do it rapidfire?" Torialis asked.
"Maybe? I don't know," Forzen replied, a little unsure about it.
"Can you try?"
The purple dragon sighed, before obliging. He focused at the wooden block, before trying to rush to push the energy out of his eyes at incredibly high speeds, stopping and starting the flow of energy over and over and over again. It was a pretty sloppy attempt, as the distance between each pair of plasma shots were very inconsistent, and even the size of some of them were inconsistent with each other. He released about eight pairs of plasma shots before he pushed the next one out, and the two pairs of plasma shots collided.
There was a bright red explosion that went off in Forzen's face, sending him falling backwards into the ground, his face burning with embarrassment.
"Okay, so that didn't work as well as I thought it would," Torialis murmured. "I guess I can't expect you to be perfect at every new experiment I come up with."
"Can we hold off on the experiments for now? I would just like to get used to what I can do at least," Forzen asked.
"Okay, that's a fair decision. I'll let you just get used to this now. Hopefully Muras isn't too much longer with the live targets."
Forzen spent a little bit longer just shooting beams out of his eyes at the targets, getting familiar with the strange sensation of actually shooting attacks out of his eyeballs. It was such a strange, foreign concept to him, and considering the nature of the plasma attacks, he was surprised it wasn't damaging them. He thought back to what Doctor Yavian had said yesterday: he was designed to handle this element. The cellular changes inside his eyes were a huge sign of this. He knew this energy was part of his genes and inheritance, but it still boggled his mind that he was able to use an element like this without causing permanent damage to his eyes.
As he continued releasing attacks out of his eyes, he realised that even the faint tingling sensation was starting to become less prominent, to the point where he was starting to feel nothing when he was letting the plasma energy tear from his eyeballs.
"Alright, I'm back now!" Muras said, his voice muffled from holding a deer by its nape in his mouth; two more were suspended in the air behind him, a pink aura surrounding them, as Muras' eyes mirrored the pink energy.
Forzen blinked, watching as the older purple dragon placed the deer down on the ground, spaced equally several metres apart, before he planted them in the ground with their earth element, covering their hooves in hard, heavy rock and soil.
"Is that telekinesis? I didn't know you had that too," Forzen murmured.
"Yeah, it's a bit of a strange one, but I discovered it many centuries ago, before I first became Malefor. I might've been about eighteen when I figured out I could move things with my mind," Muras explained. "I don't do it often; it's not something that's ever really felt the most natural for me to do, so I only pull it out on occasion. It's also… not really an element, rather it's more aligned with non-dragon magic or sorcery."
"Wait, so anyone can learn it?" Forzen asked.
"Technically, yes. I've met many dragons and non-dragons who can use it."
"As much as this topic might be interesting to teach and learn, can we do this later?" Torialis asked. "We still have things to cover with plasma, and then I'd like to move onto looking into how sound works if possible. I believe Muras did a bit of study on that element as well as plasma."
"Your assumption is correct, Torialis," Muras replied.
"Great. Alright Forzen, now that we have these live targets, I would like you to use your plasma attacks on them. Start with the initial large blasts that you were doing for the first one, the concentrated beams for the second one, and for the third, I want you to do the rapidfire shots at it."
Forzen looked at the three deer standing in front of him, stuck in the ground due to Muras' earth element. Uncertainty and fear clouded his expression.
"Muras, it's fine," Muras assured him. "These are feral, unintelligent animals. They do not have a spirit. It may be cruel, but we hunt these things for food anyway."
"But… we're not killing these ones for food," Forzen protested, wincing at the thought.
"You're right, we're not, but we're not killing them for fun either. We have a reason for doing this. This will help us understand what types of wounds this element can create," Torialis said gently. "Now, when you attack these animals, I would like you to aim at their sides, and maybe run down from the chest to the flank if you can."
"I… okay…" Forzen murmured, still very uncomfortable with what he was about to do.
He turned to the first deer, which stared at him with wide, black eyes. There was nothing intelligent inside those eyes, but he shivered as he saw that there was still something inside them. That something was fear.
Forzen took a deep breath, trying to swallow all the emotions and gross feelings that he could feel rising up inside him. He took another breath, before he pushed the plasma energy out of his eyes at full force, much like he had at the start of the lesson. Heavy, blinding red beams shot out of his eyes, and a sudden explosion went off, sending red sparks flying into the sky and billowing smoke to follow as a loud crack sounded. The deer was blown to bits, chunks of flesh and fur flying out in a large radius. The corpse fell forward, a large gaping hole searing into the deer's side, exposing a cracked ribcage, the burning lungs inside it, and the liver, which had melted slightly on the side that it had been hit on. The smell of charred flesh now filled the air, small flames dancing on the deer's body.
Forzen winced as he looked at the severity of the wound he had created, and how still the deer was. It was dead. The other deer cried and barked in fear, pulling against their restraints with no victory.
"Great job. The next one please," Torialis said.
"Torialis, I really don't want to," Forzen pleaded, the frantic cries of the deer starting to overwhelm him and freak him out.
"I understand it's rough but please cooperate. We need this to learn how your element works and what it's capable of."
"You've just seen that! Look at the state of that deer!" Forzen exclaimed, gesturing towards the dead deer with a massive hole in its side, the smell of burned flesh reaching their noses.
"The other attacks, please."
"Torialis, please don't pressure him like this," Muras said softly, a little concerned for Forzen now.
"Muras, not now."
"I thought you cared about him! Why are you putting him through this?"
"I'M DOING THIS BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT HIM!" Torialis snapped, his green eyes now wide and also filled with fear. "I'm doing this to protect him and to protect all of Warfang. We need to know what this element is capable of, how we can treat wounds from it… if we can treat wounds from it."
Torialis glanced over towards the deer, who had died instantly from the blast of volatile plasma energy. He shook his head, his breath hitching slightly. Torialis took a few deep breaths, trying his best to calm himself down from his sudden outburst.
"We need to control this element. I know Forzen will never intentionally attack anyone with this element, but I fear what happens if he loses control of it and accidentally hurts someone else," Torialis murmured. "What then? Forzen doesn't need to live with that. The victims don't need to live with that, if they even survive. Warfang doesn't need to live with that. If that happens, it will only fuel more hatred and fear towards Forzen, and he doesn't deserve that.
"And besides, we know Spyro can use this element too. He doesn't use it often, but I fear the moment when he does pull it out on us in an attack. Forzen, doing this is the best way to help us learn for any situation where this element could prove to be a danger to us.
"I'm already doing my best not to force you to do this for hours on end and force you to tear apart your body to experiment with this element. I know that'll hurt you more than it already is. I know we need to take this slowly, take it day by day. But I fear the longer we spend spreading this out over several days, the more time your plasma element has to pull itself out of your control. I want to control this thing as quickly as possible."
"Torialis, doing that will do more than just harm him. It'll traumatise him. He's already overworked, pushed far beyond his limits," Muras challenged.
"I know that! That's why I'm not doing that; I could push him a lot further than I currently am! But… no matter what we do, I know it will hurt us. It'll hurt all of us. I don't know about you, but… seeing that—" Torialis gestured to the deer corpse. "—terrifies me. All afternoon I've been trying to hold it in, seeing how volatile and dangerous this element is. I saw the damage it did to the training area, to the targets, to the ground around the targets, charring away the lush green grass caught in the explosions. But… seeing what it does to a living creature… it scares me."
"I knew this was a bad idea," Forzen whimpered under his breath.
"At the same time, Forzen, we needed to see this. The reality is, we live in a dark, grim, gruesome world right now. It's better we are exposed to the harsh reality of what this element can do here and now in this setting, against a dumb creature, as opposed to in an attack where we lose lives to it, or your element goes out of control in a training session or a spar, and you end up killing someone, which I am very sure you don't want."
"I… no. No, I don't."
"So, we need to see this," Torialis said slowly, taking a deep breath and clearing his throat, trying to regain his tough personality. "Now please, attack the other deer, and I promise we will move on from plasma after this."
"Torialis, please don't push him," Muras pleaded again.
"No, Muras. He's… he's right," Forzen murmured. "I hate it… you hate it… we all hate it. But this is the only way we're going to learn what this element is capable of. It has to be done."
"Forzen…"
"Don't, Muras."
Forzen turned back to the two remaining deer, focusing intently on the one in the middle, trying not to focus on the dead one a couple metres to the left of it. The deer were still crying out frantically, shuffling about in their restraints to try and get out, possessed by the primitive fear of prey vulnerable to a predator.
"The thinner, more concentrated beams on this one, please," Torialis murmured.
The red beams tore out of Forzen's eyes, shooting in through the deer's flank, before barely a second later bursting out the other end. It seared through the deer's flesh with an awful sizzling sound and its knees buckled underneath it as pain flared through its stomach. Two large holes went in one side and out the other, the flesh around the entrance and exit wounds both burning with small embers. Inside, the stomach and intestines were black and shrivelled, burned to a crisp, as small embers also burned with an orange glow around the exterior of the organs. A gluggy red substance spilled from the wounds, which was boiled blood, which had begun to thicken. The deer howled in agony.
Doctor Yavian walked up to the deer, taking a closer look at the awful wound that ailed its stomach. He sighed, shaking his head. He reached over with his tail and decapitated the deer cleanly and swiftly, putting an end to its painful cries.
"That… is going to be a tough wound to heal," the doctor said. "Not even red gems would restore that to full capacity. The stomach and intestines would likely not even work properly from this wound due to how badly burned and damaged they are, which would make digestion and bowel movements very painful and difficult. I suspect with the amount of internal bleeding there was, this deer would have only had about five minutes left before I killed it."
"Could a victim be saved from this?" Torialis asked.
"Using a lot of red gems, it's possible that a dragon would survive from a wound like this, albeit with complications. Due to only dragons having the ability to respond to red gems, it a cheetah, mole, or any non-dragon was to fall victim to this type of attack in this particular part of the body, they would be doomed to death. If a leg or an arm was hit, the limb would likely have to be amputated."
"I'm sorry to butt in, but… I'm perplexed," Muras interrupted. "Spyro's plasma attacks were nowhere near as fatal as these. I watched a few fights where he was using the plasma element. I was in one. His plasma element burned—ancestors, were they awful burns—but they didn't pierce through a body like that. They most certainly didn't tear it apart like that first deer; his didn't even explode like that."
"It could be that the extent of the wounds are exaggerated slightly on the deer since they're smaller, weaker beings than us dragons," Doctor Yavian suggested.
"But still, even if a beam could tear through a deer like that in about a second, surely it would get a decent way through in about two or three seconds, which was probably the longest exposure I saw Cynder, myself, and other dragons have with it. But when we were attacked, the burns didn't go below muscle level."
"They didn't even reach bone?"
"No."
"I thought Spyro would've been stronger, considering he's the one who focused purely on raw power with his attacks, to the point where back in his youth he had the highest power reading in Warfang. Forzen's wasn't as high as Spyro's was," Torialis murmured.
"It was close, though. It was higher than mine, and higher than Cynder's," Muras replied.
"That still doesn't explain how Forzen's plasma element is stronger than Spyro's."
"It could be similar to how us purple dragons, and Cynder, seem to have some elements we lean more towards, or that we are more naturally gifted with. That was fire and earth for Spyro, at least back during the Dark War, wind and poison for Cynder, and earth and lightning for me. Maybe Forzen has a natural gifting with plasma, on top of his already increased affinity with his elements," Muras theorised.
"It could also be that the element has evolved throughout the bloodline; I've heard from my sister that continued repeating of an element through a bloodline can make it slightly stronger the further down it goes," Doctor Yavian said. "Usually it's not anywhere near as significant as this, usually taking a few generations for the increase to be made obvious, but it could be exaggerated significantly due to both Spyro and Forzen being a purple dragon."
"Wait, so you're saying that my plasma attack is just… naturally stronger than Spyro's? By a significant amount?" Forzen asked, panic edging his voice. "You're telling me that he can't do that?"
The younger purple dragon turned to look at the awful wounds he had created in the two deer, feeling sick as he looked into their charred bodies, staring into the still, burned organs that populated their chest and abdominal cavities.
"I can't. I can't do this anymore."
Forzen burst into action, flying into the air and letting out a burst of wind behind him to propel him into the forest. He could barely hear Torialis and Muras calling his name, but he didn't even look back at them.
I could actually kill someone. Without even trying. With lightning, wind, and even sound, I have to at least put effort in. I wouldn't need to think twice about it with plasma, Forzen thought. I'm too dangerous. I'm too dangerous.
His panic caught up with him, the bodies on the deer flashing in his vision once more, before suddenly he saw dragon bodies replacing them. Dragons with their faces blown apart from the violent plasma blast, dragons with holes tearing through their chests which spilled with thick, goopy blood, dragons with their midsections sliced completely in two from using the plasma beam like a sawblade. He saw dragons with holes in their eyes from plasma shots being sent through them. He saw images of gore being sprayed everywhere from massive, forceful plasma blasts.
"STOP IT!" Forzen screamed at his brain, before he found himself plummeting to the ground.
He wasn't able to catch himself as he slammed into the ground with heavy force, opening both new and old wounds, scraping at his scars, and causing dirt and grime to cover his body. He groaned as he tried to stand, before realising he'd broken a paw from his heavy crash landing.
Forzen staggered forwards, finding a nice large rock to lie down against. He struggled to get comfortable due to his broken paw, but he tried to get as comfortable as he could. The discomfort got even worse as he started to feel tears brimming at his eyes as his thoughts spiralled, getting darker and darker, his visions becoming gorier and gorier.
You can't cry. You are not ALLOWED to cry. And ENOUGH of these awful, gory thoughts. STOP IT.
"Forzen."
The purple dragon in question screamed from the sudden voice calling his name, and he looked up to see Muras standing in front of him. They stared at each other for a short time, the sorrow in Muras' eyes portraying the way his heart was breaking for Forzen. In Forzen's eyes was nothing but uncontrollable fear.
"Go away. Stay away from me, please!" Forzen pleaded.
"Forzen, I'm not leaving you alone out here. You're safe with me," Muras said softly.
"But you're not!"
"Listen to me, and listen to me closely. Your element might be dangerous, but you are not. Do not ever think of yourself as a monster just because you have an extremely dangerous element. Do you understand me?"
"Do not talk to me like you understand what I'm going through! Do not talk to me like you have the power to kill anyone and everyone with very little effort, that could break out of you at any time and that you could lose control of super easily!"
To prove his point with actions instead of words, Muras turned his head to the side and released a massive beam of convexity. The blinding purple beam thundered as it tore from his mouth, slamming into a nearby tree and sending a large tremor through the ground as a huge purple explosion shot upwards, engulfing the tree in purple flames. Muras let Forzen look at the damage from the simple convexity beam for a few seconds longer, before he reached out with his water element and shot water from his mouth, covering the tree and putting out the violet fire that ate away at the tree.
"What the hell was that?" Forzen gasped.
"Convexity. It's known to be the signature element of the purple dragon, which means yes, you too will unlock this at some point," Muras explained, trying to be gentle despite his bluntness. "It's scary, and dangerous, and I barely use it, as does Cynder. As of his turn to darkness, Spyro has been using it a lot more. It's highly destructive and doesn't really have any other use, from what I've discovered. So yes, I do know what it's like to have an element that could kill everyone hiding in the depths of my essence core. I may not have plasma, or know exactly what you are going through, but I've had similar experiences."
"I… I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Like you said, you didn't know."
An uncomfortable silence washed over the two of them. Forzen just sat there, staring at the ground, still savouring his broken paw.
"We should head back and get Doctor Yavian to look at that paw. Don't want to leave it like that for too long; it's very broken," Muras suggested.
"Don't make me go back there, please. I'm done for today. I… I can't do any more. Not even for sound. I'm done for today," Forzen pleaded.
"I will talk to Torialis. But please, let's at least go back so Doctor Yavian can check your paw."
Forzen let out a broken, hoarse whimper, before he slowly nodded. With that, Muras reached down and picked up Forzen by the nape in his jaws, gently lifting him up and placing him on his back, before making his way back to the plainlands to meet with Torialis and Doctor Yavian.
Torialis was immediately apologetic when they arrived. "Oh ancestors, I'm so sorry, Forzen. I shouldn't have forced you to go so far, I just—"
"Don't. You didn't know how strong I was going to be. Don't blame yourself for what I did," Forzen interrupted.
"I… thank you."
"But, if I say I want to stop, or at least have a break, please let me. I can't keep doing this nonstop, especially if we're going to have that many revelations about my stupid elements and how powerful they make me."
"I understand. You've been through a lot this afternoon. We can have a look at sound another day, and maybe we might do that one first before trying to revisit plasma, just to get a slightly easier, more familiar, less deadly one out of the way."
"That sounds good."
"I'm glad you're on the same page as I was," Muras murmured to the earth guardian.
"I'm sorry for not thinking about what you were saying as well, Muras," Torialis murmured.
"As long as it doesn't happen again, and you at least hear me out if I have something to suggest, you're good on my books," Muras replied. "Now, let's go to the infirmary to get this boy's paw looked at."
Forzen woke up with a strangled gasp. It wasn't unusual for a nightmare to have woken him up; he'd had many of them over the last few years. It was an upsetting common occurrence that plagued his nights, and he had grown very accustomed to it.
Once more, corpses and mutilated figures had plagued his dreams, wounds that he had left on the victims' bodies. They were normally horrid images that made him scared to use his elements and cemented his drive to stay away from fighting others, even for self-defense, but tonight had been exceptionally awful. Due to the new revelations about his plasma element, his nightmares had become full of victims of various plasma attacks. He saw bodies blown open with plasma blasts, their burned bowels pouring out of their destroyed stomachs, faces disfigured and torn apart, and many large burning holes tearing through dragons' bodies. Some of them were massive streaks that ran through one side of the body to the other, as Forzen had slowly swept the attack along the length of many bodies at an agonising pace.
Seeing those gory faces scream at him, plead for mercy, cry for the ancestors to kill the demon slaughtering them… it pained him so much.
Immediately after waking, his body reacted the only way it knew how. He felt the tears building up in his eyes. NO. NONE OF THAT, Forzen thought, slapping himself in the face twice, fighting back the tears.
He stood up and paced a few laps around his room, taking deep, shaky breaths, trying to calm himself down from the horrors that had woken him up. Why do I have this element? he thought. Why do the ancestors hate me so much to give me an element this destructive, this lethal? Why do the ancestors hate me so much to give me awful elements like the sinister elements? Can't I just have normal elements? Fire, or ice, or earth, or something? Why do they allow me to use wind the way I can?
The venomfang's corpse flashed in his vision, green flesh and blood thrown in every direction as its head lay completely severed from its neck, shreds of flesh hanging from the messy cut that had decapitated it. The kill had been caused solely from his wind element, even with Master Almai's earth missile helping out. Forzen had simply used the earth missile as a tool, using his wind element to propel it forward like a bullet, making it more deadly than it had the right to be.
I'm a monster. Maybe they're all right. What if I am a demon? What if I am nothing more than devilspawn?
Rage built up in his chest: rage at himself, rage at the ancestors. A broken scream tore from his throat as he lowered his head and threw himself towards the wall of his room, running as best as he could with a broken paw. His head slammed into it, and pain flared throughout his head. He staggered backwards, before slamming himself into the wall again, and again, and again. Another shout left his jaws, as he almost collapsed to the ground, his vision spinning, his head swelling and bleeding, but he began to run towards the wall again.
"FORZEN, STOP!"
Forzen didn't register Muras' shout until after he came screaming to a stop in mid-air, a pink aura surrounding him. He looked to the side and saw Muras standing in his doorway, shock filling his expression, his irises glowing pink. With a motion of his head, Muras moved Forzen back to the middle of the room, gently placing him down on the ground. Muras then stepped forward, sitting himself down beside Forzen.
"Forzen, why are you doing this to yourself?" Muras asked, his voice sounding very broken and very concerned.
"Because everyone's right. I'm a monster," Forzen whimpered.
"What? Forzen, that's not true."
"Isn't it? How is it not true when everyone is scared of me? I am even scared of me! These powers I have, the strength and skill I have with them… it's not normal! I don't want these powers!"
"Forzen…"
"Why do the ancestors hate me so much?"
"The ancestors love us, Forzen. They watch over us and are always wanting the best for us."
"Then why do I have such awful, monstrous powers? Why do I have powers that could blow a hole in someone's gut? Why do I have powers that could end a life in a split second? Why am I being tormented so much?"
"Forzen, sometimes… sometimes there are things that even the ancestors can't control. They're spirit beings, and they have power that we don't up in the ancestral realm. But they're not gods."
"I just want everything to stop… the pain, the hatred… the fear. I want all these powers of mine to go away. I'd give anything to be a null right now."
"You're not serious, right?"
"Why would I not be? I'm aware of the discrimination that nulls get, but… maybe it might be better to what I'm getting now. Maybe at least if I'm a null, people won't hate me so much. These powers… they haunt me. They haunt me in the day and they haunt me in the night. My heritage haunts me. My dreams are plagued with so much awful things and I just… I just want them to stop."
As he spoke, Forzen only just realised how broken and tired he sounded. He was struggling to talk, finding even breathing hard, as if he was too exhausted to even breathe properly. He was spending too much of his energy trying not to cry, trying to throw himself at a wall, trying to fight back against the demons in his brain that ailed him in his sleep.
"Forzen, I'm no stranger to nightmares. What… what are you dreaming of?" Muras asked.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Listen to me, things aren't going to get better if you don't talk about it. If you keep your monsters in, they will only get worse. I've been through many, many nightmares; I can help."
"I said I don't want to talk about it," Forzen snapped forcefully.
"I just want to help you."
"Then just leave me alone!"
"But—"
"Please."
Muras' heart sank in his chest. Forzen sounded so defeated, so broken, and he didn't know how to help him. Muras didn't know how to get Forzen to open up, to give up his dark ailments. It hurt him too much to see Forzen like this. But he also knew that being here was upsetting Forzen just as much.
"Okay. I'll leave you be for tonight. Just… please don't go throwing yourself against walls again. Please don't hurt yourself," Muras murmured.
"I… I won't," Forzen replied, curling his tail around himself.
"Alright. I'll see you in the morning. Get some sleep."
"I don't know if I can."
"At least try. You'll need it. Sleep well."
With that, Muras left and closed the door behind him. Forzen spent the next few hours rolling around, unable to get to sleep, as he saw faces and shapes in the darkness, mocking him and taunting him—faces with evil grins and misshapen faces that screamed in hatred. His exhaustion was the only thing that brought him sleep, and it didn't take long before he was back in the world of nightmares. He was barely asleep for an hour before he was woken up to the sun shining through his window, signalling the start of a new day, where he would be returning to school once more in a few hours.
So this chapter kinda just wrote itself lol, I'm not sure how I was able to squeeze 8.7K words out of this chapter but I did. Had a lot of fun with this one unpacking the plasma element a bit. Sound was meant to be this chapter as well but with the way things happened as I wrote it, I realised that it probably wasn't realistically going to work having both of them due to what I was putting Forzen through plus his little freak-out, so we're going to have to get to that another time.
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MysticFire824: Making things easier for the characters? In this story? What's that lol XD The plasma element was one of the first things I came up with for this story, and I also thought it would work well since plasma is the sinister mutation of lightning, which Forzen already has, so I thought it would make sense that he discovered it next, even though it is a very destructive and dangerous element and will obviously make things harder for everyone. I like your reasoning behind earth and fire though lol. I'm not giving away what Forzen's fifth element is going to be though (that will be discovered later in this story).
Dragon of Mystery: The way plasma works was mainly inspired by how you see characters shoot laser beams from their eyes, and it was different from a regular breath attack so I thought that would be cool (although it still can be used as a breath attack, as Spyro uses it as such in Demonised; it just manifests in its base form as coming through the eyes). I also used the biology change to help aid in that because yes, having a super destructive, high energy laser beam tear out of your eyeballs can't be good for them, so I wanted a way that, coming from the original plasma dragons of old, has their biology adjust to the element to make it safer and work more efficiently for them. It's a cool concept that I definitely had fun writing, but yeah there's a lot of unknowns with this element, and it's a very scary thing to not know much about, and then to see the destruction one can cause with it like in this chapter. Poor Forzen's going through a lot right now.
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Thanks everyone for reading, hope you enjoyed and have a great rest of your day!