Silently they followed Jason down the dark tunnel, unable to detect the threat that he claimed was already down here. The tunnel had been completely lined with stones that had been melted together by dragon fire aside from small gaps for ventilation where they could faintly smell the damp night air mixed the scent of burning wood. There were also lanterns placed evenly along the walls of the tunnel that Jason lit with a simple glace as he walked by and went out on their own after Quil, who brought up the rear, passed by them.
Quil didn’t know what to think. There had never been a dragon’s fire ability with these characteristics. When he last talked to Shea she was worried Jason was turning to stone and he suggested that she ask Marion what she thought given her unique power to sense other dragon’s power. She often said it was an enhanced perception ability but that wasn’t the full truth.
Dragons were extremely susceptible to becoming uncontrollably greedy, gluttonous and jealous, never content and always wanting more. Traditionally they had sought after material objects such as gold and jewels, but at some point that had faded away and was replaced with less tangible things, mainly power. And that’s exactly what Marion’s duel ability let her do, seek out sources of power and indulge in gold to her heart’s, discontent. Thankfully, she was not the malicious sort and even though she was over three hundred years old now, she was still very childlike, both in innocence and often maturity. But with her power, that was for the best.
Joyce, however, was distracted by her own internal struggle and silently fumed as she walked behind Jason. She had yet to develop her second ability but was fully aware of the dangers of what it could turn out to be. So she had deliberately only used her power for selfless reasons, mainly helping other dragons and sometimes humans, and never for any sort of reward other than the gratification she felt after helping. Before Jason had come she could tell that her second ability was starting to form though its purpose was still unclear. But from the moment she met Jason and had been unable to tell what his power was despite how strongly it radiated off of him, the intense curiosity and frustration she felt at not knowing took over instead. All the years of carefully persuading her second power to come from a desire to help others had been swept away by a moment of curiosity that wouldn’t end just a few steps ahead of her. Joyce just wanted whatever this danger that was ahead of them to appear, to see what on earth Jason’s weird ability was before her second ability took form.
To both Quil and Joyce’s dismay, Jason just kept on walking forward down the tunnel, lighting the lanterns and putting them out. There were no signs that there was anything else in the tunnel aside from faint odor of mildew in the damp, warm air.
After about twenty minutes of walking in silence, Joyce could tell that they were finally nearing the end where they would exit through a hatch she had the key to and out into a densely wooded area northwest of Dawnbraught when suddenly Jason stopped, all the lanterns, went out and they all could feel a cold breeze filled with fresh night air start to blow. Jason slowly started stepping backward as a low growl vibrated through the air and rumbled the tunnel’s stone around them followed by a deep, unearthly voice that echoed out from the darkness before them, “The fire will die. There will be madness. And Venex will come.”
Streaks of dark red fire lit up the tunnel around them, following along the lines where the stones had been melted together like veins of blood. Before them bathed in the ominous light was what they knew to be a plagued dragon, but it was unlike any creature they had seen before with each step it took toward them. It stood before them on two legs like normal dragon’s councilor form, donning long, plain ash gray robes with a cape that was layered with thick black scales and red colored, glowing threads. Just under its cape, they could see its wings, black, leathery and bat-like but with sharp, jagged silver plates lining each of its bones. It had dragon-like feet with shiny black scales and silver tipped claws with a tail that dragged behind them, but its hands were almost human only their pale colored flesh wore the same black scales and silver claws like armor. But when they finally saw its face, almost any dragon or human would have said that it, or she, was beautiful. She didn’t look like a plagued creature that only sought death and chaos, she didn’t even look like a dragon. Her face was mostly human, lean and delicate with pale skin covered in tiny transparent scales that glowed like a pearl. Along with her nose, forehead and cheekbones laid the same armor-like scales along with ridges of petite silver spikes. Her head was covered in silver-white hair that had been pulled back tightly into a braided bun, swooped back to frame the two sets of black horns also tipped in silver that gracefully curved away from her head. And her eyes were the same as Jason’s only they glowed with a soft, white light against the angry red that infiltrated the tunnel.
“Quil, what is that?” Joyce asked, knowing she should be feeling fear, dread, anger, something other than the curiosity that only ate at her more.
Before Quil could say anything Jason in a stern voice answered, “It’s a traitor. Both of you step back.”
The creature rumbled a disapproving growl before it spoke out in a deceptively soft, feminine voice, “So this is the Fire that Venex was so worried about. Ha! You’re barely old enough to fly.”
Jason didn’t respond and only held his hand up to prevent Quil from coming any closer. The creature chuckled softly at Quil’s confusion, not knowing whether he needed to force Jason to get behind him or trust that, somehow, he knew what to do.
“Quil. Joyce. This creature can infect you with something worse than the plague. And if it does, there will be no way to cure you. So step back,” Jason ordered them in the same flat, emotionless voice as before.
“How do you know? What about you? You’ve been a dragon for all of three days-,” Joyce started before Jason stopped her.
“Then use your ability. The secondary one you keep pushing back.”
“How would you-,” Joyce started to spit out angrily but Jason only interrupted her again.
“You can seek out knowledge. Knowledge that is power and can help.”
Joyce momentarily drew a blank. She had convinced herself that her other ability wasn’t fully formed but as she thought back it had been formed long before Jason came. She looked to Quil who despite the circumstances gave her a knowing look of approval, confirming that he had reached the same conclusion. He had simply been waiting for her to find it out on her own.
“Fine,” she muttered to herself as she finally released the fire she had been suppressing and breathed a fine silver mist into the air that only she could see. She could feel each and every particle and watched them wrap around the two beings in front of her, everything acting as if time had almost stopped moving forward and the only thing that could move was the silver cloud seeking out and sending to her the answers she sought about the Jason and the creature in front of them.
This was her first time using it so what she could gather was vague but what she did get was more than enough. The creature was plagued but of her own free will. She was a dragon, different, more powerful or profound, but the plague had distorted her and gave her a different kind of power. Dark and deadly. And Jason, somehow he was connected to her or what she was or where she was from, maybe all of them, she couldn’t tell, but he was still not quite the same even if she wasn’t plagued. His abilities were incomplete and a large part of his mind was currently blocked off but it gave him immunity to the plague that she carried and was the only way he could use any of his powers, and the plague made her weaker against him. But if Quil or herself attacked, they would be two ants trying to fight against the sole of a boot intent on crushing them.
Joyce tried to find out what the plague was, what was different about this one from the other but she had reached her ability’s limit and watched as the cloud dissipated and time resume around her.
Immediately she pushed Quil back as he tried to step forward again and told him, “No, Jason is right and we need to get back. I’ll explain later, but if we attack, we’re dead or worse.” But there was something else she sensed, something urgent, something else was coming, “Quil! My mom, all the others are almost to us!” quickly she turned back to Jason, “Do what you have to do! Just make sure this slimy rat is gone when we get back!”
Jason nodded watched just long enough to see Joyce and Quil make it safely away before turning his full attention to the traitor in front of him.
“Do you plan on staring me to death hatchling?” the creature mocked as she dropped her cape revealing an arsenal of deadly metal spikes and plates along her wings and heavy black tail, casting out the streams of red fire.
“Hardly,” Jason replied before his body burned with a blinding gold and silver light. Smooth silver armor accompanied by golden scales appeared on top of his skin, covering his face, back, arms and hands. A pair of bird-like wings grew out from his back, covered in feathers that looked like they were dipped in molten metal, with the longest ones resembling swords that had been left over hot embers for too long. Accompanying the wings was a matching tail and two sets of silver horns that arched back majestically across his head. Lastly, his eyes now glowed like two suns against the dark red light. His legs remained the same and despite the otherwise striking transformation, in comparison to the traitor before him, he looked extremely plain and unfinished which made her laugh.
“Really that’s it? For all the talk and pizazz this is kind of a let down,” she chided until she noticed a very specific mark just barely visible on the armor of his right shoulder but it was enough to drop a cold stone of fear into chest, finally understanding what all the fuss, all the fear about the Fire was about.
“That…you can’t…” she started to stammer which Jason immediately took advantage of.
Jason exponentially intensified the heat that exuded from his wings, lighting them on fire and with a single flap sent out a fiercely solid wall of flame. It burst, then burnt through the plagued creature’s wings that she had barely managed to bring up in time to prevent the onslaught from hitting her straight on. She should have been no longer capable of feeling pain but somehow she could feel the ripples of the fire as it burnt the skin and scales away on her wings and the crumbled to ash leaving her with two painful stubs jetting out from her back, the stone walls around her dripping molten rock.
She let out a thundering roar that threatened to tear the tunnel apart as more streaks of red fire erupted around her and lashed out at Jason from the walls like thousands of venomous snakes. Quickly he blocked the onslaught, wincing as his wings and armor took the brunt of the strikes, only mildly tarnishing the silver armor. He may have been more powerful than her and able to endure her attacks, but fighting as he was now, being incomplete, severely limited the abilities of his fire he could use, so he waited, hoping that the battle would end before the other’s caught up.
With each new onslaught the creature threw at him, whether it was fire, metal spikes or obsidian glass she created from the molten rock, she only became more enraged. When her frustration at its peak, rage clouding her judgment, she gave up on attacking from afar and drew out two scythe-like swords made of obsidian and steel warped together and charged at Jason, one blade poised to strike at the gap between his wings. In three long strides, she was to him, her blade in her right hand slipped through the gap but only managed to graze his shoulder before he grabbed her blade with one hand and her forearm with the other and used her momentum twist to the side and to toss her over onto her back. He still held on as she landed and sent a series of gold streaks into her arm that shot through the rest of her body, effectively dismantling every scale and piece of armor she wore in a blinding flash. Jason continued to hold on, pouring the golden fire into her until he had reached his limit.
He stumbled back against the wall and watched his armor, scales, wings, and tail all fade away and slumped down into a heap, staying awake just long enough to be certain that the now frail human body dressed in rags across from him stayed that way before he passed out.
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