Dragon X

"Are you sure that you want to proceed with the plan?"

Silence. In the blinding darkness, the unbearable stillness was the only thing that existed. Although the twelve shadow individuals were not afraid of anything, for their own powers were beyond normal human wizards and dragon mages, they were uncomfortable while facing the Night Beast himself. A pair of massive red eyes suddenly emerged in front of them. The pupils in that menacing glare were non-existent, as the crimson color seemed to be swirling around and around among the portions of light orange within the eyeballs.

"Each of you have your own tasks... now leave me," Night Beast's voice was so low that the twelve shadows could feel their essences being shaken up by the vibration of the air. "Find that Tra Dragon and kill him. I don't want another being threatening my plan."

One of the shadow beings flicked his dark tail and asked: "What if we coerce him to join us? With his amazing power, we could gain a powerful ally."

"You are too naive to think in such a childish way," the dark entity growled deeply. "Why would he want to join us and our cause?"

"But-"

Without warning, the Night Beast's energy erupted like a volcanic explosion. Even though the Dark Realm was pitch black and nothing could be seen, the twelve shadow beings could feel a formidable surge of aura slamming against them. They couldn't maintain their own strengths while they were being pushed away from their master.

The Night Beast roared as he angrily extended his wings and slashed his giant tail across the Dark Realm plane. "Don't you ever rebuke against me! Now go and do your assigned tasks!"

A colossal sphere of darkness expanded from the awesome creature of the night, as it engulfed everything in its path without mercy.

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It was close to the season of fall, but the weather was still gorgeous. Sky was filled with patches of clouds, but for the most part, it remained clear. The sun was dipping slightly lower in the past few days, for it had detected the whispering footsteps of autumn. Nature was something that could not be defied and the fiery orb in the sky knew when it was time to step aside for the coldness of autumn and winter to take over. A gust of cool wind slithered through dense branches. It twirled around me while Kasaran was talking happily on my left. Both of us had been walking for three days already through this giant forestland. Although we didn't have a predetermined destination yet, we'd figure that we should head toward the west. There was something about west side that beckoned me to follow. I still had no idea what it was. We could have flown over all these towering trees and soggy dirt roads, but Kasaran told me that we needed to conserve our energy. Every time that we exerted ourselves, we would require a full day to recover. Although Kasaran did not have the Nemca that I had, he recovered nearly at the same rate as me.

There were times that he asked me about all the spells and enchantments sealed in that scroll, but I was just as baffled as he was. I could feel the weight of the scroll in the backpack while my shoulders sagged a little because of that. I could feel my aura flowing through my body. I just couldn't use the Nemca as easily as the elder had told me. Perhaps he was just mistaken about my ability. Perhaps I was just a protector dragon (in a physique that was completely different of course). Maybe I was nothing special.

"What are you thinking now?" Kasaran tilted his head as he arced his neck in front of me.

I blinked and looked at him for a while.

"Come on, Are (Kasaran now called me that for short)," he gazed at me deeply. "I know when something is troubling you."

I laughed. "Nothing. I was just thinking about how foolish you are by stepping in the same place twice on the same single track that we have been following ever since this morning."

He frowned as he looked back across his shoulder. His dipped his tail lower and left a long, thin line behind us with the tip in order to test out the softness of the ground. Then he noticed another set of footprints almost overlapping with his.

"Huh... that's odd. Either I'm on the stimulating effects of Sti Herbs or I have lost my sense of balance while chatting with you."

"Nah," I responded with a slight hint of puzzlement. "The prints are too clean. It looks like..." I became quite as I stopped and observed the footprints. Bending down, I continued: "I think it looks like another dragon has been following us very, very closely."

Kasaran's eyes were wide. "Come on, Are. Don't scare me like this. In the broad daylight, we could have seen the stalker miles away. How can we be walking for hours without noticing that someone has been following us?"

I looked up and surveyed the area. The place was rather peaceful. It was serene, almost as if the trees were frozen and the wind disappeared. The path that we were on was littered with leaves and other forest debris. Nothing seemed out of ordinary. Golden beams of sunlight filtered through the tightly packed treetops and formed several solid lines of whiteness across the land of green and brown. I could see a few flowery spores in light purple rising up into the air as if they were angels heading back toward the heaven above. Their fuzzy outlines wavered in the tiny breeze that somehow had gotten past my senses.

"Kas, I'm getting worried," I whispered to my lover when I stood up slowly, still eyeing the surrounding area.

He came up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I could feel my contracted wings brushing against his chest.

"Maybe we are just paranoid. I guess this duel footprints were made by me subconsciously. I mean the ground isn't even. I might have lost my balance all the way from the start." Kasaran was chuckling but I could hear the uncertainly embedded in his tone.

"I guess-"

Before I could agree with him, I found myself flying through the air with a flash of intense pain across my chest. My eyes were seeing yellow and white, as several strands of dark tentacles enveloped me for a second. Closing my eyes, I was about to draw a breath and yell out in agony when I crashed through an ancient cedar behind me. The lofty tree tumbled down from above after being severed from its base. I sucked in a mouthful of air before I screamed and rolled out of the way in the nick of time. Kasaran leaped to the side when the monstrous timber landed onto the soil with a loud bang. Million of leaves and shattered barks flung in the cool air for a long moment before they rained down from the sky, pelting both of us in a sea of rage. A dark brown cloud of dust rose up and immediately covered us.

"Are!" Kasaran cried out when he saw me lying on the floor after the dust had settled. "Are, are you okay?" He gently lifted my head as I coughed out some blood. Damn, it sucked to feel this kind of throbbing pain.

"W-what... the hell just hit me?" I panted and squinted my eyes. Tears were flowing out of my eyes. My chest felt like someone had just swung a human-made sledgehammer against me.

Before my lover could answer (which obviously, he would have said he don't know), in my distorted vision, I could see a small spot of blackness on the uneven land slowly rising up. Kasaran's eyes were wide with disbelieve when he saw the mysterious spot suddenly became a dragon in black. The stranger was giving out an atmosphere of dreariness, as he twisted his neck left and right while extending and contracting his wings. Tail twice as long as mine was slicing back and forth behind him. His eyes of dark orange stared straight at me. All of a sudden, I felt a sense of fear flowing through my mind. It was the first time I had felt such a hideous mood of murderous fury.

"K... Kas," I said quietly when I could see that he, too, was trembling in apprehension. "Kas!" I shouted when he wasn't listening me to me. When he finally did, I said: "Leave this place... right now. This dragon... is not normal."

"Well, I can see that!" He exclaimed in a way that implied how stupid I was for telling him something as apparent as that. "I can't leave you like this, Are! You are hurt!"

Grabbing his shoulder and pulling him close to me, I grumbled: "Listen here. You are going to leave me here and run. I can still move. I was just dazed and out of breath, but now I am fine. With you here, you are going to be a liability. I cannot battle against this beast with my aura if you are still here, being a victim. Do you understand me?" When I saw his lips were trembling, my voice softened by a huge margin. "Kas. Please just listen to me this time, my love. I'll be fine. Keep on heading west and I'll meet up with you later. Please."

It could be because he could understand how dire the situation was. It could be because he knew how weak he was compared to me. Either way, he reluctantly nodded.

"I love you, Are..." his voice was cracking as tears started to form.

Wiping at the corner of his dark brown eyes, I gave his face a few licks. "I love you too. Now go!"

"You think you can run away from me like this?" The black dragon sneered. "Pitiful."

Abruptly, a thin line of shadow extended from his body and transformed into a pike. The pointy tip was amazingly sharp. I knew that. Kasaran was going to be killed. I also knew that. Mastering all the energy inside of me, I shoved my love away from me. In a quick spin, I was on one knee with my left arm extended outward. A sudden rush of Nemca appeared from the center of my body and rapidly gathered at the edge of my straining palm. When the black pike collided with my hand with a deafening boom, a wall of light blue appeared. It wasn't solid. It wasn't liquid. It was something that was odd and bizarre. It was so... magical, in a way, that I was half gaping at it and half hoping that it would last, for the attack from that bastard beast had been stopped by that small barrier of light. The scenery beyond such barrier formulated by me was wavering back and forth, almost as if it was a simple mirage in the searing desert of death.

"Go!" I yelled when I noticed how Kasaran was on his back, propping himself slightly with both elbows. "I'll keep him busy!"

Kasaran was about to ignore my words, but when he saw the massive amount of dark energy materializing behind the black dragon, he was shocked and obeyed. Soon, he was crashing through brushes and branches, while looking back at me constantly, hoping that I would follow him. But I knew that I would be with this enemy for a while, because I could feel his strength doubling every time I tried to drive back the dark aura. My left hand felt like it was burning. It was as if I had placed my hand into the core of a howling flame, with my flesh gradually roasting among the dancing embers. Between both of us, our two opposite energy merged into one and created a storm of power. Wind was gusting from the center of our little tug-a-war. More branches, leaves, dirt, and other forest remain whirled around us. Beneath me, the ground slowly sagged downward and I could see the same thing happening at the spot where the dragon was standing. White lightening flickered and crawled around us, snaring at anything and everything around the region.

With a roar, I channeled most of my Nemca into a single, focal point on my left palm. My eyes turned dark orange and I pushed the entire assaulting aura upward into the sky. The place exploded in an unyielding line of black and blue, while the clouds were chased away by the rushing force that shot off from the land below. The towering force continued to thicken, to a point where space was distorted and a rippling-effect could be seen for miles from where we were. Day turned into night for a full minute. Trees were burning. Grasses were charcoaling. When the blinding light faded, all I could see was smoke raising around us. The dark dragon only snickered as he folded his arms across his chest. His tail lightly tapped the ash-colored ground.

Panting and sweating, I asked angrily: "Who are you and why are you attacking me?"

Side-glancing me, the egoistic stranger grinned slyly. "Ararez. It's my pleasure to finally meet you. The Tra Dragon himself presented before me. Such honor." Displaying rows of elongated fangs, his blood red tongue slid out and licked his lips. "My name is En. I am one of the Twelve Shadow Dragons serving the Night Beast master. You don't need to know what we do and all the little details. Suffice to say, I'm here to kill you."

"Why? For what?"

He took a step forward. I could still see an abundant layer of intense aura in pure blackness coating his flesh. I knew, in my mind, that he was a dragon that could have the power rivaling the golden dragons.

"For what, Ararez?" En laughed as he closed his eyes and shook his head. Reopening his eyes, he glared at me with those deep red pupils. "It's simple. Night Beast master wants us to kill you because you are a threat to his grand plan. Of course, I don't see what's so dangerous about you. After that little contest we've had a moment ago, I can safely say that you are pathetically weak."

I growled with my fangs bearing at him but he only laughed harder.

"And to think that I was hoping for a good fight," En continued to mock me as he took another step forward. "Really, Ararez. I didn't use forty-percent of my full power when I tried to attack your little cowardly friend back there. So don't go thinking that you've got what it takes to kill me after blocking a tiny attack from me."

"I have nothing against your 'master', you idiot!" I shouted. Clutching my chest, which was still prickling with pain, I yelled: "You have no reason to harm me or my friend!"

En's mood suddenly darkened noticeably. Eyes glowing with a clear expression of murder, he roared with a voice that was much deeper than before. "We are here to prevent you from messing up our plan! We don't need a justified reason to kill you!"

His voice echoed. With that, the entire area was blown apart with a torrential wave of black Nemca. I cried out in surprise as I tried to use my own energy to shield me from that insane outburst of strength. Yet, no matter how I tried to deflect the surging blackness that seemed to be growing larger and larger in a sphere, I was thrown higher and higher into the air by the recoil of the shockwaves. From the sky, I could see a giant ball of blackness rotating among the trees. Constant flashes of lightening licked the ball and set fire to plantations that were in the distance. Everything inside that death light was eaten up completely.

I closed my eyes briefly to focus my Nemca, as I used my wings to stabilize myself in the chaotic air current. When I reopened them, I saw a flying figure shooting toward me. It was En. Immediately, I turned around and started flapping my wings as fast and as hard as possible. However, En was considerably faster than me.

"You just keep on running, Tra Dragon! I'll hunt you down and kill you!" The black dragon laughed in such a way that resembled an individual going mad.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a giant ball of black energy howling toward me. I dipped my right wing and grasped the up flow of the air. A rapid left turn was made. The ball passed by within inches. I could feel my shoulders and my back aching with the intense heat generated from that aura attack. But before I could relax though, several other balls of energy were shot toward me. I heaved a deep breath as I folded my wings and wrapped my tail around my legs. I free fell toward the ground swiftly. Those attacks narrowly missed me and landed not too far away. Half a dozen explosions later, a half sphere of light gray could be seen in the horizon. It just bounced up high into the heaven from the ground. A second later, I was twirling around in the sky without any control whatsoever when the roaring boom cast a shockwave so large that a whole bunch of trees were flattened over half a mile.

"Come on, Tra Dragon!" En shrieked, as his eyes were bloodshot. With an ever-enlarging ball of energy in his right hand, he yelled: "Master said you are a threat! But here, you are useless! Useless creatures should die! The strongest live! The weakest die! It's the law of nature! We are going to reshape this world into an order that is logical and not so contradictory!"

I spotted a large lakebed only a few miles from where we were during all this havoc actions going on. An idea formed in my mind. Extending my wings once again, I started to fly toward the lake.

Looking back, I shouted: "Yeah? Well, strongest doesn't mean the smartest! I'd bet you still couldn't kill me even if I stand before you with both of my wings tied behind my back because I can strategize better!"

"Shut up!"

The dark dragon was enraged further. Hatred blinded his judgment as he continued to hurl his energy attacks at me. A mile long of destruction quickly followed me, as I banked left and right in a tight pattern but still maintained a straight flight path. En's Nemca seemed to be unlimited, as he punched more than several dozen craters upon the forestlands. Each time the black aura balls detonated upon impact, I could feel my organs trembling along with the shockwaves. It wasn't long before the sky was filled with snaking smoke and falling dirt. Somewhere back in my mind, I was hoping that Kasaran would be safe from all the falling deaths.

"f*** this! Stop running away like a coward!" En screamed.

I looked back and saw him clasping his hands together. Channeling even more strength within himself, he violently shoved his hands in my direction, palm outward, and yelled: "Black Gates of Summit!"

There was an immense earthquake forming and I stopped right above the glimmering lake. Twelve blocks of black Nemca walls materialized from the ground and surrounded me, blocking my path. Each one of them unleashed a series of energy so dense in nature that I almost couldn't breathe. Gathering my breath, I saw En was drained of his power. He was also within the walls above the land of refreshing water.

"Now you can't run, you little bastard..." His arms were limp as he continued to hover there, snickering as if he had won the battle. His slick dark scales glittered under the setting sun.

I grinned deviously. Something inside of me was starting to appear, but I didn't know what. Shaking a finger, I replied: "And you created this enchantment because you don't want to play the chase game no more?" I was slowly gathering the rest of my Nemca into the core of my soul. "In the end, you have also become weak, like me. What was that phrase again? Strongest live and weakest die?" Sneering, I flicked my tail behind me. My eyes were dark orange and filled with rage. "Looks like you are going to die as well."

"I still have enough strength to punch a fucking hole in your heart!" En cried out in absolute hysteria as he pointed out two fingers.

Before his black Nemca could shoot forward like an arrow, I summoned all of my existing aura around me and released them in a single blast from my right hand.

"Let me show you what I mean by strategize!" I shouted while straining to keep the power flowing inside of me. Oh how I wanted to savor the moment. My emotions were running high. I was thoroughly excited.

"Whua-"

En was about to yell out in surprise when a mega sphere of water encased him within its soft body from out of nowhere. Beneath us, the lake was dry. I had used the water enchantment and injected all of my Nemca into the liquid completely. En tried to move but he couldn't. The body of water was like a series of chains. No matter how he tried to thrash about, no matter how he tried to force his trickling Nemca outside this ball of water, it was all done in futile actions. I could see his black flesh warping because of the flowing currents that circled the sphere. Tiny bubbles bounced around my prisoner, as I finally laughed in an evil way.

"Y-you little-"

He was about to curse at me, but I had heard enough. Closing my fingers into a fist, the giant sphere of liquid leisurely pressed in and condensed into a smaller size. I could hear En screaming in pure agony. I could hear his bones cracking. The pressure within the water had gotten so great due to the condensation that his rich, dark blood was seeping out of his flesh aggressively. It was flowing out in a wave-like style. Almost like strips of fancy ribbons during a ceremony. The tainted blood mixed in with the light navy water, and in my mind, I hated to see it. Water was sacred. His blood was not.

"Absolute Water Jail. The end." I snickered softly.

I closed my fist tightly and with a final scream from my enemy, the ball of water exploded into several other blobs of liquid, which were then splashed into countless of water droplets and spread across the firmament. It wasn't refreshing anymore. The water was dark brown because of the black shadow dragon's blood. Some of them had flown quite a distance in the air and landed on me. I saw a part of his tail spinning past my left arm and a section of his leg falling rapidly into the trees below. I licked the blood off my arms while gazing at the empty spot where En was with my dark orange eyes. The walls of Black Gates of Summit had also disappeared into thin air. Their purpose was pointless.

I didn't know why. Even though it was the second battle (and a very hard one too, or so I thought) that I ever had in my life, I should feel tired and scared. But I wasn't. That rage was still there. The thrill was there. And the more I used my Nemca, the more I wanted to battle. In a sense, I wanted to see my enemies die before my eyes. In fact, I'd think that I would do anything to have battles like todays once again, no matter what the price was. Laughing into the sky, I extended my arms and wings to their fullest. The shower of lake water continued and En's blood dribbled down my face, neck, chest, and the rest of my body.

It was the first time that I felt free.

To be continued....