Second Life Chapter 5

I traveled all day and still got no closer to wherever the other dragons were. Eventually I came across something amazing, a giant forest! The trees were for the most part normal except they were well over 500 feet tall! I had grown tired from flying and decided this was as good a place as any to stop and rest. I found an opening in the canopy and flew down to the forest floor. Once there I curled up and fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was in a room I've never seen before. I looked at myself, I was human. When I tried to drop the spell, I discovered I wasn't using it. I was really human. "Great. One of these dreams again"

I left the room and walked out into the streets. There was a blood moon out, casting an eerie light on everything. I could make out a flag next to what I assumed to be city hall and could tell I was in Texas. I made my way around town when I saw a person moving through the shadows. I couldn't quite make out his face but knew this was the killer from my previous dreams. I followed at a safe distance and knowing it was a dream just watched as he came up behind someone. "Ryan?" he asked in voice that seemed oddly familiar. The person turned around just as the man grabbed him in a headlock and shoved some sort of blade into his gut. Ryan gasped in pain, then slumped to the ground as the man released him. Several people witnessed the whole event and started screaming. The man looked around till he saw me and said "It's your destiny." Then he turned to smoke and vanished.

I woke up breathing hard. "I hate those things," I muttered. Suddenly I heard something behind me. I got up and turned around. From what light filtered through the trees, I could see it was a blood moon. "Weird." I said. Then I noticed two things more alarming, One, the hole in the trees I came in through was gone. And Two, there was a pair of red eyes watching me from the shadows.

"Hello?" I called out. The eyes moved to the right and I could hear a scraping noise. I summoned a sphere of light and could see the creature.

It was shaped like a twenty-foot panther, but was made of some kind of black stone. Suddenly I leapt at me. I rolled on the ground and swiped at it with my tail blade, It just clanged off the beasts body. As soon as it landed, I shot several balls of energy at it, instead of exploding though; the creature seemed to absorb them! I tried a different tactic and used whatever new power I had and cloaked myself The panther wasn't confused as I thought he'd be though. When I moved to the side, he followed me. He could see me!

I dropped the cloak and fired a beam of energy with the same results. "Aww man!" I said as I realized it was made of voidstone. I couldn't attack it with my tail or my breath, All I could do is pray. I got up on my hind legs and took a fighting stance. "Alright kitty, time to get the big catnip ball in the sky." The thing leapt at me. Just before it slammed into me though, a nearby tree shot out a branch that caught the thing in the chest and drove it back till it was pinned against a nearby tree. Then a strange vine wormed its way out of the ground. Its tip folded back like a flower to reveal a blade like growth. The vine then swung almost too fast to see and the creatures head was rolling on the ground. A second after the entire thing crumbled to dust. Then I heard a voice behind me "Yes! Dragon one, voidling zero!"

I turned around and saw a green dragon walking out of the forest. He was about my age and was a deep green with light green belly and wings. His horns, wing spikes and tail spike were all a light brown with a reflective sheen to them. His tail spike was shaped like Spyros, but easily twice as long. His wing spikes were blunt, but long and hooked. His horns curved up and had spikes running along the underside. He also had a bag at his side, I couldn't tell what was inside it.

"Thanks for the help." I said. I've never seen spellcasting like that before.

"HA!" the dragon laughed. I cant use magic at all, that's my element.

"What? I've never seen an element like that before."

"That's because as far as I know, I'm the only one with it. I call it 'Nature'." He replied

"Interesting, My names James, what's yours?"

"I'm Ryan."

This obviously surprised me. "Wait, Ryan? I know you."

"How? I've never even seen a silver dragon before."

"You were a human once."

"What?" He said, taking a step back. "How do you know? I've never told anyone!"

I then explained my past and weird dreams to him. He then tells me about the history of this land. "This is a long story." He said. "Long ago, this realm was controlled by a sorceress, to establish dominion over the land, she found a huge deposit of voidstone and cursed it, bringing it to life as an army she could control. Many years later an old dragon stepped forth to oppose her, his age was his best weapon as she underestimated him. You see, he was the last golden dragon, he was capable of using magic to a near infinite extent and served the role the purple dragon now holds as protector of the land. While the sorceress was destroyed, her creatures, which became known as voidlings remained and fell into disorder, roaming the land and attacking any dragons they see.
Now, the forest has tried to contain the threat by changing, as you've seen to not let anything out.

"Well that's just great, I'm on a rescue mission and I have to get out."

Ryan smirked "Well lucky you. You happened across the only dragon who can manipulate the trees. I've been meaning to get out anyway, Treetop city has become to dangerous for my kind.

"What do you mean?"

"There's a group who call themselves 'Puritans'. They believe dragons should only be of fire, earth, ice, water, wind or electricity. Anything else is an abomination that must be destroyed. I've managed to avoid them so far, but there growing in strength and are now actively hunting me."

"Wow, sorry about that. So do you want to come with me?" I asked.

"Sure, who're we rescuing?"

"Spyro and his family."

"Wait, THE Spyro?! How could he need rescuing?"

"Apparently there's someone very strong out there. I need to get them back."

So with that we set off, Ryan leading the way. He told me how the forest was vast, it would take a week to reach the other side. We passed the time telling stories first of our brief experiences as dragons, it turned out he woke up as a dragon the same day I did. (That can't be a coincidence) I thought. Then we told stories about our human lives. It turned out we knew each other. I knew him a HolyCross9 on an art website. We had almost reached the edge of the forest when we came across a group of dragons. Ryan took a low stance and growled as soon as he saw them. "Puritans." He spat.

There were three of them, all adults. The leader was an ice dragon, the other too were a fire and wind dragon. "So, Ryan. Who's your little friend there?" the wind dragon asked.

"No one dad, just a new friend."

I turned to Ryan, "Wait, your DADS a puritan? Does that mean he wants to kill you?"

"Yeah." Ryan said. "A few days ago the puritans got to my dragon father; my dragon mother tried to defend me and died in the process. It was then I decided to leave. I was heading for the forest edge when I ran across you."

I could think of many thing's to call this guy but I held my tongue. It would only make things worse. Then the ice dragon spoke to me. "So, I've never seen your color, what's your element, or should we just kill you for being such a freakish color?"

At that point I couldn't hold back my anger toward these (censored). "You want to know my element? Here, take a look!" Flared my wings and hit them with a blinding flash. While they were stunned I hit the wind dragon with a salvo of energy blasts, the explosions ripping through his body and leaving a body with several chunks missing, the wounds cauterized by the heat. Then I hit the leader with a beam of energy, the blast throwing him back and pummeling him as he was pinned against a tree, eventually the tree gave way and he continued till I cut the beam on account of a massive tree falling toward us. Me and Ryan got out of the way, but Ryan's father was trapped under a branch that fell faster than the rest of the tree. "Ryan, Help me!" he pleaded. Ryan just stared at him as the tree fell. "You killed mom and tried to kill me." A look of terror showed in the dragons eyes just before the tree came crashing down on top of him.

I fell to the ground and started heaving before I puked. "Hey, James. You ok man?" I continued to heave for a few minutes before I finally got control of myself.

"I-I killed them. And the other one might be dead too." I'm ashamed to say I started crying.

"It's ok." Ryan said "It was kill or be killed. It was horrible what we had to do but there was no other way. Now get up, they'll figure out they haven't come back and more will be here soon."

I slowly got up and we made our way to the edge. When we got there, I was amazed at what happened. The trees actually moved closer together, too close for us to get through. I noticed a small gap and though I could make it bigger. I took a deep breath ant shot a beam of energy. "No don't!" Ryan yelled, but it was too late. The beam hit the tree, but instead of blasting an exit, it rebounded straight at me. I saw it coming and braced for the impact, but it never came. I heard Ryan curse. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see where the beam had hit me had vaporized! My top half was floating above my lower half! I looked behind me and saw a trail of black smoke coming from my body. As I watched, the smoke drifted toward me and solidified into the missing part of my body. This time it was my turn to curse. I touched the area; it was indeed solid, as if nothing had happened. I looked at Ryan who was staring at me like I was a freak.

"How on earth did you use shadow powers?"

"What?" I asked.

"That was a defensive technique used by shadow dragons. But that's not your element!"

(This is definitely weird) I thought. Then I decided to see if it would work again. I summoned up as much strength as I could gather and hit the tree with all I had. The beam formed a double helix and rebounded just like last time. Again I braced myself, but nothing could prepare me for what happened. When the beam hit, I was blown to vapor, not a single piece of me remained, just a cloud of black smoke, which quickly reformed into my body. "That was just freaky." I said. Again I looked at my body to make sure it was all there and got a surprise, my silver scales now had black designs on them. It seemed I was some sort of blend between light and shadow. That reminded me of a set of cards from yugioh that are based on light/dark. "Chaos."

After my little stunt, Ryan got to work; he got in his bag and pulled out two seeds. Each one flew to one of his shoulders and bonded themselves with his scales. Then they sprouted into long vines that grew several yards a second, they flew towards the trees and bonded themselves to the trees, then with a look of effort on his face, the trees separated, we both jumped through and the vines detached from Ryan's body and the trees slammed back together.

The forest behind us I had no idea where to go, but when I tried sensing where Spyro was, the sense kept leading me towards Ryan. (That's it! I wasn't leading me to Spyro, but to Ryan!) the second I realized that, the sense pulled me in a new direction. Ryan, who had been on the ground, whispering stood up. "Spyros this way." He said, pointing in a different direction. "How do you know?" I asked.

"The grass remembers. A group of dragons, Spyro included went through here."

"Well I think we need to go this way." I said, pointing In the direction of the pull. "Something's telling me to go that way. And the last time I listened, It led me straight to you. I think there's someone else we need to meet before we find Spyro."

So we headed in the new direction. Neither of us had been out this far, so either one of us knew where we were going or the dangers we would soon encounter.