"The Legend of Blade: The Birth - Chapter Five" by Josh ´Boo Boo´ Walls

       Blade made his trek back to Goherda.  Streak seemed uneasy with him now, but she still allowed him to mount.  Blade wondered why.  He had a little blood on himself from the griffin, but not too much.  Other than that he was the same man as before.  Maybe she noticed something he couldn't.  Faithful and kind, Streak had always been gentle with him, before she was even tamed.  She hadn't ever been like this.  By the time he made it back, he knew what needed to be done.  He had to let her go.  It wasn't the same as before.  Feeling awful about her uneasiness, he felt that he needed to return her favour of service and release her.  Blade knew she was afraid of this place, too.  He was losing one friend, but only to try to gain one that was even closer.

       Blade climbed down the steep slope, blocking out thoughts of his dear friend.  She was gone.  He didn't notice it until he reached the bottom, but somehow the journey took no effort.  The last time it took a lot of his will to go a few jumps.  Compared to before, the area wasn't nearly as dark as he remembered it to be.  The darkness was still thick in the air, but his eyes seemed to cut throughout with little strain.  Thinking it was the orb's doing, he was satisfied.  The thought was quickly dismissed as it didn't matter to him anyway.  He wanted Doane to pay, and wondering why things were didn't get him any closer.

       Blade walked up to the plaque once more.  This "castle defense" was in his mind.  It couldn't be worse than what he had just come from, with the gryphon and all.  He reached behind himself and grasped the golden emblem which he had stowed away in the pouch.  It matched the inlet perfectly as he pushed it into a snug fit.  The ground began to shake violently as Blade stumbled backwards, almost falling.  The gate fell to his feet, literally.

       -What?  I could have just shoved that thing over, but no!  Like an idiot, I go after the emblem..., he thought to himself.

       Rambling on at his arrogance, Blade stumbled through the gate.  Ringing ears, pumping blood, and sweating hands were just proof that his whole body had felt the sudden earthquake.  His knees felt as thought they weighed much more than they did in reality.  Twitching began at his eyes and worked its way down in quivers of cold chills.  When the effects calmed down, he walked towards the door of the castle, where a sword lay upon the ground.

       The courtyard was extremely large, too large for the look of it from atop the trench.  Blade pulled himself together before he was a quarter of the way across.  When he was stable enough, he began to jog across for he hated to waste time.  As he approached the halfway point, the quakes started up once more.  Balancing himself through parted feet, Blade was able to ward them off this time.  Shock came across his intellect as he found that the quakes and sounds found small ring spaced thought the yard to be their home.  The noises and pure force grew stronger with each shake.  Cracking and sliding, the soil began to give way.  The soil looked weak in half of a dozen places.  Suddenly, it stopped.  All was still, but it felt different.  Something gave it the feel of wrong.  He didn't know how.  Inside, he searched for an answer.  The realization cloaked him with a fear for the unknown.  The feeling was the same as the one he had when he descended the land the first time, and the same as his trek through Holy Hill.

       -Eh, not good...- Blade thought to himself.

       WHAM!

       The ground shot up from each of the rings of destruction, hurled by an unseen force.  Pounding to the ground, the things were revealed to his sight.  They looked like miniature dragons: wings; thick legs; but their arms were longer, likened unto those of a man with claws instead of fingers.  The wings were like leather stretched too tightly across bone, just like the skin.  Seemingly invisible, the skin acted like a chameleon's as they blended perfectly with the dark and dirt.  It didn't change to match; it already had.  He lost track of all but two, and they were the two idle ones.

       BAM!

       He was slammed into the ground.  At least one circled around him.  As he bounced ever so slightly from the ground, another dragoon kicked him in the side, forcing his rolling over.  When he regained control of his body, he popped up to his feet and ran to the middle of the courtyard to allow for maximum mobility.  It wasn't working; he ran into one.  His eyes saw the dragoon just before he reached it.  Blade hurled himself high into the air, trying to hurdle the aggressor.  The dragoon's reflexes were much too fast, faster than Blade's.  It reached up with one clawed, bonny hand and grabbed his shoulder.  The moment it took hold, it slung him back a dozen yards, back into the middle of their circle.

       "Blade," a voice called into his mind, "use the power you have hidden within..."  Blade looked around, and couldn't find a mouth capable of such speech, but it repeated. "Use the power you have hidden within yourself!  Use it now!"

       Blade wasn't sure if he had imagined it or not, but he didn't know what it was asking either.  This power was foreign to himself.  How could he use it?  If it were but his imagination, he would assume it as truth.  His instincts breathed through his imagination.  They were never wrong.  Searching, Blade combed his knowledge for the meaning.  He knew things now that he hadn't known before.  It had been that way since he had first taken the -

       -The orb!  That has to be it.  The power hidden within is the orb.  My body radiates with it.  That's why I can see...-

       "Rawer!" came his lungs' voice and rage.

       The change was instantaneous as time stopped for the duration.  He forced the Orb of Light out of his stomach and power shown as an extremely bright light, even more so than the gryphon had used.  His attire seemed to take in some of the light, and soon they were as bright as the courtyard.  With the illumination, his clothes became a conductor, as they and his sword turned from their black color to a newly made white.  Time continued.  He stayed this transformed "creature" outside of the gap in time.  The dragoons covered their eyes immediately and began to back away from the light.  His muscles felt to have tightened and strengthened as well.  Making him faster, his conception of time slowed to the point that all but he was in a slow motion.  Before the dragoons could take a step, he was behind the closest offender.  His abilities had skyrocketed.

       Shin.

       The beast fell over in two, dissolving back into the dirt from which it had come.  Blade didn't move as they turned and watched the quick defeat of their comrade.  They seemed frightened, terrified by what happened.  Stepping toward the next three that were incline with him, Blade poised his sword.

       Shin.  Shin.  Shin.

       Silently, the fell just like the first, into a tomb of their make.   Lastly, Blade turned his attention to the last two dragoons.  Ironically, they two were pleased with his performance.  These two were the ones that had first struck him, knocking him down, kicking him over, and throwing him back into the ring of evil.  The first opened its mouth and a deep, cutting roar blasted through the air as the second joined the battle cry.  Blade walked slowly towards them and sliced the first in half; then, he slaughtered the second.  Satisfied with his victory, he turned to the tower's door, but stopped as he viewed that these two weren't vanishing into the ground.  The pools of acid blood ran between their two halves and pulled their bodies back to normal.  Without thinking, Blade repeated the kills, slicing them into pieces again.   This time was different.  The bodies' blood connected, and they pulled into one draconian being.  Blade watched with amazement as they molded into the new creature.  It was a little taller than him now; the arms were more like legs.  The beast walked on all fours.  Flapping in the stillness, the wings were full in size, with a wingspan of twenty to twenty-five feet.  It was easily described, the two dragons combined to form a dragon.

       As time slowly crept by, the flesh of the dragon before him grew darker and darker, as if it radiated darkness.  The light from Blade wavered only a little at first, then kept its ground.  It began to flap its wings violently, but to no avail.  It couldn't fly, but the darkness was taking over more and more...

       "Blade," came that voice again, "it holds the orb of darkness.  Overcome it.  Reach deeper into your soul for the true source of the light.  When the darkness is overcome, the orb is yours.  Reach for your weapon."

       Blade knew what it wanted him to do.  Many could harness their energy.  Few could control it in any given part of their body.  Only he could use it for an attack.  The other had passed away some time ago.  After just becoming exposed to the possibility that the legends were true, and yet he understood how to use the powers in their full.  Blade plunged deep within and pulled out the vibrant light once more.  He put his sword back into its sheathe as the darkness slowly retreated away.  He placed the heels of his hands together, palms facing opposite directions.  As he bent back, his palms left a small space between his hands that quickly gathered the light into a sphere big enough to cover his hands from plain sight.  The veins in Blade's body jumped at the surge of power.  This new energy from the light burned as it began to flow throughout him.  His muscles flared to a new max.  Blade thrust his hands at the dragon, creating a beam of energy that was aimed directly at the beast.

---

       A marvelous beam of hurling light plunged into the dragon's chest.  It fought with the force of the radiating darkness from within the evil beast, slowly prevailing.

       -Come on, Blade.  Your understanding of the ancient abilities is stupendous.  Don't disappoint me now.  Dig deeper,- Rafael thought to himself.

       The dragon pushed back at the white beam and shoved it backwards some ways with a blast of its own.  Black and white both collided as the light rushed back to its offending position.  This time, the beam wavered and the black dark was overcoming it.  With a last, full effort, Blade let go of a furious strength that was far stronger than before.  The darkness was instantly drowned in the brilliant white.  The energy ate away at the flesh of the beast.  Deteriorating, the voice and body of the enemy had fallen silent.  Wings were motionless and eyes became as black holes.  Blade had won at long last.

       -Good, you can control the energy at your disposal,- Rafael laughed in his mind.  The abilities were wonderful to witness.  He had never seen anything like it.

       "Whew!" Blade murmured in his racing breath.  "That took a lot of effort.  What am I saying?  That was... different.  At least it won't come back this time."

       Rafael watched as Blade released himself, allowing the light to return to its grave inside of his soul.  Obviously feeling better about himself, Blade picked up the black orb of darkness that lie were the dragon had been and absorbed it as well.  Blade walked to the tower, this time more hesitant about the "castle defense."  It had almost proven to be too much.  One more screw up likened unto that could mean his life.  As he approached the door, Blade stopped long enough to check the sword.  After determining it was Doane's, he walked through into the castle.  Inside, Blade was alone, but only for the moment.