CWM: The Dragon Tree [2/2]

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this is part 2/2
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    One day as I tossed a ball with Matt I noticed how bright his hair shone in the sun, as brightly as my sword in Alur. As if moved by an outside force, I walked up to him and messed up his hair. It was at that instant the dragon spirits came back to me, having learned everything they could from the first ten years of a human boy. As in all dreams, my time on Earth faded away to me waking up in the castle on Alur. The only thing wrong was the time of day, it was noon and it was incredibly silent. Something was wrong, every fiber in my body told me I was in imminent danger but there was nothing around me aside for an empty castle. Even the elder spirit was gone.

    I ran outside, the sunlight temporary blinding me, and there stood Mike and Sasha. I could feel the eyes of the old man watching me from the balcony at the top of the castle, and in front of me as far as I could see were those creatures.
    "Good of ya to come lad," Mike whispered to me without taking his eyes off of the horde in front of us. "I think we went and got ourselves outnumbered." Of course he was right, but there was no humor in his voice so I just nodded my head.
    Then as if on que, their general arrived. The human child came as quickly as it could, though he was disfigured, he was set on a mission to destroy the last of life and he wasn't going to be late for his appointment.
    "So we're all here?" The creature smiled a genuine smile of victory, but none of us said anything. The boy shuffled his one baby foot and his other adult foot in the dirt as if he'd been standing for a long time. His one twisted baby arm scratched his face as he chuckled. "Doesn't matter anyways, we just need to destroy that castle. You can leave any time you want. You needn't stay and get involved in anymore of this." As he spoke his voice quivered and saliva ran from his mouth as if he were a drooling dog. The magic that had made this monster was pure evil, and my sword shone brightly from it reminding me of my son's hair. "Will you go then? My master wishes no ill upon any of you."
    "Your master," I interrupted him, stealing his attention from Mike and Sasha. "You can tell your master," I involuntarily placed my hand upon the hilt of my sword as my breath quickened with the urgent desire and raging need to kill this boastful little thing we had just encountered. There was no pain as I touched the sword, only the heat which felt more like empowering energy now instead of harming me. "Those of you who have come today to destroy, shall yourselves be destroyed." With that I couldn't hold back my impulses, I drew the sword which shone as bright as the sun itself. As I drew it the blade thickened and lengthened, though it was only as heavy as a feather, and without a single thought I took off running into the army before us. This time, I was fast. Really fast.
    No matter how many hundred I cut down before us, twice that number came to fill in their positions. In the 20 seconds I spent racing through the horde traveling slightly less than light travels, there was still no dent in their formation, only now they were advancing. I ran back to my teammates, we needed a plan or we would all die and lose the battle. The problem was, that as long as I held onto the sword the more of them I wanted to kill. It seemed to drive me without any will of my own. So as I returned to Mike and Sasha I sheathed my sword, and the voice of the old man came to me.
    "You know what you have to do to win this battle, let them stay behind while you fight the real final battle." His voice tired and weak ... and hopeful. This was the moment of the epic win or epic fail.
    "You two," I commanded them for the first time. "Keep them busy at all costs, do not let them reach the tower until I return." Mike turned to say something to me with a look of confusion on his face, but voice his complaints. He understood today I held the plan and our family bond from the past month helped him to realize how different I was in that moment than any other time on Alur.
    "Run fast, or we might not be here for you to return to," Sasha whispered aloud without taking her eyes of the slowly advancing army. I took one last glance at the old man before heading into the swamps. This had to work or we would all die.

    Reaching Maangteur, the dragon tree, I delicately gathered up the eggs and tied them to my back and quickly headed up the trail to the mountains. Mike's stories every night had painted a map for me in the back of my head, and I knew there was only one place a cave could be large enough to hide Dash. After an hour of traveling as fast as I could run, I could sense Mike and Sasha were in deep trouble, though there was nothing I could do about it. Their battle was the distraction, my battle was the primary objective. I had to win, but I had to lose first.
    The mouth of the cave finally stood before me, larger than the entrance of the castle had been, Dash was a lot bigger than I thought he might be.
    "Dash!" I called out into the darkness of the cave. "I've come to settle this, face me. Today, I am your enemy!" I was deathly afraid, but I kept my hands on the glowing sword to keep them from trembling. "Dash," I yelled again, and this time something came out of the darkness as swift as one of Sasha's arrows.
    "This one gives me a headache brother," the giant dragon's head spoke to the darkness.
    "Yes," the darkness spoke back. "I wish to eat him, will you let us?" Another head poked out from the darkness eying me hungrily.
    "No, I wish to crush it first."
    "But you always get to crush things!"
    I didn't wait for another opening, I lunged at the darkness between them hoping to find an easy target. All I got was a crushing blow into the cave wall by something big like their tail.
    "Oh I like it, this one's still feisty!" They mocked me for my size and strength, and they had every right. I had no way of defeating them, but I had to try.
    I sliced open their tail with my sword and was rewarded with breathing room as I fell to the cave floor several feet below. I quickly rolled over just being missed by one of their heads, and then another part of the tail slamming me and somehow tossing me to the cave wall again. It took everything I had to hold onto my sword, breathing was secondary. Finally I knelt behind a stalagmite cluster to catch my breath. After those head blows I couldn't see straight and I felt like my armor was as thin as paper. That's when the idea came to me that I needed to lose in order that Maangteur's children might live. With that thought, I sheathed my sword and stood up unafraid.
    "Dash, you're both right. How can I beat you when I'm so small and fragile?" The two dragon heads came out of the darkness to greet me again.
    "Oh, I think you broke it," the second head spoke up first this time as if with genuine sorrow.
    "No, but I do think it's judgement is correct. If you're still hungry I don't feel I have the tail for smashing anymore today," the first head giving the second head permission to eat me. With that thought in mind, I felt the gushing of wind and then wet darkness and teeth as I was consumed with the eggs still strapped to my back.

    I knew I would only have a few moments of air before I died, and so began to untie the eggs from my armor. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be while inside the belly of that beast, eventually the eggs were free from me. Then I focused on the trick Mike and Sasha had been using to save me all those times. We could teleport to anyone of our group that was seriously in danger. The alarm bells of their desperate struggle were exploding in my head, so it wasn't hard to focus on them. Several seconds later I found myself falling several feet to the dirt ground outside of the castle where the battle was still being waged. Though from the looks of it we were obviously losing.
    Mike looked like he was low on energy, as if he used his abilities much more he might turn into solid stone and die; Sasha looked like her left leg was broken, which left her mobility in combat at zero. I knew at that moment, this is what was most important. This is what the journey was about. Face the hoard of creatures, or run away; the sword pulsed with energy, as if it could talk it would tell me to stand. Just stand, even against all odds of failure, to do the right thing.

    "Mike!" I shouted at him while clearing the area immediately surrounding the castle of danger. "I need you to heat up the ground." I knew what I was asking, but I asked it anyways.
    "Lad, I can not." The fear in his voice, the magma barely a glimmer in his veins, we both knew it might kill him.
    "We stand and die, or we run and die. Today I chose to stand with my friends, so tell me you can do it. I don't need a lot, just heat it up a little!" More creatures came, and I lost count after the first hundred.
    "Sasha," I grabbed her arm to help brace her and keep her from falling. "Get up to the balcony and shoot anything that moves. We got this down here." Looking over at Mike concentrating, and then at my eyes, she simply nodded and hobbled to the castle to climb the stairs. She was a better asset as an archer than anything right now.
    "Mike?" I whispered as I stood next to him, the glowing sword in front of us.
    "I can't, anymore, can't." His voice trailed off, and the realization of my friends possibly dying here with me began to resonate with the chanting of the sword in my mind.
    "Kill the evil, kill the evil, kill the evil." The chanting in my head mixing with my thoughts and suddenly I felt as if I were on fire.
    As if a physical element of pure rage had overtaken me and once again I felt as if I could move as fast as light, but I didn't want to run this time. This time I wanted to destroy those whom had come to destroy. I felt the sword in my hands enlarge and lengthen again as if ready for my special move, and this time I drew it up into the air as the next wave of creatures came to attack. Then everything else turned black.

    Two days later I woke up and was told that I had been surrounded by a ball of white flames, that I had screamed while raising my sword in the air, and that as I brought it down onto the sand in front of the castle all of Mike's melting energy and all of the combined energy of myself and the sword had created a wave of melted sand that consumed about 90% of the remaining army. The rest had been picked off by Sasha from up on the balcony. Dash had been destroyed by the eggs hatching, and the young dragons eating their way out from inside the hydra's belly. And the old man, didn't look so old anymore, though he bore the scars on his face from being so close to extinction.
    Life was returning however, and I wasn't the only one recovering. Sasha had mended her broken leg, and Mike had been returned to his formerly glowing magma self. This time however, they saved a spot for me at the table. The young dragon siblings were to lead their planet into a time of restoration and peace with everything they had learned from their father in the dragon tree, and from mine and my son's struggles as one of the weakest creatures in the universe. That night after the dinner celebration the spirit returned us home in a bright light similar to the light that shone when we first arrived.
    I don't know what was waiting for Mike and Sasha when they woke up from that dream for the last time, but as I walked around my empty apartment on Earth that morning I realized I lived alone, and I cried. I had become the hero, but had lost everyone that I loved.