The Darksield Chronicles

Chapter 27: The Dark Side of Warfang

Wraith POV

Wraith woke up and stretched. He sensed that it was morning and guessed that everyone was probably up already. He got up and stretched some more. Then he surveyed his surroundings. Something felt off. Not too much, but enough to be noticed. He shook his head. He was probably just imagining things. Then he remembered last night's events and smiled, the feeling of wrongness dissipating. He walked to his door and opened it. From the lack of noise coming from all the rooms, he guessed that everyone was already downstairs.

He turned to head down to the main hall when he spotted Cynder down the hall. "Hey, Cynder," he called.

She turned, and his heart almost jumped into his throat. She had a shimmering black aura around her, and her eyes were pure white.

She snarled "Ape!" and shot a blast of shadow at him. He ducked, and the shadowy fire flew overhead and slammed into the wall.

"Cynder!" he called. "What are you—" He was cut off when she unleashed an arc of wind that would have sliced him in half had he not dodged out of the way.

She charged.

He backed up hurriedly and reached into his shadow powers. She pounced, and he teleported through her shadow and into the main hall where Terrador, Cyril, Volteer, Flame, and Spyro were hanging out.

He spun around. "Guys, I don't know what's going on, but Cynder is upstairs in her dark form and—" His voice cut off as he stared at the others in horror. All of them had pitch black scales, and their eyes were glowing pure white.

"Ape!" Dark Spyro yelled. His voice had way too much reverb, like he was talking through a sheet of plastic. "Kill it!" He charged up a blast of convexity and fired.

Wraith yelped and sidestepped. "Guys, what's going on?" he demanded but was cut short when the others launched elemental attacks at him. He dodged. What the heck was going on?

He charged toward the doorway and leapt into the shadows, only to teleport into a random alley near the center of the city. He collapsed, panting against the wall. It didn't make sense. Why was everyone in dark mode? He peeked out of the alley.

Dragons were walking around on the streets like normal, except their scales were black, and he guessed that their eyes were pure white as well. He ducked back inside. This didn't make sense. Dragons only took on their dark forms when under massive emotional stress, and as far as he knew, all the dragons in Warfang couldn't have just gotten a massive dose of emotions and turned dark all at once.

That's when it hit him. Only the dragons seemed affected. He hadn't seen any cheetahs, so maybe that meant that he could find some help from them. As though his thoughts had summoned them, three cheetahs appeared on the roof above him. All of them had grey fur, which normally wouldn't have bothered him since some cheetahs had grey fur, but these had glowing eyes, so... no help there.

He teleported away before they could attack and landed in the middle of a park. He needed to get out of Warfang and come up with a plan. The problem was that he was too far away to make a jump without killing himself. He had to get closer to the borders of Warfang.

Wraith teleported to the top of a roof and started running. He had been running for at least three minutes before he heard a flapping noise above him. He glanced up.

Cynder and Spyro shot down from above and blasted convexity at him.

The blasts sent him flying into the street beside him and filled his side with shrapnel. Pain lanced up his side as he rolled to absorb the impact and shot to his feet. He glanced around him and saw at least twenty dark dragons including Flame, Cyril, Volteer, Streak, Flare, Marsh, Terrador, and Aurora. There were also thirty dark cheetahs with bows aimed at him, and fifteen moles with an assortment of hammers and other forging tools.

He surveyed his options. He couldn't transform into Darksield and fly away because he would get shot out of the sky, and if he stayed on the ground, he would die. He was still at least fifty feet away from the gates of Warfang. Safety so close, and yet so far.

He drew his sword and surveyed the ring of enemies. There was no way he could take on all of them. Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe he could.

He spun his sword in a circle, pushing his shadow energy into it as he did, and then stabbed it into the ground, unleashing it. As expected, a massive wave of shadows blasted out in a ring of force and sent them flying.

A second smaller explosion followed a millisecond behind it, this one taking the form of a shadowy dome. The second blast sent Spyro and Cynder (who were still in the air at the time) cartwheeling through the air. He hoped they were alright.

Wraith tugged his sword out of the ground and ran as fast as he could toward the gates. He heard some dragons getting back up and flying after him in pursuit. Ten feet. Five. He leapt just as he heard a twang. An arrow buried itself in the back of his shoulder an instant before he disappeared.

Wraith tumbled out of a tree roughly a mile from Warfang and immediately dropped to one knee. Pain was shooting through his whole back and across his side from the shrapnel. Steeling himself, he turned his head and inspected the newest wound. The arrow tip was buried in his arm, and a stream of blood was pouring down his back. Blood was also sheeting down his side.

He instinctively reached to pull out the arrow but hesitated. He wasn't sure if it was barbed or not, and if he took it out, he might bleed to death. So, he decided to get up and start moving. Getting to his feet, he trudged off into the woods.

Three hours later, Wraith collapsed. He had made it roughly ten miles before the pain became too much. He tried to rise off the ground but couldn't. The pain in his arm was incredible, and the shrapnel wounds weren't helping. He collapsed again.

As his consciousness faded, he saw three silhouettes coming toward him.

Then darkness overcame him.