Behind The Mask

Chapter X: The Dragon Of Fire

     He grabbed my shoulder and I was sent to another vision within my mind. It was the same dream I had multiple times before. I was in a field of roses. I walked forward with the sun behind me. I turned around to see an eclipse and the same people in silk robes. Their eyes could not be seen because of the hood's shadow and the fact that they were looking down, yet I could tell that they were somehow looking at me. There was enough space for me to spread out my arms in that almost endless line. I kept walking down until I came upon the masked man from before.

"Welcome back!" He said with half a grin. "It's finally time for you to meet him."

"Meet who?" I asked

"You'll see."

     Then he bowed and the doors opened. The doors smiled at me as they opened in a dark and evil way. I walked into the darkness, and began walking in further and further as the doors began to close. When the doors covered me in a thick darkness, a ring of lanterns began to turn on one-by-one.

     A man walked out of the darkness and stepped into the circle. He didn't have normal skin and he didn't look like your average person. He had black obsidian scales and pointy, purple eyes and hair. In between his scales there was a purple glow surging through his entire body. He had three pointed horns on his head and I could see his teeth as he smiled at me. They were as sharp as razors. He also had the build of a natural bodybuilder. The thing that I questioned myself about the most was his tail. It too was made of scales and glowed, and for some reason, he kind of looked like me.

     He walked over to me and held out his hand. I grabbed it with the idea that he was planning on shaking it. That's When I was slammed to the ground with brutal force. He slammed me so hard that he ended up breaking my left arm, and as he did I screamed in pain and tears of agony fell down my face. Then another shadow of a man kicked him down as I fainted.

"Danny! Are you okay?" Fiend screamed into my ear.

"Ya, I'm fine. I just spaced out, I think." I said coming back to reality.

"Do you see that thing over there? That is what we call 'Abyss Crawlers.' They are very strong, and your goal is to take out that one."

     It was a thin black creature that walked around like a zombie. All it did was walk around with a dazed look on its face. It had no real reason to go into the direction that it did, but it just kept on going. I jumped down and stared at it for a bit from behind. I began to walk towards it when all of the sudden I heard something strange.

"Hey ugly, over here!" Haunter said as he threw a rock at it.

     It struck the back of its head and it turned around and looked at me. Its eyes were blank and stared into me like razors. Then all of the sudden it charged at me, and I heard a voice, it said, "Let me take control Danny." followed by a deep growl. I said, "OK!" and I was back in that room again. The dragon scale looking man went into the middle of the fire ring and disappeared. Something extravagant happened. My body turned to his and I saw everything even though I couldn't control it. I could see myself in the reflection of the creature's eyes. This was my true part of the trial, and things were about to get messy.

     Then time froze still, and as I sat there I turned around to see about three other teenagers talking in the ring of lanterns. One of them had a red wolf tail and ears. He wore a red suit with a secondary color of black. There was another who had white hair, and had a pure silky white tuxedo on. The third looked a bit sad and wore a blue T-shirt and black pants.

     They all looked at me and began to introduce themselves.

"My name is Royal!" The one in white said calmly as the one in read bounced around.

"And I'm Demi!" The wolf howled.

The one in blue walked up slowly and held out his hand for a shake. He looked down at the ground as he talked.

"They call me Tristis, and the one that just took over your body is Meenagarr." He mumbled. "We are all the different parts of you."

"However, we cannot take control of you unless you are in ultimate danger or unless you give us permission." Royal interrupted.

"I am the Blood Wolf part of you! I come out whenever you need to release your inner beast. I'm also the third strongest here." Demi implied.

"I am the side of you that sees the good in people, and I help you choose your rights from your wrongs. You haven't used my powers yet but you will one day, at least I hope. I am the second strongest here." Royal said in a neutral tone.

"I'm the part of you that allows you to control liquids and turn them into solid objects. In my case it's my tears, but in your case it's blood." Tristis said quietly.

"If all of you are a part of me and allow me to have different abilities, then who is in charge of my fire?" I asked

"Oh! That would be Meenagarr, but his flames are purple, depending on who is in control the flames will change. But the reason your fire is blue to start out is because you are an antichrist." Royal said.

"What's an antichrist?"

"It means you are a child of the devil." Tristis said with anger in his voice.

"SON OF THE DEVIL!?!?!?" I screamed!

"That's right Danny, Lucifer is your father" Royal said, getting serious all of the sudden.

     All of the sudden I felt a pain in my chest like something was shredding through me. I saw the creature as it stabbed through my chest, slightly missing my heart. I burst my flames out of my body, and Royal was telling the truth. My fire had the same purple as before, but I transformed into Meenagarr himself. I even had control of what was happening. Even my clothes had changed.

     I was completely shirtless with black pants and a white belt. My boots and gloves were gone as well. I felt this deep feeling of rage and I began to burst even more flames as the creature hoped back out of distance. The scales on my body were obsidian black and I was glowing a deep purple in between them. The fire came out of the cracks and formed a figure. It looked like it was taking on the form of a dragon. And as it finished I opened my left palm and faced it towards the creature as it began to run away. The dragon of fire charged towards it and engulfed it, turning it to ash. I was gushing out blood, but I wasn't fainting. I didn't even feel nauseous. I noticed my hole in my chest as it began to heal itself with almost lightning speed.

     After a while I turned around and walked towards the direction I saw Fiend run, and I found him sitting in another tree. I was still filled with rage, so I decided to jump into the air as high as I could above the trees and dived down slamming him through the branches and into the ground, leaving a giant crater.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!?"

"It was a part of your test." He said gasping of air constantly. And I began to get even more angry.

"WHAT KIND OF TEST IS TRYING TO KILL PEOPLE!?!?"

"Well there's no reason to worry about that now. You killed the thing didn't you?" He coughed as I let go.

I walked a couple steps facing away from him as my body and clothes changed back to normal.

"You did, didn't you?" He said excitedly. "You killed an Abyss Crawler!?"

"Ya, and why is that so special?" 

He smiled as he began to explain.