[OLD] Flight By Firelight

Chapter 11- Leaving a Mark

I flew for about an hour, until I made it to the other side of the mountain. I was exhausted and still in pain, the arrow was still lodged in me. I landed. Well more like crash landed. Which really hurt.

I could feel the arrow digging in deeper every movement I made, the pain was slowly growing as I got more exhausted. I ripped out the arrow as quick as I could. It made the pain 5times worse and I couldn't help but cry out in agony.

I threw the arrow as far away as I could. I was too weak to fly, and too weak to shapeshift.

"Maybe... I could... just rest...for a while"

I curled up to cover my wound with my tail. I couldn't sleep with the content pain in my stomach. I just closed my eyes and just laid there with a pool of blood slowly growing beside me.

An hour later, I was startled awake by the sound of a wolf's howl. But it was deeper in tone (than usual) and it sounded a lot more savage than wild wolves. It must have caught the smell of fresh blood.

"I need to get moving. The next town is a few miles away from here... I'll have to walk"

When I walked for 2 hours, back at where I laid the wolf had found the pool of blood. But it wasn't a wolf, it was a werewolf. It smelt the blood, then noticed the trail of blood and casually followed it.

And hour and a half after that Braxton and Corbin arrived at the scene, and found the arrow I had pulled out.

"Yo Braxx, you better take a look at this" Corbin said, standing over at the pool of blood. Braxton went over and examined it

"it rested here for a while" Braxx determined

"So Sherlock, what's the plan now?" Corbin said in a annoying tone

"not funny. We follow it genius! Come on"

I kept moving for hours, until it became well into the Dusk. I figured I had lost them by now. I heard wolves howl all around me, but I wasn't really scared of them. Well not entirely.

My wound had stopped bleeding and had decreased to a slight sting.

However, it would soon be the least of my problems.

It was if time slowed down as a giant arrow zoomed past my head, just barely missing my eye . The arrow continued to fly and I watched it get lodged into a tree. I looked in the direction it came from and then I saw them;

The black and red haired guys that had been chasing me, Corbin and Braxton.

"Can you two just leave me alone?!†I roared at them, but they couldn't understand me. Most creatures don't understand me in my dragon form unless I use telepathy to transmit my thoughts to them. All they heard was a dragon's roar.

Braxton was the one who shot the arrow. He gave his bow to Corbin and pulled out a Quartz curved sword and charged towards me.

I seriously considered flying away, I had already gotten prepared to take flight. But I realised these guys weren't going to stop coming after me, so I might as well teach them a lesson as to not mess with me. I have the power to kill them, but I won't, but I'll still make my message clear to them.

I haven't been able to use my powers for over a thousand years. If there's ever a time to use it it's now!

Braxx charged straight at me, his cutlass sword aimed right at my chest. I slashed at him with my claw and sent him flying into a tree, while his friend shot an arrow into my shoulder. Thanks to my scales however, it didn't get lodged in me like the last arrow, it just shot past leaving a deep cut.

I was really pissed and glared over at Corbin, who by the way looked absolutely terrified of me.

Yeep, I was used to that.

While I was distracted with Corbin, Braxton had stabbed his sword into my left leg, straight through it. I cried out in pain before turning my head around to snap at him. He ripped out his sword and slashed at my face, cutting me just below the eyes. On top of that Corbin fired two more arrows that cut into my neck and Braxton continued to slash and slice everywhere he could as he ran around me swinging his sword violently in every direction. I couldn't take it anymore!

I jumped back as far as I could, which was only about 10 meters. I remembered the feeling of power, fire burning in my eyes and the warmness under my skin. Though it was only a fraction of the power I felt before, it was enough to spark a blaze.

I unleashed a red fire all around me, thrashing my head in all directions to ensure it spread generously. It blazing through the air and setting the trees alight! The force and energy of the blast caused the water from a nearby river to ripple and flow out of the river like a small tsunamic wave! Small sparks of electricity crackled and blitzed around the flames as they blasted out of my mouth! Though at the time I was still distracted- the earth itself trembled for a moment! This was a fraction of the Ancient power of the Serpentine Ancestors! But it was enormous!!

Braxton rushed over and shielded his friend from the fire using his own body. The fire didn't seem to burn him to my surprise. However, his friend didn't share this trait as his legs was harshly burned by the flames, to the point where you could only just see a speck of white; bone. Corbin cried out in excruciating pain.

Corbin's scream was heard by a certain blue haired guy just a small distance away, his ears twitched at the sound and, driven by curiosity, he walked towards the source of the scream.

Braxton grabbed his friend and carried him away. Corbin grabbed his burned leg putting pressure on it, making the bleeding worse, he was in tremendous pain.

Brax pulled off his scarf and used it to wrap up the wound.

"Stay here, don't move, I'll be back" he said as he turned, picked up his sword and ran. While he ran Corbin yelled out:

"Seriously?! You're still going after that dragon! You're going to let it die rather than help your friend?! WTF bro?!â€

Braxton found it extremely difficult to continue running, but his drive to kill the dragon was too strong to fight, almost like it was instinct to him.

I saw him coming, and I was prepared.

He yelled out and charged with his sword aimed at my chest. I threw my head forward and grabbed the sword in my jaws, also cutting his wrists with my front fangs. He tried to pull it out. But I wasn't letting go. I thrashed my head to the side and threw him into the tree, he broke straight threw it upon impact.

Adrenaline was blazing through me. I could have killed him then and there easily. But I restrained myself, as much as I didn't want to. And forced myself to flee. I thought if he were to chase after me, I could use the extra energy to transform into human form.

So, I did

Braxton weakly pulled himself to his unbalanced feet and prepared to throw his sword at me with the last few scraps of his strength. However, his arm couldn't move once he saw me in human form. Instead someone else threw his weapon. Corbin had gotten out his bow. Braxton looked back and called out for him to stop, but Corbin had already fired his last giant arrow.

His Arrow sliced through the air towards me as I ran.

It hit.

Slicing clean through my shoulder.

Straight threw the bone.

I didn't have enough time to even scream before I went into shock and collapsed to the ground, motionless. A pool of blood quickly growling beside my severed arm. The earth under and around me was soaked in Red.

Well shit.