Ice at Midnight: A Winterwatcher Fanfic

❄️Chapter 23: Abrupt Return❄️

Sorry that this is getting out so late, I've been surprisingly busy so far this summer. That's all I have to say.

On the first night that the students returned to the academy, Mightyclaws disappeared.
Winter had woken to discover this news the second day they were back. Although he wasn't connected at all to Mightyclaws, all these disappearances had him shaken. He wasn't scared of being captured...or worse, but rather, he was afraid this might happen to Moon. Winter asked around during and between classes, mostly to dragons who slept near the missing NightWing, as well as a few who had been there when the other two dragons had gone missing: Bigtail and Mindreader. None of them remembered anything about it, besides the fact that the last thing they'd noticed was a thin veil of blue smoke.
By lunch time, everyone in the academy was bustling with this newfound disturbance. It seemed the school was going into some sort of panic with these three disappearances in such a short amount of time, and he couldn't blame anyone. However, he spoke to Moon about it privately during lunch, as the rest of their friends still didn't know about the prophecy she'd foretold.
Winter wasn't feeling hungry, his appetite soured by the worrying news. Moon felt the same, so they went out into the hallway to talk.
"What are we going to do about this?" she asked, her face stricken with fear and concern. "I'm the only NightWing left in the academy, and the dragon behind all this is only going after my tribe...I'm really scared, Winter."
He nodded, completely understanding. "I talked to a few dragons this morning about all the disappearances," he said quietly. "It seems that blue smoke stuff kind of...puts dragons to sleep when they breathe it in. That's the last thing any of them remember about the nights those dragons went missing. Whoever's doing this must kidnap them while anyone nearby is unconscious, and they've got to be taking them somewhere." He winced, as his words only seemed to put Moon more on-edge. "Don't worry...I won't let anything bad happen to you," he said, giving her a hug. "I've never let it happen before, and I'm not going to start now."
  She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. "But what if you're not able to? You said the smoke is what renders everyone unconscious, so how would you be able to help?"
  "I'd find a way," he replied simply. "I always do."
  Moon just rested her head on his shoulder, her tears forming little pools on his icy scales. "How did I get so lucky to find you?"
  "I think you have a little thing called fate to thank for that," Winter said, doing his best to wipe the tears from her eyes.
  For some reason, there was an impossibly white IceWing walking the halls, someone Winter didn't recall seeing here. That was strange; with only thirty students here at the beginning, he was sure he'd ran into everyone by now...he couldn't quite see their face, as they were walking away from him and Moon, but the way they walked seemed oddly familiar.
  "Nobody wants to see that, lovebirds," the male called as he walked off. "Especially not from an IceWing and one of those pathetic excuses for a dragon."
  That sparked a fire inside Winter that he'd felt before, when something - or sometimes, like now, someone - made him as furious as he could ever be. He turned around to glare daggers at the ill-mannered IceWing, but they were still facing the opposite direction. Strangely though, they'd stopped, as if they knew he was about to respond.
  "Oh, piss off, you scumbag," he snapped. "Go find something else to fill the gaping hole in your heart."
  The male just laughed, but not in a high-and-mighty way like he'd expected. It sounded like a genuine chuckle, but before Winter could investigate this out-of-place dragon any further, they turned and disappeared around the corner of the hallway.
  "What...was that about?" Moon asked after a few moments.
  "To be honest..." he said, still looking at where this mystery dragon had been, "I have no clue."
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  (One week later. 11:48 PM. Front entrance to Jade Mountain Academy)
  Two dragons were standing side-by-side under the cover of dark clouds, huddled in conversation. Both were from similar tribes, however one was slightly different, and the other had concealed his identity from the world using the hollowed-out skull of a NightWing; his tribe's worst enemy. Even his most trusted partner, the dragon who was speaking with him now, didn't know who he was. Over the years, he'd learned he could only fully trust himself, and he wasn't about to break that mindset. It was the only one he knew was still part of what he'd used to be.
  "I presume you've taken care of everything?" he asked quietly, keeping an eye out for one of the guards that had been appointed to patrol this place at night. They wouldn't be a problem as long as they could be...silenced if one spotted the two. It was the Midnight Marauders he really had to worry about...one of them in particular seemed like a strong combatant that he might not be entirely prepared to face.
  The smaller dragon nodded. "I got my claws on some inside information that the NightWing's winglet is planning on ambushing you. Seems they're convinced you're going to attack tonight. Might I suggest we wait another week or so?"
  He fixed a steeled glare on them. "That's another week for them to heighten security, or for the last NightWing to decide to drop out of school. I'm going to strike tonight...I need to send a message to everyone in Pyrrhia that NightWings are a mistake that is going to be eradicated one way or a another...once I take care of her, the news will spread throughout the continent. I'm going to make sure that future generations will remember the day that my tribe ended this futile war between us and those volcano-crawlers once and for all. And why, may I ask, are you covered in black paint?"
"My job was to provide you with information, not include you in the details of my personal life," They hissed, suddenly acting hostile and defensive.
The skull-wearing dragon shrugged. "Fair enough."
  Without another word, he slipped inside the academy, knowing he would stop at nothing to kill this NightWing.
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  (Midnight. Winter and Moon's sleeping cave)
Winter sat vigilantly on his ledge, back turned to the rest of the world as he waited. Waited for whoever was responsible for all these wretched attacks to show themselves. They'd been capturing NightWings about every week, and the time since Mightyclaws disappeared now matched that. The dragons behind all this was clearly smart and knew what they were doing; otherwise they would've been caught long ago. For that reason, there was no point in trying to hide himself, as they would be expecting him to do that. However, they probably wouldn't be predicting for five other dragons to be lying in wait just ten feet above their heads.
The rest of their winglet had agreed to protect Moon alongside him, and they were here to do just that. They all clung to the roof of the cave, Kinkajou wearing a gray, rock-like pattern on her scales, while the rest of the, had covered themselves in black paint to blend in with the darkness as much as possible.
The minutes ticked by in agonizing silence, and after awhile, he began to wonder if they were all being paranoid and losing sleep for nothing.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, his sharp ears picked up a faint metallic rattling, growing closer to the cave. He turned around for just a moment, and saw some sort of round canister roll inside, before blue smoke began leaking from the object with a continuous hissing noise. Then, just a few moments later, came the several thuds of his fellow dragons dropping to the ground from the roof, unconscious.
Panic filling his chest, he glanced over at Moon's form on her bed through the smoke, and judging by how she hadn't stirred at all, he determined the same fate must've befallen her. Besides the whole 'falling from the ceiling' thing, of course.
He heard quiet, stealthy footsteps creep into the cave, before he turned back around, trying to act like the smoke had put him under as well, slowly forming a dagger with his frostbreath all the while.
"Idiots," a deep, male voice growled, most likely saying this as he stepped over the bodies of Winter's friends. "I thought they would've pieced together that the smoke puts everyone but me asleep by now...guess they were more shallow than I thought." Their voice was shockingly close now. "Especially you."
Winter swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling himself shaking head to tail.
Does he have a weapon? If so, there's nothing stopping him from killing me right now...he HAS to know I'm faking, so why doesn't he just kill me, rather than risk me leaking what I've already witnessed to the entire continent? But his voice...it sounds so familiar...do I know him? Is that why he hasn't killed me?
"Quit faking, simpleton!" the familiar-sounding dragon snarled. "I've got a knife here, and so help me, I'll use it if..."
That gave Winter the only excuse he needed to attack this not-quite-stranger. He rolled off of his ledge, then jumped up and sank his ice-dagger into the male's shoulder without losing momentum.
The dragon who he could now identify as an IceWing let out a scream of pain, stumbling away as they ripped the shards of ice from their scales. The damage Winter did only seemed to infuriate him, though, as he leapt at him fast enough to catch him off-guard and knock him off his feet. Winter barely stopped the silver blade from embedding into his throat in time, managing to grab his attacker's talons and stop them before they could move any further.
"Why aren't you passed out?" the somewhat familiar dragon asked, his voice faltering with the struggle both of them were now locked in. "Nobody has resisted the smoke before...not even..."
"You...tell me..." Winter said, his strength fading as he had to exert so much of it into holding their knife at bay. "Why are you even..." he trailed off for a second, kicking the larger dragon off of him, "doing any of this?"
The male landed on top of Turtle, and Winter realized he had to take this fight out into the halls before somebody not directly involved got hurt. Before they could get up, he pounced on them with enough force to send them both tumbling into the space occupied by all three winglet caves. He noticed that the air here was thick with the smoke as well, so nobody would be conscious to hear or see any of this at the moment. Wonderful.
Winter was thrown off in seconds, and fell against one of the stone walls. He dropped to the ground and darted away as the white dragon came at him, his knife held in his talons once again. He wondered if this was the IceWing he'd noticed in the hallway a week ago, the one he'd never seen here before...
He quickly created a shard of ice with his frostbreath, then hurled it at his opponent's back while they got their bearings. It connected with a wet THUNK, and they produced another wail of agony as blood began flowing from the fresh wound, joining the stream of blue liquid running down their back from the injury on their shoulder.
"I'm doing this because NightWings are an abomination to society!" he shot back, throwing his dagger at Winter's face. He dodged it, and based on how deep it sank into the wall, knew his face would no longer exist had it hit. "I have no clue how you can have feelings for one, but it clearly means there's something wrong with you."
"Says the MANIAC TRYING TO KILL ME!" Winter yelled, hoping to draw some attention, if anyone in the vicinity was still awake to hear. "And now you've been stalking me as well. What's next, are you gonna start wearing NightWing scales as a cape?"
They leapt at him once again, and he got out of the way once more, but they attempted to remove their dagger from the wall rather than attack him again. "I was actually thinking about that already...anyway, you're an IceWing like me! We're supposed to hate their kind! So why don't you?"
"Because I've seen one for who she really is, rather than make my decision of whether to like her or not based on appearance alone. Sure, some of them are jerks, but there are plenty of dragons from other tribes that can be equally horrible."
The male gave up on dislodging his weapon, but he'd tried to do so for too long, as it gave Winter a chance to attack. A chance he took.
He charged at this strange dragon on all fours, then jumped up and slammed his face into the wall. There was the CRACK of bone splitting, but it turned out to be the helmet made out of NightWing skull that took the brunt of the damage. Sure it was as morbid as could be, but it was useful for that purpose.
His foe finally seemed to submit, sinking to the floor with his back against the wall, looking down at the ground in shame. Oddly enough, he chuckled a little bit, his bleeding mouth forming a grin that despite the current situation, seemed warm and inviting.
"You always were a stubborn little guy...always took yourself seriously, never gave up..." he muttered. "I guess that's something I never learned to do..."
"Who are you?" Winter asked menacingly, creating a sword of sorts with his frostbreath and pointing the dangerous end at the defeated IceWing.
"And that...I'm not going to even ask how you learned to do that..." The dragon with scales as white as snow finally looked up, a large fragment of his mask having broken off, leaving Winter with a sufficient look at his face to realize who this really was.
Winter dropped his weapon in shock, his mind trying to piece together how it could be possible that he was seeing who he was. Did his eyes deceive him? Or was it real, in a horrible kind of way?
"Hailstorm?"