As the yellow light faded, Pandora, Dawn and I all let out gasps of amazement as where, a second ago Ace had stood there now stood a huge black Dragon with shimmering yellow markings and yellow eyes that held in them, the same mischievous sparkle as Ace's own eyes.
The Dragon roared majestically, lifting up her head and darting forwards, Cerberus mirroring her.
The two collided in a burst of noise, and a raging fight began.
The Dragon struck first, scratching Cerberus' left head across the nose, drawing crimson blood as she did.
After blocking a retaliatory attack from the hound, the Dragon hit Cerberus' right head with a burst of bright yellow flames.
However, that crucial moment of distraction allowed Cerberus to strike several blows, leaving long scratches across the Dragon's face, prompting an enraged roar to spill out of her jaws.
Hitting back, the Dragon butted her head right into Cerberus' middle head grabbing the other two heads as she did and shoving all three into each other, leaving the Hound thoroughly dazed.
Then, as the Dragon puffed jets of yellow smoke out from each nostril, pawing the ground with a glint of mischief still in her eyes, Cerberus reached out a paw past her, up, I quickly realised, right towards me.
Instinctively, I shut my eyes against the huge black paw which had been merely centimetres from my face, waiting for the impact to come. But instead, I heard a tumultuous roar from the Dragon, and, plucking up the courage to open my eyes, I looked down to see the Dragon's clawed fist curled around Cerberus' mighty paw, so tightly it looked as though the bones in his paw might break.
Then, I followed the great Hound's eyes to the bright eyes of the Dragon, which had changed dramatically now.
The eyes that had once been filled with a bright cheerful glow tinted with a touch of mischief, were now blazing with a pure, bright fury, and fixed warningly on the now fearful eyes of the three headed Hellhound in front of her. Keeping her gaze locked on him, the Dragon dragged his paw back down to his level, not relinquishing her tight grip on it until it was right back on the ground.
Scrambling, Cerberus made one last ditch attempt at an attack, the middle head opening his jaws and aiming to bite the Dragon's front leg which, to the surprise of the Hound, quickly shot out, along with its counterpart, and grabbed the head's mouth, pulling his jaws even further apart then letting them snap back down with a crash, leaving the Hound stumbling backwards in shock.
It was then, finally, that Cerberus fell back, whining and whimpering, looking at the large Dragon, who gave a last roar of warning, and ran out of the corridor under the Dragon's scathing eyes.
As Dawn helped up a shaken Pandora, the Dragon disappeared in a wisp of yellow smoke, much less bright and impressive than the burst of yellow light from which she had emerged, and, in her place, lay an extremely pale Ace, unconscious on the floor.
"Ace!" yelled Dawn, shocked.
But, by that time, Pandora was already kneeling by Ace's side, pulling a tiny bottle of a shining white liquid out of her boot frantically. Dawn knelt down on the other side of the sleeping Immortal, looking at the bottle which Pandora was examining carefully.
"What are you doing?" The Goddess of Light asked Pandora, who nodded at the bottle, as if she'd just confirmed something, and then removed the cork of the bottle, talking speedily as she did,
"I'm doing what Ace told me to do if this ever happened."
"If what ever happened?" asked Dawn, feeling more confused than she had been in her entire life.
"It's called a shapeshifter coma. Ace told me that the bigger the creature she's turning into is, the more energy it takes up- that goes for all shapeshifters- and if they stay as that creature for too long, then they risk falling into an almost unbreakable sleep. She told me, that if that ever happened, the only known thing that might be able to bring her back was... Ambrosia," said Pandora, reaching out with the bottle in hand.
However, just as The Goddess of Darkness put the bottle towards Ace's mouth, Dawn placed a hand on the bottle, blocking it from reaching the Goddess.
"How do I know you're telling the truth? How do I know that's not poison in the bottle?"
Dawn asked, looking deep into Pandora's green eyes.
"Well, I guess you don't. But consider this, if I had wanted her dead, why wait till now? I pushed the two of you out of the way earlier, and don't bother telling me it was an act, because you can think what you like, but nobody is stopping me from saving her, and now it's time for you to make a decision: Are you going to go with your gut and trust me? Or are you going to do as you've been told and make me lose the only person who's ever actually cared about me?" Pandora asked, looking Dawn right in her shimmering dark eyes, her voice cracking as she finished.
Then, slowly and silently Dawn lifted her hand from the bottle, letting Pandora push the top of the bottle under Ace's nose, much to Dawn's surprise. "I thought you meant she had to drink it?!" Dawn said to a shake of the head from Pandora, for, as she then explained to Dawn, the smell of Ambrosia was extremely potent, though not necessarily a bad one, you see nobody was quite sure what it smelled like, it seemed to vary, but whatever it was, it was a smell so strong that it may just be able to wake an Immortal in a deep sleep.
The two Goddesses looked from Ace, and then back to each other, trying with all their might not to lose hope, until...
"Woah! What the-" Ace shot up from the ground, leaning on her elbows as she looked around in confusion for a second, before Dawn and Pandora smothered her in a hug that would've lasted for eternity. Eternity if there wasn't a world, or worlds, to save, that is.
"Ok, question-" Ace began as the three of them got to their feet (a little shakily in Ace's case).
"Did we win yet?" the Goddess asked, with an arm round Dawn and Pandora's shoulders. The other two shook their heads, suddenly a tad forlorn.
"Ok, second question then..." Ace began a tad weakly.
"Did you have to wake me up?"
The three of them laughed happily, before Pandora noticed three long grazes down the side of Ace's cheek, placed almost exactly where they emerged on the face of the Dragon.
"You're hurt! Are you alright?" said Pandora, in a concerned tone that sounded nothing like her usual gruff tone in the slightest.
"Well, my head hurts like mad, and my brain's still trying to work out why I just shrunk several feet. It does take a while to catch up, poor thing. But, besides that, and the fact that I nearly fell into an irreversible coma, where I would have been able to hear everything people were saying and NOT talk, which by the way would have been a nightmare! Yes apart from all that I'm fine!" said Ace sending the whole mini-speech, bursting out in a hurried flurry of words, barely giving herself time to think let alone breathe.
Dawn laughed, once again unable to believe how fast this Immortal could talk, while Pandora rolled her eyes, her smile not disappearing from her pale lips.
"No Ace, you forgot about these," She said gesturing to the glistening gold scratches down Ace's face. "Oh them! They're ok. Bit sore, but my brain's too pre-occupied with the impending threat of the Nine Realms being taken over my 'dear' siblings and the other things that might pop out and ambush us at any time to really think about the pain." Ace said, tentatively touching one of the gashes with her fingers, recoiling and wincing on impact. "Be careful! That might be infected!" Dawn said examining the cuts on the side of Ace's face with an expression of deep concentration and concern.
"While this is an important conversation, I think we should get the Professor down now, don't you?" Pandora questioned, after her emerald green eyes had wandered their way up to me, still trapped high above the ground.
At her words, Ace and Dawn's eyes followed Pandora's gaze up to me, Dawn looking aghast that she'd forgotten the other person in the tunnel.
"Oh my goodness, sorry Amelia, we'll get you down!" Dawn exclaimed, Pandora stepping into action instantly.
Pandora moved the vines from around me with some effort, beads of sweat appearing on her pale forehead as Dawn gently lowered me down to the ground.
Finally, when I was safely back down, Pandora asked me if I was okay. Then, after a few unsure seconds, she spoke again,
"I'm sorry I attacked you earlier. I don't- I, my parents-" in a second, I cut the stuttering Goddess off, wrapping her tall frame in a hug.
For a moment, the Goddess stood stiff as a board unsure what to do, and then she relaxed a little, as I said, "You've got nothing to apologise for."
When I stepped back, I was surprised to see that her usual tough composure was completely gone and there was something like a glint of tears in Pandora's eyes. But it was the glint of a happy kind of tears, that had never had the chance to make it to the surface, before now.
"That's what I've been trying to tell her for all these years," said Ace grinning and giving Pandora a small hug that Pandora was clearly more used to than mine.
Then, after a second, Dawn came up to the two of them, joining in the hug uncertainly, not sure whether or not she was intruding. But, after a few seconds, it became clear she was more than welcome now and for a few blissful seconds, the three were free of any worry about what might come next for the first time in a long while.
Finally, after a short peaceful silence, Dawn asked Ace the question that had been itching at the back of her mind ever since Ace had transformed back from the Dragon.
"Ace, why did you do that, transform into the Dragon? Pandora said you knew you might never wake up, she... well she saved you and I didn't believe you at first Pandora, and I'm truly sorry." Dawn said, turning to Pandora who nodded at her in forgiveness, a trace of a smile forming on The Goddess of Darkness's lips.
"It's ok. You've been kinder than most people would've been, I can tell you," Pandora said, softly.
Ace smiled at the two of them with a grin, that made Pandora ask, "What are you grinning at?"
Ace giggled looking at the two as though they had missed something plainly obvious right in front of them. "You know I could hear everything you said right?" Ace asked gleefully, watching as Dawn and Pandora looked at each other in surprise. "What?" Pandora asked as one of her jet black eyebrows shot of into the black curls draped over her forehead. "Yep! That's the worst part of a Shapeshifter Coma, your body's asleep, but you can still hear whatever other people are saying! Didn't you hear me mention it earlier?" Ace said, grinning at the expression on Dawn's face. "Oh, look Ace I didn't mean, I just..." Dawn stuttered, looking at the floor, shame-faced.
"You're not used to breaking the rules or not doing what people tell you to do? Trust me it's no problem. Plus I have a feeling you'll learn quickly if you keep hanging 'round me. Anyway you didn't stop her did you? Pandora's right, you know, that's more than most would do, for her... or for me for that matter," said Ace, her smile dampening slightly at the hard truth which she'd learnt to shrug off decades ago.
But she brightened again at the sight of Dawn's relieved face, then remembered her earlier question, "Why did I do it? Simple, you two were in trouble, I mean I was as well but, hey, no-one pushes my friends around. Yeah, I knew the coma might happen, but I knew Pandora would know what to do. Anyway, whether she'd succeeded or not, if it meant you two were safe, even if it wasn't for long it would've been worth it," said Ace taking her cane from Pandora (who'd picked it up from its position on the rocky ground) and spinning it around distractedly.
At the Goddess' words, Dawn's face melted into a surprised smile, and Pandora grinned for the first time that day, beaming at Ace, who looked as though she couldn't understand what she had done that merited this much attention.
"Hold on, on then, how long have the two of you known each other for?" Dawn asked.
"Oh ages, nobody else really knows, well, Hades and Hel will soon, but trust me, they haven't figured it out yet, we'd know." Said Pandora, in a surprisingly calm tone, shifting to a grimace as she finished.
"I can't believe you've had to live with them for all these years, how did you manage it?" Asked Dawn quietly.
"Ace. One of the only things that kept me going was her visits." Pandora responded, looking over to Ace gratefully.
"Visits? Surely you didn't come here?" asked Dawn, turning to Ace.
"No, I just met her outside of here, taught her some stuff and gave her someone to talk to, it isn't that much really." Ace said shrugging her shoulders like she hadn't done anything, but Pandora shook her head at this.
"Believe me it IS that much, after every bad day, and there was A LOT of them, she was always there when I needed her. She would've been killed if they found out. Nobody else would've done it... whether they were my family or not. Asides from that, I guess I just had to toughen up and keep going. All I care about is getting out of here now."
As this was happening I saw something akin to a little flush of sheepish red on Ace's cheeks as she listened to her friend. Dawn smiled, an expression of pleasant surprise blossoming on her face.
"What? I'm not the heartless thief you were expecting?" Ace asked, laughing at the expression on Dawn's face.
"No. I just... Exactly how long have you been doing this for?"
"Oh decades..." Said Ace with Pandora nodding behind her.
"Yeah, I remember the day I met you, clear as day, didn't like you at first though of course." Pandora laughed a little, holding her arm as Ace laughed in unison. "Yeah, no-one does straight away." "Woah." Said Dawn looking awe-struck.
"But the thing is, if you two are such good friends, then why were you fighting each other? You must've had a plan I assume?" Dawn asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Well Hades and Hel had creatures out tailing Pandora, mostly Ravens, they're the least inconspicuous, so we didn't want to risk it because we needed them to think we were really fighting or they'd twig and then we'd be in serious trouble. So we just tried to do it gently, well as gently as we could, I used illusions most of the time, it was just simpler to make everyone see them. Like I said, I was gonna let you in on it, I misjudged you at first, I didn't know if I could trust you... and I am sorry for that." Ace said, in a slight rush, before Pandora turned to look at Dawn, averting her eyes from Ace's.
"I'm sorry too, about attacking you." Pandora said to Dawn, her voice quiet, her fists clenched instinctively.
"Don't worry. I understand, that goes for both of you," smiled Dawn, looking from Pandora to Ace.
But, then, the now annoyingly familiar feeling of confusion rose in Dawn's mind once more.
"But the prophecy... I mean, I thought we were supposed to be fighting you Pandora, but, if you're on our side, then who are we fighting?"
Ace looked up at Dawn, surprise blossoming across her freckly face.
"I thought you knew, the other Gods, they've got the Prophecy all wrong. If it was Hades and Hel I could understand but you, I'm surprised your parents didn't tell you..."