The moment the fire globes flared to life and illuminated the cave, I sat up again, this time my ears were pleasantly in the waterfall. I had went to the waterfall before Winter could reserve it, so I spent the night having my head battered by the water. I didn't hate it, it definitely helped me to sleep.
I heard the crunching of food echo from above so I supposed it was Marsh eating again.
Sure enough, when I landed on the tree walkway, Marsh was stuffing his face with mangoes. Sky was still sleeping in the hammock, her tail drooped over her snout. Marsh looked up, offering me a mango, his snout covered in mushed fruit.
Then when everyone woke up because Marsh threw bananas at them Sky decided to drag me outside to train my stamina. Usually I wouldn't complain, but she forbid me from eating breakfast. I should have accepted that mango.
Once we took to the sky, we raced up and down the cliff. Every time my claws brushed the grass, I would pump myself up back towards the top of the cliff again. Literally after only five rounds, I had fallen in the pond, clutching a stitch at my side.
Sky landed next to me, smoothing her crest, "That was bad."
"Can tell," My head was stuck in the mud, I could barely hear anything.
"Sky, are you torturing Coral with 'Stamina' again?" Ash had flown down to us and yanked my not submerged tail and I found myself face dow in the grass, unwilling to look up.
"Anyways," Ash went on, "I saw something interesting. The forest there probably holds Hydroblasts. Far into it."
He pointed south, in the direction of the trees. I cocked my head at the woods curiously. What did it hide?
"Are you sure?" Asked Sky. "We're in a little bit of a mess with a new dragon and you want to get more?"
"Very sure. Also saw Solarflares close by. Better increase protection here."
Ash was right. If any Solarflare found those Hydroblasts, they would search the area with hopes of finding more.
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"Quick! Above the clouds! Winter can shelter us with the clouds! The Solarflares cannot stand water!" Roared Ash.
"How about you?" I asked. It was like he forgot that he was a Solarflare himself.
Winter opened a space in the cloud and Ash spiralled above the clouds.
"Can you teach me how to do that?" I demanded as I powered myself up to the clouds.
"Maybe when you are ready." Winter smiled.
This could be the only way to travel. My tail skimmed on the soft, fluffy cloud and the warm air, swerving around Ash who was literally 5 feet above the cloud so his tail wouldn't get wet. The bright sunlight flashed around us.
"Weird. One moment I feel like I'm gonna die, the next I felt right at home." Grumbled Ash.
Occasionally he would dip down to check if they reached yet, but finally after what felt like an hour, he called , "Down here! Hurry!" We shot through the fluffy, cotton-candy like cloud. We hovered over Ash and he dipped his tail to the forest below. Black smoke and ash swirled around the burning trees and Ash caught a wisp of ash between his talons and sighed. "Fire. The Solarflares are here."
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"I'll patrol up here. The Waterblasts may be fighting right now, so you all better move fast. Make sure the Solarflares don't follow." Ash pointed out.
We dropped into the forest fifty yards away. It came to no surprise to me that the forest was horribly MUDDY.
As we walked through the forest, I cast my sharp eyes over the dark oak trees with their purplish black leaves swaying darkly in the breeze, searching for signs of damage/ Solarflares, but only weird looking creatures caught my eyes. Every minute or so we had to stop and untangle Winter or I from the vines that snagged on our wings or scales.
Marsh didn't share my and Winter's disgust. The trees were literally allergic to him, and he flopped blissfully into the brown dirt, stretching his large wings. "I'll just stay here, if you don't mind."
"Marsh, yuck." Winter hissed, flicking a small bug off his talons. Shaking my head aggressively, an alarmingly furry spider flew out of my left ear and slammed against a tree, to immediately be eaten by a six-foot long snake.
"Let's get over and done with this." I growled, taking another step forward. A net closed over all three of us and yanked us into the air, the leaves that covered it flying virtually everywhere. Marsh yelped and I opened my mouth to roar, but stopped myself. There was scuttling. A human! I knew what humans looked like because the species of dragons except for Solarflares could shapeshift into humans. They gave the humans gifts, like calling electricity from the sky and even gave them the gift of chocolate cake! The person clearly never saw a dragon before, let alone three of them, and it went off screaming into the woods. Like, what did he expect? A sheep?
Winter sliced through the rope like it was made of cotton and we landed in a heap on the mushy earth with Marsh landed practically on our back.
"Oof. Everything hurts." Grumbled Winter.
Marsh muttered, "Swear this forest is gonna be gone in like a hour."
"Why?" I asked in a muffled voice.
"Hey, Ash being Ash, he's gonna burn down the forest trying to look for us."
Turning my glare to Marsh sitting contentedly on my back, "Get off right now or I'll bite you."
Marsh muttered something about me being hardcore and rolled off me.
I sat up and sniffed the air. The smell of fire was getting stronger by the minute.
"Hey! Stop!" Winter wriggled away from Marsh as the brown dragon splatted mud over his scales.
Marsh rolled his eyes. "Come on. I want to disguise you and hide your scent. And SHUT UP."
Winter rolled his cobalt blue eyes but stayed put. Slowly, his snowy blue scales faded into murky brown, but there were still glints of blue peeking through.
I went through the same fate and we continued on our journey. Every time a creature moved, we braced ourselves, but nothing happened. We trudged deeper, deeper. The mud felt blobby and disgusting on my scales, and I longed to be staying in my hole of misery.
A flash of flame blasted over my head and Winter ducked down and dragged me behind a bush.
No! I will kill them. I want to!
Marsh hissed and dove into the fray, knocking out some Solarflares with a claw swipe. The crowd of dragons roared at their new competitor and as ten Solarflares surged forward to attack, Marsh managed to trick them into thinking that he was retreating and most of the Fire Dragons fell into a sinkhole.
"Go pick on someone your own size! This is literally ten to one."Marsh yelled and grabbed another Solarflare lunging for him and threw him towards the tree and the vines draped around the tree happily wrapped around the Solarflare's body.
I tried my best to escape Winter, then he suddenly let go and jumped on top of a smaller dragon that kept dodging Marsh's claws and yelped loudly, "THIS DAMNED SCALES BURNS!" I slipped across the pools of blood and swiped at his underbelly.
Ouchie.
Winter jumped off the smaller dragon as the Solarflare tried burning his wings and closed his eyes before basically flooding the entire place and the Solarflares decided to retreat. Then he reached for an escaping Solarflare and bit his tail, flinging her around and throwing her into the water. The loud shrieking and the flailing bodies made me almost want to puke.
Struggling to find a distraction, I moved side to side and looked up to the Solarflares in the sky, opening my mouth and knock the fire dragons with water balls, but they pretty much managed to dodge everything, their wings starting the air currents and retaliated with elephant-size balls of fire which were swallowed up by my icy scales, although it still tingled a little after that...
One suddenly crash landed on top of me, sharp claws slashing at my back as his flaming wings rose high above all of the fighters and tried to drag me to the air. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the small bits of pain as the Solarflare claws dug in and morphed into a tiny squirrel. Woe be me.
I intended to become a water demon. Guess I'll just be small.
I flashed across the ground and shifted back to dragon form,slamming heavily on his back and unleashing a tirade of water. The liquid sank into the scales and he let out a shriek of pain as his scales began disintegrating into ash. He collapsed to the ground, claws twitching. I looked away. My cowardice and reluctance to kill was showing again. Thunder and lightning flashed overhead. "Get Ash outta here!" Marsh yelled from the chaos.
Me and Winter spread our wings and soared to the sky.
"He's locking us here in a couple of seconds. The Solarflares cannot escape his shield thingy."
"HES PROTECTING THEM?"
"Nah, he's just making sure they cannot escape."
We were so into the conversation that we flew right past Ash and he yanked me back by the tail.
"Y'all, so we at plan B?"
"WE HAD A PLAN B?"
Ash snorted and dove down to the large, fighting group and roared. And again. And again.
Slowly, a large wall of lava formed and curled around the forest, but no tree was harmed and the lava was blue.
That was not lava.
That was water.