Narrator
"I don't know what to tell you, because the truth is...we don't have time to dwell on the passed." Alexander said sighing. "A long time ago, Elijah told us something...something he never thought he'd be able to reveal and our reaction..." He shook his head. "It wasn't favourable... The thing about him...he's powerful, more powerful than anyone alive because he isn't just a caster...he's a hybrid."
"Hybrid?"
"His mother was a caster...his father...a dragon shifter."
"Oh..." Theodore frowned then.
"Specifically... He is a dragon Lord, high ranked and special because he can turn into a full blown dragon and still turn back...not something very common among dragon shifters."
"But...how come...just noe?"
"He hates himself for being what hr is. He hates his father so much....that turning seems like accepting the man."
"You know...your talking like he's probably still alive." Alexander pursed his lips.
"It doesn't matter...right now...what you need to understand is that we don't have much time." Alexander locked eyes with Theodore. "Those scars we have..." He touched the back of his neck where the small incision was, where it had tingled when Theodore had touched his own scar and said the words. "They are more for just sending distress signals."
Everyone of them touched the backs of their necks and looked at one another.
"They bonded us to Elijah's life...he dies...we go down with him."
"What? What are you saying!? That isn't possible."
"Dragon shifters are hard to kill...they always ended their own lives...always." Alexander said ignoring the boy. "He had an eternal flame as all his kind do and that is why he can live for thousands of years. We are alive, because he is..."
"That is a lot to take in..." Gabriel confessed looking at the ground.
"Don't take too long to process." Alexander warned. "In a few days, that door to Sanctum will open and it will only be, so you can say goodbye... and when you do," his eyes were on Theodore. "Be sure you have given your families enough love." He turned away from them then.
"What do you mean?"
"He's dying..." Therefore whispered as Alexander paused and turned his head.
"And so are we." Alexander drew his hand outwards and a door opened into an alleyway full of the homeless and then he was gone.
Gabriel
It never occurred to me how much I loved living. Breathing the fresh air of the world, being surrounded by family, by friends, until now.
I clutched onto Dante's shirt and cried, Harkin on my lap, holding me.
"I don't want to go...." I whimpered and Dante's hold tightened.
"We don't want that either," he gave my hair a sweet kiss and I looked up at him with red eyes and sniff.
"What are we going to do?" I said and groaned before lifting my shirt sleeve. A spot of black was spreading all over my skin then and I just knew it was linked to how the Caster's council, Theodore, Xavier, Linus, Alexander and myself were dying because Elijah was dying.
It broke my heart to think that after everything it would just end like this...that we would all just have our hearts broken and leave behind lives that had so much potential. It hurt and I couldn't find it in myself to ignore this fact and try to make these last few days memorable.
"Maybe we should go see Theodore, maybe he has a plan?" I shook my head knowing he was trying his best to make memories with his children and his mate and I didn't want to get in the way of that.
"They are stronger than I... They are making the most of this." I sat up and sniffed. "Okay, let's go..."
"Go where?"
"An amusement park...make memories...once I'm gone, it'll be you and Harkin, Raphael is travelling the world and I don't see you following him any time soon." Harkin wiggled in my arms and laughed excitedly and Dante smiled.
**
Narrator
Elijah fell face first into Sanctum, he groaned and screamed as his spine snapped. His bones were breaking,slowly and painfully, more bones grew and some of the existing ones were trying to expand.
"No!" He said panting, sweating and feeling exhausted already, he looked up and opened his mouth, expelling the darkness which looked just like him. He thought this would help make his fight easier. It sat smirking in the form of himself, completely at ease and without ill feeling for having been consumed just hours earlier.
"Hello, dear friend." it laughed and Elijah yelled out in pain, his single wing was flapping and each time it moved up or down, pain exploded in his back. He felt his gums itched and he tasted blood.
"Go away!" Elijah demanded to himself and a chuckle echoed in his head. "Ahhhhh!" He arched and suddenly a second wing erupted from his back which completed the set. Both of them flapped in time together and lifted him off the ground. He sighed as momentarily the pain was not so bad. The wings stopped and he fell again. "Ahh!" This yell was more of a roar. He sounded like a great beast ready to feast off of the flesh of humans. It was barbaric and vicious, it would have sent shivers down the spines of many.
He raised his hand and watched as he panted, tears down his face, eyes blood shot and silver as his nails elongated and claws replaced them, he bleed as this happened. He clutched his hand and cried,falling onto his side he shivered as cold seeped through him.
"No more," Elijah begged to nobody in particular, he covered his face with the hand that had claws and cried as the pain felt suffocating.
"This is devastatingly entertaining." The darkness which was Elijah's own creation chuckled and watched him struggle to keep himself in one piece.
"Shut up," Elijah begged softly feeling weak and sleepy."just shut up." He gasped and his other hand went through the same process, claws grew and he bleed, he groaned and panted,biting his lip until he bleed.
Now, with batlike wings strong enough to lift him and as tall as a three story building and clawed scaley hands, Elijah struggled up onto his knees and looked up at his ceiling.
He felt it, the fire inside him, the beast he had struggled to keep at bay was surfacing, had taken advantage of his moment of weakness against a darkness he created to come out, to be seen and acknowledged.
He couldn't remember the last time this had happened, it hadn't been as bad, he hadn't had the wings. He could tell, he may not come back from this. He would be trapped inside his beast self for good. Somehow this made him angry, this made him stand and take a deep breath.
"You won't stay long," he mumbled to himself, addressing the beast that wanted out, that wanted freedom from the confinement of its human counterpart.
Deep within his subconscious, Elijah heard the grunt, the rough and hoarse growl that came from his other half. The dragon was very much awake and it would not stop until it had full control.
Elijah fell with a scream as his leg twisted. "No," both legs lost feeling and he collapsed as they elongated and grew in width and breadth. They grew claws and Elijah clothes and shoes tore in the process.
Then his eyes went from silver to blue to red all round. He growled and his nostrils flared.
The beast had won. Elijah felt like he had been pushed to the corner of his mind into a cage with bars and a lock and key. His human conscious curled into itself, feeling lost and small,child-like and innocent.
The beast took form, growing to be as big as a building, its jaw elongated and he roared,fire leaving its wide gapping mouth. Canines,sharp and all around bared and it huffed and puffed, smoke emitting from its nose.
Then, in no time, the large room was full to the brim with a reptile so large, it's walls cracked. The dragon seethed and pushed against the room seeking room to stretch and spread its wings.
"Holly shit." The dragon turned to the source and say a man who looked exactly like Elijah but its hair was all black and its eyes all black. "You are a beaut. However, I wish you hadn't shown up now, I need to leave this place after all."
The dragon reached out its clawed paw and it wrapped around the darkness that was Elijah and he brought it up,sniffed and threw the being into it's mouth and swallowed.
Then it roared and pushed, the building came apart and it was free. Sunlight hit and it hissed before adjusting. The beast looked around and its wings began to flap.
It took flight in a series of roars and screeching. It blew fire into the air in glee as it zoomed around Sanctum. The beast was full of actual joy as it had finally achieves freedom, after 10 000 years of being oppressed.