In all his years, he'd never felt this afraid. Genuine terror clawed at his insides, desperate to escape. But still he kept his calm, outwardly anyway. Surrounded by pitch black, barely able to see the hand he knew was attached to the end of his outstretched arm, he'd tried everything he could to shed some light, in more ways than one. A simple mantra that should have produced a burning ball of light in the palm of his hand was simply snuffed out before it got started. Three other mantras he'd tried after that suffered the same fate. Next, he'd scrolled through his various forms of vision, hoping against hope that might at least give him a fighting chance to see where he was. No joy again. Desperate, worried and with fear nibbling away at his insides, he could only come up with one more thing to try, and in his human guise, it wasn't ideal. Delving into the core of his very being, he rummaged around for that tiny little spark that all dragons have, no matter what their shape or form. It took longer than he would have liked, all the time the fear inside him willing him to fail. Eventually though, he found it, and not wasting any time at all, brought it up through his stomach and into his throat. It felt so different doing it as a human. Well... it would, wouldn't it? Dragon bodies are designed for this very purpose. The human structure is not. Feeling his tongue and the skin at the top of his mouth begin to char, with all his might he pushed out the flame, his eyes wide open, determined to take in anything of his surroundings. But as the bright yellow and orange licks of fire passed over his teeth, sending shivers of hurt surging down into his gums, in turn triggering a rapid succession of tears from his eyes, the absolute blackness won, easily slaughtering his last attempt to see his surroundings. Out of breath, mouth fried, and more in need of a drink than he could ever remember, Tank slumped to the floor, landing with a huge bump on his ass, despairing at the situation he found himself in. He was supposed to be helping his friends, and here he was transported somewhere else, of no use to them at all. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, the haunting laughter started up again. Fear and terror chased each other around his insides, inciting panic and alarm throughout his falsehood of a body. Unable to fight it off anymore, he curled up into the foetal position, sobbing for all he was worth.
Panting like an over enthusiastic dog that had been chasing its own tail for an hour, and sweating more profusely than a marathon runner in a desert, Hook skidded to a halt beside Yoyo, delighted to be out of the main firing line and pleased to see a friendly face. At least, that's what he thought he was looking at, as the two had never actually met.
Offering out his hand, Hook introduced himself.
"Hook," he remarked, ever so orotund.
Taking his eyes away from the battle, although still using his arms to cast, deflect and temper magic in and around his group of dragons, Yoyo smiled at the young human.
"Yoyo," he ventured.
"Pleased to meet you," put in Hook. "Was it you that healed me?"
"It was, and you're very welcome."
"What can I do? I don't have any magic to offer up, but I'll help in any way that I can."
"You can cover me and make sure no one sneaks up behind us. I get so lost in the moment at times, with everything that's going on, it's sometimes hard for me to focus on the here and now. If an enemy approaches, give me a shout and I'll take care of it. Do not engage them yourself."
Hook nodded, turned and started to take in the fight, noting where all his friends were, determined to make sure nothing devious or underhand found itself in a position to harm Yoyo. Turning back towards the action, the dragon healer marvelled at humans sharing the dragon domain, and not only that, but fighting alongside dragons, and their monarch. Things were getting crazy!
Gingerly wobbling to her feet, Earth rose just in time to see her king and current soul mate, far across the chamber, launch a magical strike straight out of the naga's supernatural handbook, looking on happily as wisps of waspish shadow energy encompassed his onrushing attacker. Amazingly, and with more agility than she would have thought possible, the human shaped male leapt up and over at the very last moment, avoiding the attack. 'Ah... but he hasn't,' she thought, noticing the tiniest tendril on the outer edge of the magic slice through the lower part of his leg. Confident that her other half's opponent had been brutally dealt with, she turned away for a brief moment, brushing herself down, before checking that the healing energy she'd infused herself with had done its trick. It had. Pleased to go into battle looking her best, stoked by the rage and power bubbling just below the surface of her fair skin, thoughts of her appearance faded, only to be replaced with where she should strike first. It was then that a recognisable voice whispered inside her head, urging her on, begging to be set free. As the disembodied words flitted around her mind, she wondered how long it had been. Years since they'd last seen each other... oh how she'd yearned for him. Cartwheeling out of the way of several stray missile blasts and the explosive debris they tossed her way, she told him how much he'd been missed. Expressing the exact same sentiment back in her direction, both practically purred in satisfaction. With just a thought, using an image instead of words this time to give life to her magic, down beside her on the cracked, charred and discoloured broken white marble, appeared her familiar, the two-headed serpent looking eager to please. Dismissing him with the tiniest movement of her index finger, he knew not to stray too far, after all his primary purpose was to keep her safe, but how he did that was very much down to his own discretion. And having been away for so long, every instinct in his body screamed at him to keep her safe by killing all her enemies, an instinct he was only too happy to comply with.
Watching her companion's thick, muscular tail disappear into a choking cloud of magical smog, Earth turned her attention to the raging enchanted encounter in front of her. Spotting two of the King's Guards together, seemingly having a great deal of success fighting back to back against a series of probing naga attacks, she readied her magic, let the darkness within consume her, and bounded over the rubble in front of her, intent on satisfying her blood lust.
Parrying another strike, she feinted one way and then the other, before ramming the hilt of the dark edged sword up into the monstrous beast's jaw. It was momentarily stunned, so without hesitation she thrust her weapon as hard as she could through its pale green stomach, watching in satisfaction as blood spurted from the wound and gurgled from its mouth. With no time even to celebrate her small victory, and keeping her back firmly planted to that of her comrades, she brought her stolen sword up and prepared for the next attack. It was only then that she noticed the dragons and nagas in front of her part like trains at a set of points. Directly down the middle was the one being here that she feared the most. NO! Not Manson. Maybe it should have been him, after all, he was clearly a psychopath. But in some respects that made him predictable and certainly fightable. This foe though, she considered much, much worse. Having watched his evil queen throughout the entire time they'd been captured, she'd hoped to hell not to catch her attention, and thankfully she hadn't. But that had all changed now. With Earth marching steadily towards her, the young guard powered up her defensive shield, sent a brief warning to her partner, and with all the determination that she could muster, let loose a dizzying array of magic, all of it meant to destroy the crazy monster heading her way.