Yet The Dragon Stands

Chase pulled himself over the single rocky ledge of the mountain blocking his path from the top. 

Losing his grip, his life flashes before his eyes, as he remembers a specific moment in time when he had fallen from this great a height.

Michael grabbed him by the wrist with a swift and desperate reach, hanging by a ledge higher up, he quietly speaks. 

"Come on... We can't stop now."

It was true, they had nearly cleared the entire mountain with haste, after spotting familiar energy arise from a single point on the mountain's peak. 

Chase violently goes against every muscle fiber in his body, pulling himself up onto the hanging ledge of the mountain. 

It took them several moments to take in the scene before them, moments they soon realized they did not have to spare. 

A trail of blood led from the place they had climbed up from, all the way to a single spot in the far distance where a lifeless body lay within the cold snow of the mountain peak.

The air was heavy, and the smoke from the kingdom below had risen up into the sky, blocking several directions with its dark haze. 

"Chase..."

Michael said hesitantly, as they began to lose their breath from the elevation. 

Then he saw it. 

Dragon was pinned down on the tallest slope of the mountain, by several thick chains of raw steel. 

Above him, standing high and mighty was a face they had all wished to have forgotten soon. 

Talon of House Terror stood gleefully at the top of the slope, looking down at his doing. 

"Foolish children!"

Talon screamed with delight. 

Laughter echoed throughout the mountain's peak.

Chase pushed himself to his feet, and slowly made his way though the smoky terrain, frostbite eating away his skin. 

"Michael..."

He whispered under his breath, trusting that his friend was close by. 

"Help me kill-"

He was cut off when he seen it. 

In fact, his heart dropped terribly, and Michael let out a muffled gasp nearby.

The body that had led the trail of blood, had been revealed with a grim and dreading scene. 

"Summer..."

Chase muttered, hidden behind so much rage that it was blurred out by his own trembling. 

His mind raced, as he picked up his pace toward the healer's lifeless body. 

Nearly stumbling in the snow, he pushed forward going from an unbalanced crawl to a full sprint as he halted instantly at her side. 

Putting a finger on the side of her neck, he tried not to sob.

Her skin was frozen, and her pulse was gone, Summer of House Lavender had fallen in the cold mountains of Frostfang. 

Looking ahead, Dragon had been gagged with a cold piece of metal that wasn't distinguishable from the distance he was knelt at. 

Looking down into Summer's lifelessly green eyes, laced with blood and sadness, Chase put his palm over her face, and gently shut her eyes.

As he did not want her to see him in such a state.

It was like he could simply not feel his own heartbeat, as if he had died in that very moment, and it was all his fault. 

He had denied her request to run away together, and yet he had chosen to stay in the midst of war over foolish revenge. 

Had he known that her life was going to be on the line, he would have jumped at the offer, knowing he could have protected her. 

Then again, the visuals of the war he had only recently fought flooded his mind. 

How many could have died if he was not there...?

How many have already died in the ruins of Frostfang...?

It was all too much for his young mind to take in. 

"Chase! You have to do something..."

Michael shouted at his side, trying to shake the boy's shoulders, at an attempt to free him from his broken state of mind. 

Shouting in frustration, Michael lunged forward, summoning his scythe faster then ever before. 

Talon's grin grew wider, and his laughs grew louder, as he spoke freely as if empathy had never once filled the man's soul. 

"Trinity Art... Binding of Terror..."

Chase's life flashed before his eyes, as the mountain silenced to nothing. 

The air ran cold, and the inside of his mouth rang with the taste of iron. 

Then the monstrous power within Talon exploded outward in a raging storm of steel chains, overtaking the mountain in mere seconds.

Looking down at Summer's closed fist, he quickly loosened her grip on a strange vibrant item.

It was a plant...

An herb?

Chase didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do with an herb out in the mountains, especially when considering the fact that he was about to die, but he took the strange herb and pocketed it just in case.

Michael had only made it halfway to Talon before he was consumed in chains.

His body flew into the farthest ledge of the mountain peak, which could have been nearly two hundred meters. 

Chase looked down at Summer once more, finally feeling the weight of war cave his chest in. 

Looking far ahead at Talon, he spotted a half skinned skull clinging by a single chain on the waist band of his armor. 

The face was far too gruesome to ever identify it truly, but Chase knew the moment he seen it.

For whatever reason, Talon had infiltrated Task Force Unity, and slayed two of their soldiers with no knowable grudge to reveal. 

This enraged Chase further, as the chains trying to break through the barrier of smoke around him, got closer and closer. 

Was he really going to die here?

"Of course not..."

He muttered to himself. 

Feeling the final reserves of energy painfully overtake his veins, he screamed. 

The single spot on his shoulder, where the ruin of Sparky had once rested, flowed with life for the first time in weeks. 

"COME FORTH!"

He screamed with fury, knowing that the odds of anything happening were slim. 

Then his brain staggered, and his slowly stepping forward body stopped. 

A single terrible pain ran through his body, as he felt his very bones crack from the pressure. 

In the distant void of his own mind, he heard a single quiet howl that echoed through the walls of his soul.

With a single glance back at Summer's body, he whispered to himself.

"You have not died in vain..."

Then the raging storm of chains felt like nothing in comparison to the onslaught of neon green flames ripping apart the very mountain he stood on. 

Chase felt his skin rip apart underneath the chaotic touch of the fire that he had manifested, and yet he couldn't help but laugh as the steel chains around him melted from pure incineration.

Dragon had been freed as well, and stood before Chase could even see him gather himself.

Then a third terrible feeling engulfed the mountain as the flames swiftly faded away. 

Chase collapsed into the snow, feeling his body give out from complete exhaustion. 

Before his vision faded, he spotted purple energy completely destroy a quarter of the mountain in the distance.

Chase felt himself fall under the dark blanket of failure, knowing he had failed to protect his team from death. 

But one thing had not been a failure, even though Chase had fallen, and some of his team had faced grim endings...

The Dragon still stood...