Chapter 15: Here To Help

The crack of dawn had caused Areon to rise. He sprung into action, excited for the day. Long before the dark dragon had awoken he was preparing with warm ups and shooting blasts of fire from his hands repeatedly. 

"I can't give up now. We're so close."

Then as he was in the midst of practicing his emission technique, he looked up and noticed something.

"The sky, the lightning cage is gone!"

A deep yawn could be heard from the other side of the valley, startling Areon in the process. 

"Well, would you look at that. Honestly he held out for longer than I expected. He's a very capable elf."

Areon turned to Krieus, who was now also looking into the clouds. The lightning cage had indeed disappeared. He rubbed the back of his head apologetically.

"Sorry if I woke you up, pops."

"Don't worry about that. I don't mind, I was getting tired of being in this valley anyway so the sooner that we manage to leave this place the better. Besides, it looks like everyone is ready."

The dark dragon pointed to mister Puff Puff who was now stretching whilst his tail energetically wagged from side to side.

He enthusiastically nodded his head.

"Better believe it! If that's the case then let's get this over with!"

Areon smashed his fist into the base of the palm of his hand. Grinning from ear to ear before their departure.

"Just you wait Keeva...you won't have to run away from wars anymore!"

§

Deep in the midst of the elf village. There was a house, which in its appearance resembled a tree, that was on the verge of collapsing. Pieces of bark were falling and the creaking could be heard from a great distance into the streets as it's structural integrity was evidently compromised.

The door to the house burst open as the family that was inside began to aggressively sprint in order to save their lives.

"I tried to tell that damn lunatic that this would happen!"

The father grit his teeth, pushing aside his resentment as his focus was solely towards protecting his family at the moment, but silently promised that he would tear the chief elder a new one after this was all over. There was no way that he could allow him to get away with this.

The elf began to notice that his wife behind him was panting heavily and that his daughter behind was starting to lose speed.

"We may not make it at this rate!" 

He grabbed his daughter and bolted harder than he ever had in his entire life. They soon got far enough into the streets to where the pieces of their soon to be destroyed home wouldn't land on them. 

"I can't run anymore!"

His wife held on to his shirt, when the father elf looked back he could see, up close how distraught and exhausted she was.

"It's okay, we should be safe here. It's just about to fall too, good thing we made it in time."

Quickly the father began a head count.

"Okay, Samean is here and Claira is here…"

There was a intense silence that surrounded the group. As the father spoke the thought that plagued everyone's mind.

"Where's Finn?"

Completely in sync, everyone had turned their heads ninety degrees in the direction of the falling house. 

Finn, the smallest in the family was very, very far behind. The house seemed like a tidal wave that would inevitably consume him, as the distance that the family had built between him and them was too great. Tears fell from the small elf's scared and timid eyes as he helplessly watched his family witness what were soon to be the final moments of his life.

"Finn!"

The father yelled as he left his remaining family with his arm stretched out, racing towards his one and only son. His heart racing with every step.

At the worst possible second a stray branch, protruding from the ground, that had long since been dead, tripped the little elf as he fell on his face. He quickly tried to get up from the ground and was petrified by the sight that greeted him.

The full force of their house was tumbling down, almost eager to claim the young elf's life. At a loss for words, the last thing that he heard was his father calling out to him, repeating his name. But even the child knew that he was too far away to make a difference. He closed his eyes.

And reluctantly accepted his fate.

Then as the disassembled parts of the building were falling, there was a loud sound of explosions reverberating from the air, the noises of the combustion began to sound louder and louder. The little boy thought that he could just be imagining it, though he was sure that whatever was incoming towards him sounded like...fire.

Fwoom!

The boy blinked and a flash appeared so bright that his shut eyes couldn't spare him from it's luminescence. There was a crack and then a flicker, when his eyes opened again he saw that he was somehow floating in the air. The elf was puzzled that he was not dead and somehow in the arms of a flying human boy with dark hair, and yellow eyes surrounded by flames.

"Hehe, you alright?"

Areon shot the elf a cheeky grin before landing back onto the ground next to his family. He placed his hands on the elf's shoulders and briskly, brushed the dirt off of his shirt.

"Gee, you must have been scared. Good thing I caught you when I did, huh."

Just then the house hit the ground and the pieces had gone blasting out of control, firing everywhere. The family was outside of the reach for the fallen building to claim their lives but they had underestimated the speeding debris which was now making their way towards them.

"Looks like there's still some work to do, give me a sec to clear this all up."

Walking towards the danger while cracking his knuckles and wearing a confident grin, Areon was more than excited to show off the new potency of his attacks after his mini training period. Though Krieus had other plans.

Moments before the impact the dark dragon shielded everyone there with his wing. While being under Krieus' protection, the oncoming barrage of dust, bark and other house parts was not even something to notice. Areon looked up at his father, puzzled.

"I could have handled that though."

"Yes, but it wasn't necessary."

The boy then turned his attention towards the little elf instead.

"Welp, let's get you back to your parents and head out of here-"

Yet before Areon could finish his sentence he decided to swing his head to the right of him, without looking back. A flying stone zipped past his face, barely missing him. The child turned to face the angry father, his face practically burning hot red with fury.

"I hope you know this is an odd way to say thank you."

The elf father began to bark out of rage.

"What would I have to thank you for! This all happened because of you! You and that dragon are the reason that we've been spending all our time searching instead of finding a solution to the mother tree! Because of you, my kid almost died!"

Areon stopped out of shock when he heard the elf's words.

"Wait, what?"

But there was no time to be thinking.

"Arghhhhh!"

The elf charged at the child and began mindlessly punching in his direction. Areon was long since accustomed to attacks more dangerous than this. To dodge something so lacking in precision was almost child's play. He continued to effortlessly evade the elf as he watched the him only increase in rage.

"Wait a second, you guys are the ones hunting us down! We're just trying to help kill the Maimo on your mother tree!"

But the elf was far beyond reasoning at this point.

"Samean! Alert the search parties that I found the dragon, get sir Winstes and Cornelius here now! I'll take care of the child before they show up!"

Areon caught the most recent punch before yelling out to the elf's wife.

"No, don't do that, we're here to help I promise!"

Though she was already running away and dashing down the street to find the nearest search party.

"Crap! She's already doing exactly that!"

He ducked another incoming punch before leaping backward. Emitting just enough fire to blast him away from the elf's reach. Before the elf could take another step further, Areon created a line of fire on top of the dirt. The elf flinched briefly, as Areon could tell he was considering charging past the burning blaze in front of him.

"These flames are hot, don't come any closer."

He could see that the rage in the elf was not subsiding.

"Come on man, I'm really not trying to fight you! We need to talk this out! Just calm down!"

The ground beneath the elf broke apart as he ran towards Areon again.

"Is he serious?"

Then there was a loud voice that called out to him from the side of the street.

"Dad stop! Stop Dad!"

The father elf turned around to see his youngest child, Finn in tears. He began to compose himself, shaking his head.

The elf had come to his senses and understood that there was something unordinary about this entire situation. Even if he had somehow managed to get his hands on this kid. The fact that there were two beasts sitting so confidently on standby scared the elf, as he watched the enormous dark dragon and large white coated wolf glare him down, almost as if they were waiting for him to make the mistake of harming the boy.

"No, it's worse than that. Are they watching me so laid back because they know that this kid can handle me without a problem? What kind of villains are they? Just what the hell is going on here?"

The elf father took a deep breath before glaring at Areon.

"Fine, you got ten seconds to explain yourself kid. Start talking."