| | A Power Clash | | - Guardian Dragon Verses Top Slayer - Monty + Zay *Gaspgasp* It'll never end O_O

"That is my only trick?" She asked, then gave short sharp "Ha!"
"If you think that you are pitiful, you shan't be to hard to get then." She smiled at him sweetly -mockingly though, just like Zartear would-
Then amassed a whie ball of magic in her hands, no larger then a fist keeping her eyes on the dragon.
Then she put her hand upward and the ball jumped from her hands into the sky, rays of light dispersing from it a huge flash and then a "thump" came sounding. In succession a low gurgling growl could be heard, a pure black dragon with smallish but hard sharp horns could be seen. Besides that and it's glowing white eyes it seemed completely normal and half the size of Silverwing.
But like May-Rah his might was in magic not muscle.

Zartear grinned "You'll see /darling dragon/" He replied making his move before she could, sword up above the shoulders before a large sweeping move was delivered, the sword lowered and span around him in a grandiose way making the leaves scatter and fly, he was going to make this dragon "dance" he decided, and start working his way to throwing it off balance.

"Things are not always as they seem, for a dragon as supposedly wise you should know everything is a snare."
The dragon scuttled with amazingly fast legs movements, it had no trouble climbing up onto Silverwing, it would not physically hurt this fought it's battles in shape of nightmares.
Just like May-Rah, May-Rah was amazing at this ability...It seemed whoever her victim was in life they always fell to their knees the smart strong people however knew she was like this and stayed away from her beguiling appearance.
But the foolhardy were drawn in and really, May-Rah was just a witch with an angel's mask, nothing worthy of praise at all.

Zartear was ready for this and dropped to his front on the floor, both arms bent and body hugging the ground as the tail flew over his head like a mighty gust of wind....As soon as it was gone his arms sprung him back to his feet and he did another leg shot, again to make the dragon jump...

May-Rah cackled with glee, her minion was doing just as designed, a beast of pure horror. It served no other purpose than to hurt, and hurt it would do...
Now with Silverwing shaken substantially, she put one arm forward and snarled at the dragon she had created.
And it seemed to shriek with pain, she sucked it's lifeforce away like a deadly poison, and it crumbled to the ground...The elements of it breaking down and re-absorbed into her.
A truly blood-curdelling sight enough to make your skin twitch and ears cry for peace...
It had all happened so fast, May-Rah was not sparing a moment in breaking down this dragon...so ruthless....so inhumane too.
Then with her left arm she shot a smallish ball of dark energy to silverwing, nothing major damaging, May-Rah did not focus on damage rather than loads of small little attacks.

Zartear was no longer listening to Vitreasa, he was in his own frame of mind, the one with room to think of the slayer. It was spacious but organized and yet full of the tactics and the information. Carried with him everywhere, it had become a major part of his mind and hence his body too. That's why whatever he saw, he saw it through this filter too.
And this was his gift for his art, and his curse for his life.
But we all know the positive has it's flipside, the heads the tails and worthless.
And you could see him in deep thought, going over the moves like a hymn, a metronome of premeditated moves.
Then mechanically pulling back and thrusting forward with his sword, a direct lunge toward the dragon's heart.
This was a person who could appear to be so in the battle and lose the reality, fighting was the be all and end all.

Zartear would have struck right back seeing his attack miss, but the dragon moved away to Silverwing, making a major fault in the ways of defence.
Zartear didn't care for any personal feelings the dragon had toward Silverwing, in fact Zartear didn't really care for many feelings at all...They always got in the way of things so after summarizing the situation, he looked back to May-Rah and could see she was thinking exactly like he was....
"May..." He murmured under his breath, and from behind him she grew into her dark scaley form...small hissing sounds as her skin changed to the tar colours and her eyes colour drained to an empty black, in effect she appeared completely black and ghostly.
She "hovered" over behind Zartear and touched him on the back, and she began to disintergrate, dissolving like the liquid metal his sword was made of....And then she was no longer seen at all, the black sword was clearly gleaming and waves of energy were tensing around it, small dark rings occassionally splaying from it spreading into the atmosphere.

The sword was charged in an unusual way. May-Rah had mastered shape-shifting tactics for a very long time, and this was one of her specialties.

He pulled the sword of malice up directly above Vitreasa, a bitter stone face on him and bought it down without warning or sound to crush and tear on Vitreasa's back.

The sword struck the ground with amazing speed, it was quite hard to think how that was even dodged....And you could almost see the blurred image of the sword through the air stuck in your eyes, and a ripping sound of electric buzzed and frazzled the air around the sword as shards of electricty jumped off of it...Sheer energy leaping from the black metal.
Zartear lifted the sword again, one hand on the hilt, other cradling the blade above his head, the swinging it back to two hands...
Head forward the moon casting it's eery glow on his face.
"I stopped playing long ago..."
He said, rushing towards Vitreasa, and undisguised deadly throat attack.
And with another chink and frazzling sound of electric the sword gashed through the air toward Vitreasa's neck

Zartear braced himself the leap having full contact with his body and the tail making it's blow too, but the momentum of the great energized sword caused it to lash around and turn on Vitreasa's back striking it like a vigorous slicer, electric flew off in all directions, flashes of light piercing the gloom like their own swords, all this happened in the blink of an eye, as he was flying backwards in the air, his sword having crushed against Vitreasa, the sensation was livening for the senses tremendously.
It was a mixture of screaming but insignificant pain, the surge of power and connection with the sword and the intoxicating feeling of full on touch to touch combat...
Then it ended as he came crashing down back to the floor.
He groaned but would not be beaten, using his willpower alone to stand back up and even challenge the dragon with his icy uncaring eyes.

Stupid stupid dragon, running after the hurt female dragon and then glancing at him with fire? The defiance that Zartear showed for every other life form, the need to be the dominator in everything he did was relentless and made others grow tired and weary of him, eventually submitting.
As the energy passed forward to him, he did as before but more easily---not seeing Sivlerwing sneak behind him...
The sword was sent straight forward to the energy ball, and it exploded in his face, the energy molecules and small balls of light spurting off every which way, and half of it charging up the sword slightly...The sword was getting hotter and hotter with every charge wildly exerting it...
ANd with every charge Zartear got a prickle of power run through his every nerve, it felt so....wonderful...and to be a slayer like this was glorious.
May-Rah must have practiced her item inanimate shifting a lot...
And then after it disappeared he did not see the impending danger looming behind him.
But his body felt as strong and on edge as ever.

Although the pain collided with the thrill tingling on his skin, he would refuse to cry out for this dragon and howl the pain that wanted to escape him, giving in to a dragon, that'd be an all new low of the lows for him. So stubborness ignored the strangled empathy and tied down physical hurt.
The energy ball remarkably managed to work it's way to a degree down and up through the overlapping underlayers of armour hissing like acid on touching his skin, burning through the soft clothing underneath.....
It was enough to make you want to die just then, well Zartear wouldn't...
The sword disintergrated back into a watery flow and reinforced the armour, whenever things got into a state of needing protection the sword would automatically stop the offensive.
And his armour glistened all over not shedding a clue of the chars and burned beneath it, ingrained on his skin. They'd heal but not to be forgotten in a hurry.

At points like this you felt completely angered and eager to fight but unable to, so as a mere act of his hate.
He simply spat on the dragon showing that well, he still thought this dragon was dirt.
Zartear was not finished....

Zartear closed his eyes, this was getting to be quite exasperating, but, he did have a plan. It didn't appear like he was going to do anything though, he just snorted and turned away, the armour omitting small pulses of energy...
Then once concealed by the thick undergrowth and many trees, May-Rah reformed form the sword and sighed.
"Well, you fought good...The dragons are powe-"
"But they're /dragons/ I should be able to kill them."
May-Rah looked sympathetic and turned her head to the side, putting one hand on his shoulder.
"You shouldn't always think like that, it was a very good fight." She comforted in her strange dark voice...
"And it's not finished!" He interrupted pulling her hand from his shoulder, holding it tightly, looking deep into her darkened eyes.
"But, maybe there are other dragons that..."
"I told you May-Rah, It is NOT finished...I just need a new line of attack-- a plan..." She then recoiled from him and his words and her eyes went cold, smouldering the sympathy she had shown.
"I suppose then..." She said trying to sound offended, like she was now shutting him off.
"May don't start that..."
"Zartear for gods sake, do you ever stop for one moment, just think of something BESIDES your fighting? We are alike but this is enough to drive me to tears."
Now it was his turn to shut her out and the shape of a snarl could be seen on his face.
"I am not in the mood May-Rah do not enrage me anymore." He said with a growl the hairs on his back standing straight. She returned the aggressive gaze, a deadlock of high tensions.
She then closed her eyes and lowered her head to him.
"Right well!" She snapped "If it'll stop you sulking and whining....There may be another way...."
She shuffled on her feet for a moment seeing nobody was around.
"Come on Zar, use your head a little more. Be more of the intelligent fighter I /really/ know, yes?"
At first it seemed like he was barely registering anything that she said, but he was thinking harder and she knew it.
He looked up with a positive smile, not a good sign for any of his "foes"
"Let's try a little bit of poison. Some ecological manipulation..."
May-Rah smiled too and bowed her head, the evil glint had come back to both of their eyes and their attitudes. This would be a strange plan to be enacted but probably a devastating one too. He leaned forward to May-Rah and whispered very slowly a few words in her ear of his plan, finishing off with a subtle "May-Rah I love you." He kissed her cheek softly with a very tell-tale sly grin then turned away walking back through the woods softly taking care not to be seen.
Better equipped that before, this would be a truly strange display to be.
May-Rah shifted back to black again and vanished from sight readying for the attack.
Snaking off to begin.

Zartear climbed up a tree and his body disappeared into the canopy, May-Rah in her very hard to see black liquid form also slithered up around the tree, except she then stopped appearing lke a bindweed on the tree, a creeper plant very ordinary...
Zartear stayed roosted up there then he shouted out, obviously wanting some attention.
"Hey you worthless tubs of money, see this? You can burn me all you like I'll still be living. Ha" He spat the words from aloft in the trees, not sure if this was a distraction or being a genuine insult. Both, he figured, it was nice to be able to say whatever whenever.
"Mmmmm shame you can't do a thing because I'll tear you both limb from limb..."
He teased from in the tree, hanging on strongly looking down sending his jeer to them. The whip held tight behind his back for when he'd need to escape...

Good.
The dragon had made a reaction, he gracefully dodged as the flames whicked through the trees, small sparks falling down below.
"You should know that one of the rules in combat is, at an angle like that and from that huge distance away you haven't a hope of hitting me...dragon."
Zartear laid back on the main part of the tree, seeming to look at his hands and check out his armour idly, waiting for the dragon to make it's deadly mistake.
May-Rah was lying in wait and knew what she had to do all too well.
This was a very odd tactic but probably quite a terrifying one.
"It;s getting boring staring at the night sky dragon, can you light it up a little more for me?" He snickered...

Zartear drew back in behind a shield of leaves and counted the dragons steps...one...two....
And then in the twinkle of an eye launched his whip into the air was a loud CRACK it latched onto the next tree, and simultaneously, the bindwind May-Rah was disguised as melted into the tree, making it black and poisoned the leaves all became golden brown and red autumn colours, washing down toward Silverwing...A wrenching creak was heard and then the tree made it's large decent straight toward Silverwing, dark magic was surrounding it like a noxious poison....
Zartear flung himself to the next tree, waiting to see the reaction, and to be honest they had a long way to go yet...

The tree crushed down, half hitting Silverwing extremely hard o nthe shoulder, but as soon as it had made it's horrific impact it seemed to shatter into a thousand particles of black magic, twinkles of purple black and white making the air dizzying and hard to breath in...
Then out from the heart of the possessed and destroyed tree a small finger of black mist ascended into the air, sparkles of shadow energy accompanying it.
Behold, the power of a dark witch, May-Rah....
She thrived on every part of this, and Zartear happened to be wearing the very armour that coordinated with it.
Now May-Rah had become what she had found amongst the memories in SIlverwing's mind, the mist, a black one, and probably far more deadly and gaining in power rapidly.

Timing it carefully, Zartear then jumped from the tree, sailing through the air, and down to the ground agilely, on the crunch as he bent his legs absorbing the shock he winced a ittle, the burns still there as memories. Then he became shrouded by the black mist, and he murmured.
"So you'll run with my May-Rah? Best make this two of his worst nightmares eh?"
The mist swirled and frolicked around him while they chased, like agreeing with him. He laughed and ran in the power of the mist enhancing his body as a whole, black magic strengthened but did not heal.
He raised his sword, and took the smile of his face, the chase like a meditation, appearing as terrifying as possible.
Because fear was an assassin, it's destroy the footsoldiers reason and common sense, and then beat your last allies of hope and faith...
Fear was deadly, and this was Zartear's greatest weapon, in combination with a certain nasty May-Rah...Posing as his worst fear, there was no stopping them as they chased SilverWing, not in range to attack yet.