David was growing impatient the following day after catching the shadow mage. Jasmine had flown over the area a few times in search of them, but they were lucky enough to stay hidden from her keen eye.

"We're never going to get to Emma in time, not if we don't make this guy open the field up for us." David pointed out. Peter sighed, fully knowing that his friend was being impatient with the man.

"David, be rational, if we can earn his trust, then we might be able to convince him to open up the field." Peter tried being rational with David, but his emotions were clouding his friends choices, man did David have it bad. The blue haired male sighed with frustration, his feet taking him into the forest, allowing Peter and the shadow mage to be alone.

After a few minutes of waiting, Peter got up from the dirt and grabbed a water bottle, walking over to their captured friend. Surely the rope bindings were hard on the guy, not to mention he hadn't drank anything since the night before, causing the poor shadow mage to drift off into parched sleep.

"Hey, I got some water for you here." Peter gestured to the blue water bottle in his hands, immediately getting the shadow mages attention.

"What's the deal then? You wish for me to open up our barrier, but my loyalty will never allow me to, so I ask of you to stop." He begged. Peter stopped in front of the man, holding out the bottle in front of the mages lips, yet he refused to drink anything, not wanting to make a silent deal with the red head.

"I'm not trying to convince you of anything, although I do want to ask you one thing," The shadow mage looked up to Peter, his face scrunched up and confused, "what is your name?"

This question caught the dark eyed male off guard, his jaw gaped open in shock, he quickly regained his senses though, providing the answer to him.

"Richard."

"Well Richard, it's nice to finally know your name, I'm Peter." And with this, the two shared no more words, The only sound was the birds in the trees finally awakening in the crisp morning. Richard managed to drink the remaining amount of water in mere seconds, relief filling him.

"Bless you, Peter, although your blue haired friend doesn't seem to like me too much." Richard joked. Peter allowed a smile to form on his face, letting out his second sigh that day.

"He's just, in love I guess, he wants to get Emma back before anything happens to her, but he's acting so rash." The male sat down in front of Richard as he spoke, knowing fully well that David wasn't coming back anytime soon.

"Aye, love is crazy, but are you sure the girl loves him back? That she wouldn't fall in love with another given the chance?" Richard was now diving into his wiser words, his age finally showing after his forty years of living in his small home.

"I...can't tell, I'm pretty sure Emma only thinks of him as a close friend, but I don't think she would fall in love at all." Peter never wanted to pursue Emma when he had first met her, although undeniably attractive, his heart was on another, but Peter's own attractions were frowned upon by many, and most were killed for his kind of love.

Richard seemed to notice Peter's hardship, a grin on his face as he realized the troubles the boy was facing. "Aye, you love the boy, don't ya?"

Peter blushed, but didn't say anything.

"That's alright, it's more common than you think, my brother wished to marry another young man once, but was hung after his feelings were rejected, my king didn't care too much for the feelings of the man, he thought it was wrong." Richard sighed, recalling the events so clearly in his mind, "you still have a chance, Peter, tell the boy how you feel, before you save this girl, for it may be the only chance you get."

"Peter! Look who I found!" A familiar voice had shattered Richard and Peter's conversations into small shards as the red head quickly ran over to the sound of David's voice. He was partly in the woods, and the sound of a scuffle was snapping twigs and branches everywhere. That's when a bolt of lightning shot through the trees, narrowly missing Peter's face. Regaining his courage, the red head broke though the foliage, his eyes locked onto David, and Jasmine, both in a heated battle.

It didn't take long for Peter to rush in and attempt to help, his hand striking a sensitive nerve on Jasmine's body. She let out a short scream and went limp, although she was clearly still awake.

"David, let's get her back to camp, I'm doing the questioning this time." Peter heaved Jasmine into his arms, knowing that this girl was one of his closest friends, the one who started with him at the academy when David and Emma left for the trials. He shook his head, walking through the gaps of trees and being careful not to scratch Jasmine anywhere.

The walk back to camp took longer than him running to the fight, but in mere minutes Peter had made it through the trees and into the small clearing of camp. Setting Jasmine down nearby, he began to cook up some herbs and fruit on a stick, the rations slowly depleting. When finished, he pressed on a nerve located on Jasmines back, jerking her whole body until she had full control again.

She didn't attack like he thought she would, silently taking the spiced fruits from his offering gesture and began to eat. When she was finished scarfing everything down, her yellow eyes looked up into Peter's ruby ones, her eyes looking for an answer.

"You need to explain how to know Richard." Peter pointed back to the shadow mage behind him, who was giving her a wide smile.

Jasmine frowned, especially since David had made his way back to camp and was now watching the exchange. Her eyes looked into the forest, where Electra, her dragon, was currently being held back by a blue and red dragon. Peter cleared his throat,"Well?"

"Richard...he's my uncle." Jasmine said simply. Peter nodded, appearing calm, but inside he was internally screaming.

"One moment please." Peter got up and found a supply bag, grabbing a rag and shoving it into his mouth. Once secured, he let out a scream of confusion. No faster than when he shoved the rag into his mouth, he tore it out and approached Jasmine again.

"Alright, so care to explain as to why you didn't tell us this earlier?" Peter asked. The girl looked away in shame, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

"He denied anything to do with Emma, which I fully believe, but it doesn't make any sense, someone had to use a sleeping spell on us at the time, otherwise we would have woke up to the sound of scuffling."

"Wait! A sleeping spell?" Richard spoke, his black eyes shining. Peter's heart soared, they may have just found something important," Noah, my son, he knows how to do those in mere seconds, it could have been him."

David finally got up and walked over to Richard, some water from nearby floating over to David's hands, where it then froze into a hard blade. Peter felt his breath get caught in his throat, but relaxed as he saw David was simply cutting Richard's bindings.

"Sorry for this man, I've been acting stupid latley." David confessed. Jasmine and Peter grinned, finally happy to see their friend had found his common sense again. Richard rubbed his arms and legs, red marks and burns over his body from the friction of the ropes. David placed a hand on his shoulder, a light green aura surrounding his hand. Soon enough, Richards marks had faded and made home on David's body, where he now held his guilt.

"So now that we're all friends, you think we can go and get Emma back?" Jasmine asked. David have her a light-hearted grin, waiting for Richards response.

"I mean, I may be loyal to my king, but I'm much more loyal to family. I'll open the barrier, take your dragons, for if we don't, you have no chance of winning."

The three wasted no time in getting their things packed, their dragons all ready and bursting with energy. David patted Aqua on the neck, her feathered wings shaking with pleasure. Joel, Peter's dragon, have a quick nose-bump with her, an affectionate gesture before a battle.

"You ready to kick some ass?" Jasmine shouted excitedly. David gave a loud 'yeah' in response, and the three dragons all joined in with a roar. Richard nodded in comfornation, his magic spreading through his fingers and opening a hole in the barrier. He was quickly pushed over by the sound of wing beats, but it wasn't from one of the three coloured dragons he knew, no, it came from the extremely large grey dragon flying directly into the opening.

Almost immediately after Comet flew into the barrier, Joel, and Aqua flew in after him, but Jasmine and Electra held back, the riders face one of awe. Silver dragons with black marking began flying out of the opening, sometimes a human was in their claws or clumsily on their backs. Richard let out a victorious cry, and Jasmine smiled, knowing fully well who released the imprisoned dragons.

"You never seize to amaze me, Emma."

Inside the barrier, David, Peter, and the three dragons had landed beside Emma and a fallen boy who was bleeding from his leg. The king and another girl were quickly approaching them until they noticed the three dragons on Emma's side.

"Where the hell did they come from?" The king asked. Savannah was staring at the beasts with terror, her hands shaking until she dropped the two swords, running away like a coward. A silver dragon with black markings easily picked the running girl up in its claws, poor Savannah screaming like a mad woman. With her easily forgotten, Emma risked a look back to the dragons, her heart beating like crazy when she saw her friends all surrounding her. A tear slipped down from her face, relief flooding through her body as she realized that they hadn't left her, they always did care for her, after all.

"Damn kids!" The king screamed, shooting a large fire ball from his hands. Peter easily countered, jumping from his dragons back and shooting his own blue ball of fire to meet the dark one. The two elements collided with each other, fire eating fire until there was nothing left. Peter cast his female friend a questioning look, then back to the kings multi-coloured eyes.

"He's under the influence of the reborns curse, I'm not sure what kind of power he has, but it's a lot!" Emma said over the commotion of screaming shadow mages and their bonded trying to find them. The poor dragons didn't want to scare these people, they had been separated for their whole lives, and now was their only chance to find them and have a normal life.

David and Jasmine also hopped down from their dragons, ready to fight off King Eric. The man tensed, his once colourful eyes now a pitch black. But this wasn't the normal shadow mage black, this was a sickly black that sucked in all the light around it, this was the reborns curse.

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re you guys enjoying the longer chapters?

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