The door creaked open, and a soft hand touched his cheek, stirring him from the sleep he managed to gain.
"Ignatius?" A voice whispered.
He slowly opening his eyes, and looked up.
His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and he saw Elidi kneeling next to him, a horrified and worried expression on her face.
"You..." he managed to say before his voice gave out. His voice was almost gone from his screams when Ignacio beat him more than half to death.
"Shh. You should reserve your strength." She told him, laying her hands gently on his back, making him wince as she used her magic to help him. "I don't even know how how you're even alive right now." She managed between breaths. Healing his back had taken a massive toll on her.
"Leave." He muttered.
"What?" She asked.
"Leave. Before he catches you." He rasped, his strength fading, even with Elidi healing his back had still left his strength diminished.
"Who? Before who catches me?"
"Caught you red handed." Ignacio snarled from behind Elidi, making her jump. "Thought you could help out your friend when no one was watching, did you. Well, I got you, and won't Savita will be quite surprised to find that it was you who had been helping Ignatius."
"I was helping him because you beat him far more than half to death. He needed my help or he would have died, and I don't think Savita would have allowed you kill Ignatius whether he's your son or not." Elidi responded back in a slightly angry tone. It was the first time he had ever heard her get angry or even slightly angry with someone.
Ignatius slapped her across the face, sending her in the ground.
"You will not talk to the Head of the King's Guard like that, wretched girl."
   Ignatius wanted so badly to attack Ignacio for that, but he couldn't do anything in his current state.
   Elidi must of had the same idea because she touched his arm and muttered some words. He couldn't make sense of what she said or what was their purpose. It just sounded like gibberish to him.
   Then all of a sudden he felt an electrical energy course through his veins, filling him with strength.
   He immediately stood up to protect his friend as she had done for him.
   "You dare to challenge me, boy?" Ignacio asked. "I'm afraid your little friend won't be able to help you out after I'm done with you."
   "Your the one who's going to need help after I beat you into the fucking ground, you bastard." He growled, getting into a fighting stance.
   "You ungrateful little worm. I'll teach you to talk to me like that." Ignacio shot back, and charged him.
   Ignatius stood in his stance until Ignacio was within striking distance. Even then he didn't move. He waited till Ignacio made his.
   Ignacio swung at his face, intending to punch him.
   Ignatius found himself smiling as he knocked his hand aside effortlessly like he had been doing this for years, and punched Ignacio hard in the gut, knocking the air right out of him. He had punched Ignacio so hard that he got knocked back a few feet.
   Ignacio's face was in pain, as he gently placed his hand to abdomen.
   "Lucky shot, you little shit." Ignacio said.
   "It wasn't luck. You're just slow, old man." He said, feeling as if another person was with him besides the people around him. Though, it felt more like a presence than a person. Maybe he was actually going crazy.
   Ignacio glared at him, and prepared to attack again.
   Ignatius waited once again until Ignacio attacked, and then swatted his attack aside and delivered a punch straight to his face. Ignacio fell back, clutching his nose as blood gushed down it.
   For some reason he felt himself compelled to beat Ignacio to death like he had done to him, but he resisted the urge. Doing that would only make him as bad as Ignacio and he never, ever wanted to be anything like that man.
   Instead, he just knocked him out.
   He looked over at Elidi, hoping she would be okay.
   "Leave me. Your free. I'll be fine." She mumbled.
   "No. You refused to abandon me and so do I." He told her fiercely as he helped her up, and slung her arm over his back.
   Together the two of them walked out of the cell, and down the dark hallway, watching the corridors carefully incase a guard or someone happened by.
   With every step he felt himself become freer and freer. Soon he would be back with Anahita. If he could activate his transformation, and somehow find his way back to her.
   They soon found their way out of the hospital part of the citadel, and started looking for a servants' exit.
   Elidi knew of an exit, and was telling him the way to it.
   As they were walking, he heard voices. He immediately got against the nearest wall, and stayed there, keeping Elidi quite as they waited for the guards to pass or whatever.
   Ignatius heard they voices and footsteps getting closer and closer by the second. He was really hoping they would walk past the intersecting corridors and not look down the one they were in.
   He watched the intersection carefully as shadows appeared from the left one; the guards wouldn't see them unless they looked down their corridor.
   Then the guards appeared.
   Ignatius felt his anger rise rapidly at their appearance. It just had to be Haco and Flint, his least favorite people in all of Elementa.
   He took a step forwards, intending to harm them like they had done to him multiple times when someone grabbed his arm.
   He whipped his head around to glare at them to find Elidi looking at him in concern.
   "They're not worth it, Ignatius." She whispered to him.
   He felt his anger subside a little, but it was still there. Burning with vengeance at what those two had done to him throughout his life. He needed to claim retribution in order to move on.
"Ignatius, don't do this. If you do you'll expose us, and you'll get captured all over again."
He took a deep breath and calmed himself down, something he learned to do while in his time locked up with only his thoughts as company.
"Let's go then." He muttered to her, and went straight down the corridor, after Haco and Flint passed on.
They walked swiftly down the corridors as the citadel started to wake up.
They needed to get out of here before the citadel woke up, and more importantly before Ignacio came back to himself, and sounded the alarm.
Then, like the goddess herself had cursed him, the alarms rang, echoing loudly in the corridors.
The sound hurt his ears. This had never happened before so why was it happening now?
"We have to go." She told him.
He walked along as best as he could, but the sound was starting to get to him, making him want to rip out his own eardrums just to be in the blissfulness of silence.
"Hey! Stop!" A guard yelled at them.
Ignatius and Elidi did the opposite, and ran/limped away from guard.
"I said stop! I found them!" The guard called to his comrades.
Ignatius looked frantically around, searching for an exit.
He saw none.
"I said stop!" The guard yelled again, catching up with them, and grabbing Elidi, and tossed her against the wall where her head collided with it, knocking her out.
Ignatius turned on his heel to look at the guard that would dare hurt Elidi as he glanced at her unconscious form on the ground.
"I told you to stop, you dragon freak." The guard spat at him, clearly not afraid of him.
Well it was time that he knew who should be scared of who.
Clenching his fist, he punched the guard in face, sending him reeling back in pain.
Before the guard could recover, Ignatius was on him again, delivering vicious blows to his face, sides, and abdomen; being egged on by the strange presence again.
The guard fell to the ground, his face bloodied and his eyes clenched in pain.
"Please, stop. I'm—I'm sorry." The guard wheezed out.
"You hurt Elidi. You were rude to me. Saying your sorry won't get you out of that." He snarled, and started punching him relentlessly in the face, ignoring the guard's pleas. He continued even when the guard went silent and stopped moving.
"Ignatius?" Someone called his name.
"Ignatius!" He ignored whoever was yelling at him.
"IGNATIUS! STOP!" Someone yelled loudly at him, pulling him off the guard.
Ignatius turned around to glare at whoever it was, determined to make them regret stopping him.
He froze when he say Elidi's fearful face. She was scared. Scared of him.
"Ignatius...what happened to you?" She asked in a shaky voice.
He couldn't respond.
He was too horrified with what he had done. His fists were bloody and tore from beating the guard to death. He killed the guard. He killed someone.
The grief was too much. He couldn't take it. He had no control over what he had become. He was a monster.
Ignatius fell onto his knees, holding his head in his bloodied hands.
He killed someone...and he liked it.
He was just like Ignacio, and he never wanted to be anything like that man. But it seemed like he had no choice in the matter. He was born a monster and a killer. Doomed to be like this for the rest of eternity.
"Ignatius?"
"I don't want to talk." He mumbled, to horrified in himself at what he had done.
"We have to go. They'll lock you up again."
"I don't care. I deserve to be locked up. Away from everyone else. Elidi I killed someone. That's not something I can just get over. He was just doing his job and I killed him." He told her, content to accept being locked up again. He deserved it. He couldn't control the beast inside. It was controlling him.
She was quite for a moment.
"Suck it up." She finally said.
"What?" He asked, looking up at her.
"You heard me. Yes, you killed someone and it's okay to feel horrible for that, but it's over now. Its in the past. Now, you have to run before they capture you. Go, Ignatius. Leave me here, and flee while you can."
He was utterly shocked by what she said. Elidi would never tell him something like this, unless she was completely concerned for his safety.
"I—I don't want to leave you here." He told her.
"You have to. Right now I'm just slowing you down, and I'll continue to do so. You must leave without me."
He shook his head. He couldn't leave her here to face Savita's and Ignacio's wrath. He deserved their wrath, not Elidi.
"Go, Ignatius. I'll be fine. Go!" She told him desperately as the sound of boots announced the imminent arrival of other guards.
With despair eating at him, he got up, and ran as fast as he could, looking for a way out.
The guards' heavy footfalls followed him.
He never looked back as he continued forwards.
Then a small group of guards appeared in front of him, their swords gleaming in the lanterns' light.
He heard the other guards come from behind him.
"You're surrounded! Get on the ground and put your hands behind your back!" One of the guards yelled at him.
He considered doing it, but then all of what Elidi had done for him would have been for nothing. And Anahita was still out there, probably worried sick about him.
Knowing he only had one option, he looked at his escape route.
"Don't even think about it!"
"I'm not." He responded, and ran towards the window, and crashed through, and fell towards the hard ground.
This was one a really bad idea. He was literally chancing his life on some dragon instinct that might kick in and save his life. He just hoped the beast inside would cooperate.
As he neared the ground, his bones popped and snapped along with his agonized screams, leaving him disoriented.
Then just as he thought he was going to crash, he felt the rush of air and the feeling of going up.
His eyes roamed around, and he saw that he had transformed and was flying high in the sky away from the citadel.
   Something fast whooshed past him, making the dragon dart off to the side.
   More projectiles filled the air, and he found them to be arrows and ballista bolts.
   The dragon amazingly dodged all of the projectiles.
   Roaring in victory, the dragon climbed higher into the air.
   Then white hot pain flared throughout his body as blood flowed down his scales.
   His head turned to look at a long gash along his left side and a ballista bolt jammed in behind his shoulder, making it hard to move his arm.
   Despite the wounds, the dragon strove higher into the safety of the clouds.
   He didn't know where they were headed, but he let the dragon do whatever it wanted. Right now the dragon was his best hope at getting back to Anahita and Zephyr. If it knew where they were.

P.S. This song feels like a tribute to Hakan, Elidi, and Ignatius and their long standing friendship. Does anyone else feel like Ignatius just needs a hug.