After centuries in pitch blackness, the light was blinding.

Kiroki clamped a paled talon over her eyes in an attempt to warn off the harsh, white light. After what felt like an eternity trapped under stone, breathing stale air, and tasting nothing but the stone floor and her own bitter blood, the once proud dragoness was reduced to a miserable shell of her former self.

However, the blinding rays of gold brought with them a spark of hope. Hope that Kiroki could be freed; that she could fly through the open skies like she once had. The gust of fresh, cool air was a welcome gift to the guardian, like an ember, fanned into a raging bonfire by a mere breeze. She pulled against the bonds holding her skull to the floor, and for the first time in what could have been centuries, the stone audibly cracked and crumbled.

Kiroki would have tried her luck destroying the annoying binding, but she heard something. It was faint, but dripped with with a feeling of superiority, like when you crush an insect that had done nothing but buzz in your ear and bite at your skin.

A laugh.

Confused, Kiroki looked around as best she could, and found a silhouette standing in the bright light of the newly formed entrance. The figure moved into the darkness, allowing the dragoness to see them. They appeared to be a tall, slender boy with short, choppy blonde hair, and bright emerald green eyes. He wore a simple grey shirt, and dark grey-blue pants, with knee-high combat boots, though the thing that caught Kiroki's eye was the ornamental amulet hanging around his neck.

The charm itself was an oval-shaped piece of silver, molded to form the shape of four small creatures chasing each other around a sizable gem. The creatures themselves each represented a guardian;

A griffin with it's wings half unfurled, with a glowing green emerald embedded where it's eye should be. Roku.

A lion, forelimbs extended in a powerful lounge, with a shimmering amber for an eye. Aren.

A serpent, maw stretched wide to reveal a set of long, venomous fangs, and a glittering sapphire in it's eye socket. Shira.

And finally, a dragon, with the horns of a bull and the talons of a wild cat at the lion's tail. Unlike the other three, the Dragon's gem, a small ruby, didn't glow, but remained matte and dull. Kiroki.

The large jewel in the middle pulsed between the trio of glowing colors, much to the Dragoness' wonder.

The boy chuckled, stepping towards her. "So you're the infamous Kiroki. Pitiful, honestly." She was forced to tear her eyes away from the amulet, now staring at the figure head-on.

He shook his head, approaching still. "For some reason, I imagined you where..... Bigger." He placed a hand on her muzzle, with the other wrapped securely around the amulet.

"What do you want, human?" Kiroki grumbled. The boy smiled and shook his head, before returning his gaze to the fallen guardian, a smug look of mockery etched into his face.

"Now, now, is that any way to speak to your savior?" The boy chuckled. A low growl escaped Kiroki's maw as she moved her head away from the boys hand, feeling her stone shackle weaken with the movement.

"It will be a cold day in Tartarus before I call a human my savior," she snarled, earning a dismissive wave from the boy.

"You're as prideful as the stories claimed. That can be remedied..." The boy slipped the amulet over his head, letting it dangle by it's silver chain for a few moments, before pressing the charm onto Kiroki's scales.

The sensation was something akin to a dull burn, which only grew in intensity the longer the amulet stayed in contact with the dragon's muzzle. She watched as what looked like raw fire seemed from between her scales, drawn into the amulet by a magic Kiroki couldn't name. The ruby embedded into her likeness' eye began to glow, and Kiroki saw the boy grin as her vision faded.

♦ ♦ ♦

The sun beat down on the miserable human, but he couldn't afford to stop.

Alexander raced up the mountainside, hoping against hope that maybe, just this once, he'd beat his brother.

Alexander, or Alex, for short, had thought his older brother, David, had been joking when he spoke of 'Over throwing that Guardians' and 'Building a world ruled only by humans.' He had thought it sounded absurd! You can't just destroy the Guardians, it couldn't be done.

And yet, now Alex found himself, running towards a cave he wasn't sure even existed, to save a deity he had only ever heard of in stories.

He'd failed the last three Guardians. Shira, Aren, even Roku, now laid helpless and miserable in their dens, and Alex knew, if the legends held true, Kiroki would be in no condition to fight his brother.

Alex reached a plateau on the mountain side, large enough for Roku to stand with his wings spread, and even still his feathers wouldn't peak over the edge. The side of the mountain was formed into a flat wall, three engravings across the wall; the talon of a griffin, the paw of a lion, and the tail of a serpent. Three sigils meant to protect, or contain, whatever lay inside. Unfortunately, he was too late. The sigils where cracked, and a doorway had been opened in the rock face.

Alex stepped through, and found a massive dragon laying unconscious in the cavern. This must have been Kiroki. With her head on the floor, Alex's head barely cleared the top of her's, and short wasn't a word commonly use to describe the boy. Her wings, half folded on the ground, could have enveloped a just under half of Crisea, Alex's home town and Roku's patron city.

The dragoness, for all her splendor and awesome size, looked withered and half-dead, even more so than the other Guardians Alex had seen after David got to them. Her scales, usually described as the bright red of half-cooled magma, where now greyed and chipped from lack of sunlight, so they resembled sun-bleached bricks. Once depicted as massive and powerful, Alex could now count the dragon's ribs from upwards of ten feet away.

Alex placed a hand on the dragon's snout. Her scales where cool to the touch, and it wouldn't take much force to pull one loose. He did just that, taking a small scale and putting it in his satchel, along with the keepsakes he'd taken from the other Guardians. A brown feather, a dull turquoise scale, and a golden tuft of fur. He'd kept them in the hopes of preserving the Guardians' memory should he fail, like he already had. He held suspicion that, maybe, the momentous still held even a fraction of the Guardian's power, but he doubted it.

Alex jumped back when Kiroki shifted. She raised her head and groaned, the rocky collar keeping her head in place crumbling like soft clay. She looked at Alex, and bared her teeth in a snarl. "What do you want, human? I've had enough of your ilk today."

Alex found himself petrified on the spot, but tried to speak nonetheless. "I-I came here in the h-hopes of stopping my b-brother."

Kiroki tilted her head, and rubbed her spot on her neck where the shackle had been. She looked at her talon after, and scowled when she found she had rubbed loose several scales. "Stop him from doing what?"

"Well, he's been going around, stealing magic from the other Guardians..." Kiroki immediately seemed to place her full attention on Alex. "I hoped I could stop him before he got to you... I wasn't able to..."

Kiroki roared, causing the cavern to shake, "That's what that damned newt did!? I swear, when I get my claws on him-" She tried to stand, but found herself unable to, thanks to the size of the cavern and the atrophy of muscles on her legs. She collapsed again with a growl. Alex had backed up several paces.

"He's already gotten to Roku, Aren and Shira?" The dragoness asked. Alex nodded grimly. "Alright then. The magic must be stored in that amulet. We'll just have to get it back."

"Wh-What?" Alex stammered. He hadn't thought of trying to return the Guardians' magic. With David in control of all four elements, it seemed impossible.

"You heard me, human. I'm going to get that magic back, and whether or not you're helping me is up to you." Kiroki tried to stand again, succeeding through sheer refusal to fail, and Alex moved to allow her to exit the cavern.

The dragon visibly flinched as she stepped into broad daylight, and shook with the effort required just to stand in place, but looked back at Alex as he exited the cave after her.

Alex followed her out, but the Kiroki seemed preoccupied with the ruins at the bottom of the mountain. Her prison had been carved out of the same volcano she made her den previously, and at the foot of the rock face laid the ruins of her patron city of Kipae. She seemed oddly appalled, given the destruction had been her doing.

Alex had heard the tale several times; a century and a half ago, the Guardian Kiroki, Draconic Embodiment of Fire, had gone on a rampage seeming out of nowhere, and burnt her patron city to the ground, before being subdued and imprisoned by her fellow guardians, who never intended to release her.

The part about Kiroki being imprisoned for all eternity was usually up for debate, but the city itself had never been rebuilt, out of respect for both the humans who had died, and the Guardian it had been devoted to.

Now that same guardian stared blankly at the result of her destruction, as though the city had been fine, and she had just taken a nap, only to found Kipae in shambles when she woke. Kiroki sat down, her expression a mixture of horror and confusion as she looked at Alex.

The words that exited her jaws filled Alex both with sympathetic sadness and confusion, though only the latter showed on his face.

"What happened?"