Darkstalker's POV

Pain.

That is what Darkstalker felt and what his mother, Foeslayer's mind radiated. Sheer, agonising, demoralising and tear-jerking pain.

With each slash, these shadow 'dragons' inflicted something that Darkstalker had never felt in a long time, well except for when a random rainwing sprayed venom in his eye a few weeks ago.

One of them took the form of an Icewing whom shown signs of his plague, something that Darkstalker had to admit, might not have been the right thing to do. Another took a form of- Whiteout, except she had an eyepatch over one eye, many of her icewing spikes were cracked or broken, her eyes were bloodshot, she had a few scorch marks and a very nasty smile as it dashed around like a cat, jumping in for scratches on Darkstalker's flanks.

"You did this to me, brother," The Whiteout Creature snarled as it gestured to itself, "If you hadn't scared me, when I was a fool, I would never have been through hell!!"

"Whiteout, he is your brother! Stop this madness," Foeslayer cried as a nightwing that resembled Darkstalker's grandmother, Prudence, tore out a chuck of Foeslayer's wings.

The mother and son ran through the mudy, ozzy ground avoiding quicksand as the ground morphed into smooth marble making them slip and fall, their blood and scales scraped on the floor.

The air hung nauseatingly with dark clouds that floated maliciously, ready to bomb them with their load.

The creatures circled them hissing and snarling, Darkstalker noticed a waterfall nearby flowing upwards and several red coloured shrubs that seemed to eye him hungrily.

"So, this is the almighty Darkstalker," The creature that resembled Whiteout snarled, "How was it, being a little baby?"

"Better than my whole life," Darkstalker retorted, which was true, infact, while being Peacemaker, Darkstalker got to see why Moon, his mother and Qibli were correct. It was at least less stressful and more peaceful than he had expected, especially since his mother had loved him. Though it seemed that she had loved and adored Peacemaker while she cower at the thought of him, Darkstalker can understand, after all, what if Fierceclaws, if him and Clearsight had gotten together, killed Clearsight. He would understandably look at her with a different view.

"Unfortunately, your victims never got their happy ending," Whiteout snarled, "So, we shall give them your pain!"

Darkstalker tried to get up, but slipped due to only having three talons, he tried to whip them with his tail, but missed.

Just then Vulture, looking worse for ware, sprinted by screaming as a horde of the things chased him into the distance.

"You time is up, Nekas," a dragon, that looked similar to Victory Strike, but had a more green and blue base colour scheme with a whole lot more scars on his figure, hissed. His crimson-red eyes shine with defiance, "You have crossed into my prison!"

The creatures hissed before looking around and leaving, vanishing into thin air.

"Get up, you lazy nightwings," The dragon hissed, "That wouldn't keep those Nekas at bay for long and soon, they will be free to do as they please to us. Including some undesirable things."

The dragon's mind flashed a scene where he was in a rather unpleasant position. Darkstalker limped after the dragon to its 'lair'.

The lair was a cave with a foreboding entrance, decorated with blood in weird signals like an upside-down X, a dragon with a stake through his heart, and a skull with a dagger in its mouth. Darkstalker was surprised when he could go inside, the cave was larger than the relatively small caverns of Jade Academy, though it was incredibly sparse of anything.

Inside there was a small table with a plate of roasted meat. The candle next to it glowed warmly. There was a shelf filled with books, medicine and a skull of a rainwing with a dagger in its jaws.

There were two separate chambers that sprouted from the center chamber. Darkstalker noticed a bunch of photos which had Victory Strike, this dragon and a bunch of other dragons laughing, smiling and hugging like one big happy family.

"They seemed to be close," Mother thought as she sat down next to the table and took a bite of the roasted meat.

"The Nekas are our guards and punishers," The dragon explained, "They make our meals and then make our lives hell. If you don't eat, they say that you are 'on strike' and will torture you to 'slience' you. They feed on suffering, pain and anguish."

"T-thanks, Darkstalker thanked the dragon, still a little bit suspicious and grateful for the help, "for telling us the name of those things. I am Darkstalker, and this is my mother, Foeslayer. So, what is your name?"

"I am Heart," Heart replied with a slightly bored look in his eyes, Darkstalkert hought that he would react a bit more dramatically "I have been here for 5 years straight, and previously been here for 10. By the way, that meat is Nightwing."

Foeslayer's eyes widened as she began to cough up the meat. Heart walked over and devoured the rest. Darkstalker felt very queasy and sick as he watched his mother cough up the remains of the nightwing.

"Don't worry, that dragon died of old age," Heart explained, "They do this once a month, so don't worry about it ever again. Afterall, you will probably be here for a week. Foeslayer."

"How do you know that," Foeslayer asked incredulously after she finished hacking up the remains, "And why don't you care that you are eating a dragon."

"Because if I don't, I die an extremely painful death of vitamin deficiency and they don't give us vitamin KB, DT and AK supplements, so we have to eat dragons. We had done dragon hunting till some dragons made a supplement," Heart explained.

Darkstalker was puzzled and a bit overwhelmed, he never was good in Biology. Heart hissed and shot a bolt of lightning at the coughed up streak. Disintegrating it completely leaving steam and ash. Heart then swept it up with his tail into a corner.

"What brought you two here anyway," Heart asked, "You certainly have a week here, but what did you do?"

"I had Darkstalker I guessed," Foeslayer said, grumble with her situation, "And Darkstalker commited mass murder for 2,000 years, started a war, tried to take over the continent and took over the nightwing tribe."

"He definitely gets more than a decade," Heart said looking bored, "Anyway, you also started a war, Foeslayer. And lets say that you also committed some crimes of your our."

"I know," Foeslayer hissed in frustration and moved to a corner, "I had wanted a normal life, but instead I fell in love with an animus Icewing, started a war, fell into a state hatred with my mate, had two troublesome dragonets, one of which is a psychopath ."

"The other was a mob boss," Heart finished which shocked both Foeslayer and Darkstalker, Whiteout was a mobster, " She terrorised many a dragon before dying by the talons of Animus's Bane."

Darkstalker felt very overwhelmed, he felt hurt that his mother said that he was a psycho and troublesome after all, he only met to help his tribe reach greatness,  almost as overwhelmed as when he found out that he has been asleep for around 2 thousand years and that all of his nemeses and love ones were dead. He suddenly stumbled over himself as he was hit hard by a vision.

Victory Strike landed gracefully and smugly as a monstrosity of a plant crumbled to dust behind him. Another two dragons were there, one that looked alot like Victory Strike mixed with a rainbow and the other was a heavily scarred mountain of dragon who held his gaze at Victory Strike with respect and awe. The next one including Queen Diamond, which made no sense as she was dead, fighting tooth and claw with his mother, only for an icewing that Darkstalker didn't see before stab her in the eyes and a weird-looking dragon that resembled stone in skin lopped Diamond's head off. The final one involved Scarlet, who was certainly dead, getting killed by a small crimson red skywing dragonet and a very fluffy-looking dragon who one could say was Victory Strike niece.

Darkstalker opened his eyes as pain flared in his temples and he staggered up. Heart watched with little interest as he looked sadly at the rainwing skull. Darkstalker was still stun by the dragon's calmness, his lack of empathy for Darkstalker's plight.

"What is Animus's Bane," Foeslayer asked, worry stretched on her face as she noted Darkstalker's silent prophecy.

Heart seemed to have contentment with whatever it was, Darkstalker remembered the pain of just being in the body of Victory Strike, who said he had Animus's Bane, so Darkstalker had an idea about what it was.

"It is a disease that infects only animi out of the blue, when an animus get The Bane, they die after several years of painful and sometimes debilitating mental and/or physical illness. All animus who caught it die, no matter what spells they use and all animi will get it if they live long enough, "Heart explained coldly, "It has something to do with the body's inability to sustain the magic that flows through it."

Darkstalker felt a bit cheated, how was it possible to die when you are immortal, unless the Animus's Bane is the consequences of overuse of magic that destroys weak bodies.

"Before you go saying that if you make yourself immortal or immune to harm of illness, several animuses did just that to escape animus's bane and they died of Animus's Bane," Heart countered before an argument could be mounted.

"What did you do," Mother asked Heart, "To end up here."

"Oh, you probably didn't know about the Dungeons, but they were built by the animus; Wolf-Fangs around the time of The Scorching to punish dragons who committed crimes against us Grims, even our own," Heart changed the subject, effectively, he looked a bit relieved, but Mother's stare made him spill the beans. Still, Darkstalker couldn't read his mind, "I attempted a coup on my mother, killed my mother, was held responsible for three of my sibling's deaths, robbed several stores and killed a bunch of dragonets."

His calm demeanor collapsed as the tapping of talons rang out, Heart's face showed his terror as several Nekas laughed maliciously. Darkstalker watched bewildered as an older looking dragon similar to both Victory Strike and Heart walked calmly over to the cowering dragon followed by several other dragons, till they surrounded the frighten dragon, then five dragonets whom definitely looked as though they were tortured sprinted over to Heart followed by a very quiet and ominously quiet Victory Strike.

Then, another dragon unlike any other that Darkstalker had seen recently. It had curled horns, sparkling pale purple eyes, blackish blue, green and black with flickers of gold that speckled its body. Its wasp like wings laid down on its back and its tail curled and uncurled with curiosity. It was a dragonet from its size and Darkstalker could read its mind.

"Hmmmm, they must be the new prisoners. Maybe, I should try changing forms on them. The bigger one has a silver scale behind each eye, is he a mindreader? Ah, I got it," the little dragonet's mind went, Darkstalker had a feeling that it was a Neka. It's body grew and morphed to that of Darkstalker's  father; Artic.

"Yeah, I did it," The Nekas mind went as it spoke, "Ha, guess I was correct, son. If only I had managed to get Whiteout to the palace, then all of this would have been avoided."

A wall of ice crashed down on Darkstalker as the connection to the Neka's mind was severed.

"You are not Artic," Mother hissed, "Don't pretend to be him!"

Darkstalker noticed that the Victory Strike imposter was smiling like a psycho. Heart began to scream as he was tormented, "Noooo, please. Let me be, I learnt my lessons! Please!"

"I may not be him! But I still am him," The Arctic imposter snarled revealing bloodied blue fangs and a sliced tongue. Darkstalker felt disgusted and then a pang of guilt as he remembered that he did that to his own father, tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered the scared and sad expression of his own sister as she watched him butchered Father, like a heartless monster, bit he had his reasons: protecting the tribe, his sister and his friends, was it really wrong to kill?

The neka raised its head and neck to show his nearly disemboweled guts that seemed to hover in place. Darkstalker felt tears stream down his face as his remaining front talon twitched and shook. Darkstalker turned his head and lowered it in shame and horror He lost Clearsight, his dragonets, his friend and his sister, because as Clearsight said, he was his father. But, they would have died if he hadn't killed him, Clearsight was too afraid to accept him, yes that is it!

"I am not him, but I have his memories, his personality and his attitude to you two," it hissed. The Victory Strike imposter started to laugh maniacally and Darkstalker knew that it would be hell for him for the rest of days here, but he was okay with that.

But he did not deserve it. Now matter what anyone says.