Mistaken Hostility (2)

 Riselus had to cover himself with a dome of rock to shield himself from the blast, but the force of the explosion still cracked his shield. Riselus frowned as he unraveled the rock surrounding him.

"That one almost got me," Kyle said, completely unharmed and standing several paces from the outer edge of the explosion. He lightly brushed sand grains off of his weathered clothing. "Calm down, though. I'm not here to attack you."

Cyil didn't respond. The fire enveloping his body grew in intensity, lifting him into the air and heating up the surroundings. The red gem around his neck glowed a brilliant orange as the fire condensed into a blazing beam of flames that scorched through the air towards Kyle, melting the sand around its straight trajectory. Kyle darted around to the left, but Cyil's beam followed him, tracing a massive arc around them as he attempted to follow Kyle's extremely quick movements. The ground was covered in massive wandering lines of still red-hot sand in an instant, but Kyle still remained unscathed. Cyil's barrage of fire briefly stopped as he tried to catch his breath.

"You need to let me finish what I'm saying!" Kyle said frantically as he expertly dodged the last vestiges of the blazing beam and the molten lumps of glass on the ground. 

Riselus was deep in thought as Cyil attempted to catch Kyle. Other than Axel, he hadn't seen anyone move that fast before, and unlike Axel, Kyle seemed to be much more in control of his speed. He looked at the ground, thinking of a way to attack Kyle despite his speed.

Precision attacks like Cyil's beam and Riselus's favorite rock spear were out of the question. Kyle would just dodge easily. Wide range attacks were a little more effective, but Kyle could always just escape the blast radius.

Riselus looked at the desert sand around them and shifted slightly, feeling his feet sink into the sand. The corners of his emotionless mouth shifted slightly upwards.

Riselus's gem suddenly flashed green. With a massive rumble, the ground suddenly heaved as chunks of rock began to rocket out of the ground from underneath the sand. The desert heaved and sprayed sand grains and dust everywhere as the mass of sand attempted to fill the space. Kyle was thrown off-balance by the sudden shift of the ground. Cyil took the opportunity to reignite his firebeam with greater intensity. Kyle was suddenly hard-pressed to dodge the beam in the shifting sands which threatened to drag him under. Riselus continued to destabilize the desert by slamming the rock chunks and spinning them around in opposite directions, forcing Kyle to spend more and more time leaping through the air to avoid the beam.

"Wait for my cue," Riselus grunted to Cyil.

"What do you mean?" Cyil asked, panting heavily. He stopped his beam again.

Riselus didn't respond. Every single rock chunk suddenly rose up into the air. Kyle, finally able to find his balance, carefully stabilized himself and looked upwards in surprise. Before he could react, the rock chunks slammed downwards with extreme force simultaneously, creating a massive spray of sand. 

With a grunt of effort, Riselus took control of every grain of sand in the vicinity, grabbing it and throwing it into the air with every ounce of will within him. With an unearthly bellow, the ground heaved upwards violently, throwing the unbalanced Kyle high into the air, before shooting back downwards immediately.

"What the-" Kyle started, taken completely off-guard.

Cyil understood almost immediately. Kyle's speed didn't matter in the air. He pulled another one of his fireballs out of his fur and threw it at Kyle. Kyle grunted with effort, his relaxed face stiffening into a serious expression for the first time. He somehow twisted his body in midair and brought his daggers into an X in front of him, blocking the fireball from hitting him directly. He was thrown backwards into the air. Cyil immediately created his fire beam again, launching it directly at Kyle, whose guard had been cleanly broken by the fireball. Riselus gathered every piece of rock he could gather in a short period of time, and despite his rapidly draining stamina, threw them into the air and curved them to surround Kyle.

Kyle's teeth gritted suddenly. His recovery speed was unnaturally fast. He held his daggers in front of him to block the firebeam, and threw the other dagger to the side. He flicked his wrist downwards. A light green flickering hemisphere appeared in the air around him, flat side down, throwing him downwards violently. His eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly noticed the rock spikes surrounding him, but his arm moved in a blur, slashing the spikes out of the air even as he was thrown into them. In an instant, his other hand darted outwards, and the dagger he had thrown outwards flashed back to his side and knocked away a few more of the rock spikes as he landed on the ground.

To Riselus, everything happened in under half a second, giving Riselus barely enough time to throw the rest of the rock spikes towards Kyle's back, but by then, he had landed on the ground, scratched and lightly wounded by the few rock spikes he didn't see in time, and darted out of the way. In a flash of dust, Kyle moved at a speed far faster than what he had shown already. Riselus's eyes widened in surprise as he forced the last ounce of his stamina into dragging rock out of the ground to wall himself and Cyil in, but by the time the protective fortress closed, Kyle was gone, leaving behind a resounding boom as he left the desert in an instant.

-

Kyle darted out of the desert and up the mountain, leaping off a ledge while simultaneously flicking his wrist and pointing upwards, creating a light green hemisphere around him with the flat side facing upwards. An uneasy falling sensation filled his gut as his brain struggled to discern which was up. The hemisphere threw him upwards. The uneasy sensation returned as he left the hemisphere. With a thud, Kyle's worn-out boots landed firmly on a ledge on the other side of the valley, level with the one he had leapt off of. He immediately took off running again, descending the mountain in an instant, leaping off before the foot of the mountain to land firmly in the middle of a forest, before darting forwards at a blistering pace. His sudden acceleration triggered a sonic boom, but he had to quickly reduce his speed as he ducked and wove through the trees towards a fortress in the distance.

In less than a minute, he arrived, panting slightly, bursting through the door and darting through various passageways and up stairs before finally throwing open the door to the study.

"Ido!" Kyle said, slightly out of breath.

Sitting in a chair in front of a desk piled with maps with various markings and almost illegible scribbles, there was a black-haired man with dark black eyes that pierced through Kyle's soul holding a quill pen and thinking. Dressed in dark, tight-fitting clothing with neatly arranged shoulder-length hair and chiseled features, he was the epitome of what a Dark Lord should be. However, Kyle knew that he hated being called that.

"You're really nailing that Dark Lord look, Ido," Kyle said with a mischievous grin.

"Be quiet," Ido growled. "How'd you get so beat up?"

Kyle looked at his torn clothes and the various bleeding scratches covering his body. He chuckled lightly. That big turtle thing and the fuzzball had put up an impressive fight. Their teamwork and strategy was surprisingly good, especially the turtle dude's.

"Turtle dude and fuzzball gave me a pretty hard time. They said something about me being an ally of Azor."

"Why'd they do that?" a light blue-green dragon in the corner asked. To Kyle's surprise, she was sitting like a human would in a spare chair, reading through a scroll she had pulled from the shelf and munching on a large chunk of grilled meat that Ido had given her. By her side was a shining silver sword that had been thrust through the stone floor and now stood upright on her left.

Kyle let out a chuckle. "What's with that sitting position? I thought you were a dragon."

"What's wrong with this?" Qassot asked.

"You're sitting like a human. Are you sure you aren't part human?"

Qassot scoffed. "It's easy to read like this. Now answer the question."

"You're ruining my image of dragons," Kyle grumbled, but continued with his explanation. "I don't really know to be honest, they just started attacking me out of nowhere."

Ido sighed and put down his quill. "What did you say?"

"Nothing much."

Ido got up from his chair and locked Kyle in his steely gaze.

"I just said I was friendly with your black creature things," Kyle said with a shrug.

Next to Qassot, sitting on the floor next to her sword, a small gold-furred fuzzball with six legs and wings shuddered as he picked at the small scraps of meat that Qassot had ripped off of her piece to give him. Kyle grinned when he saw the small creature. The fuzzball's name was Aavern, but Kyle liked to call him fuzzface. His reactions were priceless.

"So the same thing that happened with us," Qassot said.

"Unfortunately," Ido sighed.

"You can't really blame them, though," Aavern said indignantly. "Those black things were attacking innocent creatures!"

Ido clicked his tongue and shook his head. "As I said, they weren't supposed to do that."

Kyle involuntarily let out a chuckle. "Those things just attack whatever they see. They suck as scouts."

Ido glared at Kyle. "What else was I supposed to send? It's not like you can run on water."

"Good point," Kyle said.

Qassot got up out of her chair and rolled the scroll she was reading back up. Her sword yanked itself out of the ground and returned to her claw, and she sheathed it on her back with a flourish.

"Take us there," she said. "I'll explain it to them."

Kyle liked how straightforward she was.

"You'd be hot if you were a human," he said.

Qassot looked at him strangely. "What are you trying to say?"

"You just seem more human than dragon, that's all," Kyle said, chuckling and retreating slightly.

"Take me too," Aavern piped up. "I want to see if Cyil's okay. You didn't hurt him, did you?"

Aavern glared at Kyle. Kyle raised two hands in a gesture of innocence and shook his head.

"I didn't even get close to him."

Aavern gave Kyle a suspicious side-eye.

"Let's get going," Qassot said.

"Sure thing," Kyle responded. "Follow me, fuzzface!"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

Kyle laughed as he sped down the hall, followed closely by an angry fuzzball and a mildly amused sword-wielding dragon.