Face to face

Jason opens his eyes looking around to see where he is, but everything looked completely dark. He slowly makes it to his feet. "Where am I?" he wonders as he picks a direction to start walking in. Jason figures he has to be in a small room and he should find a wall with a light switch quickly, but he soon realizes he was wrong.

Jason walk for what feels like 5 minutes before he even finds a wall. "How big can this room be?" he thinks to himself. He follows the wall hoping to find a light switch or a door, whatever came first.

After what felt like a long time Jason had made three left turns while following the walls. "I guess I should have went the other way, it would have saved me a lot of time." he shakes his head when he finally finds a doorway. "Finally a right turn, I was starting to feel like I was in the old worlds NASCAR." Jason laughs as he scratches the back of his head.

Jason follows the hallway making several twists and turns. Time didn't seem to flow the same in this place. Something like this should only take him 10 minutes to walk through, but it felt like it had been close to an hour.

Drip...Drip...Drip.

As Jason rounds the next corner he hears the distant sound of water and a bright light. He runs towards it, the sound gets louder the closer he gets, until he enters a wide open, circular room that looks to be roughly 2,000 feet in diameter. Towards the middle of the room is a giant dragon with scales as dark as the midnight sky with no moon.

The dragon was over 200 feet long from head to tail and it was bound to the ground by several chains. As Jason walked closer he realized all the chains were all made out of a different material. The first chain looked to be glowing red hot , while the second chain has a purple glow to it and filled the air with static. Both chains were wrapped around the long neck of the dragon. The wings were tied down with a pale blue chain that froze anything that made contact with it. Finally the tail and torso was trapped by chains of bone and wood.

Jason walked in silence as he studied the room and the dragon. With every step Jason felt the power leaking off the powerful beast. "So you are finally here after 16 years. It took you long enough." the dragon's voice echoed in the large room, as the dragon snapped it's eyes open and stood up.

As the dragon spoke a cage of wind materialized to keep it from moving to far, the raging winds almost lifting Jason off the ground and throwing him against the wall. "What's going on? Why did that wind appear?" Jason yells at the top of his lungs trying to talk over the howling winds.

With a growl the dragon's voice overpowers the wind "It is because of the six seals placed of me by the twelve sage deities that trapped me inside of you." The dragon takes in a deep breath and conceals the lingering power, causing the winds to calm down. "If I didn't have these seals restraining my power you wouldn't have been able to contain me, and both of us would have died." growls the onyx dragon, as Jason falls to the ground from the wind suddenly disappearing.

"What do you mean both of us would have died?" Jason asked in a strained voice after getting the wind knocked out of him. The black dragon raises an eyebrow "It doesn't surprise me they never told you, I mean you are still young for a human, but it's time you learned the truth. When you were born, you killed your own mother."

When Jason hears this he falls to his knees "You mean it's all because of me. I'm the reason I don't have an actual family." Jason says as he pulls his hands away from his face, a look of shock written all over him. "That would explain why Rick looks at me like I'm a monster."

The dragon chuckles "Even while you were still in the womb you were killing her, your darkness was draining the life right out of her, and when you were delivered the dark power went berserk. That is why they sealed me inside you, to keep your power under control but if the sage's didn't seal me like this I could easily force to much power into your body destroying both of us."

As Jason listens to the dragon's words he gets a idea and smiles. "So without the seals you are stronger, but what if I learn to control them to make me stronger?"

The dragon is shocked by Jason's idea and after a few minutes of deep thought it finally said "That could work, but you aren't even close enough to start consuming the seals. You need to make it to gold rank at a minimum." the dragon admits

An evil light appears in Jason's blood red eyes, making them look even more sinister "well i was already looking to become stronger, so this is just another reason to push myself." He says in a harsh tone. After a second he scratches his head "If only I had a faster way to train my soul, I mean humanity only has a handful of dark cultivation techniques." Jason sighs.

"Maybe I can help you with that, but you will have to prove yourself first." a murderous laugh echos through the room as the dark dragon raises it's hand and makes a small cut on it's forearm, with one of it's razor sharp claws.

Immediately a black liquid splashes onto the ground, moving around before forming a perfect sphere at the beast's feet. As Jason watches the black sphere with caution it spilts in three parts, the first taking the shape of a large fox, reaching 8 feet long with a slender body and muscular legs and 3 pitch black tails that almost looked to be on fire. The fox takes a small step, instantly producing a small ring of fire.

"This is the three tailed demon fox that once battled with me before it finally collapsed from the dark power that spread throughout it's body. Now it is one of the many puppets of my army." The black Dragon informed Jason.

The second part twisted and turned for a minute before growing two large bulging arms, and a thick torso like a gorilla. the creature howled and produced spikes along it's back and shoulders. When it smacked the ground a 20 foot crack appeared, but slowly started to heal because of the mystical power running through the area.

Jason looks at the two figures nervously. "this could get bad if I'm not careful." He thinks to himself while scanning his eyes over the last dark orb.

Finally the third orb started to take shape. Four wings stretched out 15 feet wide, then two feet with sharp talons lowered to the floor . A few seconds passed before Jason could make out the shape of feathers covering the body. The head of the creature twisted until revealing the head of a mutated thunder bird king. Under normal circumstances a thunder bird king had a giant beak and a crown above it's head that would glow with the color of the element it controlled, But this king had a double crown above it's head showing it had killed and absorbed another king while it was alive.

With one final glare the dragon informs Jason, "If you are able to defeat all three of my puppets, then I will help you grow stronger." after hearing that Jason can't help but smile at the words. "Bring it on." Jason says as he pulls out his knife, ready for one of the creatures to attack.

The first one to make a move was the 3 tailed fox as it took off like a speeding bullet, leaving footprints that burned into the ground as it ran. In a few split seconds the fox crossed the room, smacking into Jason and sending him into the closest wall creating a cloud of dust and ruble.

Jason doesn't wait for the dust to settle before gathering dark energy into the palm of his right hand as he runs back towards the fox using the dust to cover his movements. When he was close enough his red eyes glowed with killing intent, while slicing the 3 tailed fox with the knife in his left hand.

As the fox jumped back it's fur stood on end, drawing in nearby energy. It scans the area looking for Jason to reappear in it's sight. As the shadow of a figure appears the fox raises it's tails above it's body, pointing towards the figure as it produces a ball of fire between all three tails and sends it flying towards the shadow.

With a crash the giant fireball hits the figure as it starts to burn, the fox lowers it tails as it's fur goes lays back down like nothing even happened. "That would have been a nice shot if you actually hit your target." Jason laughs as he appears beside the fox, completely unharmed. Jason grabs the fox by the chest, he can feel the Fox's heartbeat quicken in fear. "I wonder if this is how Thomas McHenry felt right before I killed him" Jason says to himself as he has a flashback to the first time he used this skill. "Dark skill: Dark Arura." he yells as he manipulates the dark energy to cut through the fox.

The fox falls to the ground with a gaping hole in his chest. Jason places a hand on it's head, trying to drain any remaining energy from it. As he starts to steal the energy the whole fox breacks down and gets absorbed. "That's weird, I don't feel like I got any stronger. Could something else have happened?" Jason asked himself out loud.

Before Jason can think of a reason for what happened a loud grunting noise echoes off the walls as the spiked gorilla picks up a bolder the size of a semi truck. With very little effort the boulder was send flying through the air, and it was aimed right at Jason.

Without thinking Jason gathered energy and moved it to the muscles in his legs as he started to run, resulting in a burst of speed. In what felt like only ten steps Jason had crossed to the other side of the room, and after sliding to a stop he turned around to look at the Goliath of a gorilla standing in the middle of the room. Jason could feel the apes glaring eyes watching his every move, he felt like he was being examined under a microscope.

After a minute of staring each other down the giant ape started running at Jason, making the ground shake.

"This is not good, I have to think of something and quick." Jason panics as the beast gets closer while picking up speed. Within seconds the gorilla is right in front of Jason, it swings it's fist that has a layer of rock armour.

Jason is unable to move out of the way because of his fear. For the first time in his life he feels completely useless, he knows one hit from that monster could possibly be the last he takes.

Just as Jason is giving up he hears several voices calling out to him. The clearest voice that he can make out belongs to Katelyn. "Please don't give up, remember your promise to me." she cries softly. Jason's heart gets heavy as he hears the words and swears as he feels teardrops land on his cheek.

The second voice that calls out to Jason belongs to his Uncle Rick, it's not as clear but it's audible. "Come on Jason you can't die yet." he choughs "Don't end up like your father, he was always jumping in to save other people, and that's how he died just a few days before you were born." Jason can hear a few other voices but he can't make out who they are. All of this happened within a blink of an eye.

Out of nowhere a figure appears as she stops the giant fist with a wall of rushing water. Jason looks up and instantly knows who the woman is, Her name is Jan, she stands about 5'4" with long brown hair that falls to her mid back. Jan is an average built female, wearing a long ocean blue dress that has long sleeves that widen at the hands.

"Look at how much you have grown, Little Man." Jan says as she looks back at Jason.

"Mom, Is that really you?" Jason asks almost in disbelief, since she has been dead since the first time she held him when she gave birth to Jason.

"Yeah it is, I'm sorry I don't have time to explain, We need to get rid of this monster while I still have enough energy to keep a physical form, and then your father will help us with the thunder bird." Jan smiles before turning toward the gorilla again, shifting the water from the water wall into a sphere that is encircling the ape.

After completely trapping the gorilla, Jan slowly started to put her hand together and the sphere stated shrinking. "Water style: crushing vortex." Jan said in a light tone. The trapped gorilla was thrashing around trying to break it's water prison. Every punch would create a shockwave that forced the prison to become unstable.

"I can't keep this up for much longer.". Jan grunted at the strain from not using her powers in 16 years. As Jason witnesses this he starts to collect energy into his whole body, suddenly he remembers a technique his teacher showed him in class as a demonstration on how to create a living creature using ones elemental powers.

"Soul creation: 3 tailed fox." Jason says as he remembers all the details about the beast he killed a few moments ago, he feels the soul that he absorbed from the fox as it comes to life. The dark energy leaves Jason's body from his fingertips as a burning sensation spreads up his left arm.

"Why does this burn so much?" Jason asked Jan because he was concerned. He had never attempted anything like this before, so he was joyful at the same time that it worked.

"It is because you have not started to unlock the fire element that belongs to the fox." Jan says. "you are only able to summon it because it was taken over by dark energy, but on the plus side we are in your soul world so the effects of drawback are not nearly as harsh." Jan explains.

The fox stretches it's long muscular body before looking towards the gorilla with bloodlust in it's eyes, It's tails whipping around while showing all of it's teeth. The three tailed fox pounced towards the gorilla, bitting into it's throat while trying to constrict the gorilla's movements.

The giant gorilla was trying to escape the grasp of the fox but was having no luck. As Jan watched this she started to gather energy and draw in the moisture from the air, once she had enough Jan started to rotate the water in a 10 foot ring around herself. After the water stopped rising, it towered about 20 feet tall and was raging like a tsunami.

" Water style: four spiraling water dragons" Jan yelled as the first water dragon shot out of the tower, soon the second and third emerged at the same time. All three dragons were circling the gorilla, slowly getting closer until finally the fourth water dragon formed and all four dragons launched and tore into the gorilla.

Instantly the gorilla turns to rubble and disappears. "That took you long enough" the dragon laughs from the center of the room. With the tilt of the dragons head, the Thunderbird king takes off with a flash of lightning and a crackle of thunder.

In the fraction of a second Thunderbird closes in on Jason and Jan, grabbing one in each claw before flying high into the air. Quickly the Thunderbird rotates it's body before letting go of Jan, tossing her at an extreme speed toward the closest wall.

Jason struggles to move as the Thunderbird is flying at such a high speed, but slowly he grabs the knife that is clipped onto his belt and stabs it into the leg of the Thunderbird King. The sudden pain makes the flying beast release Jason, dropping him from a hundred feet in the air.

As the ground starts to get closer in a hurry Jason begins to panic.

80 feet.

Jason blinks his eyes as he takes a breath and slowly releases it, while simultaneously building up more dark energy.

40 feet.

Suddenly Jason shoots open his eyes, giving off a dark red glow as he feels a large boost in energy. "This is going to be a close one." Jason thinks as he manipulates energy to two spots on his back.

"Dark creation: Wings of a fallen angel." Jason shouts as two six foot wings stretch from his shoulder blades, covered in shiny, black feathers.

15 feet.

With a few flaps of the dark wings Jason can feel that he is slowing down but he is still falling to fast to stop from hitting the ground, so he wraps the wings around his body at the last moment to reduce the damage from the impact. After getting back on his feet Jason looked at the wings on his back that had broke from the fall, after deciding there is no point in keeping the wings, Jason cuts off the energy flow to his back and watches the wings disappear into particles of darkness.

A Shriek echos around the room making Jason press his hands against his ears to muffle the sharp sound. When Jason looks up he sees Jan standing on a platform of water, but what catches Jason off guard was a second figure that had appeared and was standing toe to toe with the Thunderbird.

From what Jason could make out it looked like the second person had dark black hair, just like Jason's, but the figure also had a short black beard. He was roughly 5' 10" with a slightly muscular build, wide shoulders and several scars that ran down both sides of his arms.

The Thunderbird was summoning five bolts of lightning and sending them towards the man, but just as they were about to hit him, the figure put out his right hand and launched 5 bolts of his own lightning. The ten lightning bolts collided, cancelling each other out.

"That has to be my dad?" Jason asks himself still in disbelief from seeing both of his dead parents. After a few seconds of being awe struck he focuses on the task at hand. "Time to kill the Thunderbird."

Back in the sky Jason's father was laughing lightning bolt from his right hand while a ball of fire was forming in his left hand. After gathering enough flame energy the fireball increases from the size of a beach ball until becoming the size of a medium-sized house.

whoosh the ball of flame rockets towards the mutant Thunderbird, singeing most what's feathers. Without it's feathers the giant bird starts to fall out of the sky. Within a few seconds the mutant Thunderbird King hits the ground with a large, thud crushing the three tailed fox that Jason had summoned. Another burning sensation runs through Jason's whole body as he watches the fox turn into a low flame and then burn out.

Suddenly two figures appear in front of Jason, it's his mom and dad who are continuing to fight beside him. Jan is starting to show some fatigue from pushing herself, her whole body looks slightly see through and she is gasping for breath.

"Honey, don't push yourself to hard." Jason's father says in a low voice that is filled with worry. Even though both his wife and him are dead it doesn't change the fact that he cares. "Jason." His father calls for him. "The bird is weakened and is about to unleash it's most powerful attack. So why don't we take it out with our own Father/Son combo attack?"

"What did you have in mind?" Jason asked while watching the Thunderbird carefully. The mutant King had started to generate lightning from every point of its body, ready to fire at any given second after it charged. "I want you to infuse your dark energy into my flame lightning energy. Then we will counter and corrupt the king's attack." said Jason's father with a smile on his face.

When Jason's father holds out his hand and starts to move energy around the palm of his hand, a red flame starts burning as lightning suddenly shoots out from the center. As the energy builds stronger the lightning bolts splits off in 10 different directions, arcing off the ground creating a cage around Jason and himself.

The area around Jason was filled with heat and static. But he could feel that the energies were perfectly balanced, unlike some combination attacks he had seen during his advanced combat classes at school. "How could adding a third element affect this balance?" Jason wondered to himself as he started building dark energy throughout his body one last time.

Jason's body started to give off a dark haze as his eyes shown a dark red color, his hair even looked darker as his body reached it's current limit. Jason stretched out his left hand and started to move his dark power to combine it with his father's, but when the energies started to mix Jason could feel everything become unstable and threatening to backfire, so he retracted his hand for a second.

Suddenly Jason got a crazy idea, slowly he stretched his arm back out but this time instead of trying to combine the powers he started to absorb them with his left and reproduced the attack from his right. This time the attack was in sync and no one energy was stronger or weaker than the other two.

As Jason absorbed the flame lightning and created dark flame lightning his while body was filled with a shocking pain and his soul felt like it was on fire, this was the result of using an element that you haven't learned to control, but still even with all the pain and exhaustion Jason was able to create and grasp the concept of fire and lightning.

The next instant Jason launched himself towards the mutated Thunderbird King. At the same time the king laughed his own lightning attack consisting of 5 lightning bolts combined into one giant lightning spear. The Thunderbird waited for Jason to close the distance before firing it's finishing attack.

Jason sees the giant spear but knows he has to go through it, because if he tried to dodge he will lose all his concentration and his attack will come back to bite him, so he charges ahead with everything he's got. "Dark combination: black flame lightning destroyer." Jason shouts as he flattens out his hand using it like a blade and surrounding it with the energies. By some miracle Jason cuts through the lightning spear and plunges his hand into the chest of the Thunderbird king.

Jason's attack leaves a gapping hole where the birds heart used to be. within a few seconds all light in the giant birds eyes disappear and it disintegrates into nothing.Then with a weak smile Jason turns to see his parents one last time before he goes unconscious.

---------------------------------

Jason bolts up from the bed he was laying on as he tries to catch his breath and figure out where he is at again. The room is filled with bright white lights and before he can think of where he is at, a small figure grabs ahold of him and buries her head into his chest.

After a second Jason is able to see that the figure is Katelyn and they are inside a hospital room. Katelyn is crying as she holds onto Jason. "How long was I out?" Jason asked remembering what had happened.

"you have been unconscious for almost half a year." Katelyn says after looking up at him, he beautiful blue eyes are all puffy and red, there are still tears running down her face so Jason reaches out and wipes them away with a smile. "well I'm back now so there's no need to cry." Jason exclaims rubbing her back to calm her down.