The person appeared to be William, but there were some abnormalities with how he looked. He looked like William but there were patches of light green skin with black scales on top of it, and even one of his hands resembled something like a dragon claw. This shocked everyone who was watching this and led to a long moment of silence. Nightmare just watched everyone, that was in the town square, shocked reactions with the same smirk he had been wearing the entire time.
"Wha-what is this!?" Owen suddenly exclaimed, breaking the silence.
"I think you know who this is." Nightmare responded, "This was the person who was sent to kill me. Whether you sent him or not, he was coming to kill me."
"What did you do to him?" Owen asked, "Why is he like this? Why does he have scales and green skin?"
"Oh that? Those are just side effects of injecting my blood into him." Nightmare responded. Noah gasped when he heard this, putting his hand over his mouth to try to muffle the noise. His legs started shaking and he started to panic even more.
"What's wrong?" Sean hastily asked, seeing Noah start to panic.
"T-t-tyrant d-dragon." Noah said softly, stumbling over his own words.
"Tyrant dragon? Aren't they supposed to be extinct?" Sean asked, remembering Noah talking about dragon types.
"Yeah, they're supposed to be extinct, but they're the only type of dragons that can do something like this." Noah answered, quivering, "It's the only explanation for what's happening."
"Then I guess your suspicions that something was wrong was right." Sean responded, "Is there anything we can do to save him?"
"I don't think so. There is a way, but we don't have what's necessary to do the procedure. There is also the chance that it wouldn't work as it only appears in legends." Noah answered.
"Well, what is the procedure? We can't just do nothing, we have to at least try to do something." Sean pleaded to Noah.
"The procedure would involve taking out the dragon blood that is inside William. The problems are that we would have to give William blood in order for him to not die of blood loss, and that we don't know where the dragon blood is in his body." Noah responded with a grim look on his face. Sean sighed when he heard this.
"So there really isn't any way for us to save him." Sean said with a depressed tone, and Noah nodded in response.
"William!" A female voice suddenly yelled, interrupting Noah and Sean's conversation. William's mother suddenly ran out into the town square, and she went right in front of the building that William was on top of.
"Get back!" Zack shouted at William's mother as she ran past.
"What did you do to him!?" William's mother shouted at Nightmare in a rage.
"What did I do to him? The only thing I did was give him what was coming to him for trying to kill me." Nightmare responded with a snort. "Anyways, stop talking. It's getting very annoying, and I should be getting on what I came here for." He began to suck in air as soon as he finished speaking. Noah's eyes went wide when he saw Nightmare began sucking in air, and he grabbed Sean's arm and began to pull on it.
"We need to get out of here." Noah said, panic filling his voice. "He's about to-" He was interrupted by Nightmare releasing a plume of fire from his mouth at the town square. There was no time for the people in it to react and the fire consumed them, and screams of fear and agony began to rise from it. While the fire didn't reach where Sean and Noah were standing, a wave of scorching heat did, and Noah instinctively put an arm up in front of his face. He looked over at Sean and saw him standing completely still in shock, not even blinking. He began to pull at Sean's arm to snap him out of his shock. Sean felt this and shook his head to clear his thoughts.
"What was that? I saw him burn the town when he first came here but this feels very different." Sean said, visibly shaken and looking at Noah for answers.
"That was probably because he did that to send a message. This time he is doing it to destroy and kill." Noah answered, meeting his father's gaze, "Anyways we need to get out of here and help as many people as we can."
"Yeah, we need to get the people out of this town. This place is going to be wiped off the map." Sean responded, shocking Noah. He quickly overcame his shock however, and he looked at Sean for what to do. He knew that his father deeply cared for the town and its people, so he was very shocked at how quickly he gave up on the town. He watched as Sean reached into a bag that he always carried with him, and he pulled out a horn. The horn that Sean had just pulled out was used for giving commands quickly from a distance. It was mainly used for warnings of attacks as enemies could memorize the horn calls and know what the guards were going to do. But, it was very effective at what it needed to do, and now was one of those times. Sean blew into the horn an order that Noah had never heard before, in fact, Noah was pretty sure that none of the guards had heard it before. It was the command to abandon the town and help the civilians get out of it. The command for it was three short notes, followed by three longs notes, and ended with another three short notes. After he sent out the command, Sean looked at Noah and he nodded. Sean then took off running to the nearest building with Noah following close behind him.
It took a few moments for the civilians by the town square to realize what was going on, but, after Nightmare started spewing fire and Sean sent out the command, they started screaming in fear and running towards the nearest exit. When the guards heard the command, a few looked at each other in confusion, but the guards that saw what happened in the town square quickly spread that information. Once they heard what happened, and the panicked screams of the civilians, it wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that Nightmare was going to burn the town down to ash, so they quickly got to work on evacuating the town. After Nightmare finished breathing flame into the town square, he looked around for his next target. He didn't want to attack the residential sector just yet as he wanted some people to spread the information on what's going to happen here. As he was looking around, he spotted the farmlands and his face contorted into a malicious grin.
As Nightmare began to fly over into the farmlands, Noah and Sean entered the building they were running towards. Sean quickly shouted, "Anyone who's inside get out now and start running towards the nearest exit." There was no one in the room that Sean and Noah were in, so Noah began to run around the building to look for anyone who was there. The building they were in was a house that was quite empty. When Noah got back to where Sean was, he saw him crouched down talking to a child. The child was a little girl, about six years old. "I'm here to help, where are your parents?" Sean asked
"Mommy and Daddy went out shopping." The little girl responded meekly. Sean sighed when he heard this.
"We're going to get you somewhere safe, do you trust me.?" Sean asked, looking the little girl in the eyes. The little girl nodded in response, and Sean picked her up while signaling Noah to move out of the house. Once they got out of the house, Sean began to look around for someone to give the little girl to. He saw a lone man run outside of a building, and Sean ran over to him. "Hey sir! Can you take this girl?" The man stopped and looked at Sean, confused. However when he saw the little girl, he nodded and grabbed her. Sean nodded his thanks and turned, beginning to run back to Noah. Noah was looking over at the farmlands, watching Nightmare burn it to the ground. As Sean was running back over to Noah, he pointed over to the farmlands.
"He's over there." Noah shouted to Sean. Sean looked over at Nightmare with a grim and complicated expression.
"I'm going over there." Sean said.
"What!?" Noah said, shocked. "How? The fastest path there is covered in flames!"
"I'm going to run through those flames. The people there are facing much more terrifying flames than the ones that are here." Sean answered with a serious expression.
"I'm not going to deny that those people are in serious danger, but is this the right way to go about helping them?" Noah asked, concerned for his father's safety.
"This is the only idea I currently have. Unless you have one, we don't have the time to figure out another one. We barely have enough time to have this conversation, if that!?" Sean responded. Noah sighed deeply before nodding his head in agreement with his father. "Thank you." Sean then turned around and began to run through the flames. Noah watched his father until the flames fully consumed him and he couldn't be seen. Noah then turned around to continue helping people evacuate the village.
* * *
It was about an hour after Sean had left to go help the people at the farmlands. In that hour, about an eighth of the population had been safely evacuated out of the town. Noah was running in a street by the river that was at the north of the town. He had helped an injured man get out of the town, and he was here because this is one of the few places that people from the farmlands could use to escape that hellhole. As he was running, he saw Nightmare begin to fly away from the farmlands and head over to the residential area. 'Crap! He's heading over there.' He thought as he watched Nightmare fly. As he was watching Nightmare fly over to the residential area, he heard someone shout his name, "Noah!" Noah wildly spun around when he heard this, and he saw someone running towards him from the farmlands. He quickly began to run towards the person, and, once he got close to them, the person bent over and they began panting and coughing. As Noah ran up next to the person, they looked up at him and Noah took a step back in shock. The person was his father, but his face was burned and covered with ash.
"Are you alright?" Noah worriedly asked, bending over and putting his hand on his father's shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm alright. It's just the smoke, I'll be fine in a bit." Sean responded, coughing a little. He then put his hand on Noah's shoulder and pulled himself upright with a groan.
"Let's get you to one of the gates so you can get some help." Noah said, beginning to lead his father towards the nearest gate.
"Alright, I'm a bit out of breath so I can't really run right now." Sean said, too exhausted to argue. Noah nodded in agreement, so they began to walk towards the nearest gate.
As they were walking, Noah was staring intently right in front of him, and Sean looked over to where Nightmare was. He saw that Nightmare was flying right towards them while spewing fire. Seeing this, something came over him, and he grabbed Noah and threw him over to the river. He didn't quite get Noah into the river, but Noah was very confused about what happened which gave him enough time to run over and push Noah into the river. As Noah fell into the river he watched his father suddenly get enveloped by violent flames and Nightmare fly over them.