Last Life - Spark in the Stars ~ C19

"T-Tala?" Skyler stammered, looking wildly back and forth from the dark dragons and said albino dragoness. "W-What are you d-doing here?" Okay, this is getting weird. What is she doing here?!
Tala looked slightly guilty and saddened for a moment, then her face turned serious. "I brought you them," she growls lowly, stepping forward to the the duo of adult dragons.
Skyler's eyes narrowed, she was confused and slightly annoyed at being ignored. Them? What is she talking about?
The dark red dragon's eyes flit over them. Skyler freezed as his eyes settled on her for a moment, then relaxed slightly as they observed Leafa and Matteo behind her. "I suppose they could be," he said indifferently.
"Okay, stop being vague. What is going on here?" Matteo snapped, glaring at them. "I want answers!" He turned to Tala, and his look sharpened. "Tala, why are we here? We want to know!"
The white dragoness turned away from his look, and didn't say anything. Instead, Xeno answered the question.
"So, you really want to know? Well apparently, my friend here-" He gestured to the red dragon next to him. "-needs you. Not necessarily all of you, because only two of you look to be real life dragons, but you are needed."
"What?" Skyler and Leafa asked simulationeously, while Matteo questioned seconds after, "We're what now?"
"Well, not necessarily you, but more like your friends. Plus, all three of you could be used as leverage against the Master of Darkness and all," Xeno continued, looking slightly smug. At their confused looks, he opened his mouth to continue, but then though better of it. "But, unlike what you may think, I'm not going to spill the whole story. I'll leave you to think those words over," he finished.
Without warning, he gave a subtle flick of the tail and huge tendrils shot out of the shadows and binded the three younger dragons. They all gave shouts of surprise and began struggling.
Skyler's thoughts were running rampant as she tried to summon up a wisp of Hell-Fire to burn through the shadowy tendrils, but one wrapped itself over her snout and clamped her mouth shut. Agh, get these things off! The tendrils felt wispy and unreal, like they would pass through the skin when touched, but they seemed to be doing a good job of holding them down.
Her yellow-green eyes flicked back at Leafa and Matteo. They were in the same predicament. Matteo was fighting at the tendrils with all he got and doing better than the other two. Leafa wasn't really fighting at all. Then again, she never really was one to try to rip the tendrils to shreds.
Suddenly, a pair of red eyes filled her vision, and she heard vicious snarling. In instinct, Skyler flinched away from the growling. Then something latched onto her back and she suddenly at an ear-splitting headache. She scrunched her as shut and crouched down as it continued and everything went dark.

She knew immediately when she opened her eyes something was off. For one, when did the room become pitch-black? And when did the tendrils disappear?
Then again, where was everybody? The bright light from the portal was gone, too.
Where...where am I? She thought to herself, worry splintering through her mind. She hoped this wasn't a nightmare, because she was sure now that those black dragon-like creatures caused it.
She jumped, startled, when she heard an eerie, hissing from behind. The dragoness whipped around to see a black, spiky, dragon-like creature. It's red eyes were glowing brightly in the darkness and kind of hurt Skyler's eyes. It approached her, seemingly hovering and barely moving its formless wings at all. It came to a standstill in front of her.
"What are you?! What do you want?!" Skyler snapped, glaring. "I want out of this nightmare!"
The creature cocked its head, its red eyes narrowing to slits. "Aren't you an interesssting one." it hissed, not in a threatening way, but something different.
"Answer me already!"
"It isss not our place to anssswer you. Only to jussst watch."
"Watch? Watch?! How is this just watching? You attacked me and my friends and have been giving me freakish nightmares for the past moon!"
"We have no answers to your questionsss. We only ssserve. We only watch."
"I hate you!"
The creature nodded at the rage in her voice. "Yesss, that isss your anger ssspeaking, isss it not? That isss what we do. Your hateful emotionsss...your fearful emotionsss. We bring out the worsssst in thessse."
"Why?! Why are you doing this to me?!" Skyler's voice was no longer just angry, but frantic.
"It issss not our fault that the darknessss in our genesss bring out thessse cold emotionsss."
"Argh, stop being vague, and give me a straight answer!"
"You will learn sssoon enough. Ssshe will help."
"She? What, who are you-" she cut off as the creature's shape changed and took the shape of a dragoness. The shape, Skyler realized, of herself.
Okay, what?! I'm really starting to hate this...wait. I don't feel so angry anymore! It's like, my colder emotions quelled down...odd.
"Erm...who are you? Are you going to give me a straight answer, or are you just going to speak in riddles?" Skyler asked tentatively.
The black copy sighed. "Faise. The name is Faise. Finally I can speak directly."
To Skyler's astonishment, the blackness faded away, to reveal a dragoness underneath the coat. She looked almost exactly like Skyler, except, her colors were all off. The dragoness was as black as night, instead of the near leaf-green of Skyler's scales. Her horns and mane were a dark gold, as were her belly scales and wings membranes. What was most odd were her eyes. They were like a normal dragons, except the iris was the opposite color of Skyler's yellow-green eyes; they were a blue-violet.
The dragoness blinked and stared at Skyler. "I assume you have...many questions," she said, her voice dangerously close to a menacing hiss. "Sadly, none I can answer. For once, I shall give you today's mercy on your soul. Wake up, Skyler Ashblaze. The outside world needs you. When we meet again, it shall be on the opposite sides of battle."

Her eyes snapped awake. Apparently, a lot had gone down while she was in the dreaming world.
The room was chaotic. The Master of Darkness, Kenar was dueling the black dragon Xeno. Leafa and Matteo were behind Flavius, while he and Vlike, and keeping the as-of-yet unnamed dark red dragon with the fierce orange eyes at bay.
The dark creatures were missing, while Tala and the mysterious black dragon were standing by the portal. And standing over Skyler, was Veris.
"Skyler. You're awake," she said, get up from where she was crouching over her. "Good. Stay back here, you are in no shape for any of this." She bounded over to where Kenar and Xeno were fighting, ready to lend support.
Groggily, Skyler complied to her wishes and stayed down, for now. She was too weak to do anything at the moment anyway, so it was useless to argue. Plus, she needed her brain to comprehend the situation.
"At least you're thinking smart."
Skyler bolted upright at the voice, then slumped down as her muscles flared in exhaustion. She whipped her head around, trying to find the source of the voice. I better not be going crazy.
"Oh, don't worry, you are most assuredly, not going crazy." Skyler blinked and looked around again. "I'm not out there. More like, I'm in your head."
Skyler huffed to herself, thinking it would be stupid but answered mentally anyway. I thought when you said we'd next meet, it would be on opposite sides of the battle.
"Technically, we're not meeting. Only talking. Since, technically, you can't see me. But right now, my priority is keeping you alive for the next hour. After all, if you die, I die," the voice said.
Like I'm supposed to know that, the dragoness thought sarcastically.
"Look, a lot of bad stuff is going to go down, so in order to keep you alive you have to listen to me for a little bit."
Ugh, fine. What is it? Skyler mentally asked.
"Stay away from Tala."
What? Why?! I need to confront her about what's going on! I need the truth! When there was no answer, Skyler sighed inwardly. I'm so going insane.
She got up shakily, nearly keeling over. She turned her gaze over towards the portal, where Tala was. The albino dragoness herself was arguing the black dragon who was with her.
Skyler sighed, again, knowing this was a terrible idea and she should probably listen to Faise, who ever she was, but she had to know what was going on. She hated being left in the dark like this.
She began trudging over to the possibly evil duo. But Skyler pushed that thought to the back of her mind. Tala was not evil. Right?
"Skyler, stop. You are going to regret this." Skyler ignored Faise.
"Tala," Skyler growled. The white dragoness swerved around to face Skyler, shocked.
"Skyler," she said, the shocked look covered up my a mask of no emotion.
"Tala. I want answers. Now."
"I'm sorry Skyler, but I can't," she snapped back. She looked to be struggling inwardly with something within.
"Yes you can. You have lied to me long enough!" Skyler shouted, the hurt of this betrayal filtering its way into her voice. "I want answers to all this."
"Well you can't!" Tala snarled, the shy demeanor she once had all but gone.
"You're a traitorous lier!"
"Yes," Tala said, looking thoughtful. "Yes, I am. You want to know? Fine. I was never your friend. I was only there to pretend. You are such a weak, gullible dragoness. You never suspected a thing. Not even when your sister Lulu told you what she had seen. Well guess what? She was right."  Near the end, she was grinning. "Go and grovel in a corner for all I care! You are nothing." With that said, the traitorous dragoness turned away.
What was left of Skyler's trust snapped in her chest. It felt like something in her mind had been shattered.
"You fool! Look at what you've done! That's it. I know I said I would leave your soul alone, but I'm taking over. You should have listened..." Skyler barely heard those words before an excruciating pain spread throughout her body, not a physical pain but a mental, and her entire being seized up and fell back in blackness.