STARFIRE

Chapter 15

"Should we be doing this?" Shira asked Diego who was walking right beside her. Heading back to the Epsilon forest seemed as though it were becoming a weekly routine for the two sabers. This isn't the first time they've done it. If they found StarFire there last time, then chanced are, he'll be there again.

"If he's there, then why not? You sure he is?"

"He's just got to be there. I know it." Shira said, walking more close to Diego than usual. Her heart was pounding uncontrollably out of fear. What if she loses him. For good. The thoughts, the feelings that would go through her head if it happened would be unpredictable.

"Don't be afraid." Diego tells her, trying to keep her calm. Shira's heart beat was so strong at that moment, that Diego could feel it just by leaning up against her.

"I'm not." She lied. 'Its his turn to fear me.' She tried to keep strong, but fear always gets the best of her.

"You sure? I'm pretty sure my heart doesn't beat that fast." He says playfully.

"Oh ya? Well, maybe it's beating that fast because you're so close to me." She says, going along with it.

Diego, not realizing how close he was to her, quickly gives her some space, causing a blush to appear on his face along with Shira's face.

'I'll never get tired of that. I just love how he does that, even though we've admitted our love to each other for a while now. I'll never get tired of it, and he'll never get use to it. Things are just perfect. Still, what's gonna happen? Should we be doing this? I really don't want to, but of course, I have to. We have to. He has to.'

"Shira, lets be honest here." Diego says, his blush slowly fading away.

'Wow, that's a first.' Shira thinks, smirking to herself.

"What if, by some chance he isn't there, and, it would be like we put ourselves in danger for no reason at all."

"But... I need him. We need him."

"Shira, we can take care of ourselves."

"Can you also take the risk of losing each other. What if one of us is- what if something happens to us? StarFire was there to help us."

"What is it, his job?" Diego says, completely forgetting the answer to that, yet as soon as he finished, he remembered the answer immediately. "Oh, right."

"That's all he ever did." Shira said.

"Is that all he can do?"

Shira doesn't answer. Neither sabers say anything until they start noticing the atmosphere changing. The more they walked towards the forest, the more contrast the air around them was getting. Eventually they could see their surroundings turning a color purple. At first, the two sabers were worried that the thick, purple air would be impossible to breathe in, but it was. However, neither knew if this purple fog was deadly or not. At the moment, it didn't seem to affect either of them.

"Are we in the forest?" Diego says, squinting his eyes, trying to see ahead of him. The fog was too thick to be able to see through.

"I'm not sure. I'm guessing so."

"You know Shira, there's still time. We can just turn back."

Shira, with all honesty, could not make up her mind. She had no clue what each option would benefit, and more importantly, she didn't know what each option would take away from her.

"I...I'm not sure. I just don't know anymore." Shira said looking to where she thought Diego was. She couldn't even see three inches in front of her.

"Diego?" She said, worry instantly forming inside of her.

"Don't do this! Don't leave me here!" She said, remembering what happened last time, and sure enough, she was feeling dizzy. Her surroundings, if any, we're fading away.

"DIEGO! I NEED YOU" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She was feeling weak. She couldn't find the strength to support her body, and instantly collapsed to the floor. Her heart was pumping at an incredible speed. A speed that she could not control, as if it were some kind of hell bent disease. She was panting heavily, and at the same time, she was having trouble breathing. In a nutshell, she was being tortured. She felt like she was dying.

With nothing left to cry for, she just waited for her life to come to an end.

"She's not waking up." A voice said, rather close to her.

"Trust me, she will. She has to." Another and rather familiar voice said.

Finally, Shira managed to find the strength to open her eyes.

"Hey, she's waking up! Get back over here!" The voice said as Shira's vision came back to her.

Looking up, still feeling rather nauseous and dizzy, she saw before her Diego and StarFire.
Shira got up right away, getting sick of these impersonators. She starts to back away.
"Shira, what are you-" Diego starts, but is interrupted as StarFire puts a hand in front of him.
"She thinks we're an illusion." StarFire says.

Hearing that was more than enough proof that this wasn't a trick. It was him. It was the real legend itself. But still, how did she get here? How long was she passed out? It came to her attention and realization that the strange purple fog was still enveloping them, meaning that they were still in the Epsilon forest.

"How long was I passed out?" She asks, walking closer to them.

"For a while." Diego answered.

"Ya, once I found Diego, I found you even deeper in the forest. For a while, you weren't doing anything."

Shira didn't understand all of it. The last thing she remembered was lying down from all of that torturing that the forest was dwelling around on her, and then the next thing she knows, she's deep within the Epsilon Forest. How did she end up there?

"StarFire, how did you-"

"Hey, can you save the questions for later? Right now I think the best thing to do is get rid of this curse for good."

"Oh, don't tell me. You have a plan, right?" Diego steps in.

"You know me, never a dull moment." StarFire says those same words again. The last time he said that, Shira remembers it as the day he was killed.

"BlackFire's here isn't he?" Shira asked so suddenly.

"I was about to ask you that." StarFire answers back, "So, as I was saying, my plan..." He started.

"I'm listening." Diego says.

"Remember this?" StarFire said, as he pulled out the most contrast stone Shira has ever seen.

"The reason you're not dead, is because of this stone. As long as we're inclosed in it's perimeter, we'll be safe from the fog."

"Huh, anything else you'd like to throw away on what that stone does." Diego asks.

"As far as I know, that's all it does."

"And it does more than you'd ever know." A deep voice says among the thick fog.

StarFire doesn't say anything. He looks behind him to see what all three of them have been looking for.

"Oh, StarFire. Still the clueless being as I remember." It said.

StarFire let a smirk of sarcasm come across his face.

"Now, I won't go into any long lecture, for I know you're a very busy person. StarFire, my demand is quite simple. Hand over that stone you hold so dearly, and make no attempt of resistance, otherwise..."

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise your original state of being will seize to exist."

"You know I can't make that promise." StarFire says, still looking at the stone he held.

"So that's your finally answer?"

"I suppose it is."

Suddenly, a dark shadow casted upon the area, forming a human like figure. To Shira's surprise, it looked rather familiar.

"What?! Isn't that-" Diego started, but couldn't believe what he was seeing. The figure looked exactly like StarFire. Only instead of blonde hair, he had black hair, and instead of blue eyes, he had blood shot red eyes. He was an opposite, a shadow of StarFire.

"Those who deny me will meet death." BlackFire threatened, pulling out a rather similar stone to the one that StarFire had.

"I require both stones." He added.

"And I say, you don't deserve either." StarFire said.

While Diego was close to Shira, she noticed that StarFire's stone was becoming more and more contrast to the point where it wasn't even a stone anymore. It was just a bright light surrounding StarFire. BlackFire's stone was doing the same thing. Soon, both stones created an impossible to see through light that slowly faded away. Once the area emerged clearly again, Shira could see the stone that StarFire had was no longer a stone at all, but instead has formed into a blade of what looked to be made out of ice. BlackFire had the same thing happen to his stone as well, only his was a dark purple color.

"This forest will become your tomb." BlackFire's deep voice echoed throughout the forest.

"You can't beat me, BlackFire. You're my shadow. You mimic everything I do, and I've got allies with me." StarFire says as Diego and Shira stand by his side.

Suddenly, in a flash of light, two figures appear, standing on both sides of BlackFire.

"I can only imagine." StarFire said with sarcasm in his words. The two figures were shadows of Diego and Shira.

"Better?" BlackFire says, smirking at them. "Cause your adventure days are coming to an end."

StarFire makes the first swing, colliding his blade with his shadow, using all his strength to force him back. As he was doing this, Shira's shadow jumped for StarFire, planning to take him to the ground, but instead did the exact opposite as Diego pinned it to the ground, and started to claw at its face.

Shira couldn't believe that any of this was happening. It couldn't be. She stood there, too afraid to fight, too worried for all the consequences for all of this.

Her worry left her as she felt her self pinned to the ground. She looks up to see a pair of red, blood-shot eyes staring at her with looks that kill. She immediately felt her chest being slashed at.
Diego heard the cutting and ripping sounds and turns his head to Shira, fearing the worst. With out hesitation, Diego jumps off his current pray, and runs into Shira's attacker, slamming it into a nearby tree. He then sinks his teeth into it's neck and holds it with all of his strength. His shadow tried kicking a few times, giving a swipe with his claws once or twice, but couldn't find the strength to cause any pain. Giving up, he lets Diego take the oxygen away from him until he was dead.

Once Diego released his jaw, he looked down, and couldn't believe what he just did. He killed one of his own kind. Sure, it was against him, and it may have been a fake impersonator, but it felt so real to him. It begged him stop. It's movement was so real. Thinking about this, Diego began to cry, but Shira came up, licked him on the cheek, and reminded him that they weren't done.

StarFire was having the time of his life trying to deal with two enemies at once. It was now him that was out numbered. Shira could tell that he was slowly losing fatigue. His swings weren't as fast as BlackFire's, he was losing his balance, and eventually, he gave up and collapsed to the ground.

Shira's shadow was about to claw at him, but BlackFire out his hand in the way, commanding him to stay. StarFire, looking defenseless and bleeding in multiple areas, puts his hands up in defense. He was shaking uncontrollably.

BlackFire points his sword at StarFire.

"Don't be a fool. Stop all this nonsense." BlackFire said inside of StarFire's mind.

"It is not sacrifice. It is evolution."

"Live together."

The voices that have appeared numerous times before were now enveloping Diego and Shira's minds as well.

At that moment, everything went silent to Shira. The screams coming from StarFire, the blood getting washed away by the rain, even the voices stopped inside her head. All she could hear was the pounding sound that her heart was making. Or was it even hers?

"Shira." A voice finally said.

Shira took a deep breath, and couldn't believe who she heard.

"Krystal?"

"That's enough. There's no need for you to get hurt anymore."

"Wha-? How-" Shira became speechless.

Diego for some reason could hear the voice too.

"Shira! Don't listen to it! You know Krystal is-"

"I know!" Shira says, interrupting Diego.

"Krystal... Krystal would never tell me to give up!"

But what was she suppose to do?
What could she do?

"When the time comes, don't hesitate, just act." Shira remembered those words the first time she went back into the forest and when she first saw BlackFire.

"Diego, we need to take care of that shadow first!" Shira said, looking at Diego who looked defeated and out of breath.

"I can't. I'm done." Diego said, collapsing to the ground.

"We can't give up. StarFire needs-"

"It's too late." Diego says looking towards StarFire whose body was lifeless once again. For a moment, Shira assumed that he'd get a third chance and rise again, but her expectations never seemed to happen.

"Come on, we need to get out of here!" Diego yelled, getting up.

"What?! Why?! What about StarFire?!"

"What else can we do?! Leave him! We have to-"

Just then, Diego was slammed into a tree and felt the rough bark stab into his back.

"No one leaves here alive!" The deep, angered voice yelled. BlackFire pulls out his sword shaped stone, and gets ready to deliver the final blow.

"No! Get away from him!" Shira yelled, ready to jump at BlackFire.

The red bloodshot eyes looked at Shira, then back at Diego, who he was holding up against the tree with his arms.

"Ohhhh, I see what's going on." He says with the most twisted smirk on his face.
"You feel like your life is complete, isn't it?"

Shira doesn't say anything. She was shaking uncontrollably. She already knew where this was going.

"Wouldn't it be a shame if I... Took that away?" He says and instantly does what she's has been fearing would never happen. BlackFire lunges his sword straight into Diego's chest. It doesn't go all the way, just half way through.

At that moment, Shira felt like she was an entirely different saber. She didn't feel loved anymore. She felt alone. She became her old self again. She knew she was crying like hell, but too much pain flowed through her to care or notice.

"Your soul is mine, softie!" BlackFire says, smiling right in Diego's face.

Diego tried to breath easily and let in all of the oxygen he could receive, but was having difficulty in doing so.

Just then, hearing BlackFire say that word filled her with absolute rage.

"Nobody..." She begins, breathing heavily with tears flowing down her face.

"Nobody calls him softie but me!" She screams and jumps at BlackFire. Unfortunately, he saw it coming and stuck out his hand at Shira and used some kind of dark force to push her against another tree.

'Its over. For real. All of it. Gone.' She thinks and bursts into tears, not able to control herself.

As she was doing this, she heard a deep voice scream its head off.

Shira looked up to see StarFire behind BlackFire with his sword shaped stone piercing through his shadow's chest.

BlackFire looks down at his chest. Instead of blood spilling out, it was a bright light that was leaking out of him.

"D-damn you. Damn you, StarFi-" before he could finish his sentence, he collapsed to the floor, lifeless. Once he was truly dead, Shira's shadow instantly dissolved away. Soon after, StarFire does the same and drops to the floor. Shira limps over to him.

"Shira. I- I'm-"

"Please don't leave." She said, tears still running down. She tried not to look at Diego , who she just lost, but couldn't help it. She looked up at him whose corpse was pinned into the tree by BlackFire's sword. His eyes were still open, and gleaming down at her, she saw only one emotion in his eyes. Fear. He was afraid to die. He didn't want to, and Shira didn't want him to.

Shira jumps up on him, leans into his chest, and connects his lips with hers. She could taste nothing but blood, however, she didn't care. She wanted her last moment with him to be her best.
She stayed that way until she felt Diego's body starting to relax, and at that moment, she completely lost it.

"No! Don't leave me! I need you!" She yells, leaning into his chest. It'll be the last time she'll ever feel his warmth at night.

Diego looked like he was about to say something, but suddenly dropped his head lifeless at the ground. He was gone.

Shira didn't scream. She didn't say anything, because it wouldn't help anything.

She just laid against him and cried, and in StarFire's lifeless hand was the stone. The stone that caused it all.

As an old day passes

A new one rises.

But for now,

Rest easy, heroes.