Opty huddled next to his medium-sized fire he managed to magically create in the snow. With a quick look around at the surroundings, he saw nothing of importance. A few evergreen trees here and there, spread very far apart. After a few more moments of resting and warming, Opty felt that he was strong enough to stand up. He did so, and took a better look around, seeing a cliff to the south, and snow-covered mountain to the other directions. Suddenly, he saw a flash of something to the north, like the sun off of metal, and he turned to face it. He saw nothing.

"Am I going insane?" Opty asked to himself, "Wait, I'm talking to myself. That means yes, I am going insane. At least I think that's right..."

Another flash of light shined from the east, and then from the south, and then the west. Suddenly, from all four directions came a flash at the same time. Opty span around in confusion and slight fear; he couldn't tell what was making the flashes, but he could tell it was someone. As he was spinning around, he got rather dizzy, and decided to stop, even though the flashes were driving him crazy, flashing from one of the cardinal directions randomly.

Opty sighed and sat down, wondering what the flashes could be. [i]Could those flashes be flashlights? No, not strong enough for day... Mirrors? Maybe...but I doubt it...[/i] Opty thought to himself, looking around. As he looked around, he ended up facing the direction of his fire, and the second he did that, the fire blared up, knocking him back a few yards and knocking a quick curse out of him.

Disembodied voices started to speak, Opty wasn't sure if they were in his head, or if they were speaking to be heard. He heard assorted things, they all talking over each other. "Long time no see, Optimus," one chimed while another interrupted him with "Thought you wouldn't see us again, hmm?" and that was interrupted by "Did you enjoy the flame? I'm glad I could oblige." Opty, positively spooked by the voices, recognizing them partially, shot to a sitting position, looking around frantically and unsheathing his sword.

"Who are you, voices?!" Opty screamed through the clearing, and was answered by a flash of sun in his eyes.

"You don't remember us, Optimus? We are saddened by this turn of events..." A voice said, the body to the north moving as if it were saying it.

"Yes yes, Opty, as you are called, don't you remember...killing us?" The eastern voice said.

"Killed you? I've killed a lot of creatures, and a few people, why do you think I'd remember you especially?"

"Oh, but you'll realize why we expect such a 'huge task' out of you when we reveal ourselves, my friend," Western-voice stated.

"Really? Then show me yourselves, if you're so sure!" Opty shouted at no voice in particular.

"Much obliged, sir!" The southern voice shouted. Simultaneously, all four bodies jumped into the air, and landed in front of Opty, on top of his fire, startling him back a couple feet. Once Opty regained his balance, he looked at the group of four things, and then suddenly recognized them with a sick fear in his stomach.

Opty narrowed his eyes and got into a battle-stance, staring at the group of creatures. All wore a different, dark colored cape, and all had dark black skin. If you looked harder, though, you would have noticed that they were highly polished dragon scales (polished enough to reflect the sun...), as well as noticing their cape was really a pair of wrapped wings. "You guys...I thought I killed you a long time ago. Apparently whoever brought the Evil one back brought you back as well."

"The Evil One? You mean Evil you? Evil Optimus? Gwa ha! What? Too afraid to say it? Pansy!" A fifth, distinctly gruffer voice said from behind the line of dragon-like humans.

"Oh, I was wondering where these weakling's leader was. Welcome back to the living," Opty said scornfully.

The group of four parted to let their leader in the middle. His wings were pure black, as dark as his, and his minions', scales. "The Council is back in session, Opty. What are you going to do about it? You can't defeat all of us alone, and you know that. It took three of you to kill one of us, I doubt one of you can kill five."

"I've become more powerful over the four years since your death, Drakeel."

"Yes, but how much more powerful, my dear child?" He answered, starting a staring war between him and Opty that would seemingly last an eternity to Opty, but in reality, a few minutes.

[i]Gotta think of something, gotta think of something..."[/i] Opty thought frantically while Drakeel, the leader of The Council, as they called themselves, had no thoughts flowing through his mind. He could see and sense Opty breaking down, and smirked internally.

After a few minutes, Opty was suddenly struck with an idea, an idea that would at least help him escape. He stealthily slid a hand into his Orb Pack, hiding it by sheathing his sword, and grabbed the Fire and Water orbs. With a swift motion, he tossed them down, thinking of what he wanted to create; steam. An instant hot cloud of steam appeared, that quickly cooled and became a large cloud, period. Opty turned tail and ran, his orbs being manamagnetically drawn back to him. Unfortunately heading south, towards the cliff, Opty had no choice but to jump. With the loud confused voices and the magic being shot off inside of the cloud behind him, he was doubly sure of his choice.

With a hop, skip, and a jump, Opty was freefalling off of the cliff. He used his trench coat as a windbreaker to try and slow his fall. Of course, that was futile, and he quickly tried to figure another way. Noticing that he was falling towards a snow forest, the best connection would be his Earth Orb. Reaching into his coat and grabbing the brown Orb, he aimed it at the ground, closed his eyes, and shouted "Growth!" With a shudder, the trees grew nearly twice their height. Opty reached out and tried to grab for a branch, but missed, and was hit by another, making him lose his concentration and stop the spell. Instead of tumbling down to the ground and landing in a bloody heap of flesh, he tumbled within the same grouping of leaves as the trees shrunk. Once they were back to normal height, though, gravity got a true hold on Opty, allowing the branches to actually hurt him. He frantically grabbed around, hoping to grab a branch before he became the aforementioned splat on the ground. Fortunately, he did grab a branch, but unfortunately, his speed nearly tore his arm off, and made him swing around the branch a few times, putting more unwanted force on his arm. After he stopped swinging, he dropped down, branch by branch, carefully as he could, hoping The Council wouldn't find him. He finally reached the ground, and sped off to the south, away from the mountain, and away from his mortal enemies.