Chapter 2: Enter the "Royal Rugrats"
The city of Warfang was buzzing as it had not seen in a very long time. More and more creatures seemed to be trying to get into the city. Creatures coming from all over, and as such had such a comprehensive arrangement of looks and cultural backgrounds. There were dragons with every color imaginable entering the city. Some were solid colors, others multiple shades and some had the most hypnotic patterns possible and do not even get started on the states of dress for many of these dragons.
And it was not just the dragons; Cheetahs, Moles, Manweersmalls, Atlawa, and other creatures most people did not even know the names of were coming into the city, and some of them looked more colorful than the dragons!
It was a sight to behold. It was getting so bad impromptu culture festivals were popping up all across the city. It was a combination of pure and utter chaos and barely contained order masquerading as the beginning of something grand.
And a young shadow dragon was forced to watch all of this from his perch at the edge of a terras on the palace's fourth floor. Said dragon was a blocky dragon who was black. Every part of him was as black as the darkest obsidian you will ever find. Even the two horns, which started at the top of his eyeridge and went up to his head, staying halfway under the scales until becoming short spikes at the top of the head, were black. Even the short but spine spanning fins on his back was black. His wings, black. His tail spade, which was a warped horizontal spike, with two more vertical boned nubs, showing signs of having broken off extremely young, on either side of the middle spike, black. The only parts on this kid's entire body that are not black are his teeth, tongue, and dark brown eyeballs. And the only reason you could call the eyes brown is that you can see them in contrast to the rest of the eyeball.
The young shadow dragon, watching from a terrace high above the multitude below, could do nothing but sigh woefully at his forced "imprisonment," banned from leaving the castle.
"Keep sighing like that, and I'll gag you, Exedra."
The young shadow dragon, Exedra, turned sharply to look at the voice, one of his older siblings, his older blood sister to be exact, who was playing two games of dragon chess at the same time with two of their foster/adopted siblings with a third half reading half watching.
Exedra's sibling, Iars Acrosis, was slim, a poison dragoness with dark green across most of her body. Only her chest and wing sail are darker. A deformed bone plate looks like it's trying to form from the edge of the forehead going up and to the sides at an angle and the furthest portion of the plate looks like it was starting to develop into horns. Instead of forming horns, though, they look shattered. Even the scales around this bone plate look ruff and try to half cover it. It almost looks like someone or something tried to pull the entire plate off of her head when it was still developing. Whatever tail spade she may have once had has since been lost, as from the looks of things, the bottom 1/5 of her tail has been crushed, thankfully not flat more to the point where the only thing left is the barest of bones and scales. She only has a few remaining fins, and even those are best described as small wedges of skin flopped to either side of the spine, while the rest look to be nothing more than the base's of previous fins but were either torn or cut off. Her eyes, despite the pain her body looks like it went through, are a very bright green-brown color.
Of Iars's opponents, one was male, the other female.
The male, Frenada, was an Audio dragon, one who had been commonly mistaken for a dragoness, who had airy blue scales and wing spines, with some light jade chest plate and wing sails. His "horns'' are more of wavy bone plates that sprouted out of the edges of his eyes and curved back against his head. His spine fins were long and almost flowed like hair for several inches on either side of his spine. His spade was in the shape of a bladed corkscrew. And his eyes are that of Solid Blue.
The female, Crytrosis, was an average Ice dragoness with periwinkle blue scales and wing spines, a shade just this side of indigo on her chest and wings sales, eyes of vibrant Sapphire. Her shiny and polished fin shaped side horns popping and sculpting around her head almost like a crown and her sharpened and polished tail end of a bow-shaped object. She prides herself on the ribbons in bow shapes made up of her favorite color decorating her neck, tail, and wing spines, her favorite color being, of course, Pink.
And lastly, the skinny male who was watching/reading was their electric brother Volteer II. Said dragon has an almost sickly yellow scale and wing spine, practically as sickly golden chest and wing sail. His head's crown is covered in short spikes, and the fins on his spine cannot seem to make up their mind on if they wanted to be wavy or sharp. His tail end is coiled around the last few inches of his tail and ends on a large bulb. His eyes, which are probably the only part of his body that does not look sick, are a vibrant amber.
Iars was not even looking at her brother as said shadow dragon glared at his second eldest sibling. She was instead more interested in trying to figure out her next move against both of her opponents. Dragon chess, while similar to regular chess, it was more complicated in that it was 3D, the board is 14x14, more pieces on the ground (four bishops, four knights, four rooks, 14 pawns, still one king, which is stronger slightly and one unchanged queen,), and "magical pieces" which start in the air (7 dragon squires, four dragon apprentices, two dragon masters, and a dragon grandmaster). The "dragons" can change abilities based on what magic they were charged with, and each piece only able to change said abilities based on what type of piece they were.
Dragon chess was thus a much better game, in Iars's humble opinion. But for most of her younger siblings, it was incredibly dull to watch as each move could take some time. Hence again, why Exedra was in the state, he was in.
As Iars moved one of her dragon apprentices forward, aiming to try and remove one of Frenda's knights next turn, her eyes darted to her glaring brother. She had to crush the smile trying to form on her face. Her baby brother always looked so cute when he was trying to be intimidating. Instead, she spoke to make sure she could cover up her smile, "Mother said you, Oberon, and Cyris were grounded because of that stunt you pulled with the guards. As such, you're not allowed out of the castle." While soft, her voice was also strangely airy, almost like speaking only as much as necessary to be heard.
Crytrosis, who glared for a second at her older sister for daring to speak her hated nickname, moved a pawn forward while huffing, not caring in the slightest about being grounded.
Their baby brother, on the other hand, pouted, "It wasn't even that bad! It was a harmless prank!" His voice was trying to deepen but kept cracking no matter what he tried
Volteer, who preferred to be called Volt so as not to confuse people who might have known the Guardian he was named after, looked up at the shadow dragon. "You and Oberon somehow made him fall from the third-story guard room into a passing fish vendor while he was carrying paperwork and new armor. And even stranger, you got Ro-sis to make sure the vendor dumped the entire cart, guard and all, into one of the underground fisheries." The electric dragon's voice was pridefully reserved and strangely calming.
The baby girl of the family glaired with malicious intent at her oldest brother for his attempt at creating yet another hated nickname. If one of the ribbons she had on were not doubling as a magical suppressant, one of Volt's paws would likely have frozen over as he was turning a page. She was glaring so much that she did not care as Iars took the ice dragonesses queen with the poison dragonesses king.
Exedra meanwhile smiled at Volt's retelling, "Exactly! No one was hurt, and it was hilarious!"
Frenada slowly rose his head and looked at the shadow dragon, "I'm pretty sure that guard swore he was going to hang all three of you from the highest balcony he could find by your tails with weights on your wings for all the extra work you made him do." His voice was soft, that's it, just soft. Sometimes he would speak so softly that those that heard him thought he had to have been using his magic to mimic voices.
Exedra waved off his foster brother, said brother was already going back to put Iar's king into check with his dragon grandmaster, on the board Iars and Crytrosis were playing on. One great thing about dragon chess and having multiple opponents at once was that the boards could be joined and allowed for cross-playing. "He's exaggerating. Uncle Flame would never let a guard do that to one of his 'precious nephews'''"
The ice dragoness finally stopped glaring at the electric dragon and looked at the only member of the family younger than her. "I could have sworn Uncle flame called us rugrats, not nieces or nephews." Her voice was light, just this side of hauntingly sweet.
Exedra waved her off, "Details, details." He looked around and suddenly realized something, "Wait, where is Oberon? If she's grounded, why isn't she here?" If he had to be bored, then he was sure as heck going to drag his co-conspirator in down with him.
Iars first hummed, then as she used a dragon squire to force Frendra's grandmaster to the ground on Frendra's board, thus not only unchecking her one king but also displacing and locking three of Frenda's ground pieces, she responded to her baby brother. "She's sulking in her room."
Exedra raised an eyeridge, Oberon Sulking? That just did not sound right. He shrugged and turned to look back over the terrace and the horde of creatures below if his "adventurous" sister wanted to be upset over being punished goody for her.
The young shadow dragon dropped his head on the railing.
There was so much going on, and it looked like so much fun! Exedra's head popped up as he spotted a shadow dragon in the mass below. He had not seen many so far. He almost wanted to risk further punishment by rushing down to talk to him. Then he noticed the wind dragoness who was obviously with the shadow dragon. The pair were practically on top of each other as they moved through the crowd.
Exeadra dropped his head back onto the railing and scowled again, reminiscent of his wind dragon sister.
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Upon the top floor of the same castle, in a "small" room, a head popped out from under the mound of blankets and pillows. The head looked around the room, then strained her ears. She could not hear anything or anyone else up on the floor. And as such, the skull belonging to a certain wind dragoness smiled and slithered out from under her comfy mound.
The dragoness, after getting out of bed, shifted over another much smaller mound. This mount was made up of several robes of varying quality and style. She immediately went for one, which was on the older side, and ruff, but still helped her. Her aim was to both "hide" who she was and improve what she knew was her most substantial factors.
After all, there were not many wind dragoness that had bright silver scales and wing spines, with a lighter blue and silver, highlighted chest and wings sail. No horns, but instead a solid bone plate reached from the edge of the forehead, covering the entirety of the crown of the head and back far enough that when her neck is straightened, the head plate covers a couple of inches of the neck. Her Tail was proudly displaying a pointed cone, with the point at the end of the tail and the cone itself covering the back of the tail. Her eyes, a stunning color of gold. And most importantly to her, your agronomic body shape and frankly cute face.
The number of times she had gotten herself out of trouble utilizing her puppy dog eyes was probably more than her parents would want to admit. But given the number of times she had been caught where she probably should not have been, it probably evened out.
Either way, given what she was aiming to do, she had to do her damnedest to make sure her parents did not find out.
She may not be the family's baby sister, but being the second youngest female, she sure felt like it at times. But more importantly, the city was getting existing, and there was no way she was going to miss out.
So throwing on her cloak of choice and making sure everything was in place. She turned to the door to her room, took a breath, and started to sneak out. Her goal, the first floor of the palace, her aim to make sure she could get into the tournament everyone was talking about. If anyone asked about being grounded, she would say she was still adhering to said grounding. She was not leaving the palace proper, just going to its first floor.
The excuse would not hold up weight to her parents, siblings, or the royal attendants. But against everyone else, when coupled with her experience in being the second to be raised from the egg in the family, she knew how to get away with all sorts of things, even things her five older siblings would not be able to get out. Well, maybe not her oldest brother; he knew how to use his sickly looks to the max against everyone except their parents.
Oberon's first obstacle came from getting down from the sixth floor without anyone noticing. Thankfully for her, she knew of a great way to do so. Several dumbwaiters were connecting the sixth to the fifth and then the fourth to the fourth. Being a nearly fully grown dragoness, Oberon was way too big for even the largest of the food lifts. But there were two larger equipment elevators, one of which she could just barely squeeze into, as long as she shifted the panels around. Thankfully she had done this before and thus knew how to do it silently.
Once in the lift, she had to manually move it by pressing herself against the walls and then using her front paws to "walk" her way down. If she had done any other method, the elevator would have made noise on arrival and alerted anyone who might have been on the other side of the door.
Upon arriving on the fifth floor, Oberon used her claw's very edge to crack open the door leading to the equipment shoot. It was just enough that she would be able to see but not enough that anyone would think twice about.
Once she looked out, her heart almost stopped. The room on the other side was a sort of repair workshop, so there were plenty of items to hide her. But it was not the room that frightened her. It was the two dragons standing near a bench close to the door looking at some doodad.
One was a large athletic fire dragon with rough red speckled with brownish haze scales and wing spine, a ruby chest, and wing sale. A crown of eight short straight up spikes upon his head and a chaotic ball of spikes on his tail. And a ridgeline of even more spikes along his entire spine all pointed at an angle and eyes the color of flames.
The other was an average height but built like a house earth dragoness with emerald green scales and wing spine with a jade chest and wing sail. Two horns were curving out from the back and over her head to rest just in front of her eyes, both containing two slightly angled spikes on edge. Layered bone plates cover the entirety of her spine, starting from where the neck meets the head and go all the way down to the slightly crooked buster sword bladed tail. Bone Plates were also patchworked along her wing spine and legs in no discernable pattern.
The male was the second eldest male sibling, and the dragoness the most senior female sibling.
Oberon could do nothing but remain completely still, hoping against hope that not only did they not hear her but also did not sense her.
She watched and listened as the fire dragon turned to look at his big sister, " I give up, I have no idea how even to begin to fix this. Got any ideas, Terr?" His voice was regal and controlled.
Terr, or Terrafana or Terrador but never Fana, looked at her brother, "Not a clue Igy. The best I got is to toss at Aunt Ember and hope she doesn't figure out that it was Crytrosis borrowing it." Her voice was also controlled but very comforting. Her voice had lulled almost every single one of her younger siblings to sleep after a nightmare more than one.
Ignitus II or Ig to most and only Igy to just family, shuddered, "No, thank you. I'd say just leave it here and hope one of the attendants can figure it out."
Terrafana pulled back, showing the side of her face to Oberon's hiding place as she brought a paw up to grip her chin and think. "Hm, maybe." She sighed, dropped her paw, and looked back at her brother. "Either way, we need to get moving. I don't need dad pissed off at us for not getting the errands done."
The fire dragon sighed and nodded as the two of them left.
Oberon forced herself to wait for several minutes, straining her years to make sure that her two older siblings were gone and to make sure no one else was coming in.
Hearing nothing, she slowly forced the door open before crawling out and closing it back up again. Now able to move around again, she stretched out a few kinks and started the next phase of her "escape."
Just before she got out of the workshop, the item her two siblings had been looking over caught her eye. It was a simple broach, one which contained some rare magically drained Spirit Gems surrounded by drained Fury Crystals all set one an amethyst colored gem of power all latched to an obsidian colored base and pin. Or at least that's what it should have been. There were cracks all through it, the amethyst was only kept in by a single small latch instead of the regular ring, and part of the pin was bent.
Oberon's eyes widened; she knew this broach on sight alone. It was one of her mother's favorites; she usually wore it to every formal occasion. Supposedly, the queen was "borrowing" it from Aunt Ember, but the pink fire dragoness hated the thing as it allegedly clashed with her scales and never once asked for it back.
Oberon gently picked up the broach, trying to examine it closely. She could not, for the life of her, figure out how it could have been so severely damaged in the first place. She and her Siblings had all mishandled it at some point. Oberon herself had chewed on it when she was teething as a toddler. Her parents loved telling that story, and her mother never failed to point out the little barely seeable gash one of her new teeth had made in one of the furry gems.
Looking closer, Oberon could even see where that gash should have been. Instead of a faint scratch, it was now a full crack running through the whole gem. The young wind dragoness moved the broach further from her face to look at the entire thing again. In doing so, she started to figure out what might have happened. While resilient, the broach had hit its limit and all of its damage just expanded upon itself.
Oberon frowned as she thought. Her mother loved this broach. She was uncertain how the elder dragoness would respond to finding out it was broken. Would she be sad or angry or even disappointed. All of them were terrible options, and as much trouble as he tended to cause her parents, the young wind dragoness still loved them.
So with a sigh, she slipped in the broken piece of jewelry into a pocket on her cloak. She was sneaking out anyway, might as well see if she could find someone or something to at least try and fix it. Or failing that, see what it would take to replace it.
With that thought in mind, Oberon readjusted her cloak went about getting back on task, sneaking her way into the tournament.
AN: Let me start off with: OH SWEET HEAVENS! I finally got this chapter Done! You don't want to know how much trouble this damn thing kept giving me!
Moving on: I had thought of continuing this chapter, but for some reason, I couldn't think of a reason I felt that ending worked well enough and will let me have even more fun with the next chapter.
So...most of the chapter was dedicated to introducing the eight main characters we'll be mostly following when not following Spyro/Cynder or one of the side characters or particular events. Their requirement was a part of the challenge, but initially, all I was given were names, powers, and some background ideas. Hence part of the problem was that I had to come up with so much else to go with them! We'll be seeing a lot of them and what they can do as we go on.
Now for a challenge: If you can guess the order of age for the kids, youngest to oldest, you'll win...you know I'm not quite sure, but we can figure it out. Please note, not actual age, you can guess, and I'll let you know if you're close with spoilers of a form for that one.
Initially, that first scene would be the kids playing over a card game, not whatever abomination Dragon Chess is turning out to be. But I started typing, and it just sort of formed.
Honestly, I think I'm going to have the most fun with Oberon because of her character type. Volt, I'm going to have fun because of some plans for him. Beyond those two, though, most of the kids' quirks and histories will do different things for my writing. While I am looking forward to it, it will massively show just how little planning I have for this story.
I do have an outline for the story, like actually written down. I never do this, but this damn story is causing me all kinds of issues. Even my outline is vague as heck, only having what significant events I want to go over, not the who, what, how, and all the rest of that.
Of course, for many of the characters, I will be giving credit:
The kids, yes, all of them, technically belong to Darkness Gargantua Dragon, or Zacian Crowned Form or whatever he changed his name/account to now, from fanfiction, though only in origin. As explained above, much of what I'm going with in terms of personality and abilities, I'm making this up as I go along.
There was a camo from two characters of LittleJoey420 from Fanfiction. They weren't meant to have their appearance here, but it sort of just worked, so it happened earlier than initially planned but be not afraid they will have more appearance.
I still need OCs, and looking back at the last chapter, there is only one change, I care not what race they are. If you can explain it, go for it!
And that's all I got for now. I make zero promises on the next chapter for this. I honestly am struggling with figuring this out. Either way, until we meet again, Happy Reading!
