Dragon(s)layer
29
Warm as Ice
{Dragon Age Inquisition OST: Dragon Fight}
He watched Ignitia die.
It was a very easy thing to do, and to cause. Her guard was weak, and her positioning awkward, all the results of surprise: from truly believing that she would never have had to battle her own ally.
The Fallen could sympathize with such a caring spirit. In fact, it was beautiful to witness, humbling too. But ultimately, it was also weak, and foolish, and it would've especially been so if she had been a Portaljumper.
So with ease, he did it.
The blade slid right into the wound she had suffered the day prior against the Night Dragons, penetrating the dressing and the already weak, healing scales armoring her coat. The gladius dug deeply enough to sever an artery, and though he had to navigate her frantic slashes and swipes and breaths of fire in her last moments, the Fire Dragoness ultimately succumbed to the weathering destruction her body had suffered. She collapsed, and bled to death, all in one motion evening the odds of the battle, as Cynder and Terradora literally kicked the snot out of one another.
From that point on, as he stood over her lifeless corpse, it was a team of two against one. With his weapons' skills, and Cynder's speed, Terradora didn't stand a chance.
It would've been a victory.
He would've gotten at least something that he had so desperately wanted.
Frankly, something he wanted even more than almost everything else. The one jewel in his collection that he'd never known he'd needed his whole life was in his grasp. There was part of him now- an advocate for such a greedy strategy -that won out, urging him to take Cynder, haul her and Spyra away as the spoils of war, and leave this world to its fate.
But as he stared at Ignitia's opened and dead eyes, he realized just how wrong he would've been to do such a thing. He also realized that he couldn't let her die in the first place. He couldn't let her become the corpse he was looking upon.
The Fallen opened his own still very-much-alive eyes, and the imagined scenario left him in a roaring departure. The wind whistled, and his gladius stabbed downwards, right for Ignitia's shoulder wound, just as he had played the strategy out in his own mind to completion.
The Fire Guardian was no weakling, however, and her own counter was incoming to make contact with his head. The sharp fins on the end of her tail whipped forward blindingly fast, her claws were splayed, and her teeth exposed as crackling Fire built in the back of her throat.
Nearby, Cynder locked all four limbs with Terradora, and the two mighty dragonesses crashed in a rolling whirlwind of destruction to the ground, taking out pillars and blasting a gash the size of a small house in the ancient brick wall of the tower. Debris flew everywhere, and the chamber briefly became drowned in white smoke.
The mist was just enough for him to take that extra millisecond of consideration.
There is another way.
Indeed. There had to be. He couldn't let this, her, be ended like that.
Besides, it would've been ridiculous. He and Ignitia had no good reason to harm one another, even with Cynder considered. It wasn't just that there was another way: there shouldn't have been any way but.
So, the Fallen did what every instinct of his training told him not to do.
He tucked his striking arm, and rolled into his own assault. A half-hearted bolt of Fire lazily flung itself to fruition over and past him in an unsuccessful dash for his chest. Ignitia landed from her pounce with a great crash, her powerful limbs and their muscles bundling underneath her ruby scales. The Fallen flipped horizontally, the shining tip of his sword angling, and then traveling over, and over…
-Until it sliced nothing but the air.
The haphazard slash went wide from her vulnerable arm by an atrocious margin. The attack was purposefully missed.
The human felt the breath leave his chest when he instead struck not with his sword, but with his shoulder, into the dragon's breast summarily after, and any would-be feelings of being a good samaritan were literally slammed out of his skin. Armor clacked against scales, and his body flared from the pain. He tumbled onto his face, and Ignitia reeled, coughing hysterically as the blow aggravated her lung.
In an instant, he scrambled onto his feet. Ignitia raised a paw: preparing for a blow that would've pulped a Grublin into the ground.
But just like he had, she hesitated. Neither of them wanted to fight the other.
"Reminds you of sensei Nasu, doesn't it?!" Conscience hollered to him. He had to compete with the roars of Terradora and Cynder, literally beating the piss out of one another on the opposite front of the battle. Terradora screeched and went to take Cynder's head off with a long sweep of her mace. The blow missed by a scale's length, and clipped an ancient pillar in two. Conscience narrowly ducked to avoid an airborne brick from the resultant burst of debris. "I don't understand, really! You should be getting along with Terradora just fine! She's just as stubborn as any Sangheili ought to be, don't you think?"
"Was there a point to this?!" The Fallen screamed at him in defiance. Ignitia's prepared stance faltered, and she actually glanced in the direction he was yelling, raising a brow in confusion when nothing but dusty air met her gaze.
"Yes! Indeed there was!" Conscience held up a finger victoriously, oblivious as Cynder went airborne like a projectile, a black and red missile that literally missed him by maybe an inch as Terradora chucked her across the foyer. Conscience wiped dust off his breaches before saying: "I'm supposed to remind you to do something-!"
The Fallen couldn't muster another angry retort, for a blunt force hit him in the head, reducing his hearing to nothing but a droning whine.
Deafness was something he'd experienced before, and from much worse in the vast world of weapons. That wasn't the part that bothered him really.
But the pain.
Oh fucking lord, the pain.
He was still bruised from the battle in Oversight's plaza, the draconic medics in the castle and their remedies still fresh and recent. Ignitia wasn't the only one technically walking around as a glass-cannon right now either, so her assault got spectacular results, at least, if she had been someone with the goal of killing him in mind.
Collapsing to a knee, the Fallen grit his teeth and tried to force himself to stand. Ignitia must have hit him with her tail, and by hell did he feel it. That softness he so often experienced when in the literal arms and wings of a dragoness was deceitful. When a wyrm weaponized their own body, they mustered the means with which cities could be leveled. Honestly, it would've been less dangerous if someone had cracked him over the fucking head with a frying pan.
I can't gauge this girl, he realized offhandedly, and completely out of place in the midst of the chaos. Hot cold, hot cold. She's a Fire, right? Isn't it supposed to be just one and not the other?
"-F-Fallen, j-just stay down, stay down and-" Ignitia swallowed the stammers, trying to appear imposing as she cautiously advanced forwards, a hunch in her spined back. "-Ancestors, why can't you decide whose side you're on?"
"It isn't me with the identity crisis." He snarled, clutching his aching skull. "-Agh, god damn it, all I did was shoulder-check you, you didn't have to take my frigging' head off."
"You left me no choice-"
The ground thundered in a flash of pure white. Ignitia reeled back with a pained hiss as the blinding light forced her to shut her eyes and turn her head away.
In a blast of Electricity and sparks, rolling almost as a purple bowling-ball from the smoke came Spyra, and she was barreling right for Ignitia.
Oh no, the Fallen winced, his knees shivering as he recovered his balance, and his hearing started to come back, just in time to hear his other half having another conniption:
"I know exactly what you're thinking: Not again." Conscience sighed, shaking his head solemnly. The Fallen felt his lip twitch when his other-half plopped a hand on his shoulder, and patted twice. "Or, what we're thinking? Huh? Ba-dum-tish~! I gotchya', and I gotchya' good, you schizo you…"
Spyra pounced on Ignitia's chest, bouncing off from the impact with a sharp crack! -of scales to scales. The blow separated the two hens by a margin across the battlefield, their claws scratching and grinding as they slid across the ancient ruined floor of the tower in two directions. Soot leaking from her nose, Spyra hooked her talons and ground to a halt. Her tail was whipping as she spat an ember onto the floor, surveying the chaos around herself.
"Somebody wanna' tell the gal' absentee just what in the everloving fuck is happening?!" She snarled.
"-Spyra-! I-! The Fallen-! Terradora-! A-And Cynder, and-!" Ignitia stammered.
"The Fallen is a traitor!" Terradora hollered, pinned underneath Cynder as the two massive 'nesses finished rolling through the rubble. Cynder straddled her, trying to pry apart her forepaws so she could snap at Terra's face with her beak.
"The Fallen is mine!" Cynder was foaming at the mouth, making even Spyra pause as she took in the disturbing scene. "MinemineminemineMINEMIN-"
A blast of cold Mana whipped across the crumbling foyer, and Cynder flailed off of Terradora's chest, her head frozen near solid in yet another entrapping wad of blocky Ice. The impact had sounded like a tin can being wrapped off the side of a dumpster, the Fallen realized.
"God damn it, that bitch needs a fuckin' pill or something." Spyra guffawed, giving her bronze wings a testy flap.
Her angry gaze swept to and fro, and again that growl started to rev up in her chest. The fighting ceased, and for the first time since the Guardians had arrived, the lonely tower was again plunged into relative silence, aside from Terradora's exhausted breaths, and Cynder's muffled shrieking from inside the block of Ice over her face.
"Soooooo…." Spyra trailed. "-ya'll seem to have been busy. Can't a 'ness take a piss with some expectation of everything being the same as she left it a minute ago?! Huh?!"
"I-! We-! They-!" Ignitia clamped her jaws shut and shook her head. "-Gah~! You know what? I concur. Fully and absolutely! What in the Ancestors' great names are we doing?!"
"Saving the Dragon Realms," Terradora spat dust from her mouth, rolling out of the rubble to stand herself up on trembling knees. Her lacerations and cuts wept trails of ruby as she shook herself like a dog, glaring at the human in particular. "and weeding out the agents of the enemy."
"This again?" Spyra clicked her tongue, frowning when a nearby pile of debris shifted aside, and the black, lithe form of Cynder plopped onto her belly from the content's center, the Ice trickling as it melted off her skull, freeing her. "Ah, no wonde, a wild skank crawled in through the doggy-door while I was away. Figures…"
Cynder gasped as the Ice block finished melting off of her face, and for a moment, the two rivals stared one another down across the few feet dividing them in the now dust-soiled foyer of the tower.
It was almost comical, watching Cynder peel herself off the floor, trying and failing to maintain some semblance of her twisted sense of superior etiquette. Spyra could read all the signs like open book pages nailed to the wall. The tremors wracking Cynder's legs, the flush running down her snout and the scales on her black hips, how her wings preened out with unneeded rapture…
Well, at least it wasn't just her who had an addiction to human-flavored sausage. For some reason, that was oddly reassuring.
"I'm not a traitor to the dragons of Warfang." The Fallen's voice echoed, stumbling, as he placed himself in the center of the group. He grumbled at the splitting headache pulsing inside his skull, ravaging him with hot stakes right to the brain. "The only traitor here is her."
Cynder looked flabbergasted as the human pointed a finger directly at her. The rage was seeping out of her system, replaced with a solid mass of almost shy misunderstanding.
"…I…" She quietly whispered, her breath hoarse from all the fighting. She stumbled over some bricks in the debris as she took a step backwards. "…w-what…?"
"She's betrayed Malefora." The Fallen reiterated. "Cynder is defecting."
"Lies." Terradora snarled. "The Terror of the Skies has acted as a loyal servant and champion to the Dark Master since her conception. She is pure evil, you impudent little mongrel."
"She's a fucking mess, you single-minded, uninspired and frankly misandristic bitch." The Fallen snapped. Ignitia's jaw dropped, and Spyra's eyes bugged out. "She could be the only ticket you have to finally ending a thousand years of warfare, and you just cannot bring yourself to look at this in any other way except your way. It's all your way, your strategy, your rights and wrongs, Terradora. You really have blinded yourself over the years, isolating yourself from your only family, chasing a career in the military to run away from a life of baseless waste, and misused time. The monk who tries to be the soldier always ends up less than both. You want to call me impudent? Look in the mirror. God damn you all, you all need to look in the mirror! We showed up here as an allied party, and now we're at each other's throats!"
"Ohh~…" Ignitia tilted her head back with an exhausted, ghostly sigh. "-Again."
"Ah-ha, so I'm not the only one scratching my head. Jesus, you people are shallow when it comes to military alliances. You're worse than the damned Kroot…" The Fallen ranted under his breath.
"Well, technically, ole' Boulder-Chucker over there and Ignitia did walk in on your latest tryst with Cunterella." Spyra wing-shrugged. "Call me the more acceptin' chick with the eccentric lifestyle, but methinks the last lifetime of attempts from the Gothic Fuckface to kill them and their friends have left a pretty bad impression."
"If only you could speak with some conviction of prior knowledge to it." Cynder muttered, spitting dirt from her mouth and wiping her muzzle off on one of her silvery wrist-cuffs. "You've nothing more than the naive lense of a hatchling. Something that renders past evils mute for the older wyrms presiding over you, their true selves shielded by your ignorance. I bet you look at the She-Wench of Mud, and the Pyromaniac, as free of sin, and destined for martyrdom should the worst come to pass."
"I've only known these people for like a month, honey, we still got time before I have more than just hunches and shit to go off of." Spyra frowned. "And actually, now that I'm thinking about it: all that flippin' time, and I haven't witnessed any proof about the two of you. So, it is true, that you and my boi-toi' are a thing…"
Right after Spyra said that, all the eyes in the chamber (even Cynder's) went over to see Terradora's expectedly violent reaction to such news.
But strangely, the Earth Guardian said and did nothing. She was staring at the Fallen, eyes big, glassy, and wide, a deep-set and toothy frown clenched all down her muzzle, to the point where it looked as if she was trying to grind through her own molars.
The Fallen's commentary must have struck a chord. Or, quite possibly, Terradora was shell shocked at having someone back-talk her without fear of having their head ripped off for the first time in her life. What did the master tactician do when they were attacked in the one way, shape or form they never expected?
"Hmmph, well, at least I drive him mad with my feminine form. I have waited a lifetime to find the true mate who could claim my regal heart, and so be it, I have found him." Cynder harrumphed. "He is putty in my paws, you stupid little hatchling. You never had a chance in terms of mating rights against a more dominant and mature hen such as myself."
"Oh-ho, now there's a statement from the fuckin' peanut-gallery, eh?" Spyra whirled around, furious. "Yeah, bitch? You think you can play that flute? I own that flute, ya' hear? Own it, sista'. And there ain't a tune it can make, that I haven't squeezed out with these ole' hips of mine."
"OOoohhheeeewww, I'm getting images-!" Conscience mock-gagged beside the Fallen. When the latter glared, he dropped the façade like a hot-coal, and chuckled. "Nah, just kidding. I had those images even if she didn't say anything. Hard to believe, even with all this going on: it's still giving you a slight boner right now." He pointed at the Fallen's crotch.
The human tisked, and self-consciously sifted the hilt of his sword-hand over to cover his groin.
It wasn't that bad.
Damn it.
It was more like… minimal, and such. Maybe, like, thirty-seven per-cent of a boner, but still…
"Besides, Tattoo-Ass, you should be thanking me." Spyra added caustically, her gaze once again darting between every dragon there, and then the Fallen. "It's takin' a whole lot of restraint to sit back and hear all of you out. A whole lot. So, start talking, whoever has to, and do it quick, or I'll break my foot off in your ass, and pluck out your eyes with a spoon."
"…It is difficult for us, for me, you must understand." Ignitia spoke aloud when no one else said anything. "Cynder has been warring against my people for the last twenty-five years, and she has killed many, some even whom I knew personally. To so suddenly accept her capitulation, to suggest that I stand by her side and…"
"I never asked to stand by your side." Cynder hissed. "It was nothing personal, Guardian, whomever of my list of felled foes you speak of and their demise. We're all just doing our jobs, after all."
"You say that as if that's an excuse!" Ignitia flushed. "Murderer!"
"No, you never did ask, I asked for you." The Fallen interjected, nodding for Cynder, and then Ignitia. "And you have every right to be hateful, and to want justice, but I'm telling you right now that Malefora is the bigger threat. We can stop her with Cynder's help."
"That's news to me." Spyra creased her chops. "She's been doing nothing but trying to kill us, or sending other people to try and kill us the whole time."
"You mentioned a deal." The Fallen turned to Cynder. "Right?"
Cynder opened her mouth to say something-
"-A deal? With whom and for what purpose?" Ignitia scoffed, interjecting. "Fallen, Cynder has manipulated others for her entire life! It is a survival mechanism for her. It's how she has been able to live for so long among the ranks of the Dark Army. She has assured her survival by weaving a complex web of lies, extrapolations, and deceit! She lies to everyone by nature. She lies to her soldiers, to her enemies, even to her own master! She's lied to you too!"
"The deal with my Mistress was never meant to save anyone but you and me." Cynder bowed her head, eyes glistening as she stared at the human's boots. "If you wish to claim that it benefits these Northerners, then I am of the opinion that such is within your right. I simply need their Elemental Mana, not their cooperation."
"Wait…" Spyra trailed.
"Elemental Mana." Ignitia parroted. "You mean, from all four of the Guardians?"
"…I have said too much already." Cynder sneered, glancing at Terradora (still unmoved from her spot) and beginning to back away. "Mark my words, my king, we will be one, and soon."
"You seek to open the Convexus." Ignitia breathed after a moment of thought. "Why else would you need four sources filled with the purest Elemental essences in the world? You're trying to break the seal…"
"What the hell is a Convexus?" Spyra blinked. "It sounds like a skin disease."
"The Portal to the Realm of Convexity." Terradora blurted, her normal features of set stone breaking through her stupor. "You are out of your mind, Cynder."
"No, no, Cynder, you can't!" Ignitia gasped. "It was different when you opened it the first time, it was merely a barrier for Malefora, but now-"
"Silence!" Cynder shrieked. "It is the only way! Absolution! There is no answer otherwise that brings to me the sole purpose of my war! I will have the life I was denied. I will be the Queen of Concurrent, and I will have my King!"
"I don't understand." The Fallen tried to move closer to her. "What is the Convexus, Cynder? What happens if you open it? Again?"
"You will see." Cynder said mournfully. "You will see very very soon."
The black dragon vanished in a burst of Shadow-smog. And she was gone.
Well then, that was that.
{Legend of Spyro The Movie OST: Prelude to a Dream}
"Convexus." Ignitia moaned, gripping her snout and squeezing as she fell onto her haunches. "Oh Ancestors, not Convexus…"
"Do I really have to ask?" Spyra took her eyes off of where Cynder had vanished from, giving them a roll.
"It is the gateway to the reality known as Convexity: source of Shadow and all Elements and organisms related to it." Terradora robotically muttered. "Long ago, the Four Guardians before me and Ignitia imprisoned Malefora's physical form there, to prevent her from leading her armies personally during battles."
"Scarla did that, as did Litnari, Crysicos and Uungor." Ignitia huffed. "The Four Guardians of the prior age. Malefora was trapped inside Convexity for years before her Apes destroyed the Dragon Temple, absconded with Cynder's egg, and mutated her into the Cloud Ripper. Malefora used her to open the Portal of Convexus, deep in the Iron Wastes. Me and the other Guardians were unable to stop her."
"…So," The Fallen struggled to take it all in at once. "…So if Cynder opens the Convexus gateway again, what happens? What's the point?"
"It's like releasing the latches of a floodgate." Ignitia shook her head. "All of that Shadow energy will be allowed to funnel into our reality. It will literally drown the Dragon Realms in pure darkness, and it will most likely empower any dark creatures it touches, to such godly extents, that I can't even fathom."
"Malefora will get all hopped-up on portal-drugs, and she'll kick our cans." Spyra simplified. "And so will Cynder, because she'll become even more powerful."
"It's why Malefora never leaves the volcano on the Dark Continent, she's been too weak ever since the Convexus sapped away the majority of her power." Ignitia stood up. "There's no telling what will happen if Cynder opens the gateway a second time. She needs Mana from all Four Elements in order to activate the crystal in the portal's frame. It's the only key to the ancient spell-locks placed there by the original makers of the Convexus."
"And who were they?" The Fallen asked.
"All of the dead things that tried to eat us the last time me and my sisters journeyed to the Wastes." Terradora grumbled, picking at one of the cuts on her shoulder. "The Ogres. They tried to control Shadow once, to use it in a great civil war, so they built the Convexus on top of a massive spire to heighten its projective power across the north. The portal opened, and their civilization was wiped out in a great cataclysm of darkness and evil, and was then buried under the snow from an unceasing blizzard. If using that frame went as poorly as it did for them before Malefora corrupted it by being imprisoned inside of it for over a century, you could surely imagine the consequences the world will suffer should it be opened a second time."
"We need to rescue Cyrila, and get whatever item Cynder is using to harvest her Mana." Ignitia explained. "We've already wasted too much time."
"Indeed." Terradora glared daggers at the Fallen, harboring something unspoken as she yanked herself clear of the debris littering the tower.
"Oh great, more chores on the frikken' list. Sign me up…" Spyra huffed impatiently. "-By the way, now that kick-ass-theater has run its course: where's that Cold-Crust guy, or whatever the hell his name was. Ya' know: the dude who came with us from the castle? I haven't seen him."
"He must be looking for us." Ignitia sighed.
"Maybe." The Fallen stepped up to her, making an effort to brush some dirt off her breast. He gripped her scaly shoulder and limped around the Guardian's flank. "I'm not giving up on Cynder, but I'm also not letting her open that portal. Let's get Cyrila and get the hell out of these mountains."
Spyra fell into step beside him without question, and it took a moment for Ignitia to slowly follow.
"I apologize for threatening to arrest you. Again." She uttered.
"Sorry for shoulder-checking you." The Fallen said lowly.
"It was certainly better than the alternative." Ignitia shyly smiled, nodding for his sword. "I think I've had enough steel and teeth in me for one lifetime."
"Yeah, I think we've all smacked each other around enough." Spyra chimed.
"You actually deescalated a fight." The Fallen smiled at her, earning a flushed snout and a modest- 'pah' –from the purple heroine. "You should be proud of yourself."
"Well, high talk indeed from the cause of the matter." Ignitia sounded embarrassed, even though it was a shot at someone other than herself. She craned a suspicious eye on the human when he failed to respond. "If you weren't helping us get so much done, things would be much different. This is now the second time where you've caused members of our group to trade blows."
"Neither of which were intended." He grumbled.
"Regardless."
"You're right, but saying sorry only means so much." Suddenly, the Fallen stopped, and he twisted around to look behind the three of them. Ignitia followed his eyes.
Terradora remained still in the center of the wrecked foyer, eyes narrowed, her attention affixed to the floor. Ignitia thought her wings appeared to be wilted, like thirsty flowers, and wholly the image of almost beaten sheepishness was not at all the right fit for the Earth Guardian's image.
"Terra'?" She called. "Are you injured?"
Terradora blinked, like she had woken from sleep, gawking at the party for a second, before clumsily following after them. She paced while she walked, interestingly enough, her tail acting like a rudder as she swerved in her own path.
"I'll say sorry to you too, but I think I already know what you have to say to that." The Fallen said.
"If so, then why bring it up?" Terradora grunted. "You are nothing but disrespectful and childish, and you cannot make up your mind."
"I'll take that over you trying to kill me again." He faced her fully, despite Ignitia trying to stop him with a wing in his path. He delicately nudged it aside and stood to eye-level (or as best as his shorter form could manage) with Terradora. "I have no interest in fighting you or your allies, Terradora. I'm on your side, and I've made up my mind. But Cynder is a victim of Malefora's actions too. I've colluded with her because she can help bring down Malefora faster."
"Pfffyeah, you "colluded" -with her alright." Spyra clicked her tongue. "How's that strategy of yours workin' now that you know what she's trying to do?"
"It should prove your ignorance." Terradora stared him down coldly. The looks emanating from the two of them were exactly alike: hardened, unflinching. The Fallen loved it when people who had seen shit thought that they had an advantage of wisdom over him. He had news, and it wasn't so simple a victory, especially for Terra'. "But I believe I know what you have to say to that."
"You're taking this well." Ignitia nudged their snouts together.
"I am not." Terradora shook her head. "But as much as I hate to admit it, the Fallen is right. I reacted… brashly. I should have attempted dialogue and for that, I have failed you, sister."
"Oh, Terra', you didn't fail me or anyone else."
"We can talk more about this later." The Fallen nodded. "And I think I would enjoy that from a less confrontational angle, for the sake of it, right?"
"For the sake of it." Terradora grunted.
{🐉}
"-You'll never break my spirit, Ape-scum! Warfang will emerge victorious- ACK~!"
"Shut yer gob!" –The Ape officer made an extra effort to twist his grubby fingers, as he stuffed a wad of cloth down Colcrus' throat. "Can't even fink straight wit dis one squabblin all the time. Wot luck it is. A'ight! Findin some lonesum drag all his own in the caves. Make sum good stew off the flesh, some good cooked drag-feet… Im droolin already! Aight, lads, lift em up there. It's roastin' time it is!"
"These people are fucked up." Spyra mumbled commentary as the party hid in the shadows of a ridge nearby.
"They are disgusting." Ignitia hissed, watching as a team of Apes hoisted Colcrus off the ground.
He was tethered to a long pole back-first, with tight bonds of rope sealing his limbs, tail, and wings completely. The Apes plucked the pole on two prong-timbers on either side of a roaring bonfire to start the process of cooking. A cavalcade of their fellows gathered around the flames whooped and hollered as Colcrus' panicked mewls muffled out around his gag-cloth. Several of the Apes were slobbering, and one or two were even swinging around barbed eating forks impatiently.
Someone started screaming when a stray fork ended up in their eye. It was an unsurprising mishap: Apes were unconcerned with safety as much as they were absent of coordination.
"Spyra and I can take them right down the center." The Fallen touched Ignitia's wing as he started to rise from the ground. The campsite sprawled below and ahead of them in an icy depression. It had once been the ruined remains of a castle tower that had collapsed in on itself. Now, the depression survived as a cluster of stout tents fashioned from animal furs. He pointed to the side of the terrain. "You and Terradora can flank them."
"At least get some garnishes and potatoes." Spyra stuck her tongue out, giggling when Ignitia gave her a horrified look. "Kidding! I'm just kidding. Nah, c'mon guys, let's go save the annoying stooge. I knew we shouldn'ta brought him with us. I was right though, eh? Check it: fairy-boy can't even fight."
"At least he is genuine in his intent." Ignitia shook her head. She glanced over her wing to look at the back of the ridge. "Terra'? Are you ready?"
"Indeed." The Earth Guardian grunted.
Indeed indeed indeed.
It was literally the only word Terradora had been using since the incident with Cynder. She was constantly somewhere else in her thoughts, eyes glazed, locked onto distant horizons, or occasionally the Fallen's back. They were always a bit more daggered whenever the latter happened. Ignitia knew something was stirring in her battle sister's mind, but she doubted it would come to light until after they got Cyrila and went home.
"No surprises this time: do you see anything?" The Fallen nudged Spyra as he fixed his skirt-mail.
The purple dragon's eyes swept over the scene, trying to not focus on the cluster of Apes as they danced around the bonfire Colcrus was in peril of being cooked by. Unsurprisingly: she picked out a pair of Dreadwings, absent of their riders, squabbling on the edge of the camp over some unidentifiable morsel from a past meal, it looked like a chunk of an elk's leg. Aside from that, nothing on the horizon, nothing to the west, east, or the ceiling-
-wait.
Spyra did a double-take of the cavern's high-risen roofing. There, among the clusters of icicles and jagged points was something anomalous.
A hole. A literal breach in the stone that showed forth beams of dim, gray daylight through its mass to dapple to some distant point below inside the tunnelway. When Spyra followed the trajectory of the beams, her heart skipped a beat.
"-F-Fallen?"
"Yeah? Did you find something?" He smirked at her.
Spyra gulped. She reached over and cupped his chin, turning his head for him to look where she was looking.
The Fallen blinked, and then he began to quiver.
"I'm going around them." He stated.
"What? That wasn't the original plan." Ignitia gawked. "What in the world would you go around them for? They'll just attack your rear flank."
"Have Terradora flank while you and Spyra get their attention." The Fallen jumped onto his feet before any of the dragons could voice further protest. "Hold them off until I'm done."
"Done with what-?!" Ignitia squawked.
"I'll be right back~!" –He hollered, already halfway down the ridge.
"That little shit." Terradora grumbled. "I wish his strategies were inept, so I would not agree with them. I have the flank."
{The Hobbit OST: Warg Scouts}
"Got it, Terra'. You're with me, Spyra." Ignitia grunted as Ape's hooted and barked in surprise. She and Spyra leaped over the ridge's lip and started down the incline. Behind them, Terradora took to the wing and started curving from the west. "Where exactly is the Fallen going this time? It isn't Cynder again, is it?"
"Fat chance." Spyra shot her a snarky grin. "But I still just gotta' see this for myself."
What were the odds? Probably pretty good, seeing as half this little adventure had been planned out from the start by powers the Fallen could not counter at the moment.
He took the lighter flank of the mob as he sprinted between the tents and a dynamite-dump, slashing aside a handful of Apes who tried to get in his way. His eyes were fixed on the terrain past the camp's northern fringes. Where the pillars of light from the breach in the roof were showing, wedged in the great rocks, there was something of high value.
An Ape wielding an axe embroiled in magical flame bellowed in rage as he charged. The Fallen ducked under the Commander's swing and ran him through the armpit, twisting and ripping free as a cascading ribbon of arterial gore spattered the snow.
In the center of the campsite, Colcrus was wriggling like a tortured earthworm under the rope, his confused eyes following the human as he completely bypassed him and went on his way, rampaging through the Apes trying to stop him.
Where are you going?! What about me?! –The look said.
You'll be fine, the Fallen would've told him dismissively. What were some third-degree burns in the name of survival anyway?
He slashed an Ape's face open and kicked it off the side of an iced rock shelf. The terrain here buckled downwards further into a depression. A trench centered the little valley surrounded by cracked ridges and expanses of solid stone encrusted in rime. The massive maw in the earth dropped so deeply that it was pure black at the bottom. It was easily the size of a small castle, and the Fallen snarled in anger when he realized he'd have to fight his way completely around it.
Looked closer from the ridge, he noted, hopping down steppes of ice-plats, one surface at a time, his boots crunching heavily with each landing.
Behind him, the Apes shuffled down in pursuit, their breath misting underneath their brutish helmets as they stabbed the air with axes and cleavers and threatened him with angry shrieks.
One of the Apes became overeager and leaped over a ten-foot drop. He bodily collided with the Fallen at the summit, and the two of them rolled painfully down some of the plat arrays.
They landed in a splash of snow, the Ape hooting and trying to grapple with his arms. The Fallen roared and flipped their bodies around by weighing in with his knees. He punched the Ape between the eyes, held down his snout with his elbow and fore, and then grabbed his jaw with the other hand before yanking upwards and ripping it free of his head with a wet tearing sound.
Blood spurted over the Fallen's leather vesting. He sneered and killed the gagging Ape by slicing open his throat. He vaulted over the corpse, and redoubled his journey downwards.
Ice cracked and stone crumbled. A throwing axe lodged blade-first suddenly appeared by the Fallen's foot as he landed down the next steppe. More hurled axes smacked off the rocks and ice in far misses. The Fallen scooped up one of the weapons as he sprinted to the other end of the plat, pausing at the ridgeline to aim palm-wise, and throw it at the first Ape to reach his level down the cliff.
The axe gave off a whir-like whm whm WHM-! –sound, before it cracked to the hilt through an Ape's forehead and bisected his cranium. The casualty was trampled by his fellows, and the Fallen further retreated.
He could've stayed and fought the whole mob, and he probably would've won, even if Spyra and the Guardians couldn't reach him to offer support.
But the prize on the other side of this damnable trench was more valuable than any sort of pride of his.
The drop was perilous, his heart froze when he slipped on a patch of black ice, scrambling on the very edge of a gargantuan fall into the darkness below. There was a pathway of steppes skirting the trench's flank. He started to follow it, hiking, hopping, jumping up and down varying plat heights. The Apes were relentless, and being Vandal's boys, they were mountain-folk before they were Cynder's soldiers. They lived in this kind of terrain and could trek it better than he could.
He was halfway across the skirt when a cluster of Apes began to catch up to him. The Fallen panicked and tried to jump over a fissure dividing two of the ice plats. His heels hit the edge and slipped backward, nearly torpedoing him down and over the edge to his death.
"-Agh~!" –Ice crunched as his gauntlet found purchase. His arm flared in agony as all his weight yanked down on his joints. Three limbs and his torso dangled over the edge. His fingers were trembling as his grip weakened, and the window of hope closed more and more.
Shit.
The mob of Apes skidded to a collective halt on the side he had come from. One of them stopped too late, and for a moment, he wavered to and fro on the edge of the drop with his arms windmilling for balance. Another Ape slipped on the ice and shouldered him in the back, sending the shrieking grunt tumbling down into the black pits of the trench.
The Fallen swallowed as he craned over to watch the doomed Ape descend. When it was swallowed by the shadows and its screams echoed to nothingness, the Fallen could feel a leaden pit begin to build in his stomach.
"That's the hooman everyone's gettin all riled bout?" A bulky officer snarled, shoving his way to the front of the ranks. He reached over and ripped an axe out of one of his men's paws. "Gimme dat! Now, watch dis, boys."
The Fallen's eyes bugged when he saw the officer lean his axe-arm back for a throw.
"Turn im inta a pin-cushion!" Someone barked. The axe flipped through the air and out of the officer's grip, aimed for the center of the Fallen's back right between his shoulders.
The human snarled and reached up with his other hand. He held on as tightly as possible, and he swung his legs to the side, trying to mimic the weight of a pendulum.
It wasn't enough, the axe still embedded into the back of his leather cuirass with a sharp crack! –and before the Fallen knew it, he was screaming as white-hot pain shot up through his flesh and into his neck.
The axe slipped out of the incision it had made, and tumbled, its blade glistened with blood, into the blackness below. The Fallen slumped as he felt warm liquid running down and pooling into the lower center of his back. The cut wasn't that deep, but hell did it hurt.
A blast of snowy smoke suddenly was born right in the center of the steppe that the Apes had gathered on. They flew in droves over the edges and down into the trench cliffs, screaming and shrieking.
It was Terradora who appeared out of the smog, her mace-tail swinging left and right and shattering the bones of every Ape she hit.
"This changes nothing!" She called matter-of-factly to him over the chaos.
An Ape Commander as tall as she was hit her across the face with a studded maul. Terradora reeled from the hit, globules of saliva and blood flinging from the tip of her snout. The Commander hollered a deep, and ragged cry of challenge, spittle clinging to the tusks jutting out from his lower jaw. Terradora's responding roar was deafening, reptilian, and it even reverberated towards the end, like some kind of alien call from a gigantic bird. She opened her maw, and the Commander shrieked as her jaws closed over the entire space centering his broad shoulders.
Terradora literally bit his head off with a wrenching twist. Flesh tore, bones cracked and decorative tusks on the Commander's cuirass crumbled. She ripped away and let the decapitated corpse tumble. The dragon leaned over the ridge and gave a disgusted- 'p-too~!' –sending the rolling head flipping down to eternity.
"You owe her one now." Conscience chuckled, kneeling, watching as the Fallen clawed his way up from the cliff. "You do have to admit: that was pretty badass what she did with the shag-rug's head there."
"Shut up!" The Fallen barked, wincing as the pain in his back flared. "Come on! Come on, damn you!"
It wasn't far now. He sprinted- suffering the whole way –between crags sticking from the tortured landscape, and delved between the fang-like arches of a long collapsed artificial gateway.
The beams of light culminated from above in the center of a bowl-shaped wound in the ground. It was the size of a barn, roughly, and sheets of glistening glass- weeks old –crunched under his heels as he jumped over the rim and landed in the crater's edge. The cries of the Apes and the sounds of the melee were distant. As the Fallen stood up, a warm, flowing sense of something he had felt in a long time swelled up inside him, and it wasn't the blood on his back.
Relief, he breathed, stepping closer to the crater's heart through the crinkling glass sheets. Sweet gods, relief.
The orb was quite large, not as large as the one he had come down in, but large nonetheless. Its lead-colored surface glistened from the gray beams shining down on it in an almost heavenly presentation. The ground was black around the very epicenter of where it had impacted.
Just to make sure it was real, when the Fallen stumbled within arm's reach of it, he clasped his hands across the metallic flank of the pod. It rung hollowly from the contact, and the cold, alien metal stung against his palms even through the gloves of his gauntlets. It had been sitting in this cavern for so long that the material had frozen over. There were patches of rime soiling the normally pristine and satisfying roundness of the pod. The Fallen could've cried as he wiped some of the icy dust away and watched the particles float down in the air like a million tiny, falling leaves.
"It took you long enough." Conscience sighed by his flank, his own hand patting the pod's cold flesh. "If it's all in one piece, you know, you can technically leave. And you can leave with both of them."
The Fallen chuckled as he searched for the proper rune.
"No I can't."
"It's debatable if they would willingly do it." Conscience allowed. "Probably only with Spyra, though, does that apply. Cynder would be all for it in a heartbeat. But then again, there are the mutations…"
"Conscience, you're many horrible, stupid things," The Fallen grinned when the pod hissed, and the ice cracked as a portion of the rounded flank started to lift from the porcelain-smooth metal. "an excuse-maker is not one of them. We have to stay here, for now."
"I am actually quite glad to hear you say that."
He would've looked at his other half, but he was too preoccupied with the pod.
The moment the hatch lifted, the Fallen threw himself forwards, delving into the curiously ozone-scented interior of the pod's guts. Metal rung against his knees and his cut bled, but he didn't care. He was too excited, too overjoyed.
In the darkness sat a small bundle of metallic items. The Fallen reached out for them without even thinking. His fingertips brushed the plating, and then-
"-Ack-!" –The Fallen's breath was squeezed out of him. Something had entrapped his torso, snaring it and compressing it with a colossal force that he could not overpower.
When he looked down, he expected to see something like a serpent, or a giant line of rope.
His eyes bugged when he saw that it was neither of those things, but a set of four, jagged and giant fingers.
Fingers made of semi-translucent ice.
{The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim OST: Combat #5}
With a defiant cry, he was yanked from inside the pod and tossed across the crater. The Fallen hacked as his wounded back slammed into the cold soil and he slid down onto his rear. Looking up, he gasped when a hunched, imposing thing rose from where it was squatted over the pod, like a gigantic child would stoop down to get at an insect hiding beneath a piece of furniture.
In similar adolescent interest, the creature released a groan that sounded like a glacier shifting across a sea of rock, and slowly craned around to focus its attention on him. It had no eyes, nor a discernible head. Its torso was blocky, and its left arm was much more massive than the right, adorned with a huge wad of jagged ice for a shoulder, and layered down with sections of solid crystal that ended in a maul-shaped fist.
The ice-creature groaned again and took a thundering step towards him, evidently intent on finishing the job.
"Huh." Conscience offered a hand, but the Fallen swatted it away with an agitated growl. "I didn't think this place had Golems."
"It has magic, doesn't it?" The Fallen clenched his fists as he watched the huge monster stomping closer and closer. "…Oy Vey'."
"Better get your Speedy-Gonzales on, hombre'!" Conscience grit his teeth as the Ice Golem raised its bulbous, armored fist, descending them both into a dark shadow. "It's definitely a cold day in hell!"
The Fallen cried out and threw himself forwards, the ground he had been standing on vanishing in a plume of smoke as the Golem brought its fist down.
The creature groaned, and tried to lean lower to peer between its legs as the Fallen scrambled to his feet, and started beelining for the pod again. His sword was useless here, and he could only dodge so much. If the Golem caught him with an attack like that, he'd be a portaljumping pancake and nothing more.
That doesn't sound like a really satisfying career path.
The Golem swung around with surprising speed, using its larger arm like a scythe as it swiped it across the air. The thumb hit him in the side, and the Fallen barked as he was lifted off the ground, going airborne in a complete loop before landing.
Crack~!
-Oh shit.
He didn't feel the pain yet, but that snap of something that wasn't supposed to be moving, that was now moving, in his chest was signal enough that the landing was really bad. He rolled onto his chest and got up.
Need the pod. Need the pod. Come on.
An icy foot slammed into the ground, blocking his path.
The Fallen gawked in horror as a second Ice Golem finished stepping over him and the ridge of the crater, and formally stood itself up right beside the other one. Each monster was almost fifteen feet tall, and reams of tiny ice-dust fell from their roughened joints each time they moved.
Both Golems turned to face him, and then they started stomping closer, spreading out so that he couldn't dart around them.
Where was Spyra or one of the Guardians when you needed them? Maybe there had been more Apes back there than they had initially thought there were, because he was on his own out here entirely. He couldn't stop these things.
I've come too far to get squashed by some ice-sculptures gone awry ten feet from that pod, he thought angrily. One of the Golems raised its foot to stomp on him like he was a bug. The Fallen winced as his body flared in yet more pain.
This is going to hurt.
When the heel fell, the Fallen roared and threw himself forwards again. Whatever was broken in his torso stabbed him with a red-hot flare of burning agony, and cuts he'd sustained from the scuffle earlier with the Apes bled just a bit more.
He hit the ground at the same time as the Golem's heel. A mighty crash shielded the little pa-dunf –of his body hitting the dirt. The Golems were blinded by their own girth, angling their faceless bodies about to try and locate him in the resultant confusion. The Fallen cried out as he jumped, and ran for the pod again.
Just have to keep trying, he reminded himself, leaping through the portcullis, and slapping his hands heavily over the heaped items inside. Something clicked, and the repeated taps and shifts of a million tiny pieces of metal began to sound, going from a murmur to a roar within seconds. Never concede defeat.
-Not his words, but inspiring nonetheless.
The pod shifted around him, as one of the Golems clapped its massive hands on either side, and started to lift the pod into the air as earth crumbled and metal groaned.
The Fallen hissed as he tore off his clothing bit by bit, shedding the cuirass, unbuckling the skirt, throwing away the gauntlets and knee-guards, until nothing but the torn and tortured jumpsleeve of his was left. There was a brief weight that overtook his body, then, a little electronic-sounding chime came out.
"Initialize." He muttered painfully, little motions, such as those from a swarm of butterflies, sounding and happening all down his body and limbs.. "Immediate recovery procedures. Bypass bootup. Fix me already, god damn you."
"*Internal grid network operational. Augmetics: attaching. Simulation maintenance: green. Spinal Sensory Nodes: found. Nanoassembly Procedure to Completion: full.*"
"Injections!" He roared. The pod rumbled, and he could hear the Golems groaning outside. Metal was twisting, and light was flickering in from the other side of the pod. The metal buckled, dented, and then belched a plume of sparks. A trio of bladed fingers made of ice punched through the hull and curled upwards, getting a firm grip, before the Golem started to peel the pod open like it was a sardine can.
"*Multiple contusions detected. Broken bones in the thoracic and upper left extremity regions detected. Administering regenerative solution.*"
He hated doing that.
But, it was better than getting squashed by a pair of evil Frosty the Snowmen.
He hissed as a series of needles suddenly penetrated the flesh going down the entirety of his central back. His veins felt cold, numb, and then warm. The boot sigils for the internal temperature winked to life, a transparent, purple frame arose and locked his world in an organized panorama. He could feel his skin stitching itself back together, the wound across his back, the lacerations, all of them sealed, leaving only drying trails of blood in their wake. Whatever had gone wrong in his torso snapped back into place numbly.
"…Weapons systems?" He uttered, wincing when the roof of the pod snapped free with a shriek of metal, and the light from outside briefly blinded him. "Tell me the muscle weave is at least ready, baby."
"*All directives are functioning. Your armory is located by your left foot, and all has remained stable in the absentee period, which is approximately thirty-six days, two hours, and twenty-eight minutes. Welcome back.*" –Quipped a familiarly toneless, female voice.
"Good to be back." The Fallen snatched a small metallic box from the pod's floor, and held it to his hip, where it magnetically stuck. He swiped a few runes floating before his eyes by blink-clicking them, and something heavy began to form from seemingly nothing in his hand's grip.
"*Aim adjustment settings?*"
"Nah. I'll kill these fuckers freehand."
Right after the Fallen spoke, an icy fist two times his size came crashing down, and impacted the rent half of the pod dead-center where he knelt. Metal crunched, and the sound of the impact rang out like the shot of a cannon.
The Ice Golem rumbled victoriously, twisting its fist over the mangled, crushed wreckage of the pod. Believing its prey to be nothing more than bloody paste, it tossed the wreckage of the pod down with a hideous crash. Smoke and debris flew everywhere.
Then, from the silence came a curt, and thick crack!
-A beam of purple-colored light flickered into life, traveling from the epicenter of the smashed pod, where it punched into the first Golem's blocky chest, and burst out of its back in a spray of vapor and glittering icicle shards.
The Golem groaned and stumbled backward, shouldering into its companion, who likewise had to catch itself on the rim of the crater. The ground shook and they stomped and growled at one another.
It could've been the injury sustained by one of them that resulted in the roars and grumbles, but it was mostly confusion. Golems had limited intelligence and were often only as bright as a rat, only knowing decision-making based on what was good to crush and what wasn't, by its creator's order.
But even Golems had some understanding of overkill, and if everything they knew about things smaller than them held out: then that puny little flesh-thing they had just squashed should've been dead.
So what was happening?
The second Golem went to bring down its fist, but another shot of purple light flickered out of the smog. It tore into the creature's shoulder, and severed its arm raggedly from its torso in a blast of vaporous smog. The Golem produced a high-pitched wail, falling onto its backside against the rim of the crater.
Suddenly, in a burst of blue flame, a figure sprinted forwards, and was propelled off their heels, suspended briefly on jets of cascading, aqua-colored fire. They landed on the Golem's chest, boots and gauntlets- sealed with layers of multi-banded synthetic weave –crunching painfully into the ice making its flesh. The Golem groaned in torture, trying to reach up with its smaller hand to swat its opponent off.
The humanoid's head- obscured in a tri-angled visor –cocked in what could've been a display of amusement. It raised its arm, and the funneled pistol-weapon in its grip screamed.
Cakakak –three beams of purple light, each announced with a sharp crack whipped from the barrel, and the Golem's only remaining hand exploded in a swirling mist of vapor and ice-chunks.
Much like a monkey, the figure seemed to sense the next incoming attack, and so with another burst of blue light, leaped from his victim's chest in a millisecond of movement.
The Golem's companion brought down its fist and wound up smashing it into its ally's chest where the little enemy had been. Ice crunched, and the victim gave off another shriek from the agony.
Making sure to direct the thruster-packs located in the rear shoulder and tailbone zones, the Fallen zipped through the air, free in-flight, almost like a wingless dragon, and landed atop the other Golem's blocky 'head'.
"Play time's over." The human muttered. "Do me a favor there, big guy: hold these."
There was a glowing vent-port on his forearm. The synthetically sealed fingers of his gauntlet crinkled as he clenched a fist, making sure to clear his wrist from the aim-cone, before the vent flared, and a trio of glowing, luminescent purple orbs zipped out and stuck to the handless Golem's center chest. The creature had a second to groan in confusion.
Then, the orbs detonated.
BSHHHKK~!
-The Golem vanished from the hips up into a cloud of pieces and smoke, the explosion vaporizing the majority of its torso, and utterly rending the rest. A disembodied ice-arm cartwheeled over the edge of the crater, a thigh bounced two times nearby before settling, and torso-slabs were airborne in a circumferenced area of over fifty feet.
"*Weapons systems fully functional. Activate Wyvern Blade?*"
The Fallen jumped and flipped halfway down from the descent, right when he was level with the center of the surviving Golem's chest. A purple pillar of energy whisked to life from the same vent-port that the explosives had come from, extending to the length of a longsword past his hand. For a moment, the Fallen was a spiraling pinwheel with an array of purple glowing teeth. The cuts sliced clean through the solid ice making the Golem's torso, sending mist, sparks and debris raining down in droves.
The Golem teetered back, reaching out as if to clasp some unseen ledge, before it tripped over its own heels, and fell in two cleanly sliced halves onto the ground thunderously.
"*Efficiency maintained since last screening: 99.8%, two fractals lower than original intent.*"
"Nobody's perfect, dear." The Fallen grunted, standing up. He jerked his wrist, and the energy blade vanished back into the port with a ghostly hiss. "Activate motion trackers, immediate area. No scans of this world, so no worry."
"*Trackers show multiple unidentified organisms in sorting sec-*"
"Yeah yeah I know. Visual rolodex, horizontal, override and manual selection for what the fuck I'm killing and what I'm not. Priority," He paused, waiting for his helmet's internal HUD to get to work on his requests. "-lifeforms here, here, here, and here. Tags: Spyra, Terradora, Ignitia, Cynder. Class 1 VIPs. One of them farts, and I know about it, understand?"
"*Settings adjusted. Further modifications to current rig?*"
"Assign species list: dragons, Moles, Grublins, Orcs, Apes, marking kill orders."
"*Warning! Majority of recorded species are listed for kill-order. Continue?*"
"Yeah, I know, this place kind of sucks a bag of dicks. Good thing I got my cleaning tools back. Maybe it won't be that way for much longer."
{🐉}
{Dragon Age Inquisition OST: Battle for Haven}
"-You gotta' get me out of here~! The heat- it's too much~! Heeeeellllppppp~!"
"Spyra, dear, I'm all for saving the innocent," Ignitia grunted, casting away the bloody, dismembered corpse of an Ape from her claws. "-but did you have to remove the gag before we untied him?"
"Listen, sista', I was this close to gettin' him down from there, ya' hear? THIS CLOSE." Spyra screeched. She slashed left, right, left, swiped with her tail, and blasted a crispy trench down the enemy ranks with a thick blast of fiery breath. "Then, one of these fuckin' asshats was on top of me, and I had to disengage so I could rip off their balls! Yeah, you-!"
Spinning to free a pair of corpses from her paws, Spyra ducked under a cleaver blade, and caught the offending Ape soldier by the throat with her claw, squeezing until the primate dropped his weapon, and his piss-yellow eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.
"You're an asshat, you hear me?! Huh?!" She screamed at him, shaking him violently. The Ape nodded frantically, and started to change colors as she lifted him off the ground. There was a repulsive twitch down the Ape's stomach, and a second later, a ragged fftttt~! –noise tore out from its breaches as the poor monkey shit himself in terror. Spyra's nose twitched, and a look of utter horror took over her. "Ohhhhgawd~, he just crapped at me!"
"Heeeeellllpppp~!" Colcrus screamed at the top of his lungs, still tied to the pole over the diminishing bonfire.
"Spyra, are you injured? What's wrong?" Ignitia cried, fighting to shake off a pair of officers that had thrown themselves over her mighty back, and were trying to bring her down.
"This fuckin' flea-bitten, crooked-toothed, cross-eyed, inbred, dick-lickin', misdirected mother-fucker just shit at me!" Spyra ranted. "I'm gonna' kill every single one of you~!"
The Ape whimpered a prayer that was somehow mixed in with muttered batches of mortified dialogue about its soiled pantaloons. Spyra incinerated his face down to the skull-bone with a blast of fire, and tossed the cindering cadaver into the mob.
"You were right." Terradora commented beside Ignitia as she fought. "Her vocabulary is gruesome."
"I-I certainly didn't word it like that." Ignitia blushed, modestly ripping her tail free, and snapping the Ape's neck constricted there like it was a toothpick. The body pirouetted and collapsed.
"There's too many of them!" Spyra barked. "Ugh~! And of course, who chooses to wander off like a drunk? The one-man-army! Damn it, Fallen!"
"He's probably run off with the Cloud Ripper." Terradora breathed in exhaustion, her mace scything a cluster of Apes down with a series of cracking bones and ripping flesh. "That skinless dog."
A Dreadwing screeched as it stampeded through the mass of infantry towards them, right as another trio of its kin landed on the other side of the camp- these ones, saddled and with spear-wielding riders –before they quickly shoved through the melee towards the front.
Spyra's face was covered in gore as she rammed full-speed into an Ape with her horns, and cast him away with a sweep of her neck. A Commander sent her rolling across the ground with a kick to the breast, and the massive Ape followed her, the air quivering under the duress of his savage bellowing. The greatsword in his paws flashed white as beams of enchanted Electricity danced up and down the blade. He raised his weapon, and Spyra knew she was about to get cleaved right through the belly-
-then, suddenly, the Ape Commander's head vanished.
Cracking sounds, what sounded similar to flintlock gunshots, echoed down the cavernous tunnel. One second, the Ape Commander was hauling back to kill her, and the next, poof. The first bolt of purple energy vaporized his skull, and the next two turned his upper torso into charred oatmeal, painting his fellows with his dark, coagulating gore.
Before Spyra could follow where the projectiles came from, a figure appeared from above, and landed between the dragons and the Apes, the ground under its heels cracking with little spider-legs.
"-What just happened-?!" Ignitia heaved. All of the Apes in the mob were briefly allowed to step back from the engagement, their eyes fixated on the new arrival as gasps, bellows and clinking weapons rippled down the crowd.
"…I'm either seeing shit, or I'm dead and this is hell." Spyra murmured, quivering as she stood up from the dirt.
"-G-Guys, w-what happened?! W-Who is that?! Is that Malefora?! Oh my Ancestors, it's her isn't it?!" Colcrus shrieked, still tied to the damned stick.
"That is not Malefora." Terradora shouldered beside Ignitia, panting, her maw stained with dark Ape gore.
The figure was garbed in a darkly colored suit of thin armor. It had a helmet centered with a tri-pointed visor glowing neon green, flaring thruster-packs erected from its rear shoulders and the tailbone plate. A compact cuirass and hip protection curled over a black under-layer of flexible sheet-material that glistened like metal, but bent like cloth. Just inside the gorget of the suit, Spyra could see a hint of the torn-up jumpsleave the Fallen usually wore.
"Fallen?!" She gawked.
The Fallen glanced back at her, and though she couldn't see his face through that snarling visor, somehow she could just tell that the cocky asshole was smiling.
"-Did the human grow armor or something?!" Colcrus asked.
One of the previously shocked Apes snarled out an insult, and nailed Colcrus in the head with a tossed cooking pan.
Clank-!
"-OW-!" -Colcrus shrieked.
"Shut up, dinna!" The Ape snapped.
"Another development you knew nothing of." Terradora mumbled in Ignitia's direction. "What have you gotten us into?"
"I-I can blame Spyra for this one, can't I?" Ignitia gulped. When Terradora sputtered, the subject matter turned around briefly and shook her head.
"Yeah, I'm totally the cause for this, no homo, blame me all you like." Spyra admitted. "I'm being serious."
"Oi, so da hooman has fancy armor now. Big deal! Let's get him!" –An Ape barked. "Fer Chief Vandal!"
{Led Zeppelin: Immigrant Song}
Just like that, the whole mob surged forwards again, and the roar of melee rebounded down the tunnel.
As Spyra leaped back with a surprised yip, preparing to take on a group of infantrymen making to engage her, she saw the beginning of the end.
The Fallen stood up and brushed his hands over a tiny silvery box by his hip.
A pistol materialized in one palm seemingly from thin air, and in the other hand, the hilt of what she assumed was some kind of great weapon.
Finally, after all this time she was about to see the real Fallen! The guy who jumped between worlds, kicked ass, and shot people up with gear he didn't steal from monkeys!
What could it be? She wondered, trying to steal glanced between every kill and parry she made.
The Fallen was surging forwards in a practiced stride, the pistol belching forth streams of purple bolts that scythed down the Apes by the tens.
It punched clean through anything it hit. Incinerating mail, leather, canvas, cloth, flesh, fur and bone all at once, leaving nothing but cauterized and blackened wounds in its wake, and misting gore from the immediate impact as hole-ridden corpses flipped and danced away from the barrages.
The Fallen pistol-whipped an Ape in the face, and the front of his head caved in with a spurt of blood. Spyra felt her jaw drop. The Fallen was twice as strong as she had seen him last, maybe even ten times as strong.
And this was all before the weapon in his clasp could finish materializing.
It was halfway up the handle!
It had to be a maul, a Morningstar, a mace, a scepter of power, something! Something that he crushed armies with, something that he saved space and time with! Something-
"Oh my god!" Ignitia cried out for the second time today. "-What the fuck is he doing with a toilet plunger?! –Oh-! S-Spyra, I'm sorry you had to hear that. Pardon. Ah-hmm."
-And not just any plunger.
A toilet plunger that was on fire.
Because apparently, in other worlds, this was a thing.
A lot of the Apes must have been shocked too, because Spyra was able to stare at the bizarre scene for over five minutes without any opportunistic combatants attacking her in the meantime of her stupor.
True to description, a toilet plunger materialized in the Fallen's gauntlet, and no sooner did the black cup at the top finish forming, did the entire weapon flash white, and become wreathed in magical fire.
The Fallen had been mowing down droves with the alien pistol in his grip, but now was the first example of a melee attack with something besides his hands.
He swung the plunger in an upper handed arc.
It connected with an Ape's chin, and knocked his head off his shoulders in a blast of flames and misting blood.
The plunger could kill things.
A toilet implement.
These days just got weirder and weirder.
Blaster and plunger in hand, the Fallen began to systematically slaughter the Apes. Bodies flew with every cleaving arc of the flaming plunger, and whole squads vanished in discombobulated limbs and clouds of blood with each pull of the pistol's trigger.
A Dreadwing charged him, a sonic scream echoing from its fanged maw as visible flurries of sound came flying for the Fallen.
The attack was ignored. The Fallen sprinted through the haze and leaped into the air with a quick jump from his thrusters. He brought the plunger down on the Dreadwing's head, and its skull splattered open like a shaken egg. Shooting the rider, the Fallen grabbed the quivering, massive corpse's shoulder and actually shoved it out of his way. It thunderously crashed to the ground as he sprinted around it, killing a path through more infantry.
It wasn't much longer after that, that the Apes- now completely outclassed against weaponry not even native to their reality –broke and were wiped out to a man. The Fallen zipped around the field on his jumpjets, chasing down survivors and killing them in quick and efficient displays of barbarity. Even Terradora had stopped all effort herself, and had sat on the icy ground beside Spyra and Ignitia to watch with fascination as the human mopped up their foes.
With said bloody work concluded, the thrusters produced a weak hiss as the Fallen levitated in front of them for a second. He landed with a quiet click of his new, purple-black boots, and stood before them, shoulders wide, flaming plunger and gun gripped on either side.
For a moment, nobody said anything.
"…What?" The Fallen shrugged, tiny servo-joints in his suit whining as did so. "I told you all I was looking for stolen property."
"This is the weapon you were speaking of so fondly?" Ignitia looked him down from head to armored toe.
"One of them." He mumbled, looking down at the items in his hands. "Oh, lemme' turn that off." The flames crackling around the plunger vanished in a snap! –making the dragons jump. "Sorry."
"I've never seen anyone take on an entire army like that." Terradora's momentary awe diminished, and she ended her statement with a sneer. "Nobody except Malefora."
"I might be saying this hastily, but I think if he wanted us dead, he would've done so by now." Ignitia cleared her throat, coughs building up from her lung-problem. "-*cough* -Fallen?"
"Why would I want you guys dead? I don't look that scary, do I?" The Fallen's voice was tinged slightly with metal and static as he spoke through the helmet's vent filters. "Well, uh… ta-dah, I suppose. My normal portaljumping gear, in the flesh. The pod must have crashed through the mountain shelf when I first came down, and I guess nobody realized that the hole in the ceiling was a sign that something had come through recently-"
"How do we know you're actually inside there, and this isn't some kind of construct you're controlling from somewhere else?" Spyra accused. Ignitia opened her mouth to say something, but paused, and then made a face that silently told her agreement with Spyra's concerns. Terradora just kept on glaring, like she usually did.
God, she is such a douche sometimes, the Fallen kept to himself, Terradora, not Spyra. He nodded, the helm bobbing as he did so, and leaned his plunger down cup-first on the ground. Latches and attachments on the neck hissed as he grabbed the helm's chin, and carefully lifted it free of his head. His messy black hair jostled a bit, but he still managed to smile at them as he cradled the headwear by his hip.
"Ladies." He flexed his eyebrows. "Call it good luck: but I think I can make this a whole lot easier for all of us today."
"-I-Impressive." Ignitia breathed, still examining the suit up and down.
Terradora harrumphed and spat in the dirt.
Spyra was the only one who stepped forwards, still covered in the sudor of the battle and Ape gore, she walked a full circle around his legs, sniffing at the plates protecting his shins, running a paw down the side of his hip rig, touching one of the skirt plates protecting his lower waist. The Fallen grinned as he let her poke and prod.
"It's synthetic." He said to her lowly as the inquisitive dragoness hopped onto her hind legs, propping herself up with her forepaws on his shoulders like she normally did. It felt different this time because he was just a bit taller from the suit, and the pauldrons he was wearing were much bulkier than the thin, fleshy shoulders hidden inside them. "Multi-weave plating over a flexibility superiority sleave. It can protect me from almost anything. Even has temp' regulation too, environmental sealing, hazard lockdown and whatnot."
She hummed- perhaps only half-listening –and leaned forwards to sniff at the gorget protecting his collar and neck. Her tail whipped about.
"You were flying." Spyra mumbled, craning an eye at one of the thrusters peaking from over its pauldron. "But you don't have wings. How can you fly without wings?"
"Jet power." He said, even though he knew she wouldn't quite understand, at least not the science behind it. It seemed acceptable enough to her, as she didn't ask again. "It's, uh… a lot to take in, in the moment, I get it if you're a little ehm… put off."
"Put off…" She parroted idly, distracted, as she ran a talon through the crease of some of the torso plates. "-what? Put off. No. Nah. Nothin' to be put off, not with me, man, it doesn't scare me or anything. It's different, though, I mean… shit, dude, the longer I'm around you, the crazier my life gets."
"I concur." Ignitia appeared beside her, her amber eyes locked on the various doo-dads and details of the alien armor. She touched the Fallen's gauntlet, eyeing a strange setup of flashing devices sticking from a curved outlet on the arm's top.
"Ah." The Fallen gently tugged his arm free from the two dragonesses. "D-Don't touch that one, that's the tactical setup, and my projector nozzle."
"I don't know what either of those things mean, but they sound badass." Spyra breathed. "Show me."
"Stand back."
Both dragons jumped, and Ignitia yelped when he stuck his arm out to the side, and a purple, glowing blade snapped to life protruding from the nozzle above his wrist. The Fallen grinned and gave it a little wiggle, watching as the dragons became like moths to a light from the purple glow.
"…Wow." Spyra gasped. "Can I touch it?"
"No." He quickly said, and the blade vanished in a crackle of ozone. "It's superheated molecularly concentrated Wyvern Plasma. It can cut through solid titanium. If you touched it, your fingers would be vaporized."
"Yes, the toys under the alien's possession are quite decadent. Now, if we may save Cyrila some time today?" Terradora nudged Ignitia with her wing, glaring at the Fallen's armor. "Preferably before supper."
"Mm, supper." Ignitia mumbled to herself, claws sweeping down the Fallen's plated ribs. "All of this fighting has made me ravenous."
"Hey hey, there's plenty of time later." He winked at her, making the Guardian shiver as she rubbed his plating harder without even realizing it.
"Can somebody please put this fire out?!" Colcrus called from nearby. "I don't want to get blisters in my scales, and this rope is chafing. Hello? Anyone?"
"Ugh, why did we take him with us." Spyra rolled her eyes. "Well, armor-man, whaddya' say you put this shit to use?"
"With pleasure." The Fallen grinned.
{🐉}
Colcrus at least wasn't the type to complain for long periods of time. He was much quieter though, for the last bit of the walk down the tunnel.
"They grabbed me when I walked around a snowdrift." He earlier relented when questioned. "I heard some of the officers arguing about how they were going to use my blood for the broth."
"All that matters is that we were able to act quick enough to free you." Ignitia comforted.
"Where were you guys anyway? I looked all over and I couldn't find any of you."
"Bathroom break." The Fallen grunted, uninterested in providing any real explanation. It was already a struggle enough to get Terradora to keep quiet. He couldn't imagine having a whole troupe of soldiers regimented just like her getting wind of his extra-factional escapades.
The Earth Guardian grunted at his choice of words but said nothing, and Ignitia was silent, unwilling to spark another fight between her allies.
"And what about that armor? Where did that come from?" Colcrus hurried in his walking to try and get closer so he could eyeball the various plates and arrays of synthetics now protecting the Fallen's body. "I've never seen anything like it. Who forged it? Was it the Moles? They work wonders with these kinds of things."
"It wasn't the Moles." The Fallen shook his head. "You'll have to excuse me leaving it at that."
"But how come?"
"Because it's none of your business."
The cavern funneled into a small zigzag of black-stoned tunnelways, the corners of which were studded with stone brazier markers containing clusters of purple glowing gems on their tops. They shaded the tunnel in an otherworldly manner, dappling the ceiling, like waves of calmly lapping water would reflect light.
"The cists…" Ignitia muttered. Periodically, they passed stone outcrops in the halls, aisles carved through the rock and rimmed with ornately carved arches. Cist lids capped the end of each aisle, and many of them were cracked open, their contents- little vases and tattered parchments, some bones too –lying scattered on the ground. "Cynder's men have defiled the dead."
"Defiled? Sista', they stole the dead. Unless the Ice's have a thing with just burying the femur or tibia and keeping the rest." Spyra stuck her tongue out in disgust, making sure not to touch some of the ancient dragon bones lying about the detritus. "None of these cists have full bodies in them."
"If Cynder has harvested the dead, that can only mean one thing." Terradora uttered to Ignitia.
"I wish you were incorrect, but I can't think of anything else." Ignitia shivered. "She is a skilled Necromancer. If the Fallen's tale earlier is true about those Ice Golems, then Cynder has weaponized everything the tombs have to offer. Those Golems are ancient guardians of the tunnels created by the Ices. They aren't supposed to attack dragons or their allies. She must have charmed them."
"You're both certain about that." The Fallen stated, bending to a kneel to pluck a dragon's bone off the ground. He twisted it about in his fingers, the green glow from his visor reflecting off the tanned, bleached material dimly. "The question is: are they all together, or did they get up individually?"
"What the heck are you all blabbering on about?" Spyra quirked a brow.
"I'm going to make Cynder and those Apes pay." Colcrus held back a quiver in his jaw as he gingerly stepped away from one of the ruined cists. Rage was in his normally cool eyes, and his tail was whipping furiously. "They'll pay dearly for this. This is evil. What kind of dragon dishonors the Ancestors in such a way?"
"A desperate one." The Fallen muttered, putting the bone down as he stalked towards the end of the tunnel. "Guys?"
His tone was enough to get all the dragons to unsheathe their claws. Spyra blinked as she trotted to advance beside him like she normally did. That strange blaster weapon materialized in the Fallen's left hand, and the plunger in the right. She watched him wriggle his fingers on each of them in turn. He looked down at her when he noticed her staring.
"Doomblaster." He clarified, holding the gun a bit closer. "Plunger of Doom." He held the plunger closer. "Lots of doom in the names. Don't judge me: it wasn't my idea, neither was the plunger at all in the first place."
"If not yours then whom?" Terradora gawked.
"It's complicated."
"Yeah, well, if it's half as whacked as all the other shit that's been bubbling to the surface lately, I can't even imagine the specifics of-" Spyra's words left her as a colossal chamber materialized just outside the last arch of the confined tunnelway. All the dragons and the human looked up, and could not look away. "…Wow."
{Pikmin 2 OST: Save Area}
The cavern was large enough to hold a city, and in a sense, it sort of did.
Islands were floating in midair, suspended by some unknown and mysterious arcane manner. Great chunks of snowy mountain-flesh capped with entire castles, ruined spires, watchtowers, atriums and all other manners of sections and pieces of architecture bobbed minutely in every conceivable direction. Crystals colored an opaque greenish-aqua sprinkled the air like millions of snowflakes, each the size of a thumb or thimble. They floated with yet more buoyancy than the great tracts of levitating land did, appearing as a gigantic ocean of glowing snowflakes that would not fall.
The Fallen reached up, and he tapped one of the little crystals floating just above the dome of his helmet. The gem made a minute clink sound, and it sparkled as it slowly twisted away, propelled from the touch as if the chamber lacked gravity.
"The Crystal Tombs of Chrysalis." Ignitia whispered, smiling as she pinched another tiny gem from the air, and held it in her palm. "It's Spirit Mana."
"There's different kinds of Mana besides green and red?" Spyra asked, still unable to take her eyes off the scene above.
"Spirit Mana is something that deserves much more than an on-the-spot explanation, little one." Ignitia hummed, letting the gem go. It floated slowly away and to oblivion. "These gems have been frozen from age, they cannot be harvested from contact anymore. But they contain the virulent life-energy that once flowed in the veins of the dragons entombed here. This is the one thing Cynder can never take away from this place. The magic will never let her."
"So, I guess somewhere in here is my auntie, and my grandragon." Colcrus sadly mused, cupping one of the gems from its spot in the air. He ran a talon down the face of it thoughtfully before letting it float away from his paw. "They were buried here years ago."
"*Alert!*"
The Fallen's heads-up-display inside his helmet lit red. The motion-trackers and vitals registrar was indicating something else in the great chamber with them. Not interrupting the dragons' talk, he blink-activated the link and took a look at a cluster of red blips.
Vital signs registered as Apes, and… something else. Something that moved, that had no heartbeat to be recorded.
"Together." He decided from the question earlier, under his breath.
"Did you say something?" Spyra's eyes were glassy as she looked right through him, still transfixed by the beautiful tombs.
Vital signs for Apes, Cynder's defiling of the dead, and of a dragon.
It was her.
It had to be Cyrila. Cynder's tag was absent here. At least for now, but she could've been shielding herself with magic. His suit was designed to work around magical enchantments, but those procedures didn't always work.
It was magic, after all.
"There, on that island." Terradora nodded.
{Dragon Age Inquisition OST: Battle for Haven}
The party stepped to the edge of the plateau that the tunnelway disgorged onto. The tiled floor of the tomb broke away raggedly for a cliff face, again dropping so deeply below the floating islands that every down there was swallowed by blackness.
One of the islands overhead contained the crumbling remains of an atrium plaza, bobbing silently in the chamber's air. Blue light showed forth as a pulsating pillar from the center of the plaza, and at its eye upon the ground, chained to a black steel pedestal was a beautiful dragoness coated in a creamy blue coat with a purple breast and belly. She had horns jagged like icicles, and the features of her face were sculpted as if they were chiseled from solid rime in perfect clarity. Her mighty, purple wings were chained down along with her crescent-tipped tail, and her eyes were serenely shut. At the tip of the pedestal, held in a small chalice-attachment was a clear crystal, now glowing vibrantly with luminescent, blue energy.
"A Siphoning Crystal!" Ignitia cried. "Ancestors, Cynder's killing her!"
"Talk to me, Ignitia." The Fallen's thrusters lit up, and he hunched in preparation for a leap.
"Remove the crystal." Terradora barked, spreading her wings. "Get to the crystal and get it off the pedestal, break the ritual! That is all that matters! Fly!"
The air may have been thin up here, but so pumped on adrenaline, and having already braved it once, none of the dragons were impeded when they took off with haste into the crystal-ridden air. The Fallen rocketed off his heels beside them, and for a while, his eyes were locked on the drop below them, lead building in his guts.
Flying.
It'd been a month, he wasn't used to it.
Deal with it. You lost your fear of heights.
The Fallen raised his chin, fighting off the freeze with a labored growl. He glanced over his pauldron at Spyra, and saw that the purple dragoness was looking right at him.
With her golden and orange wings spread fully, Spyra couldn't help a smile tugging at the edges of her muzzle, a toothy one. She sidled a little bit closer, mindful to not catch her membranes on the jet-streams cascading from his thrusters.
"I never thought I'd fly with you." She called.
"I did." He said back, voice amplified via the little speakers on his helm. It made Spyra jolt in surprise, but her smile only got wider.
"Damned Apes!" Colcrus cursed, nodding down at the platform as it got closer. "Look, there's more of them over there!"
"Wait a second, what's the deal, those ones look different. Another tribe?" Spyra glanced at Ignitia.
"Cold Legionnaires." Terradora snarled. "Cynder's bodyguards. We shall see how 'elite' they are against my claw."
"Underestimate them not." Ignitia announced. "They are purpose-trained dragon-killers."
Though their numbers appeared relatively small, the Cold Legion Apes were no less imposing for their namesake. Each of them had snow-white fur, and was bedecked in purple-black armored plating. A cluster of them had gathered on the precipice of what might've once been a bridge extending from the island's chin. There was a Commander with an enchanted warhammer that glowed vibrant white and trailed snowflakes in the air, he pointed at them with the hammer and bellowed loudly.
"Spika-turrets!" Ignitia cried.
Similar to the structures they had encountered in the swamps, a pair of the devices had been bolted into the stone on this side of the island, and were swiveling to face up at them. These contraptions, however, were different. They were made of the same purple-black metal that the Legionnaires' armor was, and a pair of antenna-like prongs stuck out on either side of the dais ring like snail-eyes, a crackling band of purple electricity dancing between them.
Their barrels flashed, and instead of solid, sharpened metal slugs, it was bolts of Shadow Mana that careened up into the air to meet them.
"Lookout!" Ignitia shouted.
The two Guardians and Colcrus spread out their flight paths as bolts of purple death screamed between and around them. The cannons below had no need to reload or pause their rates of fire, due to the magic in their designs. The operators were unperturbed and continued to pour fire up at the party.
"Cssshhh this is alpha-niner-foxtrot to base, we're engaging evasive maneuvers, over." Spyra spoke into her bunched fist as she weaved between the bolts with the Fallen.
"Are you serious?" He half-joked as he jittered back and forth with the help of the thrusters. His timing was off and he wavered each time. Again, he needed to readjust to being in the air after so long.
"Hey, not all of us can yank a space-suit and all the gadgets and doohickies with it out of our asses. I gotta' compensate with some kinda' high-tech stuff!" Spyra rebuked. "Command, we have a no-good-stickler onboard, permission to eject via-air-lock, over."
"I'll show you an airlock."
"Command, we are experiencing unauthorized innuendo. Permission to fuck when this is all over, over."
"Permission granted." He tapped the barrel of the Doomblaster on his helm. "See you down there."
The Fallen spun his shoulders, and nose-dived for the island below.
"*System functionality addendum. High-risk environment of high-end magical projectiles detected. Reactivating energy shields.*"
He watched briefly a small meter come to life on the side of his vision, it filled completely to neon green, and for a moment, a previously invisible barrier of thin, wavey energy flashed about his entire form.
If these Apes wanted to play, then he was going to play by his rules from now on.
The Fallen tucked his legs up, and gunned the energy in his thrusters, landing with enough concussive force that the ground cracked and sent wads of stone and dirt airborne. A small cluster of Apes in the immediate impact-zone flew apart as the shockwave ruptured organs, separated limbs and sheared flesh from shattered bones. The Fallen's shields only briefly flared before the EMP protector finished absorbing the impact, and they immediately zipped back up to full.
A Cold Legionnaire bellowed and jumped without fear through the array of corpses and the crater surrounding him. The Fallen swung with the Plunger of Doom, and to his surprise, the Ape landed in a roll and shimmied right past the blow, marking it as a miss.
Before he could blink, the Legionnaire appeared by his flank, and the black axe in its grip slammed dead-center the space of his helm's visor. The Fallen's shields flared and his head was torn to the side violently, but a mere twitch in comparison to what would've happened had he been bare.
The axe exploded in a shower of sparks, and for a second, the Ape stared- dumbfounded –at the crinkled and bladeless hilt of his useless weapon. The Fallen summarily recovered, frowned, and shattered the Ape's ribcage with a swipe of his plunger. He then vaporized its face with a point-blank shot before moving on.
A cyclone of whipping Flame announced Spyra's arrival. Cold Legionnaires plummeted to their deaths over the edge of the island cliff, burning and screaming as they went. She galloped into the ranks of a squad and started swiping them to pieces with her claws, bolts of Electricity and Fire killing those who she could not reach, or stalling the larger officers whose armor was too thick until she could find a vulnerable point.
Terradora shattered the ancient brickwork of the floor when she landed, and charged another officer like a bull. His axe bounced off her crown uselessly before her horns impaled him through the guts and burst bloodily out of his back. The Guardian of Earth swiped her neck and threw the screaming, gore-vomiting victim tumbling off the cliff.
"Protect the ritual!" The Cold Legion's Commander barked, and surprisingly with proper speech, at least, for an Ape. "Do not allow them to sever the crystal!"
One of the turret emplacements exploded into a ball of Shadowy-backwash and flames as Ignitia spat a fireball dead-center inside the operator's compartment. The second met its end when the Fallen snapped a Legionnaire's neck, shot him three times with the grenade-launcher of his port-vent, and then kicked the corpse across the plaza, where it landed inside the operator bay. The plasma grenades detonated and cooked off whatever supernatural payload Cynder had armed these special guns with. The explosion was fantastic, and for a second, dominated the battlefield as a sort of centerpiece.
"I think we're winning!" Colcrus called cockily, letting a Legionnaire's corpse slouch back with blood jetting from the claw-wounds marking his chest.
Spyra laughed as a pair of Apes were cast away from her, blackened and twitching from the blast of Lightning she'd hit them with. Her amusement was cut short. A Legionnaire officer flanked her, dodged her claws and hit her across the head with his plate-shield, rocking her world in all the wrong and painful ways possible.
"Lucky hit." She mumbled, shooting up his body like a ferret, before grabbing his ugly baboon-looking face, and jettisoning a fine stream of Flame point-blank into his eyes.
These Apes were certainly better than the ones they had fought before. It took Spyra a minute to see, but there were only a quarter of the amount of Cold Legion, in contrast to what was usual for the rest of their kind. These guys fought like the Orcs back in Oversight.
Spyra went to charge the last Ape in her way, but a blast of plasma from the Fallen clipped into its furry hip and severed its body in half with a spray of blood. Spyra shielded her face from the mist with her wing, and stared for a moment as she watched the Ape die on the ground.
Its eyes were open, and for a moment, it recognized what had happened, before they rolled up into its head, and its mouth slung ajar limply.
She shivered, and then gazed past her dead enemy.
Guardian Cyrila! She was just over there! She had to remove the crystal.
"Go Spyra!" Ignitia cried, grappling with a pair of Legionnaires. She slashed one's face open and reeled when the other batted her flank with a studded maul. "Go!"
When another Ape attacked from the side, Colcrus appeared and bit down over the Legionnaire's ankle, dragging him away from her path as the Ape screamed and kicked. Spyra galloped over to the pedestal, gasping when she saw the sorry state of the dragoness chained within.
Cyrila looked dead, if she wanted to be honest with herself. The Guardian was caught in a disturbed looking sort of sleep. One side of her face was bloodied and swollen, she was covered in bruises and grit, and a glowing pillar of blue light was emanating off of her and going up into the air as high as could be seen. The crystal kept in the chalice-carving was pulsating more and more as its empty, gray-shade was replaced with the Guardian's pure Ice Mana.
"Okay, I can do this." Spyra whispered, wriggling her talons as she stood on her hinds, and held her forepaws over the Siphoning Crystal. She paused, sweat running down her scaly temple.
She was afraid to touch it.
What if it started sucking shit out of her too?
Brave, damn it, you're the Purple Dragon! You're supposed to be a brave dragoness, not a pussy!
She had begun to chew her tongue when a bird-like screech almost deafened her.
Spyra had time to look up, before a black, crimson-padded foot planted into her face. She rolled from the kick with a loud 'Oof~!' –leaving her chops.
"How can a little thing like you become such a constant and intrusive nuisance?" Cynder snarled, landing between Spyra and the pedestal. "Those cookies still have some time to bake, little hatchling. Paws off."
"Ughhhhh, callin' me a baby's a surefire way to get me to flame-broil your slutty ass." Spyra sneered.
Cynder didn't step towards her to meet Spyra's charge. Instead, the black dragoness sported a wicked grin that spread all the way down her beaked muzzle.
Spyra felt the ground shudder as something big came up from behind her.
"See? Even her past relatives don't want her off this pedestal." Cynder giggled. "I should know: I asked them, in a sense."
The sound this thing made was indescribably horrible. It was the tortured wheeze of a hundred frail, elderly souls taking their last breath at once. Spyra looped around, blinking in horror as a ten-foot-tall monstrosity made of bones lumbered towards her.
The creature's limbs were made from arm and leg bones stuck and bound together with Necromantic magicks. Its torso and head were made from bundles of dragon skulls, each of which had eyes glowing a sickly yellow, and whose eternally grinning jaws clacked repeatedly in silent laughter. With each step of its clubbed feet made from spinal columns arranged like toes, all the bones clattered and rattled like sick ornaments.
Its arms each ended in barbed, wide and fat claws with fingers made sharp from loops of combined ribs. One of these reached out sluggishly for Spyra's throat.
The purple dragon met the disgusting display with a roar of challenge, despite the legitimate fear gnawing at her guts. She slipped under the claw as it swiped in a near miss, and showered the abomination's midsection with Flames.
The monster shrieked with a hundred different weak voices and staggered back, but to her shock, the flames crackled to nothingness shortly after settling to briefly flicker on the otherwise unmarred bones and skulls. The latter seemed to clack their jaws faster, as if their laughter had only risen.
"Your Mana will not work on the Bone Golem." Cynder cackled. "If you stand still, it might kill you too quickly for it to carry out what I've ordered it to do to you: which is to skin you alive. I'd advise you choose the prior only for your own sake. But please, do keep fighting it, you'll only make it that much more entertaining for me."
A quick blow with her tail succeeded in knocking free some of the bones and a skull or two, but the monster just shrieked again and kept coming. She spat Lightning bolts at it, but they all flickered away the moment they made contact with the bones. She tried to freeze its feet, ram into it masked as a flaming comet, nothing even slowed it down.
The Golem's bony hand crashed into her when she tried to take off, swatting her from the air to send her rolling painfully.
"Rend her flesh!" Cynder barked, and the Golem lumbered closer. "Rip her apart, and make sure to do it slowly." She drooled.
A blast of flurrying Cold Mana smacked into the Golem's chest as Colcrus charged from Spyra's flank. The Golem's skulls chattered their tongueless mouths as it turned to regard its newest opponent.
"Cynder!" He cried in challenge. "You'll pay for this! I swear!"
"Who the hell are you?" Cynder scoffed.
Nearby, the Fallen viciously cut his way through opponent after opponent, his eyes locked onto the scene the second Spyra had been cast to the ground. A Cold Legion officer and his squad utterly stalled his advance however, his shields flaring when the Ape leader slammed a mace's head into his breast and sent him stumbling.
"Fancy suit of yours, hooman," The officer bellowed. "Let's peel it off of you and tenderize you a bit, before the Mistress takes you away!"
"I think you might've misread her intentions." The Fallen grunted. He shot the officer through the face, and pancaked one of his men with an overhead bring-down of his plunger's cup. The crack of bones and squelch of meat echoed around the whole plaza. "If she told you she wanted to eat me, I guess she didn't really lie per-se."
Colcrus was maddened with fury. Perhaps it was more volatile than any of them had noticed on their way since passing the cists. But the Fallen could've easily recognized the hatred burning behind the Ice Drake's eyes had he been close enough to witness it. He was gunning for Cynder. The Golem was just in the way.
Sidestepping one of its spine-made heels as it crashed down in an effort to crush him, Colcrus leaped past the heel and threw himself at Cynder.
"Have at ye then, Northern pig!" She snarled, her tailblade glancing aside his claws with a burst of sparks. She backed ground to him past Cyrila's pedestal, allowing the drake to advance just a smidge before she returned with blindingly fast strikes of her wingblades. "I feel like I remember you after all. You're that pest I swatted aside to catch the slumbering Guardian beside us."
"You defiled my people's Ancestors!" Colcrus howled, making Cynder bark in pain as he slipped between her blows and spat an icicle in her face that shattered in a glassy burst of dust.
"I'm glad you two could get acquainted." Spyra grimaced, her paws shivering as she stood up, and defiantly glared at the Bone Golem as it closed in to kill her. "But at the same time and all: fuck you, you rank-ass pile of rotting shit."
Suddenly, a cluster of purple glowing orbs smacked onto the Golem's torso. They whined, and the monster had a second to gawk before they detonated in a brilliant corona of purple flames. The Golem's shriek echoed everywhere as dragon bones bounced and rattled all over the place, a macabre rainstorm of body-parts showering the few remaining participants of the fight.
Whatever the grenades hadn't blown to smithereens was blasted to bits when the Fallen landed in the middle of the dying explosion, the concussion casting aside all the bones and shattering them into splinters.
"Spyra!" The Fallen barked. "Come on!"
Spyra leaped up and charged with him towards Cyrila, Colcrus and Cynder, the two heroes slicing away a squad of Apes that attempted to stop them.
The Ape Commander from before appeared as well, swinging that cold-enchanted hammer of his and bellowing a cry of challenge. The Fallen shot him through the throat and chest and Spyra sent his body flipping on a trail of soot when a bolt of Lightning impacted his breast.
Cynder reeled from another hit landed upon her chest. She hit Colcrus with her tail and sent him skidding across the stone of the plaza as he tried to catch a grip and stop himself. She gawked as the armored and alien form of the Fallen got closer and closer, bulldozing his way through her men as if they were nothing.
Her king.
What had happened to him?
"Fallen…?" Cynder whispered, backing up, and jumping when she felt her heel touch the cold metal of the pedestal behind her.
"Get the crystal." The Fallen's voice bellowed out from the speakers in the chin of his helm, his voice booming like thunder.
Immediately, Spyra took flight and zipped through the air right past Cynder's head. The black dragoness shrieked in rage and tried to spin around to catch her nemesis: but something grabbed her tail, and before Cynder could blink, a colossal force pulled her backwards.
She skidded across the tiled floor back and away from the pedestal. The Fallen had grabbed and yanked her, some newfound strength of his completely overpowering the will of her limbs. Cynder roared angrily, spreading her wings, her tattoo-runes glowing crimson as she presented herself threateningly to her chosen mate.
"What are you doing?!" She cried to him.
"What's right." The Fallen's static-laced-voice barked out from the headwear. Cynder was stalled briefly, examining the strange attire now covering his form.
Flames crackled as Ignitia scythed down the last of the Cold Legion Apes in a fiery blast. Cynder- panicked -looked all around her, realizing that her plan was crumbling to dust right in front of her.
"-Agh-! F-Fallen-! I can't get this damned thing out!" Spyra shouted, her fangs clenching as she grasped the Siphoning Crystal, and yanked on it with all her might, unable to even get it to budge.
"Cynder, stand down." The Fallen thumbed a small rune on the side of his Doomblaster, recharging the fluctuation ducts in place of fresh plasma. Cynder glanced at the weapon without moving her face from him. "You know I don't want to point this at you."
"I was doing this for us, you fool." The dragoness quivered, emotion threatening to break through her resolve. "If I try anything else, Malefora will overload my mutations and eviscerate my physical form. She'll kill me. And while the option of death has been an appealing one for so long, I won't take it, now that I've found you."
"I don't want you to take it! Or like this either! There has to be another way."
Cynder could only make a pained noise of grief. She was finished trying to explain to him the truth.
"-Fallen~!" Spyra growled behind him, the crystal jolting once in the chalice, but otherwise unmoving despite her efforts.
Cynder peered past the Fallen's pauldron and eyed the swirling blue energy inside the crystal.
Full enough.
She still had a chance, even if it meant not getting everything she had wanted out of this.
"Cynder, I'm not going to shoot you." The Fallen stated grimly, stepping closer to her with his weapons raised. "Yield. Please."
"No." She hissed.
The Cloud Ripper exploded into a broiling hurricane of twisting, black, Shadowy tendrils. The Fallen felt his feet leave the ground, and then he went blind.
{🐉}
As it was, it turned out that Rava was neither of the things Morinth had expected her to be in this kind of situation. She had looked like either an angry or a depressed sort of drunk, someone who just always channeled the one of two extreme negatives whenever they got inebriated.
In all actuality, the Electric Dragon was a tipsy drunk. All of a sudden, it was as if she was existing in a spatial pocket where everything was tilted, and the air was poisoned with heavy doses of sleep-aids that threatened to steal consciousness at any given moment.
If Morinth hadn't been so slammed herself, she would've found the behavior hysterical to observe, and it probably would have doubled as delicious ammunition to use against Rava later on during an originally-perceived unavoidable fight.
Unfortunately for her more impish side, Rava had become a freaking tree-hugger, who apparently talked to butterflies, and fantasized about having sex with garden weeds, all to the tunes of life-flutes and recreational narcotics.
She could say with confidence that nobody in the entirety of the Dragon Realms would've expected that outcome. And Morinth could still say that, despite being a social pariah herself.
Cheeky freaky, that…
The dragon hummed as she tipped back her mug, and the last of her ale slithered down her throat, the burn slowly turning from bitterly pleasant to scalding as the third cup was countered. She belched, loudly, earning some glares from nearby patrons of the watering hole.
BANG~!
-Rava put her fist into the counter, nearly falling out of her stool as she doubled over and laughed until she couldn't breathe.
"I never figured you as one for a sense of humor, luv." Morinth slurred, chuckling when her need for a paw on the bar arose. Everything was funny, even the possibility of collapsing into an inebriated heap. "You're just full of surprises."
"Pah." Rava lowered her snout, gazing longingly at Morinth as she tested the spin of her ale in the mug. "One to talk, I see."
"How's that?"
"What about you? Back when we were in the Academy, I thought you were just another weak and uninspired 'ness, who couldn't figure out her own- *hkk* -crap from crop." Rava downed the whole cup and slammed it back on the bar with a refreshed gasp. "Boy was I wrong. You have balls, Morinth. More dragons should've told you that throughout your life."
"Ah-hm." Morinth cleared her throat, suddenly feeling a tad more sober. She tried to cover it up with a cheap grin. "I think my history belied a little less than that, actually. But I appreciate the- ah… the optimism."
"Optimism. Shmoptimism." Rava giggled bubblishly. The Electric hen put her chin in her palm and drummed her talon on her cheek, her eyes scanning up and down Morinth's onyx chest. "Belied. Schemeid- uh… Tel-ied? Uh… I-I can't think of a good rhyming nonsense word for- *hkk* -that one."
"Who needs nonsense words when you already have to think of solutions every day." Morinth tisked musingly. "Life gives us enough problems, dumps them in our laps, and expects us to sooolllveee tthheeeemmmmm~!"
She laughed gleefully as her note concluded, and yet more nearby patrons joined the crowd of glare-givers and brow-raisers. The Mole tender probably would've kicked them out a while ago if they both hadn't been soldiers.
And if he wasn't afraid of Morinth because of her skin.
Cheeky little furry fucker.
"One more round there, sir. I think I can bench it good enough." Morinth slid her mug over the bar at the little tender, who was busy watching her behind a pair of spectacles too small for his wide, long-nosed face, and had been polishing an empty glass with a rag.
The Mole put down his things and took up her mug, but he paused, immediately earning Morinth's full attention as he glanced between her and the spigot of the big barrel in the back of the chamber.
"Is there a problem?" Morinth pleasantly asked, even fluttering her eyelids at him daintily. She may have been drunk, but she wasn't incoherent.
At least, not yet.
The Mole mumbled something under his breath, something low, and something with which he sought answers from the inside of her cup. She couldn't hear him well enough, but deduced it as some array of words around her having too much and him wanting to cut her off.
"Oi, speak up." She started to frown, and he started to sweat. This was done purposefully. Seeing the color drain from his face was delicious for her. "You aren't afraid to give a dragon a piece of your mind, are you? Or is this just because…" She put her paws on the counter, flexing her talons. "…of something else? Care to share?"
The barkeep looked like he was constipated, what with how much his face scrunched up as he struggled to find words.
"Ma'am," She heard him utter. "you're concerning my customers."
"With me myself, or my behavior, luv?"
"…Uh-"
"Yeah? Yeah, that's what it's all *hkk* -about?" Rava slurred, nudging Morinth over as she leaned across the bar and sneered at the keep. "You giving my friend here hell, you rat?"
"Pah! "Friend"-…" Morinth giggled, her attention swinging from the tender to the other dragon. "-you have a long long way to go before we get there, Rava-mava…"
"-*hkk* -h-ha~! Hahahaaa~! R-Rav- Rava-mava… oh that's… ha…"
The Mole huffed, clenched a fist and planted it on the counter, jamming a finger in Morinth's face.
"This is my establishment and I've had it up to here with the two of you. I'm asking you to leave this instant." His accented voice crawled out from behind his crooked whiskers. "If it wasn't enough that the two of you drank yourselves out of the chairs, one of you just happens to be the half-breed that everyon-"
She normally wasn't so fast. It made Morinth think: maybe she should get drunk before every battle from now on after this discovery.
Because apparently, when she was shitfaced she could throw a wicked mean hook.
Like really wicked.
The little Mole man literally tossed head over heels and went airborne to the other side of the bar. He met a pile of crates and bottles with a great clatter of debris and shattering of glass. Someone in the tables hollered, and Rava tumbled out of her stool and onto the floor, laughing too hard to keep her balance.
"-I'm not a half-breed-!" Morinth screamed, flaring her wings and leaning over the counter to glare daggers at the collapsed barkeep as he twitched in the piled clutter. His head was bleeding, and he silently writhed from the obvious harm she had done. "I'm not a half-breed, and if you ever well say that again, I'll kill you!"
"-Yeah-! -*hkk* -and then I'll kill you too…" Rava slurred.
"I think I've seen enough." A paw landed on Rava's shoulder, and hoisted her up and onto her unsteady feet. Before the drunk 'ness could protest, another paw gripped her forepaw and yanked it past her ribs, making her grunt in pain. "You two don't want to leave? Let us help you."
Morinth swung around with murder in her eyes, but even drunk, she found herself faltering.
There were two drakes, one with green scales and another with red, still wearing bits of their armor plating and travel rigs. They were soldiers, just like her and Rava, and the two of them restrained the latter effortlessly with a claw each.
"This doesn't have to get any rougher than it has already. Come with us, or we'll drag you out."
"-I don't gotta… l-listen to- *hkk* -you… you… you fluffy gerbil-thing…" Rava heaved, squirming pathetically in the other dragons' grips.
"You and what cheeky army?" Morinth sneered, the floor thundering as she slid off and landed- prepared –from her barstool.
Movement drew her attention to over the red drake's wings. Six more soldiers, a quad of more drakes and two females closed, the whole batch funneling out from a dining booth they had been using previously. Some of them still had blades affixed to the ends of their tails. Morinth didn't.
But I still have my claws, she started to growl, hunching lower, feeling so enraged that she didn't even care about how badly she was outnumbered.
"Drop the alcoholic, before I drop you." She snapped.
"-*hkk!* -h-hey! I-I'm not… I'm not a scholar…" Rava wretched, and both the dragons restraining her cringed as a torrent of tan-colored vomit pattered onto the floor. "-Oh… egh…" Rava spat to try and feebly clear her mouth out afterwards. "-S-Sorry about the ceiling… I mean… the floor… M-Morinth? This alcohol isn't working a-as well as I wanted it to…"
"Just take it easy." One of the other drakes stepped around the mess, getting closer to Morinth. He reached out with his paw, and firmly gripped her shoulder. "We weren't asking when we-"
"Don't touch me." Morinth shrieked. She tore back from his grip and punched the drake right in the nose at the tip of his snout.
The dragon barked and scrambled back into a pair of chairs with a crash of wood. The other five were on Morinth in a heartbeat. She was driven to the floor with a horrible thud. She hit someone in the face with the joint of her wing, lassoed a throat with her tail and bit down on something until she tasted blood.
She wasn't exactly a stranger to barfights, given her rearing, but this couldn't even be called one. A barfight assumed somewhat even footing on both sides. The squad of soldiers ran her over like she was made of cardboard.
A punch knocked her daylights, another took the breath from her belly, and a tail-whip across the face saw her cheek swell up and nearly seal her left eye shut.
"-Agh-! She bit me!" One of them hollered, and Morinth's world became a whirlwind of blurred motion as she yanked from the floor.
"Get them out of here."
"Nono, not that way, c'mon."
Morinth tried to squirm and resist her captors. But she was too weak (and too smashed) to put up enough of an effort. The hinges on a ratty door squealed, and paws thundered down a wooden stoop. The talons clenching her released all at once, and Morinth found herself sailing several feet, before her face and chest wetly met a puddle of stinking mud with a repulsive splash. Morinth gagged and shook herself wildly, trying to get the horrible stuff off of her as she batted at her face and spit out the contents of her mouth repeatedly.
There was a second splash right beside her, and even though she had mud in her eyes, she knew it was Rava, because the weight pressing into her flank was rolling back and forth, still laughing and sputtering.
"Bloody cocks-!" Morinth screamed, staggering onto her feet. The door back inside slammed shut, and the click of a lock was all she needed to know that the deal was sealed just as much. "-Bastards…"
"-T-This is- *hkk* -fun~! Hhahaaaa~…" Rava rolled back and forth in the mud, like a sow taking a midday tumble in the pen. Her laughter started to bubble. "-Mmmm… I-I'm… I'm *hkk* sorry, really, aha-haa… hm…"
"Oh, is that it now?" Morinth growled, falling onto her backside in the mud with a plop as she glanced around her new environment.
That band of soldiers had tossed them in an alley behind the tavern building. Long forgotten and splintering crates were piled up against a wall, and drainage runoff from all the rain the last few days dribbled from the mouth of a gutter whose line ended in the very puddle they were swimming in.
Morinth huffed and used her thumb to swipe away some mud from her eyes, her wings wilting under the disgusting new coat they now sported. Brown. Such a stylish color.
"Just like old times." She huffed. "I bet you're having a trip down cheeky memory lane, eh, Rava? Now you know how it feels to be thrown instead of doing the throwing."
"-Throwing-" Rava laughed, and slowly, her cackles devolved into muted hums, and then those still turned into what Morinth realized were sobs. "-*hkk* -N-Nera… I-I'm s-s-sorry…"
"Bugger, just shut up, Rava." Morinth spat. "You talk to ghosts too much. Now get up."
Rava heaved as she writhed in the mud and detritus, squishing and slicking noises burbling out with each twist of her limbs. When Morinth offered a claw, she swatted it away and stumbled back up herself.
"…T-This isn't what I had in *hkk* mind earlier…" Rava croaked, shivering as the cold mud clung to every inch of her scales. She swallowed, and her gut moaned in torture. "-That place is supposed to give a discount to army. I think we were cheated. It's my fault."
"There's something I can't cheeky well argue with." Morinth huffed, limping towards the mouth of the alley. "I hope you didn't have any fancy plans in order past due, luv, because the only thing you're doing is chipping all that shit off of yourself. Go back to the barracks, Rava. I'm going home."
"W-Why should I?" Rava grumbled, swaying unevenly after her, mud dripping off both hens and leaving a dark trail alongside their black paw-prints. "So that I can talk to Windshear all night? *hkk* -Pah. That's not good for me."
"Oh pardon, and this is?" Morinth glared back at her as they reached the street. The alcohol was pretty much gone by now for her, replaced with a chilly realization of how today had gone. "Earlier today, I woke up with one set of problems, and that was good enough for me. I was never the bloody magnet, Rava, not for nights like these. Why in the Ancestors' names did you have to make me question that?"
"I-I… I just wanted to… to atone..."
"If you had wanted to atone, you would've left well-enough alone." Morinth shook her head, catching Rava with her tail and nudging her roughly. "And walk straight, you."
"I don't sleep anymore, Morinth, and I couldn't just let you go once I'd found you." Rava murmured dejectedly. "And believe me, there's part of me that begged me to not approach you."
"Why not listen?"
"Because it's the same side of me that was in control when I was younger." Rava swallowed. "I'm never allowing myself to be like that again. Ever."
"Such a high-class job you've obviously sported on that." Morinth glared at a passing duo of staring Moles as the muddy dragons limped down the street. "Taliopia should've been here with me. She would've told me what to do, given me the right advice, something much better than what you do, with your bad influence."
"I paid for those pints."
"Just like you're paying for drinking two-thirds of them. There's a cheeky point?" Morinth shot down.
"Fuck you, Morinth."
"Oi', no, dearest Rava, fuck you. If you wanted a damned therapist-dragon, there are services within a soldier's payroll for that! But don't come to me. See that? It's me who pays for it all, even when you show up with the coin you don't blow away on booze and who in the greatest heavens knows what else." Morinth shook mud droplets everywhere to try and clear her wings, smirking sourly when a big glob slapped into Rava's face. "My cheek looks like a grapefruit, I smell like shit and ale, and my pride just took a neat stab. How could I have been so stupid?"
"Why don't you ask Taliopia." Rava swiped the mud off her snout, flashing her fangs angrily. "Isn't the mate supposed to be the best consul of a dragon? Too bad that didn't work out so well for those outside the freaking clique."
"Clique? Just go and whine to Windshear! I'm sure he's used to it by now."
"Windshear? Do you think I want to listen to another of his dreadful childhood tales about how he didn't have a care in the world, and liked chewing on wooden blocks? Just get angrier and kill me *hkk* -please!" Rava cried. "At least you haven't been alone, you cushy thing. One night in the dumpster with the rest of the trash and you're *hkk* -livid."
"Ha! If you think I'm outside the lowest scum in this city, then you're even more delusional than I thought you were, luv." Morinth scoffed. "Did you hear me earlier? I grew up in this very mud we're covered in. Tonight's just familiar is all, of times I wanted to forget. No thanks to you. As I said: this should be Windshear's department, not mine."
"Why do you keep saying that?" Rava glared at her, spitting more acid from her mouth and onto the street.
"…Windshear…" Morinth gestured a dripping wing at her. Rava blinked stupidly. "…You mean… you aren't…?"
"…Wait… -Oh, w-what?! No! Not at all!" Rava blushed, little bands of Lightning trickling up and down the rows of her fangs. "-Gods, what gave you that idea?"
"You both could've fooled me." Morinth countered with a click of her tongue. "That's an inaccuracy?"
"He's never touched me." Rava scowled.
"Well, did you ask him to?"
"None of your business."
"You should ask him to." Morinth shivered, anger rousing in her chest through the pain of being punched there. She had never longed for the Fallen's touch more than she did now. It would certainly make her feel a little less like shit. "It would've served you better than messing around with me. I swear, the city of Oversight is liberated, the stupid Comet Festival keeps getting pushed back, and the Purple Dragon has come, and I'm spending my night in a puddle."
"I can't say sorry anymore." Rava frowned, sniffling. "But judging by the way you talk, I think even Taliopia's being left out of a lot."
"Shut up, you don't know me or her." Morinth snapped. "And honestly after all the up-and-up just now, I… I don't want to speak anymore, with anyone."
"Me neither." Rava childishly retorted, sneezing when a wad of mud got in her nose. "I think I just tasted it."
"You can get used to it." Morinth stared at the street as she limped home, trying to ignore the path of mud she left in her wake all down the pedestrian path. "I sure did."
{🐉}
There was no ground nor direction. No up or down. The Fallen free-floated in blackness. Whatever magic Cynder had conjured was more than effective. The insides of his helmet were alight with alarms and chimes. The scanners were baffled, the magnetic centering core was offline and the environment quality filters were clogged. There wasn't a physical explanation for half of these things, though.
His suit may have been powered by some of it, but hot damn if he didn't hate when magic was used against him. Spellcasters were always a number-one problem when dealing with a combat situation. It was too bad he couldn't bring himself to shoot the most dangerous one he had ever encountered.
When the blackness finally wavered, all at once, the Fallen fell onto his face with a clatter of metal against the ground, his Doomblaster and plunger landing on either side of his prone form.
The clouds of Shadow swirled away and vanished over the course of several minutes. It left the Fallen, Spyra, Colcrus, and the two Guardians in various states of disarray among all the dead Apes and dragon bones littering the plaza.
The Fallen saw Spyra's purple head rise up inquisitively from beside the pedestal as she peered around. When her eyes tore off of him and landed on the chalice-carve, she let out a gasp when she saw that the Siphoning Crystal had vanished, and the blue glow emanating around the pedestal had subsided completely.
"Is everyone alright?" Ignitia called, grunting and coughing as she stood herself up.
"That bitch!" Spyra barked, leaping to her feet, and clawing at the chalice bowl. She leaned over it and stuck an eye inside, comically searching for any sign of the crystal. "She took the rock thingy!"
The Fallen waited for his HUD to stop flashing as all the emergency and warning runes filtered away, his suit's systems fully restoring to their normal guise. He checked the motion tracker, gawking when he saw Cynder's life signs still in the immediate area.
He spun around and gazed across the aqua-lit chamber. On the other side, back towards the tunnelway they had come in from, Cynder was a tiny black ant on wings that swooped through the frozen snowfall of Spirit Mana pebbles and the array of floating islands. She didn't even glance back as she nimbly dived and vanished into the archway of the tunnel. He could see the crystal, even from this distance, glowing a vibrant sapphire from where it was clenched in her paw.
There was no use chasing her. Cynder had gotten what she wanted.
"Cyrila!" Ignitia bounded across the body-strewn plaza, Terradora slowly trudging up behind her.
The poor Fire Guardian was so overwhelmed post-combat that tears were falling from her eyes. She scrambled over the chin of the cold pedestal, her paws clenching loudly over one of the chain-links holding down the blue dragoness. After a few pained yanks, the chains groaned against the loop they were stuck through. Ignitia yipped when the lock-band flashed white, and the chains seemed to constrict even tighter against all explanation.
In her stupor, Cyrila moaned in torment and wriggled underneath the rattling links.
"The locks are enchanted." Ignitia gasped.
"I can't believe it! We found the Guardian of Ice, man!" Spyra bounded back and forth on the other side of the pedestal, her eyes sweeping over Cyrila's spined back. "Huh, it's too bad Cynder slipped her a roofie or something, else I'duv' said 'yo' to her. How do we get her out?"
"Give me a minute, I can break the seals." Ignitia glanced over her wings. "Terra', Fallen, come here please. Terra': grab this link. When I tell you to, I need you to break it."
"I'll take the other one." The Fallen jumped over Cyrila's chained tail and picked up the chains on the opposite side. "Just tell me when to break it."
"…Erm… Fallen, I have to imagine that Terradora is much more capable of that feat." Ignitia blinked at him.
"Yes, quite. Do stay back, tiny thing, I would not wish for you to get a shard of shrapnel in your eye." Terradora glared at him. "Unless you are volunteering."
"Terra'."
"Ahem." The Fallen wriggled his gauntlet's fingers. "I think you'd be surprised at what I can normally achieve."
"Yeah, I saw that." Spyra chimed. "He caved an Ape's head in with his fist. This alien space-suit of his is the shit."
"Hmmph." Terradora snorted, the chains clinking as she clenched a fist over the loop-band. "We shall see."
Ignitia laid a paw over the band, her eyes closed as she murmured a series of indiscernible words. Everybody could feel a slight tingle in the air from the presence of a more offensive magic. Despite a moment of tense uncertainty, the results were undeniable soon thereafter.
"Now!" Ignitia let the loop go.
Terradora grunted, and jolted both of her forepaws back.
CRSSH-ringinging… -The chain shattered, sending fat shards ringing about the floor in all directions. Cyrila slumped with just a bit of laxness in her stupor, her right forearm now loose underneath the defeated bands that had remained solid.
"Good work." Ignitia brushed Terradora's flank as she bounded to the next loop by the Fallen. "Now grab that one and wait for me. Fallen: when I tell you to, yank, hard."
"You got it."
"Ignitia, allow me to do the work, this alien cannot possibly manage-"
Terradora's words were sucked out of her mouth when Ignitia gave the go, and the Fallen snapped the chain-links free with one hand, scattering the glittering shards all over.
The human tossed the sorry-looking links like they were a dead serpent still clenched in his fingers. He glanced at Terradora and chuckled when he saw her turning almost as red as Ignitia was naturally.
"Your turn, Guardian." He pointed at the next loop.
"Now!" Ignitia declared.
Eventually, the last of the links were sloughed away. Ignitia tore free a few more lines and gripped Cyrila's now exposed flank, rocking the dragoness in panic.
"Ohnononono-" –She kept mumbling over and over. "-Wakeupwakeupwakup."
"Ignitia," The Fallen tapped a few runes on the console protruding from his right forearm. Instead of the energy blade casting free, a small needle poked out from a previously unseen port beneath the vent. "let me help her. She looks hurt, badly."
"You will not touch her." Terradora reached out to clasp the Fallen's arm, but thought better of it, and merely left her paw hanging there with the claws unsheathed and still dripping with Ape blood. "Back off, alien."
"If only you did what you were going to do." The Fallen sighed with disappointment as he eyed her talons. "I have regenerative solutions inside the suit. Unlimited supplies of it too, we don't need to worry about the syringe packs."
"He's used it on me a few times, it's just to fix the damage." Spyra said sternly. "C'mon Terradora, Cyrila's face looks broken and there's gotta' be, like, a million slashes all over her."
"It certainly looks like Cynder apprehended her against her will." Ignitia bit her lower chop as she rubbed her paws tenderly on Cyrila's shoulder. "Yes, Fallen, just do it quickly. My healing magicks will take longer to work."
"You allow this?" Terradora gawked at her.
"Spyra's right: it works, I've witnessed it." Ignitia shook her head. "Calm down, Terra', the Fallen is on our side, even if he does not always appear to be so."
"It'll take just a second." The Fallen knelt and aligned the needle with a clear patch of scales on Cyrila's flank. He took a second to look at the dragon, her features halfway between serene and pained as she lay helpless below them all.
She was actually pretty hot, no pun intended. She had hips almost as lethal as Spyra's.
But not Cynder. Somehow, nobody in this joint was rocking the same boat she was. He was okay with that, strangely enough.
Gingerly, he slipped the needle up to the halfway point into her flesh, waiting as he watched his HUD inside the helmet. His suit's systems appropriated her vitals both from a brief blood sample and from the scans on his motion detectors. The exact right amount of regen-injection passed through and into Cyrila's bloodstream. The Fallen retracted the needle, sterilizing it with a small jet of purple flame dancing out from the vent-port.
"Toxin report is clean. There were some fractures, some breaks and moderate blood loss. She'll need to be hospitalized regardless when we get her out." He mumbled to Ignitia. "She's dehydrated too. I can give her some of my suit's water supply-"
"You've done enough." Terradora snarled, ripping a canteen off Ignitia's sash. "We take care of our own."
"Thank you, Fallen." Ignitia bumped him in the temple with her snout, surprising him. She cooed a second later in fascination at the feel of the synthetic metal, reaching up to swivel a thumb-pad on the edge of his visor. "This will most likely take some getting used to. But it isn't an unwelcome sort of change. I've been curious as to your normal-… getup, I think is what the hatchlings these days would say."
"I can deal with that." He smiled.
"Watch the paws there, grams'." Spyra said, annoyed, as she stood on her hinds and swatted at Ignitia's claw.
"Is she alright?" Colcrus shouldered past the Fallen, leaning close, as Terradora cradled Cyrila's head and eased her mouth open for the canteen. "Oh, Ancestors, is she-"
"She is breathing." Terradora grunted. "Wake up, sister. The time is now."
"Don't be too forceful, Terra', she's had a rough day." Ignitia mumbled, her eyes gluing to the various injuries across the Ice Guardian's body as they reknitted themselves and slowly began to disappear, aside from dried blood spatters and lines.
"Wake up, please." Terradora frowned.
Cyrila drooled a bit, and her neck draped loosely. She looked like a rubber-chicken hung over a ledge.
With an impatient huff, Terradora squinted an eye at Ignitia, and then proceeded to completely tip the canteen over and dump the contents over Cyrila's face with a hearty splash.
"Terra'!" Ignitia whined.
"-*pfffft* -AGH-! *pfffft* W-What- Where-?!" A new voice to the party choked and sputtered.
"It worked, did it not?" Terradora rumbled, smirking as she shoved the canteen back into Ignitia's paw.
"Cyrila? Speak to me. Are you well?" Ignitia held the hen's face.
"-W-Where am I? …I… I-Ignitia?" Cyrila's eyes were a striking crystal blue. The Fallen hadn't even conversed with her yet and he was already lost in them. She had possibly the prettiest eyes he'd seen here so far, maybe even prettier than Morinth's. "-I-I can't… I can't remember how I… Wait a minute… I'm wet. Ancestors, I'm soaked, and I'm hurt, and- and I'm stuck out in the wilderness! The awful, dirty, unsanitary and disorganized wilderness! I demand an explanation at once!"
"She's fine." Terradora rolled her eyes. "Luckily, I did not humor a good amount of worry in the first place."
"Yeah, sure, the panic in your voice there earlier didn't say nothin'." Spyra winked.
"Terradora? What in the world are you doing here? Where are my dragons? What of Oversight? And what of that harlot Cynder?" Cyrila wriggled, kicked and thrashed, sending the whole party backwards to give her room as she flopped onto her feet. " -AahaAGH-! Afford me some space if you all would! The gall!"
"Lady Cyrila, you're okay!" Colcrus cheered. "I was so worried."
"Colcrus." Cyrila harrumphed, righting herself and sticking her snout up at the party as her tail whipped and her wings shimmied off stray snow-dust. She still hadn't noticed Spyra or the Fallen yet in her haze of indignified, embarrassed grief. "Relay the situation to me this instant. I demand elaboration."
"W-Well, ma'am, at the mountain pass, Cynder and a flight of Wyverns ambushed us, and-"
"Get to the point."
"-we lost." Colcrus wing-shrugged. "You were taken by Cynder up into the Crystal Tombs of Chrysalis, and, well, we all came up here to save you."
"Hmmph. I should hope a pair of Guardians and a loyal soldier of the ranks could handle such a task." Cyrila fluffed her wings. "A tiring evening indeed."
"Don't you remember anything?" Ignitia pointed to the chalice-crop. "The Siphoning Crystal?"
"Crystal?" Cyrila blinked. "What crystal? Talk sense, Ignitia, will you?"
"Jeez', you were right, she really is an uppity bitch." Spyra scoffed out loud. The Fallen slapped a gauntlet over his visor.
"Those first impressions of yours are to be a long-lasting headache." Terradora grumbled. "Behold, our extended group of 'allies'."
"'Sup." Spyra inclined her chin.
"Hello hello." The Fallen waved cheaply.
Cyrila looked like she was about to shit herself.
"-T-T-The P-P-P-Purple Dragon-" She sputtered.
"We can talk more once we get back to the city." Ignitia said. "We should make haste also. Now that we know what Cynder is up to, I fear that Volteera's time left is even shorter."
{🐉}
