CAUTION: Spoils aspects of Innocent Hopes, Twisted Realities, as well as aspects of When Nothing Remains through chapter 19.
Seriously, major spoilers here.
Assuming you wish to continue, read on…
Background: When Nothing Remains had a pretty big plot twist, and I wrote it knowing I could go either way on said twist. The official story went one way, but I figured I might as well go the other too, here where such things are meant to be. This chapter, if one wants the full experience, replaces chapter 15 of When Nothing Remains, and subsequent chapters of this AU (which will go up after this one, of course) continue onward in that pattern. (Chapter 2 of the AU replaces 16 of the main story, and so on). Nothing past chapter 14 of When Nothing Remains is canon in this AU version of the story, but everything prior to it of course is. (and as always, I do not mean this in the strict 'timeline' sense, I mean it in the 'shown in previous chapters / books' sense.)
As for specifics of plot? Read on to find out! I'll basically be continuing the story and taking it to a conclusion, though I don't plan to quite match the canon story for length. There are reasons this was not the path I took in canon, and those reasons include there just not being as much to cover this way around. Having said that, this won't be short, a full 10 chapters in length. I'll be posting every Wednesday (because, as almost always, I wrote this whole thing already) until it's done.
Also, yes, the first part of this chapter is near-verbatim from chapter 19 of When Nothing Remains. That's because I want to continue onward as seamlessly as possible from the original story. Those of you with good memories or the inclination to cross-check the original passage to this might be able to predict a few things for this chapter and the next few solely from what is different with the mostly-copied sections.
Pearl waved a wooden object, wondering as she did what it was used for. It was an odd bent shape, flat surfaces at opposition to each other. She really didn't know. The ship she had been held captive on hadn't had any where she was kept, and that was the sum total of her knowledge.
A pair of glowing orange eyes neared the window. Pearl set the chair down, trying not to make any noise. She was invisible, but not in any way silenced by her own abilities. The silence she had perfected was one of care and practice.
Ember and Storm latched onto the window and climbed in, one after the other.
Ember noticed the unconscious soldier. "Good work. Did he make any noise?" He did not even bother looking for Pearl, knowing that the blur in the air that was only barely noticeable was the best he could see of her.
"No." She was proud of that, at least a little. She had managed to silence it without killing it.
"We might need to leave this way," Ember said carefully. "He should be gotten rid of."
"You mean killed?" Pearl didn't particularly care, but it didn't feel like something good people did.
"I don't want to," Ember muttered. "He deserves it, for what he is, what he chooses to be, but he is not attacking, unable to defend himself..."
Pearl didn't like the conflict she heard in Ember's voice. "I've got it." She grabbed the man and pulled him towards the window, preparing to drop him out. Safely out of the way and...
She only took note of the looks of complete shock on the others' faces as she was dangling the unconscious soldier out the window.
"Wha'?" Its smelly clothing was making it hard to talk. She was taking great care not to accidentally taste it as she held it with her mouth.
"No-scaled-not-prey do not fly, and do not take falls well," Storm remarked dryly. "Though that is a good way to get rid of the body, I suppose."
Pearl hastily pulled the body back in. "Oh, right. I forgot." They were not that high above the dark beach. A dragon would have been bruised but fine.
"I've got it," Ember announced, shifting into his scrawny human form. He pulled the unconscious hunter to the far end of the room and awkwardly tied him up, using some nearby cloths as makeshift ropes. "Really, we can leave from any window, but better safe than sorry." He tightened the knots. "The longer this guy takes to sound the alarm, the better."
With that handled, Pearl began phase two of their plan. She very carefully nudged the wooden bit of the otherwise stone wall, sighing as it gave easily, opening into a corridor. There was no one around, the flickering flames of torches in iron settings the only movement.
In the strategy they had predetermined, Pearl led the way, her invisible body followed by Ember in human form, and finally Storm. From behind, Storm would look very much like Second, who presumably walked these stone passages as freely as he did Drago's ship, and from the front Ember was visible, a human who was not so very out of place, at least not as out of place as Pearl would be. A faint shimmer and warping in the air was all Pearl would appear to be in the shifting shadows cast by the fitful torches. Ember laid a No-scaled-not-prey paw on Pearl's back, letting touch guide him.
Pearl was technically leading them, but as she didn't know where Drago would be any better than Ember or Storm, she was no better than either of them at picking a good path. They were all equally clueless.
For the moment, Pearl worked her way into the heart of the mountain, assuming the more important things would be central.
They came across no hunters, no enemies, in the first few minutes. The world consisted of their own footsteps, the crackling of fire in the torches, and breathing. Silence ruled as Pearl worked her way further into the mountain, but eventually her progress was stymied by a strange little slanted path.
Ember growled, an odd sound in his human form. "The stairs are small. We can't change floors with these. Only I stand any chance of fitting."
"So, unless Drago happens to be on this floor," Pearl began with a sinking feeling, "we can't get to him?" So much for them going with Ember.
"Well, Ember isn't going alone," Storm huffed. "At least let us be sure Drago is not on this level first."
That seemed like a sensible idea. Pearl backtracked, finding the last intersection she had encountered, and turning the corner to go a different way.
A hunter bumped into her, falling back as he did. "What the-"
Ember leaped past Pearl even as the hunter drew his crossbow, slashing at the bulkier man's arms. Blood splattered to the stone below, and Ember stabbed brutally, silencing the hunter before he could scream. Sound might be deadly, if there were others who could hear nearby.
The hunter collapsed into a pile of black ash, and Ember grimaced. "Now I've got a better form for this, at least," he muttered, "no matter how distasteful that always is."
Pearl stared in muted shock at the ash. She had been told he could do it, but seeing it was another thing, as was seeing Ember shift into the form of the No-scaled-not-prey he had just killed. It was wrong, twisted, but necessary here.
She would be happy to see Ember-the-dragon again, that was for sure. This was unnerving, looking at one who seemed in every aspect a hunter and knowing this one, unremarkable among the masses of them that Drago might command, concealed the mind she... loved? Yes, loved. A strange situation.
"Now I should lead," Ember said gruffly. "They won't suspect me until they get a good look at Storm, and I'll be ready if they do." He took the group down an as of then unexplored passage.
They traveled in silence for a few minutes, turning every once in a while. Pearl was unsure what the point of this particular section of the mountain was. It seemed to consist of grid-like corridors and empty rooms at regular intervals.
"Storage," Ember quickly explained when she asked. "Unused, which might be why no one is around. We'll have to go back to the windows and enter another, on a different floor."
"Ember, if what you told us of your abilities is correct, you have its memories," Storm replied urgently. "Just use those and tell us where our target is."
"Not sure why I didn't think of that to start with," Ember admitted. "Guard me. There's a lot to sort through, and I'm not exactly going to be able to watch the corridor while I think."
"I've got the left," Pearl volunteered.
"No, you just stand in the corridor and look both ways. They won't see you, remember?" Storm corrected irritably, backing into the nearest empty room. Ember followed her in.
"Right, right," Pearl agreed, turning in a tight circle in the stone corridor. She felt decidedly uneasy in the heart of the mountain, surrounded on all sides by unyielding stone. It would be so easy for it all to just crumble inward and entomb the three of them. Hopefully No-scaled-not-prey couldn't just make that happen. They had cut out these passages; it seemed likely to her that they could do other things to natural stone.
But she was just worrying about nothing. Aside from that one useful No-scaled-not-prey, they seemed to be alone on this floor of the mountain. The occasionally flickering flame was the only source of movement to be seen.
"I've gotten all I can get out of this guy," Ember announced a short while later, poking his head out into the corridor. "And it's not much. This guard wasn't anyone important, and apparently Drago keeps everyone on a need-to-know basis. But I've got an idea where to go next."
"Do you know if there were other guards around here?" Pearl asked worriedly. She would prefer to know whether someone might turn the corner first.
"Yes, but I think they're not going to come anywhere near here for a little while longer…"
"And?" She didn't like that ominous pause.
"And they'll figure out that this guard has gone missing soon," Ember concluded in the No-scaled-not-prey's deep voice. "We can use that to our advantage as long as we're not up here once they notice. He saw his fellow guards recently, so they'll know he disappeared up here. Searches might clear the rest of the mountain for us, and Drago won't bother getting involved personally."
"So, we get off of this level, sneak toward wherever the bad alpha should be, and use this No-scaled-not-prey's disappearance as a distraction," Pearl repeated, summarizing for Storm's benefit.
"The only problem," Ember replied, walking out of the storage chamber in the stolen form, "is that if I'm seen like this, everyone will notice. This guard isn't going to be able to walk by without being stopped, now." That explanation was followed by the blue flames that always accompanied a transition in form, and a heartbeat later Ember, the real Ember, was standing before her.
Pearl caught herself just before she lunged forward and embraced him, glad her lack of visibility was covering her indecision. For a brief moment, she had been nothing but relieved by seeing Ember back in his rightful form. Logically, it was stupid to be relieved; she knew that he was in complete control and apparently in absolutely no danger of being affected by taking a new form, or trapped in a form, or anything like that.
Emotionally, she considered the dark wing form, and to a lesser extent the scrawny No-scaled-not-prey form, him, and anything else… Other. Not him, not even if it acted like him.
"I do not know how you can stand that," Storm muttered, following Ember out into the corridor. "Do you feel dirty after being in one of their bodies? I think I would."
"Yes, but I can't be rid of it until all of this is over, because that would be stupid and short-sighted," Ember sighed. "Pearl, lead the way. We need to get back to where we started, because that direction is where this guard was patrolling. As far as I can tell, Drago almost never leaves the sea-level passageways, so we know where to go next."
"Okay, but you're not going to go back to the No-scaled-not-prey's form for this?" Pearl began to lope down the passage even as she asked; it was clear Ember wasn't planning on doing so, she was just curious as to why.
"He just said he was not," Storm grumbled irritably as they ran.
"Storm," Ember snarled dangerously. "It is a valid question."
"We are in enemy territory. Now is not the time for unimportant questions!"
"You can tell me later," Pearl agreed, panting as her chest began to burn with continued exertion. She wasn't used to exercise of any sort, thanks to three moon-cycles trapped almost entirely without being able to move, not to mention a lack of serious exercise before that.
Pearl skidded past a corner, confident in her direction; they had taken a mostly straight path inward, so backtracking was as simple as turning around and moving forward. The only reason she could not see the wooden passageway that blocked the initial chamber with the window was that the corridors were not entirely straight. They curved and bent minutely to follow the seams of the stone, which were visible in the walls around them if one had time to stop and examine them.
Then the doorway appeared around a shallow bend, and Pearl exhaled in relief. She had half expected to be spotted by some No-scaled-not-prey not where they should be, so actually making it to the exit without incident was a relief even if it shouldn't be.
Even if they were not leaving for good, just going to a different part of the mountain. She tried not to dwell on that as she skidded to a stop in front of the wooden blockade, shoved it open, and checked to be sure the No-scaled-not-prey was still where they had left it.
"We're clear," she said happily, jumping out the open hole in the wall and snapping her wings open, diving shallowly to fight the dangerous flow of wind directly toward the mountainside. Ember and Storm were right behind her.
"I feel like we accomplished something just by making it out of there," Storm admitted, her tone lacking most of its usual confidence.
"This place is foreboding," Ember agreed darkly, powering forward to take the lead. "Like something dangerous sleeps, waiting. But it's just a feeling. Drago can and will die tonight."
"And we will be right there with you when it happens," Storm snarled. "Do not even try to tell us we should go wait somewhere safe now that we have participated a little. We are with you all the way."
Pearl growled wordlessly in agreement, though she didn't think that was where Ember had intended to go, anyway. He seemed to have accepted their participation.
"Do either of you see openings just a little above the water?" Ember asked, changing the subject. "I cannot be sure if there are any, but the only other way in is risky, to say the least."
Pearl squinted, trying to spot a dark opening in the stone near the water. She could see in the dark just like the more aptly-named dark wings, but that wasn't helping her see something that didn't seem to exist. They circled around the entire mountain once, to no avail.
"Sounds like we are going in the risky way," Storm announced briskly. "Which I assume is the huge, gaping opening with all of the wood jamming it up."
"The docks, yes," Ember confirmed. "Ships are there. Not as many as there could be, but quite a few. Including the one you were held captive on."
"I see it," Pearl agreed, feeling queasy. That particular angular arrangement of wood and shiny stone held many memories given the comparatively brief time she had spent there, and most of them were terrible. Gold being slaughtered, Gold being skinned, the absolute hopelessness Ember had lifted from her by promising to get her out, Second talking about eating Gold-
"Wait, does that mean Second will be here?" she blurted out worriedly.
"You should have already known that, because we are here hunting his twisted human alpha, and they were travelling together," Storm growled. "Yes. I claim the right of killing him if we get a chance."
"We are going to get in, kill Drago, and escape," Ember corrected firmly, swooping down to fly low over Storm, staring down at her. "I grounded Second, so he will not be able to follow. Run unless fighting is unavoidable. We're not here for him."
"I will kill him if I can, but only if it is the smart choice," Storm compromised. "Is that acceptable to you?"
"Barely. Pearl, don't let her run off on her own to go make sure killing him is the only option."
"Got it," Pearl agreed, easily ignoring Storm's glare. The female dark wing might have warmed up to her a little, but that just made her less likely to want to let Storm put herself in stupidly unnecessary danger. "But what's the plan we should be following?"
"We'll fly in as low as we can, slaloming between the anchored ships," Ember explained. They were gliding in low circles at a distance from the mountain and its large opening, so Pearl had a good view of the start of their infiltration, if nothing else. "From what I know now, there will be guards, but they won't be ready for us. From there, we'll head inward. Drago's quarters are in the center of the mountain, behind a fully metal door that could withstand everything we could throw at it."
"So how do we get by?" Pearl asked.
"Everything we could throw at it," Ember repeated with a low rumble. "He has personal guards on duty around the door at all times, and they know how to get in. Either one of them will have a key, or he'll know where some secret lever is."
"And Second?" Storm inquired eagerly.
"He sleeps in a cell halfway across the mountain, I think. Except for when he doesn't. I don't know where he'll be, but chances are he won't be around."
O-O-O-O-O
Storm growled quietly to herself as they flew around one more time and lined themselves up. She didn't care about the danger but being denied a chance at Second was frustrating.
Or was it relieving? She didn't really know how she felt about it, and confusion made her angry. It should be irritating, but she also felt relief for no discernable reason.
She focused on the anger, knowing it to be the far more appropriate emotion. They were going into battle; this was still intended to be a stealth attack, but that meant killing anyone who might get away to spread the word this time around. Ember hadn't said so, but it was obvious.
To her, anyway. She wasn't sure Pearl understood. The light wing had shown plenty of unusual ignorance thanks to her upbringing-
And there was another good way to be angry. She focused on that. Anger was the only appropriate emotion right now, the only useful emotion.
First, they flew over the still No-scale-not-prey vessels, what Ember called ships in passing, the one Storm herself had been imprisoned on chief among them. They were flying too fast for her to do more than notice that, though she would happily have taken a chance on defiling it in some way if she was alone.
But if nothing else, she could not slow down enough to even contemplate that; they were not gliding, they were throwing themselves forward, diving at a shallow angle simply to gain speed, bending their course only slightly to avoid the dead trees sticking up from the vessels.
Then the stone passed over their heads, and the interior of the strange No-scale-not-prey-made mountain came into view, a stone bowl somewhat like the inside of that strange ice nest in shape, half of a dome similar to that one.
She saw movement, and she fired, killing one of the half-dozen or so No-scale-not-prey standing around. Ember and even Pearl did the same, so clearly Pearl got the seriousness of the situation, and then they were splitting up, Ember going for a group of three while she and Pearl banked in the air, throwing away all of the speed they had built up, and dropped right on top of the other three.
Storm promptly ripped off whatever extremity she had landed on by contracting her claws and yanking to the side, and then blasted whatever was left beneath her. She had been given plenty of time to plan how she would fight No-scale-not-prey since her first encounter with them, and this was the first time she had ever been able to use that angry planning. It was immensely satisfying.
Then she whirled around to check on Pearl, only to see the light wing reluctantly smashing the heads of two No-scale-not-prey together, dropping them both.
"Good," Storm praised, and stepped over to finish them. "Go help Ember."
"He doesn't need help," Pearl objected, looking over at the dark wing in question. "He's done." She sounded faintly unsettled, but only faintly, which was a surprise to Storm. Maybe Pearl had some built-up hatred of these No-scale-not-prey too.
"Follow me," Ember called out, running by them. "According to one of these guards, their replacements aren't due for a while yet, so on the one paw we'll have an easy way out, and on the other there are some extra No-scale-not-prey somewhere around here, and I don't know where. Stay sharp!"
Storm found she had no problems following that order; she didn't like taking orders as a general rule, but this was a fight, and Ember knew vastly more about combat than she did, though she would never praise him as such if anyone asked. If anyone could get her to the ones she wanted dead, it would be him, and she would be a fool not to follow him now.
O-O-O-O-O
Pearl couldn't help but notice that Ember was more alive right now than he had been in planning this, or in talking about it, or even just in the small moments prior to all of those things. This might not be helping him in the long run, but she could not argue how effectively it was giving him a reason to keep going, short-term. The pain and darkness seemed restrained in him at the moment, held back simply because they could not be allowed to hinder him.
She still did not think she could see the real him, how he was when he was not desperately sad and wanting to die, but this had to at least be closer, because one of those two things did not plague him at the moment. He did not want to die now.
If only he could have that without putting himself in mortal danger. And them, but she and Storm had argued their way into this, so she could not exactly regret it now. At least she had made the choice for herself.
She, Storm and Ember ran down a narrow passage, Ember leading the way with his sharp claws and sharper reflexes, leaping across every intersection and stopping at the other side, letting them surge forward and spin to either side just to be sure there was nobody there. They were moving at such speed that even if the entire mountain had known about the death of the guards by the strange bay, none would have had time to reach them yet, and nobody knew.
So, they raced deeper and deeper into the mountain, the only opposition coming from guards patrolling as normal, only to be swiftly cut down by tooth or claw or fire, as appropriate.
Pearl began to run out of breath, but she kept going anyway, ignoring the burning in her lungs and aching in her legs. She had volunteered for this, and if she slowed them down it would be her fault. Speed was important; they could fail if they had to slow for her.
She could be recaptured, slain, butchered, fed to Second. That fear lent her speed even as she tired, allowing her to keep up; she had never been in such immense danger before, never with the stakes quite so high, the enemy everywhere and powerful.
The thought occurred to her that her Dam would never approve, and she would have laughed were she able to.
O-O-O-O-O
Ember raced forward, seeing in his mind a fragmented, incomplete map of the mountain. Of course, he was not actually seeing it, but the human side of him had always been good at imagining and holding things in his mind. It was an asset when inventing on the sly. Gobber couldn't reluctantly destroy plans if the plans were held only in his mind until the last moment.
Now, that particular way of thinking was coming in handy. From what he had seen of the memories of both guards, he knew a lot about certain floors of the mountain, and even more about what each floor was supposed to encompass.
The ground level, the one they were on, was a place of preparation and coordination. Drago's quarters were on this level, as well as some of the more important prisoner holding cells, the ones meant for short-term prisoners or overflow. There were more holding cells, many more, down below, but neither guard could remember any prisoners being brought in to any of those for months. Drago did not often take live prisoners.
Aside from Drago's quarters, the ground floor mostly served as a thoroughfare between the docks, lower levels, and upper levels. The upper levels housed soldier quarters, supplies, and other things, but that was irrelevant.
The only things that mattered were the layout of the ground floor, the location of Drago's quarters, the number and location of all soldiers on the ground floor, where stairs to other floors let out on the ground floor, and how many men would be on call at the other ends of those stairwells.
He knew enough of that to know they didn't have as much time as the current lack of resistance implied. Drago's men were not exceedingly well-trained, but they knew the procedures for an unanticipated hostile invasion. Even now, if a single man noticed them and survived doing so, the exits would all soon be blocked, and they would be trapped.
Not entirely trapped; no fortress manned by living, thinking people could withstand him if he went all-out. He would get out easily enough no matter how Drago's men tried to stop him, because they would never find him. But he had two far more vulnerable people with him, and he couldn't do that.
So, he ran as fast as the other two could match, and made a beeline right for where Drago had been seen not half an hour ago by the second guard whose memories he had taken a moment to sift through. Drago had come out to his ship, retrieved a large stack of parchments, and headed back for his quarters. The same quarters the guard in question knew were off-limits whenever Drago had parchment to deal with. Even knocking on the door could be punishable by death.
In this case, Ember didn't plan to knock, but he did plan for there to be death. One of the three murderers of his family would die tonight.
One of the four. But he couldn't let himself fall into that again, not just yet, and he held the darkness at bay with anger and purpose. There but not consuming him, just enough to harden him to what had to be done.
Ember noticed a glint of moving metal in the distance and fired forward, all too aware that he couldn't duck without exposing one of the dragons behind him to whatever had been fired their direction, and then fired again as soon as he could manage. The first shot exploded when it hit the projectile, and the second continued onward, blasting its origin with explosive blue fire.
In the back of his mind, he was keeping track of his shots. Those made four of the eight he had begun this second incursion with, and this was going to go so quickly that there was no point in factoring in any of those shots returning to be used later. If they were still in the mountain by then, he would have problems too large to solve with a single bolt of fire.
"How much further?" Pearl called out breathlessly.
"We're almost there," Ember barked back, recalling his mental map of the place. There would soon be a dark stone archway, brick set in relief instead of just natural stone, and that marked the part of the mountain nobody dared tread save for Drago, occasionally Second, and in the past, Krogan, who for obvious reasons would not be there now. Past that arch, he knew only that there was a solid door, the one for which knocking carried a penalty of death. Neither guard had ever been past the arch in all the time they had served Drago.
They might encounter Second there; Ember knew how to handle that. Storm would jump at the chance, and Pearl might help. Two on one, with at least one combatant moderately skilled, should be enough to stall Second, assuming he held back from killing. Given who Storm was, Ember considered that likely.
He would go for Drago; that was all they needed to leave this place. Drago's death, however it could be managed.
The bricks of the arch came into view around a winding corner; at least a dozen men also came into view, armed with spears and marching their direction.
Ember bit back a Viking curse in favor of expending a few shots to throw their front line into disarray, leaping forward and closing the distance before they could recover. He knew very well what men marching this way meant. The alarm had already been sounded, and the exits were soon going to be impassible.
That was for later. Now, he tore through their front line, snapped a spear haft in his teeth, and eviscerated the man holding what remained, bulling through the dark dust that resulted. He would not hold back; this was a fight for revenge and for the lives of his half-sister and whatever Pearl was to him. Every man downed was another form to throw at Drago, another form to spend getting them out, another chance to not fail. He did not fight to take forms, but he would use them when he had them.
Such as now, shifting to the body of one of the guards only a heartbeat before an unavoidable spear would have gone right through his side, instead suffering a nasty gash on a body that did not matter.
He could hear cries of confusion and fear as he struck, pulling the spear away from its wielder and turning it on another. That was good; the more he unnerved them, the faster he could end this and continue on. Pearl and Storm were attacking the scattered formation now, easily ripping through what remained because all eyes were on him, all weapons turned against the one that did not belong.
It was over in seconds; he took a short sword to the gut just as the last man fell, Storm biting into the man and slamming him against the wall, and then-
Then, Storm lurched forward and grabbed him, doing exactly the same. He experienced the unnerving sensation of being cast out of his own body and almost immediately solidified in the corridor a few steps back, in his usual No-scaled-not-prey form, though he changed back to the Night Fury body he tended to prefer as quickly as he could.
"Storm!" Pearl screeched from nearby. "That was Ember!" She sounded horrified by that fact.
"It was, yes," Ember grumbled, shaking his head and picking his way past the shattered and blood-stained remains they had made of the formation. "Just try not to kill me by accident any more than is inevitable."
"Well, if you use their forms, do not expect me to know the difference," Storm grumbled, falling in behind him.
"We both saw him change to fight them," Pearl interjected accusingly. "He had a big, bloody wound on his side and was stabbing one in the back. How did you make that mistake? I knew it was him."
"Heat of battle," Storm shot back. "And I was not watching him the whole time, unlike you."
"I just wanted to be sure he was okay," Pearl muttered, her voice low and embarrassed.
Ember ignored the byplay, caught up in leading the way to the arch.
As they ran, Storm somehow found the breath to keep talking. "At least you do not mind killing them."
"What else can I do?" Pearl asked, panting between words. "They keep trying to stab my eyes out or cut my throat! I'm not enjoying this, but it's life or death!"
"And I am saying that is good," Storm retorted firmly. "But you really need practice. What was that clumsy move with the stick and the helmet I saw you trying? You almost got a false claw down your throat so far it would have come out the other end!"
"Storm!" Pearl squealed.
"Quiet," Ember barked back, slowing down to a slow trot as the telltale red bricks came into view. "We go in silently, we kill on sight, and we get out the moment Drago is dead. I don't know what's past here, but let me take the door down."
"Sure. Will you need our fire, or do we get to burn everything in sight?" Storm asked seriously.
"Save your flames if you can." He didn't know how reinforced the door would actually be; Drago struck him as paranoid, so it might be proof against something like Second going rogue, but at the same time that would be a sign of weakness, so maybe not. "If Second is in there-"
"I will kill him and Pearl will help, now can we go before some other No-scaled-not-prey show up?" Storm hissed, prodding at his tail impatiently.
"Please don't die," Ember growled, and then they were going. He rounded the corner and passed under the brick arch ready to kill, and didn't let his guard down an inch when it seemed nobody was around. Beyond the arch was a small, circular room with several more arches leading out of it; beyond those arches he could see such mundane things as a pantry, a large chair like his father used to have, and a small desk with an open book on it. One arch contained a dark chamber with bars like a cell, but there was nothing living in there, either.
And on the inside of the largest arch, there was a thick, impenetrable-looking door reinforced with steel.
Pearl and Storm both ran into him as they leaped into the room, clearly expecting much more space and somebody to fight. He staggered and moved forward to let them in.
"Door," Pearl huffed. "That's it, right?"
"Right. Let's all hit it at once." He was thinking that if Drago happened to be standing close to the door, just blasting it open might be enough to kill him.
"On three," Storm snarled, fire building in the back of her throat. "One."
"Two," Pearl called out, also preparing to fire.
Ember crouched, checked his claws and teeth, and readied himself for anything. "Three!"
Three powerful blasts of fire impacted the door at the same time; it didn't explode, which was an impressive thing in and of itself, but it did break free of its frame and slam back into the chamber beyond, hitting the opposite wall with a loud crash.
After the crash had finished echoing through the stark quarters, Pearl shook her head. "Is that it?"
"No." He knew this trick; he might have used it himself if he had ever needed to survive such a situation, but was unaware of what was truly hunting him. Drago, if he was there, would be lurking by the doorway, ready to impale whoever was foolish enough to come through first, and he would be expecting dragons…
"Hide in the side chambers and leap out once he's vulnerable," he instructed. "I'm going to lure him out."
Pearl and Storm nodded and leaped over to opposite sides of the room, crouching behind two of the archways. They would not be visible until too late, from Drago's perspective.
That done, Ember snarled loudly, groaned in apparent annoyance, and walked away, his claws clicking on the stone. Once he was out in the currently empty corridor beyond, he shifted to the bloodied and bleeding form of one of the soldiers he had killed only moments ago, using the spear that came with it as a crutch.
The left leg of this body spasmed every time he put pressure on it; his breathing was labored and something in his chest felt broken. This body would not last long at all; he was pretty sure he was dying.
That made the ruse all the more effective, though, as his injuries had clearly been inflicted by a dragon. "Sir!" he yelled into the archway, digging up memories to be sure he held the façade of the body he was using. "They're heading down, into the lower levels! Are you here?"
"Aye," Drago's gruff, dark voice called out. "They've moved on?"
"Killin' as they go," Ember confirmed. "They run like nothin' else." He could remember, though from a remove, what this guard knew of the defenses, which was more than enough to add an unfakeable level of authenticity to his explanation. "Defenses are musterin', but we only caught wind o' this moments ago. Nobody knows where Second is, and Krogan ain't around to take charge, we need ya out here to rally us!"
"Second will be in his cell on the lowest level," Drago revealed, stepping into view, though not into range of Pearl and Storm. He was still wearing the dark cloak and brandishing the bullhook Ember recalled from his time on his ship. His eyes were still unnaturally piercing.
At the last possible moment, Ember glanced downward, not making eye contact. He knew better than to give Drago a chance to do whatever it was he did; the memories he had just seen provided ample examples of Drago sensing treachery just from looking someone in the eye.
But that was still not a good move; Drago growled suspiciously, sounding very much like a sickly dragon of some sort. "Things are not as they seem," he gritted, leveling his bullhook at Ember. "Look at me."
The game was up, but another game could be played now. Ember allowed the spasming pain this body was wracked with to become visible, letting his stance falter, and began to limp away. "Stay here then," he coughed, trying to sound malicious and managing something close. "Let the mountain fall."
That got Drago to step forward, out into the middle chamber, just shy of the striking range of the hidden dragons waiting for him. "Fool," he exhaled, "such a fool, you and the one who bought your treachery. I keep secrets from all. No invasion can defeat my new Second."
A new Second? Ember dismissed it; whatever it was, unless it showed up in the next few seconds, it could not stop them. "I doubt it," he laughed, and leveled his spear. "Yer not so intimidatin' now-"
Quick as a snake, utterly belying his massive size, Drago reversed his grip on his bullhook and threw it, and for the second time since the incursion began, Ember lost a form, the spike at the top of the bullhook going right through some part of his head, killing him instantly. He collapsed backward and solidified in Ember's form, which was good because the fight had just begun.
O-O-O-O-O
Pearl leaped into the fray the moment she saw the bad alpha's signature false claw go sailing out at Ember, knowing that it was, if not defenseless, then far closer than usual. She didn't really know how to fight, but how to kill was clear enough to anyone who had a healthy sense of self-preservation; she just had to do what she would fear, were she the one being attacked.
Storm leaped too; they converged right in front of Drago and spun, both lunging more or less in unison-
A large, bony fist struck the underside of her chin, and she gurgled in shocked pain as her body continued forward against her will, landing her atop the bad alpha, who had stepped her way to avoid Storm. He shifted, pulled back, and punched her again, right on the nose, and she reared back instinctively.
Storm made her presence known at that exact moment, attacking from behind and forcing the bad alpha to back off, leaving Pearl to fight through a spinning head and a pained throat; she felt terrible and couldn't make herself stand.
Then Ember came roaring in, leaping directly over her sprawled-out body to engage, landing on Storm's back and ripping into the bad alpha's cloaked arm there, providing her twice the amount of flashing claws and biting teeth as she bore down on the No-scaled-not-prey.
But the bad alpha managed to escape, his cloak in tangled shreds revealing the gleam of hard, reflective stone beneath, scratched but not damaged beyond that. Ember leaped off of Storm and the two cornered him against one of the curved portions of wall.
Pearl had just struggled to her paws, wondering if she was even needed, when the bad alpha made his next move, reaching over and taking off what she had assumed was his other arm, wielding it like a metal club and revealing nothing where its arm should be. There was a mad glint in his eyes.
Ember and Storm both hesitated, confused by the strange revelation. The bad alpha set his stance and snarled at them, waving the arm over his head. It was some sort of intimidation tactic.
Then he began roaring, a wordless command for submission. She didn't like that sound, and had never heard its like before; Claw always talked and ordered people around, he didn't roar and demand absolute obedience like this. She found herself wanting to obey just to get the horrible noise to stop, and was glad when Ember and Storm roared right back, silencing him.
"There's black magic at work here," the bad alpha snarled, waving the arm at Ember. "I know that inner turmoil, boy."
"Oh, shut up," Storm barked, lunging forward-
Pearl jolted in terror as the bad alpha slammed its false arm down on Storm's head, hitting so hard as to drive her to the ground. Her head bounced off of the stone, and her eyes fluttered closed. The No-scaled-not-prey had not stopped there, either, leaping over her body and sliding down the side, narrowly avoiding Ember's claws and teeth, heading straight for her.
Straight for her, and for the exit directly behind her. Pearl tensed, tried to see with eyes that just would not focus properly, and spread her wings, blocking the way completely. She had no plan, save for the barest of objectives.
The bad alpha slowed for just the smallest fraction of an instant, confused by her admittedly stupid move. That was all it took for Ember to catch up and drive his claws into the No-scaled-not-prey's back, bringing him down. They tangled on the ground, Ember raking deep cuts down the No-scaled-not-prey and hunkering down, letting powerful blows rain down on his sturdy shoulders. An unearthly yelling howl was ripping its way out of the bad alpha, and an ominous clatter of stone on stone and distant voices coming from the corridor outside.
One noise stopped before the other, the horrible howl dying off as its origin died, as Ember dug deeper into the mass of flesh and leather and stolen scale. Pearl had one eye on the exit archway and one on the fight, so she saw the moment Drago's body collapsed into ash, letting Ember hit the floor with a thump, not even leaving the false arm behind.
Ember panted for a few moments, looking worse for the wear, his right wing's leading edge bent at an unnatural angle. He then engulfed himself in flame, his body shrinking and expanding in shape, the flames almost immediately receding to reveal the same wild-eyed No-scaled-not-prey he had just killed, the bad alpha.
Pearl, to her immense embarrassment, could not help an undignified squawk of fear at the look on Ember's rocky, weather old face, even though she knew who it really was behind the terrible eyes.
He closed his eyes, and his breathing sped up. Blood dripped from the many cuts that had been inflicted before the point of no return, and he took a slow, steady step toward the exit.
"Ember?" she quaked. "We need to go now, right? How do we wake Storm?" He would know, he always did. She was more than ready to get out of here.
His eyes snapped open, and he tilted his head as if listening to the sounds of approaching danger. He looked at her, and then the archway. The imposing bulk of No-scaled-not-prey that he currently was worked wonders at making it hard to tell what he was thinking. She wasn't good at interpreting their expressions to start with, and this one barely had expressions that didn't just look like some form of anger.
"Can you talk them into not looking in here so we can sneak out?" Pearl suggested, wondering why he wasn't saying anything.
He walked past her, stopping close enough to touch, looking out at the archway. He raised the false metal arm as if to throw it out into the corridor, and then stopped. His hand shook.
Then, in a move so quick she had no time to react, he brought it down on her head and knocked her out in a single blow.
Author's Note: Oh, you thought it was going to be that easy? That they were just going to show up, kill him, and leave? Sorry, this is All That Remains, meaning it's tonally identical to When Nothing Remains, meaning this was never going to be as simple as Ember, Storm and Pearl hoped. I look forward to predictions on how this works out, or indeed what has just happened. Again, much can be derived from what was not in this chapter.