“We will fight back against those green monsters, against Ghostlight!” I announced to my few allies.
I am one of the many reptilians who were being attacked by Ghostlight’s bio-weapon, these green humanoid monsters that only knew death and destruction.
Unlike most of my kind, who were peaceful and passive people, I wasn’t going to take this any more, and started a guild entirely dedicated to stopping Ghostlight.
“How will we do that?” One of them asked.
I raised up a spear doused in a glowing green liquid. As strange as it is, these green monsters do have one weakness.
“We fight them with our own bio-weapons.” I answered.
The green liquid was actually a kind of glowing algae found commonly in our rivers and lakes. We observed the green monsters seemingly getting weaker when attempting to swim through these locations, some even never reaching the other side before sinking.
I hated being forced to fight against such a powerful enemy, but these are enemies we can’t make peace with, there’s just no way. Ghostlight wants us all to die, and he will not stop until we’ve gone extinct.
Sadly, I fear his methods of using this bio-weapon was far too reckless, who knows if he’s accidentally planted any on other worlds than our own? No other creature in the universe deserves a fate such as this.
“There are far too many for us to fight.” Another person uttered.
I knew there were. I knew that there was no hope in winning, but we had to make some kind of difference with what we had.
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“I know,” I admitted, “We won’t win at this rate, but we need to do something.”
I looked at my spear and continued.
“Will we sit idly by while they slaughter our people? Will we just submit to Ghostlight and let him kill us all for his absurd reasons?”
I know we all feared these bio-weapons. They have the ability to inject themselves into us and transform us into one of them, and none of us wanted a fate like that.
“What can we do? We’ll die anyway!” Another person exclaimed.
These people are hopeless.
I stepped off of the stool I had been standing on, and went to another room.
This crowded little cave I turned into our guild’s headquarters didn’t have very much room for us, but it was the best place I could find that was well hidden enough.
I sat down on the ground and thought hard for a moment. Really, what could we do? We’re at a severe disadvantage.
“Hello?” I heard a voice call from the other room. I looked out and saw someone unfamiliar, someone new.
“This is the guild, right?” They asked.
I stepped out and smiled, someone new finally arrived!
“Yes, it is!” I replied, excited to see that there were actually others out there who were interested in this battle.
“Me and my friends are willing to help in this fight.” They said, with a few others stepping forth from behind them, holding weapons.
It was a little hard for me to believe there were actually people out there who were willing to step up and fight against these green monsters. Most of my kind are quite peaceful, and against fighting.
This was only the beginning. These weren’t the only folks to join our guild, with many more joining the following days.
We had a small army by then, and already laid out plans on attacking the green monsters and finding out where Ghostlight was. The tides of war have turned.
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2 weeks later. We’re ready to embark on the first of our many missions.
“Is everyone ready?” I shouted at the small army of other reptilians, all geared for battle against the green monsters.
They all raised their algae-covered weapons and shouted in unison, a scene I never thought I’d witness in my life.
We had previously tracked down where a “green factory” was, a place where machines built by Ghostlight mass produce green monsters. We intended to raid it and destroy it, halting production of these green monsters in that area and securing it as our own.
I raised my spear.
“Let’s go!” I shouted, leading everyone forward through the nearby forest. We were going to win this mission.
This was the first time in the last 500 years my race has gone to war. None of us liked to fight, but we all understood that to continue living a life of peace and carelessness, someone has to do the fighting, and this is where that begins.
We all moved swiftly through the forest with great determination, the trees and plants around us seeming to cheer us on for our mission.
Before long, we crossed into an opening in the woods. We still had a ways to go, but something seemed off.
“Do you hear that?” One of the soldiers asked, just as strange distant sounds roared through the horizon.
“Is that what I think it is…?” Another soldier muttered, when suddenly, a massive figure flew right above us.
What a terrible sight we witnessed! Flying high above us was a powerful dragon, but… It seemed to have been infected by the green monsters, causing it to go rogue!
In our world, dragons and reptilians have a peaceful relationship, and both regularly communicate, so the only time a dragon would attack us is if it’s under some kind of influence such as this.
“We have to try and run!” I ordered the soldiers.
I was confident in our abilities to take down green monsters, but to attempt slay a dragon, let alone a green monster dragon, would be suicide.
We all returned to the trees near this forest opening, and ran through hoping that the forest will cover us from the dragon’s sight.
All seemed well enough until suddenly, a large blast of strange green fire washed over a portion of the trees in front of us, blocking our way through.
From high above, the dragon slammed down onto the ground, causing rubble and dust to fly everywhere.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
At this point I knew, there was no running from this fight. We needed to stop this dragon, for the sake of our mission, and the sake of our world.
“We have to fight!” I shouted. It wasn’t a shout of confidence, and everyone around me understood that. We have no choice!
I raised my spear and sprinted towards the towering green beast before me. Such a tragedy, this.
Dragons are such beautiful creatures, and for it to be corrupted by Ghostlight like this, it’s horrible. The least we can do is free it from this curse laid upon it.
The dragon swiped it’s massive claw towards me, and as I attempted to dodge, I was hit and sent flying back into a tree. I wasn’t ready for this kind of fight.
I could already feel my abdomen was badly damaged, I could barely even breathe without sharp pain running through my entire body.
I saw some of my other soldiers being split whether to flee, fight, or come to my assistance.
Some charged at the dragon, some managed to lay a few hits, while most were swiped away or burned to a crisp by the dragon’s bizarre green flames.
One of my allies came to my side with bandages and tried to wrap them around me, but the amount of blood already spilling out of my body was too overwhelming.
We just started this mission and I’m already at death’s door.
I tried to get up to continue the fight, as I might as well try to do some kind of damage before going out, but my body seemed to have a hard time even moving.
My eyes started to close while my mind raced and screamed at my body to get up and keep moving.
Damn, that’s it, huh? I sit here and die, and after all the encouragement I gave to everyone else. How embarrassing.
I sat there in a dark world, surrounded by a black void, unable to even see my own body, but I knew I was somewhere.
Looking up, I saw some kind of strange, but brilliant yellow flame floating nearby. Without speaking any words, it somehow told me to follow it.
I instinctively started moving, albeit slowly. I didn’t feel any pain, but I still felt too weak to even move.
I mustered all of my strength to keep going, until I was right next to this flame.
Reaching out to grab it, I could see the world around be starting to glow in a faint yellow tone, but before I could make contact, something else seemed to come out of nowhere and knock the flame far away from me.
I looked over and saw a silhouette of a dragon.
“Thank you,” it started, “Thank you for helping me, and for helping the world.”
“I am the spirit of the dragon you and your allies are fighting. I was able to see you all take a stand and fight against this menace when even we dragons could not, and I salute your bravery.”
I looked closer at the dragon, and it seemed to take more of a recognizable form. It was certainly the same dragon we were fighting, but it wasn’t green at all, this one was a brilliant icy blue.
“I offer you my soul.” The dragon proposed.
“With it, you will be brought back, and you will have far greater strength to defeat Ghostlight.”
I looked at my nonexistent hand, seeing it phase in and out of visibility.
“I want as much as you for the world to be peaceful again, and this is the least I can do to help in this war.”
I looked up at the dragon and stared into it’s eyes.
It looked sad, but hopeful. It looked back at me, knowing that I could make a big difference in this world had I been given a second chance.
I thought for a second. I didn’t like to fight, and now that I’m in this peaceful void of a world, I didn’t need to fight or worry anymore… But my allies in the living world are still out there fighting against the possessed body of this dragon.
Dying now would only further Ghostlight’s reign upon our world. As much as I wanted to rest, I understood that this is what needs to be done.
I reached out to the dragon’s spirit, and the world around me started to get warmer and lighter.
Suddenly, I woke up with a powerful flash of light, and sprung up from the ground.
I looked around me to see my allies struggling, and many looking in awe as I sprung to life. What was more strange, was the fact that I was now surrounded by an icy blue aura that extended far off to the sides like a transparent pair of wings.
As if by instinct, I jumped into the air, and used these aura wings to fly towards the green dragon, and with my bare hands, struck it across the face.
“This fight is not over!" I shouted in determination. The fight was far from over.
Gathering up the aura and pooling it into my hands, I formed massive claw-like weapons made purely out of energy, and struck the green beast with all my might, causing it to split entirely in half.
I wasn’t sure what this was, or how this was even possible. The combined power of a reptilian and a dragon is somehow greater than the two separately.
As the dragon’s corpse began to melt away as most green monsters do, we all gathered around.
“What happened?” One of the soldiers asked.
I thought for a moment. I’m not even too sure myself, so I shrugged.
“We should get back home and rest.” I told them, considering our injued allies.
And so we gathered our allies and continued home. We lost a few during that fight, which is sadly inevitable, but they died for a noble cause.
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After a bit of travel, we arrive back at our guild headquarters, but what we didn’t expect to see was that it was currently overrun by… Gnomes?
One of the tiny little gnomes approached.
“Your guild ain’t great.” It said.
“Your guild ain’t great!” A bunch of others mimicked. Oh no, this isn’t going to go well.
On my world, gnomes are notorious for inspecting living quarters of other creatures and harshly critiquing them, even though the gnomes have nothing to do with these homes whatsoever.
“Your guild ain’t great!” They kept repeating.
“We don’t have time for home inspections.” I growled. We needed to get our allies patched up and rested as soon as possible.
“Your guild ain’t great.” One of the gnomes squawked.
“Fine, what’ll it take to get you guys to go away?” I asked with a passively annoyed tone. I’ve had prior experience with these stupid things.
“Your guild…” one of them muttered, while looking around, inspecting different things. It took a little while to consider all of the details that my guild had, inspecting them thoroughly before ultimately deciding on 2 words.
“…Ain’t great.”
Ugh. I don’t have time for this.
I lightly booted one of the gnomes out of the way and continued forward into my guild. Just then, I felt something on my leg.
One of the gnomes were trying to punch my foot.
I lightly kicked it off, but more kept trying to pile up and punch me on the foot or ankles.
“Your guild ain’t great!” They chanted like some kind of tiny occult.
This was how it was going to be.
This story is just the beginning. We have a long way to go before defeating Ghostlight, and every step counts.