In Ggigantija,

Apranax looked over his reports and at the last meeting he invited the queen and the elves.

"According to our shamans the goddess Aurelia has contacted and found the great wyrm of prediction and she is on her way.

We must welcome this creature with the greatest kindness because it is very sensitive and fearful. On the other hand other infernal creatures have escaped from the mountain again and their roar has caused thunder when there were no clouds.

They are like arrows and could destroy everything in their path or skewer you with their sharp heads!

Then an acolyte showed a scroll which he unrolled.

Acolyte: "The western arenas are destroyed...the entire barony has been wiped out. The families cry out for vengeance, 1500 dead."

Apranax: "And the Duke?"

Acolyte: "He is safe at the Fort..."....

Apranax took a breath and looked at the elves and some human delegations

"The dragon hunters were exterminated at the Western Arena. Not a single one survived."

The crowd began to rumble.

It was composed of nobles and master warriors, civilians and serfs were not even allowed to enter the domain.

Queen Tarakmis was on her way out and hearing this news, she smiled.

"Well done, little rookies..!"

In fact, she was looking for her champion too but was planning to destroy the elves and their ugly arrogant looks.

She was waiting for the wyvern to come, however, but Aurelia was getting in the way of her plans. She wanted to know more and then she turned to her strongest warrior Mombasa.

A hercule, a brute with muscles that would make a weightlifter pale and whose favourite weapon was a spiked parrot mace.

She ordered a servant to bring her a package.

It was covered with thick black fur and she asked her servant to give her this present and a purse.

They left the room while Apranax dramatised the situation and played the role of scarecrow to perfection.

The queen and her bodyguard and servant were in a semi-open room overlooking an area to the rear, out of sight and close to the eternal stones, set up to align the sun with the holes in the temple behind.

Tarakmis lifted her veil, revealing all her beauty to the barbarian before her.

Then she swept the altar in front of her and flames appeared out of nowhere.

Monbasa looked at the flames on the altar.

"This is Aria, your beloved...! "

The barbarian was shocked and saw his dead companion again, on the stake, killed by elves when they were chased south, to the surviving kingdom of the old human empire.

Tarakmis: "I can't bring her back now, but I want you to infiltrate the barbarian tribes and bring the creatures of the mountain to our cause.

They don't have a hero yet. Then I will make you one.

And she offered a powerful double-bladed sword.

"It is the dragon slayer! A blade passed down through generations of equally powerful warriors.

It breaks and slices through other swords made of bad alloy. Even elven weapons do not have this strength. Moreover, it can, via lightning, give you the strength and power of all its predecessors during a fight."

He knelt down and raised his hands and the rein put the weapon down without any effort. The weapon was light for the user but very heavy for the others. It was unquestionably a magical weapon from another age.

"People have died to save this weapon from the great catastrophe, for it was forged in times immemorial."

He raised the sword and rays of sunlight flashed its brilliance.

"It is a beautiful blade, my queen... I will take care of it..."

"Mombasa: They will probably bring my sister who is a hostage here, so I won't go to war. They will certainly sacrifice her to get the horn of prediction.

But I think it's not a horn but a weapon from another time... I saw it in a dream.

Don't be afraid of the darkness... it is your ally

Find the princess and save her from the clutches of the drows, seize the weapon of prophecy and rally the monsters to our cause to overthrow the drows.

Eliminate and kill all those who hinder your mission.

And pray to the mountain goddess. I am sure she will bring Aria back to you."

At these words, the flames disappeared and were replaced by black flames showing the entrance to the octahedron and the temple as well as the access to the underground.

Then she gave a barbarian hair clasp.

"This will make you immune to the magical cold... It is a precious artifact of our royal family..."

Then without waiting, Mombasa took his horse and set off on his mission. But for that, he would need friends, sure allies and experts in fights.

With his purse in hand, he went to the city. A drow town but mixed with humans at their service. So untrustworthy, but it's often in the underbelly that you can find the most beautiful pieces.

The city's arenas and the slave market... quite a program.

Meanwhile, far to the south...

Hella: "Do you think it's a good place?"

"Yes... there are caves and I discovered a network of underground galleries, probably an abandoned mine. We can eat quartz crystals... it's not as good as tiberium but I haven't seen any. We can also eat prey, game and fruits. I've seen lots of banana trees and they're full of oil! even in the peels...and that converts well to fuel."

Hella: "You always think like a human..."

"I know...but I love you...yet it's hard I was mutilated against my will...and it's hard to swallow.. Imagine yourself turned into a cart pulled by oxen... I think you'd squeak for a long time.."

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Hella held her dragon close...

The metal vibrated... a sign of intense emotions...

Immediately afterwards, they set up the entrance to a lair, with laser-cut rocks, and progress was made at great speed.

Quickly, a dozen rooms were set up with areas designed for humans as well as for young newborn dragons.

A fire pit, a deep, also laser-cut hole with a drain for a latrine,

a maintenance garage with a pit and everything for the dragons to rest, store materials and even a saltbox.

With their precision tools, they had even dug silos with a sort of sluice that allowed materials to flow out like sand, salt, quartz gravel, stone and ore gravel and even chalk

He had also reproduced Iseult's room and was beginning to carve (saw with a circular blade) the stringers for a bed, cupboards and shelves, as in his memory.

When everything was ready he met Hella again.

"It's time."

With a blast from the flamethrower, the fire roared into the fire pit and the den immediately warmed up.

It was almost a futuristic dwelling in a neolithic world...

Alban stood up and helped Hella open the breeding hatch.

Two eggs connected to a life-support mechanism slid slowly towards the straw and the place where they were to roll.

The bombing hatches closed. They also served a special ability of the helldrakes, a typically demonic property but one that also served for sexual and asexual reproduction.

A couple of helldrakes could thus reconstitute a squadron or an army on their own, quite quickly and also in a horrible and frightening way.

This was the "Vore" function. Females, mainly, but males could do it too, but Alban kept his gender and his role and had deactivated everything that could remotely touch his virility. He was a warrior, a former captain of the guard, proud and unapologetic about his condition. Especially since he had been recognised by his own people, even after his spectacular mutilation/transformation.

And he was attached to his former proto-Christian religion and to his lord Prince Bishop Altus, who is no longer with us.

He resented the unfortunate hydra that had submitted to the Golden Lion King Midas. A divine beast in human guise and then a winged lion. It had been a shock to see the former White Tiamat (only the living white head remained) fused with 4 unfortunate dragons) licking the lion's paws so that he would finish him off or return their young scattered in the corridors of time.

Without knowing it, they were the cause and consequence of their tragic fate.

Alban resented them to death for turning him into this, but seeing their plight and their pleas to finish them off, he could no longer wish them dead. Hatred had given way to pity. Especially since the hydra had also knelt before Alban to finish them off and pay for their mistake.

Alban cried very hard that day and his life took another turn. His rage and energy for revenge turned into a race against time, a race for life.

Nobody knew where the cataclysm came from, but it was not their fault, even if they had already made a disaster. But their experience and knowledge allowed them to save some of them or at least to give them a chance.

With their help, Alban was able to save his mutilated sister and her egg.

It was horrible... Iseult still had her human bust but her lower part looked like a dinosaur.

She went crazy and only Hella found an extreme solution.

Make her a full drake, a dragoness... but she had to swallow it and assimilate it.

Her heart was too small for the rest of her body and she couldn't stand upright and her extremities became red and inflamed from lack of blood... Something had happened. A rejection or experiments by her captors. who knows.

All we know is that Tania's egg was intact.

And the hydra didn't have time to take care of her. It was like they were swallowed by the shadows.

Gone. Those who were closest too... gone, and Alban understood that someone was manipulating everyone from the shadows, and always had.

He turned around, lost in thought, and looked at the culprit...the black mountain...

He frowned... "Even I was worthless to you, Demon, Destroyer...You left us to die in space, in nothingness, devoured by time...then he thought of the Devourer and the Midway.... "Thank you Nicolas...you are a good guy!"

Hella: "Alban???? I know you're thinking of something dangerous when you have that look!!!"

Alban: "Ah... yes... great.. "he leaned towards the eggs to listen... human reflex.... and it was useless since he had a monitor in his electronic brain.."

Hella sighed... "Still the same!"

The discussions they had were always in the direction of forbidding Hella to harm people and their livestock. Eating a human was taboo for him.

Then, exasperated, he shot: "It's a good thing you didn't make your den under the village temple! You don't think people will welcome you with flowers, do you? !!!! with spikes and pitchforks..yes!!!"

This made him laugh but Alban had become obsessed with eggs.

He had even kept his sister's dress in his cockpit.

"Please, Lord...may she be alive!"

He knelt down and twisted his wings into a...formless shape that he took to pray..

It was more bending than praying...

Then a crack was heard, followed by a black claw.

It was organic!! not robotic!

Alban sighed with relief. He couldn't imagine his sister with a cockpit in her head.

Then, an eye appeared from a piece of shell that fell off and, finally, a small wyvern, but the size of a young human fell into the straw.

Immediately, Hella cleaned the young creature and wrapped it in clean fur skins they had prepared the day before and others they had stored in their cockpit.

Little Iseult breathed and calmed down, she did as all babies do... she fell asleep

Alban and Hella surrounded the nest next to the fire, each making a semicircle and waiting for the second egg to hatch, which would happen soon.

Alban prayed inwardly that Isolde would not go mad and that everything would return to the way it was. They had so much to talk about, and even if it was heartbreaking, if she had forgotten everything, Alban had sworn with Hella to raise her as their child, and in a way she was their child too.

Except that this was against Alban's nature. Vore reproduction was an aberration, an abomination demolishing any concept of nature and far removed from the ways of the Lord.

It was also one of those things that repulsed him in the Helldrakes and the infernal dragons... and that had provoked a rage without name. That was also the terror of the Helldrakes at that time.

If they didn't tear their prey apart, they "integrated" them, in fact they swallowed them and transformed them into monsters with or without loss of consciousness or free will. They often turned their enemies into helldrakes, their free will stolen or destroyed.

Hella was terrified deep down. she had never used this function, much to Alban's delight. but what if Iseult was different? Evil like the demons? Or like a rag or a zombie??? Hella prayed... well she knew Tiamat was no more... so she trusted Alban's God... She hoped that Isolde would be herself, like Alban... Still human even in a dragon's body.

The body should remain a means, not an end in itself... And Alban insisted on that.

Alban was and remained a Knight. A Helldrake, yes, but he always remained a knight to the end.

The fire crackled and the embers flew, breaking the silence and the hum of the organometallic organs a little.

"It's crazy that we're alive when we're closer to the swords than anything else..."

Alban: "You're really weird for a Helldrake, Hella... and that's what I like about you. You're warm and much more human than you realize.

"What will become of us?" she asked.

She was also an elite soldier in Tiamat's army, but under the orders of the infernal dragoness, Hirrax, Tiamat's adopted daughter, the last legion, the punished, bizarre and most undisciplined. They were ostracized by the others because they all had a monster's heart and not a complete demon's heart, and as a result, they did not swallow the souls of their victims. One could say that they were the least "evil" of the infernal army, but they were no less fearsome. They were elites in their own way. And, this legion kept a secret... they were capable of love... which is why they were often excluded, banished...

"I've made long attempts and I manage to make myself invisible. It's a strange function, half magic and half technical, but I can also make a holographic projection except in sunlight. Maybe I could trade with humans, maybe if there's an academy or schools of mages. I mean, people who think before they type..."

Hella shook her head. "Alban..Alban..These are unnecessary risks...leave the humans alone, and then you saw.. Civilization is very primitive. In my data, we are at the limit of the stone age to the bronze age. Iron is very rare and agriculture is in its infancy.

If there is a powerful mage here in this world, she has just hatched!

Alban let out a squeak mixed with a whine, like a dog whining, a sad little "Iiii". Tears fell from his six eyes.

"At least they left me the tears..."

Hella: "Come on Alban... Come and clip yourself with me. I'm sure we'll have better days!

Her flexible tongue licked the red Helldrake's tears and they got into a "little chair" Alban surrounding Hella with his body and she in turn surrounding the eggs.

Then she lifted her head a little.

"When the four of us are settled, I'd like to have little ones with you...

Alban, Helldrakes?

Hella : "You know... you're a handsome guy... a beautiful dragon.

With her paw she pointed to the ornaments and carvings reinforcing his wings..then to the soft flexible metal parts.

Then, wanting to break his silence. She could feel him frowning...

"We'll make little knights out of them..like you..with your sense of values..."

At these words, life returned to her pupil-less fiery yellow eyes.

Then she resumed... "Alban...am I a monster in your eyes?"

He stretched out his long neck and looked into an empty corner of the den "No.. you are kind"

Hella "Well?"

He sighed and fell back against the metal dragon, his wings covering her completely.

"Yes.."

So Alban was slowly learning to accept himself. To understand and slowly love his body.

He could love... talk, taste life and also have young, and thus start a family.

He closed his eyes and let his mind rest, even if his body didn't need it.