Ruby ended up being unconscious for a total of nine days. Cammine had taught Alice some healing magic, which she had been using to help sustain Ruby, and they also managed to give her some water during that time, again using magic to aid the process. Cammine’s medical knowledge was impressive, and while she was still cut up at not being able to use her own magic, that she was able to instruct others who were capable of using it did seem to help. Alice’s compatibility with it was pale in comparison to Velvet’s, but every little bit helped. They hadn’t initially seen the need to use the stasis chamber in the depths of the Academia de Magica given that she wasn’t physically wounded, but as time had dragged on they had wondered if it would have been a good option. By the time that they had given it serious thought, and convinced Cammine that it might be a viable option, Ruby had awakened.

She was initially dazed and confused when she woke, tears then flowing when the memories had flooded back. She was a strong lady though, and after a short while she had composed herself. A Rider’s familiar was meant to be neigh indestructible, and usually the only way to ‘kill’ them was to kill the Rider. Yet, there were now two Riders whose familiar had been killed, excluding Myne’s who had suffered a slightly different fate. Ruby was furious at Sorene, well at least as furious as she could manage given her current physical state, but also mad at herself for having let it happen. She had underestimated the extent of the corruption in the Clan. She expressed her gratitude to the party for rescuing her from certain death, and pledged her aid to helping stop the Demon King, as much as she was able. She wasn’t sure how much help she was going to be, especially once Myne had given her a rundown on the remainder of the events from that day, but she certainly wasn’t going to let either Sorene or the Demon King have their way.

Ruby had tried to use her magic, but like Cammine she was unable to do so, her magic unstable and not responding. That also meant that she was now clothed only in her Skeon, as she couldn’t summon her bone armour, but having anticipated that Alice already had some clothes ready for her if she wanted it, a flowing red dress that suited her well. Ruby was already thinking on exactly what impact the death of her dragon had had on her, and how they might go about fixing it. She had told Myne that it certainly must be possible, given that Myne was still able to use her magic even though her dragon was gone, and Melody likely wasn’t mistaken. The first avenue to try would be the summoning ritual. Part of its purpose was to stabilize a Riders magic, as their magic was unstable when they initially awakened, and while the cause of the current instability was different, its state was similar. Being a Lady Knight, Ruby possessed the knowledge of the ritual, and working with Alice they set up the ritual in one of the empty rooms on the upper floor, choosing a wall adjoining room near the collapsed section, in case they destroyed more of the ruins. The ritualistic inscriptions were a lot more complex than any of them had realized, and watching them set it up, Myne could see why Lyrissa had chosen to awaken Velvet in the Southern Temple, where a lot of the work had already been done. Granted the magic had to be personalized to the Rider as well, but the bulk of it was generic, and it seemed like Alice actually understood the purposes of each section as they put it into place. It was also time consuming, and as they had to set it all up from scratch it took a full day to complete. Myne was impressed that Ruby had even managed to remember it all.

The following morning, with the rest of the party watching, Ruby had stepped into the circle. It activated, the circle glowing red as the magic flowed around and through her, but then suddenly cut short, Ruby coughing up blood. Her magic was refusing to stabilize into a Riders again, almost like it had a personality of it own, the death of the dragon having left a permanent scar upon her gem. It’s full potential was still there, the loss of the dragon not having diminished it (perhaps even increasing it, as the portion that was the dragon now resided within her), it just couldn’t be formed that way again. Fortunately the wounds from the failed summoning were light, nothing that a bit of healing magic and some rest couldn’t fix. Cammine also tried, on the off chance the failure was isolated to Ruby, but the results were the same, except that the circle glowed a warm white for her, confirming that the circle was indeed reacting to the individuals magic.

The failed summons though had given Myne an idea, the final piece of the puzzle that Melody had been hinting at, though it was unlikely that she had had any idea of the details, just what the end result would be. While Ruby rested up, Myne had sat down with Alice and gone over her idea, as she would need her to make the necessary modifications. She could do some ritualistic magic, but the summoning circles were well outside of her scope. But not outside of Alice’s, especially given the magic that she possessed. If their magic wasn’t going to resettle back into that of a Riders, then perhaps it would into that of a Dragon Feral as it had for Myne. She could use her own magical signature as part of the base for modifying the ritualistic circle, but the unknown factor was if, using Lyrissa’s term, you had to be a vampire in order to awaken as a Dragon Feral, or if they were two separate but compatible states. Alice was keen on the idea, and was certain that it would work. With Myne teaching her the part of her sensing magic that she used to examine peoples signatures, Alice set about working out what modifications would be needed, before they both then presented the proposal to Ruby and Cammine.

“So, essentially you want to try and change me into something like yourself,” Ruby said to Myne, after she had finished pitching the idea.

“Pretty much. Your magic is still draconic in nature, it just doesn’t seem to want to be a Rider any more,” Myne replied. “We can either go straight to the combined state, or try for a pure Feral first. It’s your choice.”

Ruby looked thoughtful.

“Do you have any other plans?” she finally asked. She had already been thinking along the same lines, but it had been her final option.

“None at all,” Myne stated bluntly. “While a pure Feral may not work, I’m certain that the combined state will with the right assistance. I just have no idea about what any of the side effects might be.”

“There really isn’t much choice,” grinned Ruby. “If I don’t try this, then I’m stuck without the use of my magic, and the world falling to pieces around us. Let’s do it. We’ll try pure Feral first, then the hybrid darkling.”

“I want to try it too,” Cammine added timidly. The beating that she had taken from Sorene and the demon had left scars on her psyche, compounded by the inability to use her magic. She had been recovering slowly, but Myne had noticed that she still hadn’t recovered most of her former confidence.

It turned out, at least for the method that they were trying, that pure Dragon Feral’s weren’t a thing. The circle activated again when Ruby was ready, the magic enveloping her, and while she could feel her magic trying to adapt and change in the direction that the ritual had mapped out, it wasn’t able to settle at all. However on the plus side there was no physical injuries this time, and once Alice had made the final adjustments to the circle they tried again, going for the combined form. The ritual was different this time as well, as it involved Myne feeding on Ruby as the circle activated, her magic trying to do its thing while the circle did the rest, and Myne was just as nervous about it as Ruby was, though they both tried to mask it as best they could. The magic flared up around them as Myne sunk her fangs into Ruby’s neck, both red and black in colour, enveloping them both. Ruby closed her eyes, a smile on her face, the sound of the magic as it flowed around them drowning out any noises that she may have made. After a few minutes Myne lifted up herself up from Ruby’s neck, and stood back, the magic dying away slowly from around them. Like Myne, Ruby now sported a pair of draconic horns, ruby red in colour, and a pair of fangs were visible in her smile. She also had pale red scales visible on the areas that her Skeon didn’t cover, over her shoulders and running down her back

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“That seems to have worked,” Ruby stated, a wistful smile on her face. Composing herself, she then summoned her armour. While it was the same colour and covered the same area as before, instead of being simple functional plates it was now made up from small intricate scales, that hugged her body more closely. Must be a feature of being a Dragon Feral Myne figured. Her halberd had undergone a similar transformation, and while it had always been the most intricate manifestation of her magic, it was so much more so now. The shaft was covered in the same scales as her armour, a draconic form reminiscent of Yil’eth curling its way around the upper section, it’s fangs biting into the base of the halberds blade which was a blood red colour and shone with raw magic. Ruby looked quite pleased with the end result, and Myne was quite surprised at how easily she had manifested the new armour. She certainly had a lot of confidence in herself, one of the traits that had earned her the title of Lady Knight.

For Cammine they went straight to the combined form. Given the difference in height between the two, Myne found it difficult to get herself into a good position, so Shino ended up going for a quick scrounge, bringing back a small box for Cammine to stand on. At least her hair wouldn’t be in the way given that she still kept it in a braid. She was also now wearing a simple light blue dress in the place of her damaged Skeon, close fitting from her chest to waist and then flowing down to just above her knees, black tights on her legs and a pair of dainty leather boots on her feet. She had worn a variety of clothes since they had rescued her, dependant on what she had been able to find amongst Alice’s stash and/or had her make, as without her armour she had felt no need to wear the Skeon any longer. While a lot of Riders liked wearing it, or just did so without question, she was in the camp that had done so only out of necessity, and as she couldn’t summon her armour and it was damaged she had switched to other clothes without hesitation. The magic that enveloped them was black and gold in colour, representative more of Cammine’s missing dragon rather than of her diamond gem, and the magic felt warm and caring, while for Ruby it had felt more strong and aggressive. When it died away and Myne attempted to step back, she had to catch Cammine as she collapsed, the transformation having worn her out a lot more than it had for Ruby, probably as her magic had been unstable for that much longer. Her constitution also wasn’t anywhere as sound as it was for the Lady Knight. Cammine showed more changes than either of the other two Dragon Ferals, though none of the individual changes were as pronounced as for Ruby and Myne. She now had cute short golden horns that were only of palms length, and her hair was now a golden blonde colour that glowed in the light. Her lips were a deep blood red, her skin porcelain white, and her eyes a red-gold hue. Scales showed on the back of her hands and on patches of her arms, and her fingernails, sharp and scale-like were also a golden shade. Testing her ability to use her magic she summoned a small glowing orb of light that floated around her, almost of if it had a personality of it’s own, Cammine smiling at its antics. Not normally being a combatant, and not being dressed for it, she said that she wasn’t ready to try summoning her armour at this stage, but was confident that she at the least had the full use of her magic back. She also felt better than she had ever before. However she was hungry.

At that was the main complication of it all. Myne hadn’t been sure how strong their thirst would be, nor how quickly it would kick in, but the process had been successful and now there were three of them that wanted after blood. To be honest, it hadn’t been something that they had thought about at all while working on the process for the conversion, but it should have been. Myne normally had Velvet to help sate her thirst, but the others were new to the sensation, and did not share such a bond with anyone. Ruby was strong, and while Myne, now that she thought to look for it, could tell that Ruby also thirst for blood, she would resist it for quite a while. Cammine on the other hand was still physically exhausted, and all she could manage was to sit there amongst them, holding her knees to her as her body gave off a glow, her eyes showing her struggle. Currently a red gold colour, the glow itself was something that Myne hadn’t ever seen before. She figured it was likely unique to Cammine, another aspect of her new Feral form. Mind you, there was also very little that was known about Dragon Feral’s in the first place, all current ones in existence gathered together in the one room, but the main issue at the moment was blood for Cammine.

It was Alice who came to the rescue, after they had all moved downstairs to one of the more comfortable rooms, the men heading out to hunt for the nights meal, though Myne suspected that that was likely just an excuse to give the rest of them some room to contemplate the current situation and possibly provide a back up solution. Myne had briefly thought about animal blood, but had just as quickly dismissed it due to her thoughts on the act of feeding and how personal it was for her.

Alice sat down beside Cammine, and gave her a comforting hug.

“Everything will be alright,” she said, before then quietly continuing. “You can feed from me this time round, till we work something out.”

“What do I do?” asked Cammine, looking up at Alice.

“Bite here,” Alice replied, pushing her hair away from her neck, revealing a pair of bite marks that were still in the process of healing. “It should come naturally after that.”

Cammine delicately touched the bite marks, hesitating, before she then shifted her position and leaned in, baring her fangs. A look of pleasure crossed her face in surprise as she drank, before she pulled back shortly after, sated.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, blushing, the glow from her going a rosy pink before fading away, as she then leaned into Alice and closed her eyes.

Kyla, who had been sitting beside Myne, suddenly got up, tears in her eyes, and rushed out of the room.

“Oh,” said Alice in surprise, a sad look on her face. “I didn’t realize.”