image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/bannerflashback.jpg]

Time: A Year Ago

Location: The Glade/The Invader Stronghold

The power washed through me. I took it all in, starving for it. Needing it.

It was glorious. So very glorious. I was drunk with it, but I still couldn’t get enough.

I felt so vast. I could see so much. I could sense everything. And, it all belonged to me.

Tywys and her sacrifice were instantly forgotten. There was no sorrow for the one who brought me such delight.

That’s what she would have wanted, right?

To see me happy?

To see my rise to power!

For me to bring justice down on those who wronged my clan!

To destroy the Invaders who left spirits without people! Those who made the Flames of Bedlam to begin with!

Ah, yes. This was the very thing I was meant to do. Perhaps she just didn’t see that.

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I wish she’d understood.

image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/divider.png]

I couldn’t contain the power. My person form… the form I worked so hard to create… it was burning away. I saw the darkness seeping out from beneath my cracking skin.

As the flames burned, it felt so wondrous. I knew that I would soon transform into what my legacy intended. My greatest gift was yet to come!

Soon… soon…

I must be sure that they saw!

I wanted them to watch their death unfold before their eyes.

Just like that, I found myself within the Invader’s home city, far beyond the fortified gates. A place I’d never seen before. I didn’t wonder how I got there. I just delighted knowing what was about to happen. That something vast within me was trying to get out, and would bring the death-flame with it.

I saw them through blood-tinted eyes. The Invaders.

Only, within their town, they didn’t look like the Invaders that I knew. No. They were not the huge mechanical things I used to believe – were those vehicles? Did the ones I saw before ride in machines?

These Invaders looked people(?)

Before I could consider the complications of this revelation, the power within me became too much. My form exploded into fury and darkness.

image [https://sygnus.org/flames-of-bedlam/story/pic/divider.png]

“Bahamut!” they cried as they fled.

In their language, it was a word that meant a vast, terrible beast. Finally, I was given a proper name!

My wings unfurled, taking many blocks worth of structures as they did. My flame melted rubble and Invaders without prejudice. It was so much hotter than normal flame.

My fury rained down meteors.

My roar crumbled everything before me.

My tail laid waste to anything I might have missed behind me.

Oh, I was vast. Oh, I was terrible.

I savored the destruction. I had mercy for nothing.

And nothing was left of the Invader city when I was done.

This… was just the beginning.