Current hoard was always more valuable than potential hoard.
The baby wailed louder.
One of the cerulean-armored dragon-bonded planted the butt of her poleaxe into the ground.
Water surged from nothing.
Lavinatoch smelled brine, felt the cold.
Dark blue flowed over gray. A wave cresting into white, roiling foam to catch the baby before his head splattered.
The wave reversed suddenly, vanishing as it hit one of the cerulean-armored warriors.
“Get him out of here.”
The cerulean-armored dragon-bonded took to the sky on a dragon’s leap, then spread blue wings, disappearing into the blackness before Lavinatoch could react.
Not that she was of the mind to stop her counterpart.
Better the child didn’t die in the fight.
They could acquire him again after they won the larger battle.
The escape plan failed.
They were outnumbered 3 to 1.
She couldn’t gauge the level difference.
She felt that her unit was stronger individually, but the magic in their gear obscured things as though she was trying to read a book behind frosted glass.
Finger talk.
Darlatoch obeyed without hesitation, blowing a cloud of gold dust toward the enemy blocking the direction they needed to go while Abrason Sleep-Giver parried the sword thrust aimed at her back.
“Spark.” Jennerson Ravier-Tamer ignited the cloud.
The magical fire bloomed across the entire width of the street.
The enemy combined to call forth a dark wave swirling with the coldest depths of the ocean to swallow it.
Opposing forces pushed against each other like dueling greshects in rutting season.
Lavinatoch didn’t stand and watch to see the outcome.
She reached out and drew her long blade.
The golden copy of her overlord’s claws was a poor one, weaker by far, but it was enough to pierce cerulean scales.
She pulled and slashed.
Dragon tooth sword cleaved through cerulean-armored neck with just a little resistance.
“My overlord is ancient! Yours is but a child! It is you who should be begging for your lives! Surrender!”
Gold and cerulean clashed.
Leaping and darting across the street, on the rooftops.
Lavinatoch found herself fighting alone in the shadow of an old building.
She kicked one into an ugly statue of a man on some kind of equine. A weak-looking one. Not even a single horn.
Her golden-scaled armor ate blows from dragon weapons, while she cast spells to block or counter theirs.
The one trapped by how the cheap metal of the statue had caved around him like an angry hag-wife’s embrace opened the front of his helmet to spit.
The stream of freezing water cut across her exposed cheek.
She grit her teeth as the blood vessels burst.
“Weak.”
She showed him true strength by spitting molten metal that melted through his cerulean covered chest.
A pained scream cut short.
It sang to the spirit of her dragon overlord in her heart and soul.
Two enemies remained.
One died with her dragon tooth sword in his chest even as his clawed fingers gouged out her right eye.
The last crawled on the ground, dragging useless legs behind her, but still had enough fight to freeze Lavinatoch’s boots to the ground.
Lavinatoch’s fortune ran out with her energy.
Her death fell on leathery wings.
A poleaxe made from one of the larger scales on an ocean dragon’s sinuous back cleaved straight down the middle of Lavinatoch’s armored head.
For all her words about the superiority of her overlord, this time the gold failed.
She cut, but had no strength.
The other dragon-bonded warrior parried the weak blow.
Darkness fell over Lavinatoch’s remaining eye as she toppled to the ground.
The fight ended with the last enemy.
4 killed.
6 lost.
A good ratio based on projections.
The enemy had already been injured from fighting for at least a few hours.
And yet, they had died hard.
Kayla didn’t like it all.
They had the edge in everything except levels, experience and, she hated to admit it, in the personal strength of their dragons.
“She broke my back, Kayla,” Lark sobbed.
“Don’t be dramatic. You’ll be healed in, like, a month or two. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” She reached down with one hand to pick Lark off the ground.”
“What about—” Lark choked at the sight of Roberto and Kaison.
“We’ll have to come back for them later. For now we need to—”
Claws raked across the chalkboard in Kayla’s mind.
God how she hated when Cezirichella did that.
Except, this was worse than anything she had ever experienced.
It was the hair standing up all over her body, the shiver up her spine, the dark shape swimming out from the depths to brush against her.
Not even that eidolon in China from years ago had set the animal instinct to flee into overdrive like it did now.
She didn’t want to turn around.
Nope.
If she couldn’t see him then he couldn’t see her.
Childhood monster logic.
Yup.
Just had to manifest it.
Lark practically vibrated. “I think I just peed myself, but I can’t tell… cause I can’t feel my legs.” She laughed softly.
The presence behind them loomed large.
Like those deep ocean leviathans and whales.
A gust of wind almost pushed Kayla face first into the ground.
Only massive, powerful lungs could do that.
Like Cezirichella’s, but much larger, stronger.
Hotter with a metallic tang.
Unlike cold brine.
“Are you unable to face my majesty? This, despite being bonded to one of my kind?”
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!
This was the last thing Kayla wanted to face.
Cezirichella had been very clear about avoiding the other dragon.
The plan was to let Mr. Cruces fight him.
Whether Mr. Cruces knew that or not… she had no idea.
For all she knew he wasn’t even in the area.
There were a lot of world events out there and it wasn’t like he kept Richellia updated on his activities. He only did that when he was going to be close to their territory or if one of those horror problems was on its way to their territory.
“Do you not wish to display your courage? Failure to do so reflects poorly on your overlord. It is clear that she needs to be taught to be a proper dragon. You will have the honor of being my first gifts to her in our mating battle.”
Ickickickickickick!
“Cre— cre— cre—”
“Turn and face me if you are to reclaim mastery of your words, Earth human.”
Kayla tried, but she just couldn’t do it.
Lark had devolved into a blubbering mess, crying softly for her daddy and mommy.
Truth be told, she was with Lark there.
The only thing keeping her from falling to her knees was how they had locked up.
Sudden strength of will she didn’t know she had suddenly filled her. Just enough to open her mouth. “Creepy pervert!” she yelled in a rush like the tide crashing on the beach.
“Those are… words. Wasted ones. I shall convey them to your overlord. May she realize her inferiority through the quality she has bonded. Die knowing you are a disappoin—”
Wind rushed over her.
Death.
She was going to die without even raising her weapon like she had always pictured it.
Wait? What?
She had expected hot gold dust choking her or molten gold melting her.
Not ordinary wind, like when they stood too close to Cezirichella when she took off in her dragon form.
Kayla turned.
And saw an empty street.
“Kayla,” Lark whimpered. “I want to go home.”
“Me too.”
Kayla called the others through the comms.
Something in the back of her mind told her it was okay to wait for them to carry Kaison and Roberto.
Their families deserved to know for sure and to have bodies to bury.
It was always worse, in her opinion, when there weren’t bodies.
Because that always left the smallest sliver of doubt, of hope.
And there was nothing crueler than that.
Cal had missed many times this night.
312 times to be exact.
And more every few minutes as the battle below continued to rage.
The balance between helping and avoiding potential detection was bullshit he regretted.
A familiar refrain he castigated himself with.
Some would say 312— 316 was better than four, five times that number.
The vast majority of that number was among the combatants.
He had mostly steered the dragon’s gold-clad army away from noncombatants.
Cold comfort to the ones he had missed.
It was time to end things.
The dragon had put himself in a position that made it easier to hide intervention from watching eyes and listening ears.
All it had taken were the lives of brave people.
Some would say a few dozen dead was a bargain when weighed against an ancient dragon.
“Leave, Auvanfelhearobilt.”
“You?”
Name known. The dragon had expected it, having been warned by Suiteonemiades of the possibility.
“Yes.”
Slitted eyes set in a face echoing the green-skinned humanoids many kilometers below, flicked almost imperceptibly up to the black void.
“They lied to you. Can’t keep their promise. Can’t follow the plan because I won’t allow it.”
Humanoid form.
Unblemished gold and white skin tone.
Perfectly symmetrical unlike the features of the people it echoed.
As though sculpted or drawn with exact precision only possible through machinery or a masters skill and Skills.
Brow marred by slight furrows as a frown crept down.
“You. Are. Alone.”
Thoughts guarded by a magical nature supplemented by defensive spells.
Hard to read, but not impossible.
Psychic fingers poked.
Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.
Frown turned into a scowl.
An unconscious snarl.
Instinctive reaction when confronted by a threat.
Sensed parity or worse.
Unknown.
Didn’t like it.
Ages since he had been uncertain in the face of a foe.
Not much could challenge an adult dragon, let alone an ancient one.
Wary.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
So very wary.
Fight or flight?
Why had his thoughts even gone to the latter?
Only perfect memory recall allowed him to remember that last time he had fled.
Ages ago.
“The demigod undersold it.”
Fingers turned into spikes.
Drills bored on a world separate from the physical.
Doubts crept.
Then poured.
Despair.
Death.
Waste.
Muscles tensed.
Reproductive organs shriveled, retreating.
Shame?
Why?
He was beyond such petty concerns.
He took their form, but as a perfect paragon example.
Something the primary species of his hoard could aspire toward, but never attain.
Pride and vanity.
“Tell me where Suiteonemiades is hiding and I’ll let you leave my world alive.”
Dominance.
Asserted.
No!
Not settled.
This was no true fight.
Drills painful now.
Head hurt.
More than physical.
Alien thoughts flooded.
Screams.
Terror.
Feet pounding the streets far below.
Heart bursting.
Lungs burning.
Hand slick with sweat. Slipping. Tripping.
Flashing gold.
Red paint splashing across a gray canvas.
Sudden pain.
Then black.
Repeating.
More. Same. Different.
320, 321, 322, 323, 32—
Many times.
In quick succession.
All at once.
Torrent.
Rage.
Different.
Era.
World.
Worlds.
Small.
Large.
Teeth.
Claw.
Spell.
Skill.
Commonalities.
Pain and terror and hate and regret.
“Tell me where he is hiding or I will arm an army with your body parts to take everything that belongs to you.”
Repeating.
Again and again.
Days, months, years, decades, centuries, millen—
“I. Am. Immortal.”
Power swelling.
Mind clearing.
“I am no stranger to the passage of time, child.”
Spell cast.
Protect the mind.
Strengthen the walls.
Drills spun faster, pushed harder.
Thicken the walls.
Build and rebuild faster.
An ocean of mana required, but he had a world’s worth.
The true cost was in concentration.
Barely enough left over to do anything other than defend.
“No such thing as immortal,” Cal said. “Everything can die.”
“Spoken like a callow child that has seen nothing.”
“Last chance.”
“Yes. I agree. Surrender and live as my thrall.”
“Or die.”
They stood above the clouds.
The dragon in the form of a giant green-skinned humanoid, but in gold and white.
Naked for some reason.
Cezi wore clothing in her human-like form.
And he had never seen the one in Hawaii take any other form aside from her natural one.
Reality rippled around the dragon.
Humanoid one moment.
Dragon the next.
Massive.
Larger than a 747 compared to Cezi’s smaller than a 737.
Wings spread to block out the stars.
Maw opened to reveal teeth longer than a human was tall.
Black gullet like the void of the abyss.
Large enough to drive a small car through with plenty of clearance.
The dragon could inhale him on accident like one swallowed a tictac accidentally.
Magic flashed.
Perceptions sped.
Telekinetic forcefield already in place.
Gold shell transmuted from nothing lined the forcefield rather then his skin.
Heat greater that an industrial furnace pressed in harmlessly.
A thought ripped the shell apart.
A second one grabbed a hold of the gold molecules, shaping into a thousand slivers, barely visible from the glinting of reflective moonlight.
A third sowed confusion by worming through the cracks in the dragon’s psychic magic defense.
One Cal, two Cals, three Cals, four… a hundred.
All around.
Which is the real one? Or, maybe, we’re all the real one?
Silence.
Concentration pushed to even an ancient dragon’s limits.
Wings beat.
Zero to Mach 1 in an instant.
Altitude.
Chase.
Serpentine neck twisted.
Maw opened.
A river of molten gold spewed forth.
A dozen Cals disappeared, swamped by the rushing tide.
Golden waterfall in the sky.
A split-second to track its trajectory.
Empty ground. Grass, dirt and a few trees.
Safe to ignore.
Invisible buzz saws sparked against golden armor-like plates and white scales.
This dragon was built more like a tank than the sleek, streamlined Cezi.
Gold smoke billowed.
A spark turned the night sky bright with sudden flame.
The magic kept the massive cloud burning.
He plunged into it.
Tongues licked at his forcefield, stripping a thin layer a hundred times a second.
Build and rebuild.
He had more than enough reserves to outpace the damage until he burst through the other side.
The dragon flew through the sky with maneuverability on par with the last generation of fighter jets despite being larger than the largest passenger plane in pre-spires modern history.
Clawed forelimbs and hind legs lashed out at empty air where Cal’s physic illusions attacked with all too real telekinetic force.
The maw snapped shut on nothing.
He moved the molecules in the tissue of the dragon’s mouth.
A sudden burst of violent friction ignited an explosion.
The dragon roared, choking on fire and smoke as jagged shards of ivory rained down on the Atlantic.
Burning blood left trails in the sky as the dragon hit mach 2 only to slam into an invisible wall.
Cal grimaced.
That had hurt.
As if a several hundred ton dragon had just slammed into his brain.
The dragon plummeted toward the cold, dark, blue.
He gave it a firm push.
Wings snapped open.
Magic flared.
Leathery white glowed to blinding intensity.
Mach 3.
Straight up.
Maw yawned wide.
Gold spears spewed forth in a wide spray.
Telekinetic forcefield pierced.
Threnium armor cut.
Blood-shedding grazes to limbs.
One spear straight through the stomach.
Heat cauterized the thin hole in passing before healing gel could be injected.
Nearly instant death without a superhuman constitution that could handle the trauma of a hole in his stomach and a nick to his pancreas.
Concentration understandably lapsed.
Psychic copies vanished.
The dragon roared, plate-sized pupils dilated with a mix of terror and rage at the sight of what his confused thoughts saw as both prey and predator at the same time, yet separately.
Push both.
Terror and rage.
Leave little brain power for rational thought.
Easier to fight.
Cal flipped into a dive.
Broken-toothed maw snapping shut just above his boots.
Fast.
Faster.
The air boomed several times in rapid succession.
Magic ignited like a rocket behind the dragon as he dived in pursuit.
Cold, dark blue loomed large with frightening speed.
Plunge straight into its merciless embrace.
Turn the massive splash into a whirling water spout to swallow the dragon as he pulled up desperately.
Steam exploded on contact with hot gold and white.
A roar of pain and anger choked out as cold brine snaked down the gullet under the forceful guidance of invisible hands.
He dragged Auvanfelhearobilt into the ocean with a thousand telekinetic chains.
Animals and monsters fled the area.
Even the real monsters wanted nothing to do with his and the dragon’s auras.
Cal put in a call.
“Hello?”
“Dragon-president Cezi, it’s me.”
“Erm… yes?”
“Now’s your chance.”
“Er… thank you, but that’s okay.”
“It was my understanding that dragons could gain strength by taking life essence from other dragons.”
“Yes, in battle.”
“Well, I’m in the process of drowning him.”
“Oh, ahem, yes. Very good. Please continue to do so. I wish you success. Goodb—”
“I know you won’t get as much if you did it solo, but for obvious reasons I think it would be best that we worked together as the allies that we are.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Why not?”
“…”
“Hello?”
Silence.
“I don’t want to fight a mating battle, okay!” Cezi roared in his ears. “If I lose— I’ll have to—”
He could almost feel her shudder.
“I put him in your realm. I’ll hold him there. It gives you an edge.”
“No, I don’t wanna.”
The call ended.
“Fair.”
She had reasonable concerns.
The ocean bubbled, steam rose from a wide swathe.
The dragon shifted.
Invisible hands around a draconic maw and chains around limbs, body and wings became suddenly too large to hold a humanoid mouth and body.
Gold exploded.
An enormous jagged mass sinking into the depths until it burst out in all directions, spraying molten shards.
Cal was ready this time.
He flew between the shards, hitting the dragon with a ball of compressed water that exploded with a hundred tons of force upon release.
The dragon tumbled through the ocean until he gathered himself and leapt off a chunk of gold like a missile launched from a submarine of old.
Cal grabbed him, but failed to stop the flight before he breached the surface.
Humanoid turned into dragon once again, rocketing away on a burst of magic away from the hated cold wet.
Cal lent him a violent push.
The ocean wasn’t the only place one could kill another through oxygen deprivation.
The void of space.
A final frontier for an ancient dragon.
Was it a fitting place for the end of multiple millennia of conquest?
Millions of souls had built Auvanfelhearobilt’s hoard.
One would see the mountain of gold coins toppled with a violent push.
Stars too close to seem possible burst to life in the dark void with gold flashes.
Light glittered off golden plates and white scales as they trailed, floating into the nothingness.
Hot blood cooled as it swirled in chaotic patterns in the vacuum.
The dragon didn’t know how to fly outside the familiar confines of gravity.
Wings beat ineffectually.
He struggled to direct himself exactly where he wanted to with propelling spells.
Breath attacks sent him flying backwards.
It was almost easy for Cal to avoid it all and to keep pushing Auvanfelhearobilt away from Earth.
He read the dragon’s growing panic as the blue and green orb continued to shrink n the distance. As the oxygen in the dragon’s massive lungs continued to dwindle.
Rage faded.
Terror grew.
Concentration frayed like an old rope holding a guillotine aloft.
All it took was a single psychic blade slipped through a crack in the walls.
The rope snapped.
The blade dropped.
Gold eyes dilated.
Moon dust bloomed into a great mushroom cloud that would swallow an entire town as the dragon’s bulk slammed into the silent surface.
Auvanfelhearobilt thrashed, claws cutting white scales up and down his long, sinuous neck.
Hot blood crystallized moments after they drifted away from his furnace-like interior.
Bowels voided.
Violent death rarely held dignity.
That was the lie that those ignorant, willful or genuine, often said. Particularly, when they aimed to have others die for their purposes.
The dragon was one such.
Men and women across several worlds had died at the weapons of his hoard. Who died in turn.
Conquest.
Imperialism.
Colonialism.
The differences lay in semantics.
In the end they all brought one thing with certainty.
That which Cal brought to Auvanfelhearobilt.
“I warned you,” he thought.
Rage and terror were the only responses he received.
“Because you care— in your own way— I will allow your hoard to surrender. They will fight for me once and then I will allow them to return to their home world.”
The dragon valued the members of his hoard like a collector valued his war game miniatures.
“Your scales will be turned into armor and shields. Your teeth, claws, spines and spikes will be turned into weapons. Your bones will be turned into one or the other. Your organs into mana sources. Your flesh? Well, I’m not a savage. I’ll leave that up to Cezirichella. It’s fitting since you wanted to rape her. May she grow stronger and better than you.”
It took almost two hours for Auvanfelhearobilt to become as cold and empty as the void.
----------------------------------------
Southern California, Fall 2054
The warehouse didn’t stink despite the pile of bloody dragon parts taking up a huge portion of the floor space.
“Thank you clean air spells.” Alin nodded.
The magus and her team were busy prepping, so he was mostly ignored as he walked around the periphery
It was sketchy, as the old people said, to turn a sapient being into weapons, armor and other gear.
However, Auvanfelhearobilt was an imperialist.
Then again, Auvanfelhearobilt wasn’t the rape and pillage kind of imperialist.
According to his dad, the dragon valued adding to his hoard, as such, war crimes and collateral damage were kept to a minimum in a way that made Earthians look much, much worse in comparison.
By Earth standards the dragon waged humane wars as a baseline.
Alin found his dad in a small office by the rear bay doors.
“Got your message.”
Which was odd because his dad didn’t want to speak over the phone.
His dad actually looked unhappy.
Pained even.
Grimacing.
“Uh… you didn’t pull a brain lobe last night, did you? You said it wasn’t that bad.”
“Aside from the stomach hole? No. It wasn’t.” His dad sighed. “I’m pained emotionally because I’m going to do something I was trying so hard to avoid.”
Alin tried not to smile.
He mostly succeeded.
A small grin was all that escaped before he could rein it back into the hangar bay, so to speak.
“When are we starting?”
“After the new year.”
“Wait? That’s way too far.”
“It’s too soon. There’s a ton of foundation work that needs to be laid down. Logistics needs doing. Volunteers have to be picked. Non-rangers will need to become enough of a ranger for Mouthy’s Skill to work. I have to prep your contacts from Vegas to D.C. I have to set things up so that our enemies will be too busy to notice you. As for you? You need time to practice without all your normal gear. And power use.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but was forestalled with the dad look.
“We need to hide your presence if you want the chance to even get in there to start looking for the main ritual site. And some crash leveling for the volunteers will be needed since we can’t include anyone that the enemy will recognize. Not only that, our cover stories will have to stand up to a decent level of scrutiny.”
“Really? I mean, I was planning on you using the mind whammy to make them not look too closely or even realize we’re rangers.”
“I will. And that’ll work on all of them with one exception.”
The demigod.
“The weird helmet protects his mind in all ways from me. Thus, we must create chaos. Set fires all over this land so that they don’t notice the tiny candle flickering its way straight into their capital. Make them desperate for mercenary help. Weaken the president’s position for the next election, while building up a few alternatives.”
“Yeah. Don’t just have one win condition. Make it so that all roads lead to us winning.”
“You understand that the rangers going on your Quest might have an emergency exit plan that you won’t if things go bad once you get to your destination?”
“I do,” he nodded. “But, I need to be there. I’m the only one that has a chance at finding that ritual site. Besides, that’s all I need to do. It’s not like I need to destroy it myself. You or Uncle Eron will handle that.”
“Okay, then I’ll start contacting people.” His dad chewed the inside of his cheek for a long moment. “You’re going to break it to you mother.”
Aww… shit…
He was hoping his dad was going to take care of that part.