UwU what's this? experienced ten minutes of sunny weather. It was odd. The ocean calmed down, the clouds stopped burning, the sky turned light blue, and the sun (not Earth Sun) shone. UwU what's This?'s oceans stayed muddy, though. Too many dead golems over too many centuries.

But as all the weather phenomena on the planet, it changed drastically every ten minutes. It was just that most of them were crappy and the change wasn't as noticeable. A sudden tsunami sprouted from the rather calm ocean. Among the mass of water ejected from the depths, a young (at least in appearance) woman tumbled.

'Fuck my life,' Cecilia cursed. She tried to swim but the water had a mind of its own. She was stuck inside the tsunami, moving neither up or down, left, or right. She went along with the giant wave.

At last, she managed to poke her face out of the wall of water. She saw the blue shield of the island flare to life and immediately thought of retreating, least she crashed face-first into the barrier. The tsunami clung to her. She felt like swimming in tar. Then it crashed on the shield.

Which then vanished.

'What the—" She thought as the tsunami went through the shield and splashed over the whole island. Cecilia was deposited on the ground as the water flowed over and around her. She was on a tall rock.

And the dragon was right next to her. The monster wounded and battered. The once shining scales were tarnished and scratched. Its wings hung limply from its back. A horn was cracked, almost breaking off. And it stood favoring one hind leg, which she assumed was mangled or even crippled.

"Cecilia, I presume," the Dragon spoke.

The damn thing was buying time for something, she decided. Why else would it parlay? With a fire growing in intensity inside her, Cecilia summoned her [Phantom Claws] and charged. Only to flop because she forgot she was missing a leg.

The Dragon chuckled. She groaned.

"Not so agile out of the land, fish... woman."

Cecilia felt her scales brush against the rock. Had she... yes, she had. Or her Atavism had. Her body had adapted to water. No, she didn't want to talk or think about that.

"All the better. You caused me a great deal of grief, Cecilia."

She wished she could shut her ears. Cecilia refused to engage in conversation. If the Dragon wanted to waste time talking, all the better for her.

"You might want to see this!" The Dragon said like a show host that was revealing what was behind door number three.

Still in a foul mood, she turned her head sideways. She saw someone dangling from the Dragon's pinched claws. Her teeth clattered as she recognized who it was.

"Daddy!" She wailed.

Cecilia's heart raced. Seth wasn't moving. Was he dead already? After all this time, a century of suffering, why? Why would someone reunite them only to cruelly split them apart so? Who...

It was obvious. They weren't people, they were entertainment for the Judges. Her heart and fists clenched at the thought. Her stomach churned and convulsed as she started to sob and hiccup. Above her, the Dragon gloated. A clawed paw scooped and flipped her on her back.

"You cost me my wings. Now watch!" The Dragon clamored and moved Seth to its mouth. It opened the snout to reveal two opposite rows of sharp teeth, the length of ancient cave stalactites. And stalagmites too. Seth was placed halfway between the rows of teeth, and then...

The mouth closed.

Cecilia watched it in slow motion. She found in herself the strength to move and was trying to balance in one leg and launch herself at the Dragon. Perhaps if she could...

Too late.

A flash of silver descended, fast enough the sound it made whooshing through the air came from way behind its location. With a loud crash and a massive plume of dust, it crashed on the damp rocks. Debris flew every which way. One particularly large and rectangular one flew straight at the Dragon's mouth. Stray rocks made shallow cuts on Cecilia's scaled skin.

Crunch! "Ouch! Ow, ow, ow!" The Dragon roared. "Damned thrice cursed box!"

Cecilia couldn't see anything in the dust cloud. She felt searing blood splatter around her. The smell was obvious.

"Ahh. It hurts!" The Dragon whined. It continued complaining and bemoaning its fate for a while.

The wind moved the dust away, replacing it with the salty surf from UwU what's this?'s ocean. Cecilia saw the Dragon pick at its teeth, completely ignoring her. She was not a threat, it was obvious. Between its arms, she saw what was bothering the Dragon. Seth's dimensional clay storage item was lodged between two teeth, as if a vampire would've tried to suck on a lidless Tic Tac box by sticking a fang down a corner.

On the other side of the mouth, her father's body laid immobile, dangling from the teeth he was impaled on.

"No! No!" Cecilia cried. She burned with anger. "Daddy!" She shouted.

Something tasty and delicious landed in her mouth. Was it... no, it couldn't be. Fire spread down her arms and leg. And leg stump. She punched the rock and it cracked. Cecilia rolled back on her stomach and conjured [Phantom Claws] on all her three working appendages. Clawing with her feet, she crouched and launched herself. Two paws bigger than a sabretooth tiger's found purchase on the Dragon's damaged chest scales. She gripped and pulled herself up, launching her body toward the Dragon's neck.

*

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*

Panic settled in the Dragon's mind. Mirror floated closer, to get a good view. Cecilia roared and growled as she climbed her way around the Dragon's massive body. Mirror made a point to reflect the Dragon's visage back at it, showing it was afraid. Something hot struck its nostril. Despite the scales around it, the nostril was very sensitive.

it smelled of Coffee. Ignoring the toothache, Dragon licked it anyway. It felt smarter, faster, and more agile. A buff? Were the Gods in its favor? Had the Judges decided to grant it mercy? Another drop fell right into its mouth. Then one on its horn. it was really raining Coffee.

Then it felt a searing pain along the base of its neck. It burned a line and it tried to swat whatever was there. it felt a pressure and then another cut. A deep one.

Mirror angled and showed it what was happening. The half-animal girl was clawing at its neck, cutting and tearing off the scales and tearing the hide underneath.

It tried to claw the dimensional clay box off one more time but it didn't come out. Its tail was broken and couldn't be used to slap the painful gnat off of it. Only one way to end this. The Dragon inhaled. And inhaled. People often underestimated the potency of a Dragon's Breath. Or how it could be used.

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Still, it tried to swat the human off of it to no avail.

The Dragon was aware of what was going on. After the messages that were displayed to everyone a few days ago, it had no doubt. The Judges had an agenda and it involved the woman. The fact it had been awakened and sent out was also part of it.

The air inside its lungs and flame sac started to burn and generate heat. Smoke wafted out of its nostrils. With a mighty toss of its head, the corpse of the male human was flung off but the box remained stuck. The Dragon then spewed flames, covering its own body entirely.

The woman jumped off, as it expected. The flames cauterized the wounds and, while it had expended the entirety of the Dragonbreath inside its flame sac, it felt better.

The Dragonbreath burning the rocks away should keep her away for a while.

It didn't waste any time. Chanting, it summoned the magical diagram for a healing spell and overcharged it. With its life on the line, it couldn't afford to save Mana. The spell washed over his body but he focused its effect on the wings. A second one restored them enough to take off. Each spell used half of the Mana it had left.

The obnoxious human mutant was almost back. She hissed in pain as she tried to move over smoldering rock. With a mighty flap, it started to fly. The box came off at that very moment.

"No!" The woman clamored.

Ten, twenty yards. With its wings not entirely recovered, he was flying slow as a senile great wyrm.

A dark shadow flame shot from the red-hot rock. It wrapped around the Dragon and he felt [REDACTED]. He suddenly lost the lift as his wings became painfully tired.

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Cecilia watched with abject horror as the Dragon attempted to escape. She cursed her fragility, her powerlessness. She hadn't protected her father. She had failed the village, the other inmates, herself.

Her fish scales were dry and itchy. Her gills were the worst, the delicate skin almost cracking, without water. She felt horrible. Despair clouded her vision, dark whispers from her subconsciousness told her how much she'd screwed up. The dragon would escape, heal, and then come to finish the job. Her father had died in vain. Why did she struggle so much? Her father was dead, she was alone once again. As doubt crept into her thoughts, Strength left her. She felt tired, impotent.

The Dragon was already out of reach. A dark shadow flame shot up from the ground and pulled the Dragon back to the ground. He felt [REDACTED] again, which had the overgrown dinosaur-lizard shivering.

"NO!" It shouted a plea to the heavens. "Leave me alone! I refuse to be a sacrificial pawn for your plots!"

Cecilia capitalized on the opportunity, leaping on the Dragon as it was dragged down by the shadow flame. She started to claw and hack like a berserking savage barbarian, the kind that could burst doors with the power of their unwashed armpits on the cover of the 2.5 PHB.

The Dragon thrashed and squirmed. Tossing Cecilia off of him. The shadow flames slacked and she fell on a transparent goop that was seeping from her father's dimensional storage.

The sticky goop covered her as she tried to get back on her feet (foot). Cecilia slipped and fell. Her wounds itched and she panicked, thinking the goop might be some sort of poison or worse, dragon drool. Her stomach churned at the thought. Which made her fail and fall even more often on the slippery sticky viscous substance.

Eww. Eww. She was being digested like a fly on a spider's soup, Cecilia's thoughts wandered into the nonsensical as her mind went into overdrive, broke the camshaft, spun without rhythm, and burned out at a dozen thousand RPM. Or the cerebral equivalent. Neuroscientists across the multiverse would understand much more about their craft if they could glimpse at Cecilia's haywire mind at that moment.

That's if they could stop laughing as she clowned herself on the goop.

She tried to stand up and pull herself on one leg. The other leg's stump felt stuck to the transparent goop oozing from the box. Cecilia pulled. Something that smelled of coffee fell on her head. It made no sense, not for me, not for her. She pulled and felt as if the goop was sucking on her stump. it itched and burned like a poisoned bitch's (not of the canine kind) kiss.

With a mighty yell, she finally stood up and balanced herself on the slippery goop. She looked at the dragon. It was still trying to fly away and struggling to get away from the dark flames but the shadow didn't let go this time. Worse, every time he touched the flames, he felt [REDACTED].

She stared, thinking on how she would get back on the creature. As the shadow flames brought the monster back to ground, she jumped away, landing in a crouch.

Crouch? She wondered. Looking down, she noticed two things. One, that she was suffering a massive wardrobe malfunction. And two, that she had two feet. One was webbed and scaly, the other was fleshy and very human-like.

What the hell? Her brain struggled and failed to cope with all the nonsense. How did she... Her wounds? She looked at her arms and very exposed body, finding no scratches or bruises. Not even scabs.

The goop... (wait. [checks notes]. Oh, dear. Sorry about that). The WAX that was inside her father's box and melted with the heat from the Dragonbreath had healed her wounds, going as far as regrowing her leg. She saw a flash of blue, green, and red behind her and glanced over her shoulder. Massive macaw wings decorated her back, fully furnished with tropical down and feathers.

Why a macaw? She wondered. Then gave up and filed it under the "nope, not gonna even try to figure that one out" mental drawer. Which was overflowing with too much stuff already.

Glancing around, she found her target (not that it was hard to find, being as humongous as it was). The Dragon was fully immobilized by the reinforced shadow flames.

Back to the fight, she psyched herself. Cecilia circled around the beast as she tried to find an opening. The Dragon's eyes swiveled back and forth, to and fro as if it was attempting to keep an eye in every spot. It made her remember when she attempted to add eyes to her temples so she could see everything around her at once. The backlash had her with a week-long headache and a stern lecture from her father.

"Dad..."

It was time to kill that parricide beast.

Cecilia ran on all three limbs. it was awkward but faster than crawling or flopping. The monster made eye contact!

"Spare me!" The Dragon begged. "If you kill me, you are doing their bidding! Don't you want to be independent from them?"

"You killed my father!" Cecilia growled and huffed. She was on the verge of tears.

The Dragon, being not that cultured and meme savvy, lost a great opportunity there. It would be gaslighting, so maybe it was better that way. She was going to be strong; she was going to be fine; don't worry about that heart of hers.

But neither could turn around. Nowhere on that sacrificial island could anyone find mercy. Much less from Cecilia, given the way she was feeling.

Cecilia climbed the Dragon's body, touching the shadow flame. She felt [REDACTED]. Which was nothing at all. She felt something messing with her mind but what was she supposed to...

She decided the shadow hadn't affected her. Immobile and spent, the Dragon just leaked the last of its composure. Cecilia went all the way up to its ear hole.

Cecilia felt empty inside. A century of aimless wandering across many worlds. Only to be captured, cast here, and experience a glimmer of hope for a fleeting couple of days. And then have it ripped away from her. She was as cold as the Ice Witch of Calamity (oops). Vengeance could be her middle name. There, next to the Dragon's bound head, she knelt and whispered with a chilly, cruel voice.

"You smug motherfucker. You had to go and provoke me by killing my father. You could promise me to take me back in time and avoid capture and separation and I would still kill you."

The Dragon didn't answer. Its head was immobile. Everything was in order. The Courtroom watched the... the... unfairness of it unfold. Fairness in the multiverse was as rare as saintly and righteous demons. They only existed so far east that getting to see any was already unfair in itself.

Cecilia didn't do any soul-searching to find if a tiny sliver of her heart could spare the Dragon. She wouldn't find any even if she had meditated in a Buddhist monastery for a century. That was how hurt her heart was. A century of despair. A century of survival, for what? For this? Her father's mangled corpse marinating in elemental sea water, her hopes dashed.

She would burn this world into ashes. Starting with this Dragon. Cecilia evoked the [Phantom Claws], then shoved her arm into the Dragon's ear hole. As it howled in pain and struggled, the darkness kept the creature immobile. Cecilia's heart could as well be steel. Or Adamantite. Frozen. Only her bloody vengeance mattered. She dug a bloody hole, then started to claw her way past the skull, breaking off pieces of bone. The Dragon's blood was thick and hot. She didn't mind the smell, texture, or heat.

She punched through the bone and started to mercilessly ravage the Dragon's brain. The monster went unconscious from pain.

Three strikes with her claw. Was all that took to reap the Dragon's life. Cecilia felt empty.

The corpse vanished. She felt some stiff gunk stuck to her hair but paid it no mind.

On the ground, she found a thick book, an egg, and a black forest cake. She didn't feel like making a joke. Also, the cake was on fire for some inscrutable reason.

On her knees, Cecilia clawed the egg open. spilling its contents. If this was the Dragon's rebirth, then she would kill it before it became trouble. Then she took a piece of shell and flung the burning cake away. She wouldn't eat the suspicious confection. She wanted noting that came from the dragon. With a primal shout of anguish, she tossed the book on the flames of the ruined pastry (are cakes pastries?) and watched it burn.

There's no epic loot here, only fools.

She sat on the still hot rock and turned. The sun was at its peak.

Then she found a zombie.

Cecilia turned again. She turned into another zombie. More gunk gathered on her hair. It was bothering her.

The undead lunged to attack and probably eat her brains.

She clawed both zombies, putting the undead out of their misery. Turning around, she found two more zombies and dealt with them. Cecilia wondered why she kept turning into a zombie. Where were they coming from? One time they weren't there, then she turned around and BAM. She'd turned into a zombie. Right on the nose.

All the while, coffee syrup kept falling on her head, for some weird reason.