Lighting crackled overhead and heavy droplets of rain pounded on Xandra’s bloodied scales. Strong gusts of wind howled in her ears, and she flapped her violet wings as hard and as fast as she could. The cries of her fallen brethren echoed around her. But Xandra did dare not slow. For slowing for even a second would certainly mean a gruesome death.

Narrowly dodging a flaming arrowhead, Xandra flapped her wings even faster. She needed to put distance between herself and the foolish humans who had come to her home. She flipped and dodged around arrows, spells and high velocity pineapples that would explode on impact. Xandra didn’t acknowledge any of this. She just needed to get home, she needed to warn him. So as she was hit with all manner of weapons, Xandra did not slow down. But she only had so much energy. Flying in this wind tired her, and she had been doing the equivalent of a human sprinting at top speed for many, many, miles. The buffeting winds were too much for Xandra, and her wings slowed to a stop.

Landing in this weather was not easy. Lighting strikes blinded her, and strong gales buffeted her in every direction. But she had to keep going, even if she could not fly. Landing in a large, barren, and rocky field, Xandra started to run. Even running, she was faster than a normal human, but not by much. This didn’t matter, her home was close.

Xandra ran and ran. The flat ground soon started to slope upwards, large boulders becoming common, and the horrible weather got much worse. The lighting was closer and louder than ever. Gusts of wind sent loose boulders hurling through the air. And the rain felt like a sheet, pressing down on every inch her body. If Xandra hadn’t been a beast of her size and strength, she would have certainly perished in these conditions. But she knew that the humans chasing her would follow, for they had magic that could easily save them from any of these terrible conditions. 

Xandra ran until the slope became too steep, then she flew to the entrance of her cave. The whole place was filled with a purple pulsing light that came from a tunnel on the right. But that was not what she was here for. 

Zillez rushed to Xandra as soon as he saw her enter the cave. He was smaller than her, as she had laid his egg only a century ago, but he was much more fierce.

“Mother!” Zillez cried. “What happened? Where are the others?”

“Gone,” Xandra whispered.

“Gone! What do you mean, gone?”

“Dead,” Xandra replied, “Armies of those blasted humans are coming for the Shard. They killed everyone.”

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Zilez stood there, stunned before a rumble shook their large cave.

“Go!” The mother said to her son. “I’ll protect the shard.”

“No, I can’t…”

“Just leave!”

Before either of the two beasts could move, the humans appeared.

Not hesitating, Xandra flipped around and unleashed her most powerful weapon. Screams erupted around her as a vortex of a swirling dark, shadowy substance thundered from her throat and on to her attackers. The shadow instantly destroyed ranks of the human hunters, but not enough to make a difference.

A sparkly lance of blue light shot out from the crowd and rung itself around Xandra’s snout, tapering off the shadows. Another tied up her front and back legs, hindering her movement.

Hoping to open up a path for Zilez, Xandra swung her mighty tail around her body. Soldiers crumpled like tinfoil cups and were thrown back. With the opening, Zilez sprinted through the crowd of humans, crushing many of them, and sprung out of the cave and into the stormy night.

All the humans, soldiers and wizards alike focused on him, doing everything they could to kill him. But they were all met by the face of one angry mama.

Xandra had broken her magical bonds and gone out to protect the one other of her kind left. She crushed men, stomping down on everything she could see. She made others fall to her strange breath, which left them withered and dried, and the last thing many felt was a long, powerful tail crushing their skulls to dust.

Xandra crushed, chewed, whacked, trampled, and pranced on the army. They could not stand against this beast. No one could kill her, she was a literal immortal wall of death. Until suddenly she stopped. 

Her son was flying away safely, the humans could not hurt him. She could rest. Before the army was upon her, she roared one last thing to her son.

“Go find your brother! Protect him!”

Zilez looked back in shock.

“I have a brother?”

But the army had gotten to Xandra, and slain her.

                                                    ▚▚▚▚▚▚▚▚▚

And so all but one of the shadow dragons were slain. Their Shard was taken by humanity in hopes for power, money, and glory. Over the next millenia more dragons were hunted to extinction until only one remained. Zilez. Xandra’s son. Alone and forgotten, he traveled the world. But he remembered his mother’s final words. “You have a brother.”

So Zilez searched. Always staying hidden from greedy human eyes, but he could not find who his mother spoke of. Eventually Zilez, the only dragon remaining thinking he had nothing left to live for, exposed himself to the humans. Instead of slaying him, they used him for their greed. He was used to wage war on kingdoms, being used as a threat, and just a weapon of death. Until the world decided he had to die.

The emperor Shalar put him in a deadly labyrinth, where Zilez was the beast adventurers sought to kill. Little did he know that soon he and a scrawny little boy would become the most feared creatures in all the land. No he did not know any of this, but here, here

is where his destiny would begin.