Like a barbed lance, they dig right in to murder her as I hurl them in my purest malevolence, unforgiving. I see her face as I condemn her. Twisted, tortured horror is in her eyes at what I’ve said, as the hand which wears Hedda’s ring suddenly flies to her heart.
On the heels of that shock is pure, unadulterated wrath, however, as she opens her mouth and roars at me. That roar carries all the furious hateof our history together, and what we’ve become—as she shifts up in a massive wave of magic I didn’t see coming.
And slashes right for my throat.
I barely get a Bloodshield of auric fire up in time. Lithava’s sudden drive nearly takes my head off, as she comes for me as her small, lithe drakaina, beyond wrathful at my words.
The Black Dragon gives a tremendous roar now, however, when it had previously been silent. It weathered the runnels of pure evil tunneling into its dead flesh for the past ten minutes as we talked; but it can’t hold back now, as whatever lives in this cavern suddenly responds to Lithava’s Wraith.
That evil has surged up to claim the Black Dragon and its shield all around us. Lithava’s dragon regroups, roaring in my face beyond my blazing shield that I survived her sudden attack, as the black taint of the Rift surges higher.
That evil is responding to our kin-fight, as I feel it gain power a hundredfold, now that Lithava just tried to off me, sister against sister. And gods save me, I can’t fight it anymore, as the blackest void that lives inside me rushes up, too, resonating with the blistering power inside this cavern.
Demanding I finish this.
As the pure wrath of my unhinged Bone Magic roars its supremacy to the world now, spilling out of my throat as I roar in matching hatred at my sister, I feel my blackest inner dragon careen up in a starry black midnight all around me—to fight.
I don’t even know when I shifted up, but Lithava and I are on each other like howling cats as I blast my auric Bloodshield out at her and tackle her. Rolling and biting and swiping with powerful talons and jaws, I pummel her with insane drives of magic.
Lithava fights back like a mad devil, having hidden how much power and magic she had recovered as we talked. The evil inside the ruby cavern goes wild as we battle each other. The Black Dragon goes wild with it,connected to both Lithava and me, feeling our hate roar through the very blood and bones that make us.
As the Black Dragon’s shield suddenly explodes out like a bomb, I barely notice it, even though the Rift’s leviathan evil is unleashed to get to us, thanks to the Usurper’s confusion from our fight.
That black malevolence surges all over me, blistering me and trying to capture me as I fight my sister to the death now. I feel its unhinged glee. It wants us to kill each other; it wants kin to battle against kin, to off each other in glorious battle, forever.
It wants this divisiveness, when we had tried so hard to be whole. As the terrible sensation engulfs me, seething all over my dragon-flesh and trying to seize me as my sister and I fight with ripping talons, gouging fangs, and terrible, spiked waves of magic, I’m lost.
I’m lost to the viciousness inside me as I go Berserk and Wraith all at once, and don’t give a damn. I’m gone to the sensations of battle as I dive into the blackest cavern within me. I’ve surrendered to the rip, the gouge, the fling, and the hate, as it drives all through my bones and veins, making me want to kill.
I abandon everything that makes me who I am, as I become one with the evil inside this cavern. I’m taken as it seethes all over us, not to take us now, but to goad us to fight on forever. Forever, or until one of us dies. For that is what it wants—death, glory, and horror.
And the finality of this rift between sisters.
The schism between us devours me. The schism inside me devours me, too, as I find my inner black Bone Magic drake fighting to the death with my brighter Blood Magic drakaina now, deep within my bones and veins.
A sensation like ripping apart from the inside out blisters through me. Like I am nothing but tissue paper, and these forces could tear me asunder with their broken, hateful contentiousness.
Still, I fight on, lost to my worst place as my wings and scales blaze oilslick-black now, vicious violet-black magic careening off me. Because Iam the same as the Black Dragon now, a Black Dragon in truth, as acrid ropes of utter midnight fling off me, everywhere.
I am it, and it is me, as it roars and crashes through the ruby cavern now like a mad thing, unhinged by Lithava’s and my fight. She is the same; we are all Black Dragons now, as terrible sigils of diseased crimson-black and horrid violet rip through our bodiesde novo.
We are the hell in the darkness; we are the fallen gods that make other dragons tremble in terror, as we blaze and hammer, bite and gorge and throw down with our bodies and our magic.
Through it all, some part of me knows I’m draining my drakes to death. Through our old bond as family, I feel Lithava doing the same, as we use our drakes’ power to boost ours and continue battling each other in this forsaken ruby midnight.
All around, the crystal cavern glows viciously now, pulsing with bloody red light like a heartbeat. As we fight, sister against sister, kin against kin, something down here hascome alive, wanting ruination more than ever before.
I feel it as countless tentacles of oilslick darkness surge all over us now, roaring through the cavern as we battle. They’re draining us, but I can’t stop it—draining us and our drakes, as whatever evil down here pushes us to fighton,harder.
Forever.
And we do, lost to the rip and the tear, and the hammering of our ungodly bodies and magics. I don’t even register it when someone blasts in through a portal, open to the sky far above the ancient, ruined city.
But I understand now why this city is ruined, and why every fight that takes place here is a battle to the death. Whatever lives down here, whatever this thing is that our most ancient Ancestors caused, it’s the source of our division. And it will divide us forever, as I continue to fight my sister to the death.
Despite a bunch of someones dragging me away now.
Someone has come—lots of someones—now hauling Lithava and meapart. The Black Dragon is lost in its confusion, bashing its gargantuan head against the ruby columns as they continue to seethe with a terrible magic, brighter and even more malevolent than ever before.
