“If you think interrupting means stopping, I’m afraid you’re wrong. Their slu
mber had already been disturbed,” Machaeus’ voice filled the cave, along with the amber glow.
“It’s a shame their host won’t be around to greet them, when they wake up. It’s a shame that I get to do this to you, instead of them. Any way I feel you’ve let me down, you’ve let them down a thousand times so,” said Drogan, “No matter which of us goes on from here, you lose, Machaeus. Wherever you are, in here.” Chills danced through the blood under Drogan’s scales at the laughter of the great Watcher.
“Were you expecting a screen? Circuits and power lines? Multicolor light bulbs?” Machaeus full-on guffawed, “All of your assumptions about me are based on human technology. The Dragons are so much older than humans. And I… am so much older than them.”
“What?”
“An AI was the easiest way for me to explain what I am. It’s not wrong. An intelligence without concrete physical form. I knew I could never make you understand through words. But I can show you.” Machaeus’ voice rumbled up from the Chrysum pool. Amber light intensified all around Drogan until the whole cave was painted.
Black fluid, so smooth and glossy it pained the eye, swirled up from the pool. At first it was formless. Ripples and pulses changed it by the second. Then it focused into a solid javelin to jab at Drogan. He flung aside to avoid it. Drogan’s arm snapped out, ready. At his will, DA-Vos condensed in the shape of the Chrysum sword. There was some truth in what we said, wasn’t there? Drogan transmitted to his companion. Let’s see. DA-Vos surged silver fusion power through the edge of the blade.
“This is an honor you share with very few!” Machaeus thundered. Drogan dodged a swipe from a shooting branch of the liquid black.
“To die at your ambiguous, formless hand?” Drogan swooped. He cleaved the black mass from the pool of Chrysum.
“To see me!” said Machaeus. The black retracted into a swirling globe. A hundred branches shot out from it and spun at Drogan. He ducked under some, sliced through others. Drogan dipped and swung until Machaeus’ many arms folded down on him.
“DA-Vos!” Drogan turned, knowing his mind would tell the rest. His blade warped into a black shield that bounced every arm away. The corner of Drogan’s eye caught a glossy tentacle growing behind him. Drogan bashed away the last strikes before him, then wheeled to slash as DA-Vos became a blade again. He felt the wind of Machaeus’ arms behind him. Drogan folded his wings to drop away from a scissor of flying black spears. Cannon! he screamed in his mind.
Drogan’s wings leveled him out under an expanding black mass. Machaeus unfurled as a tide of crashing black waves. The shifted DA-Vos cannon filled with Chrysum light. Drogan’s scaly throat swelled with the same glow. Both unleashed shining floods into the black. Machaeus’ form splintered away and dissolved into a hanging, dark veil.
“No! Not the combined force of two!” Machaeus belted in what sounded like genuine fear. He carried on crying until Drogan and DA-Vos had emptied themselves. In the same second their silver lights burned out, the mist of Machaeus pulled itself together. He was a swirling tangle of dark fluid again. “Now you’ve disappointed me. Did you forget who made you this way?” Machaeus laughed. Drogan stared up in exhausted horror as the living stain grew from one cavern wall to the next. It blotted out the opening of the Fountain above. The only light left for them was the amber of the cracks in the wall.
“Drogan…” The black Dragon twiddled his talons when he felt them lighten. Drogan looked to find DA-Vos reforming as a man-shaped frame beside him. His face-light was a color Drogan hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t so much yellow as it was gold. “Get back to Dawn. Don’t let this all be for nothing.” Drogan looked into the featureless face of his oldest friend. There was somehow more courage there than he’d seen on any human or Dragon.
“No…” Drogan growled. It started as a plea with destiny itself. The tangled knots of fate’s chords that pulled these three souls together in this hellhole. Then Drogan realized, “He didn’t just make me a Dragon. He made me so I could be anything. DA-Vos, do you trust me?”
“Very literally with my life,” the Squire told him. Machaeus unfolded to the edges of the opening above them.
“Wrap around me! Mimic my form so we’re bigger!” Drogan roared. He focused on unfocusing. He screamed into the blackness. For the first time since he had become what he was, Drogan deconstructed his body completely. He dissolved into something dense between fog and fluid, not unlike Machaeus. DA-Vos joined his mass. Into the cracks! surged through both of their minds. As one, they surged through them.
Drogan and DA-Vos rushed up through every crevice. They surrounded Machaeus. They took in Chrysum from the walls for strength. With every fiber between them, the two condensed as a shell around their lifelong foe. Channel it! Burn him away! Drogan and DA-Vos fired bolts of Chrysum through the inside of their shell-body. Each one severed Machaeus into smaller pieces, until there was but a single atom left. Drogan and DA-Vos tightened around him. All the while he laughed.
“I take it back. I might even be impressed,” was the last thing Machaeus uttered. Plasma split his last atom.
Drogan could only conclude Machaeus was the same as him. Constructed by molecules of freely manipulated matter; that there had to be a perceivable piece of him left for him to go on. Drogan couldn’t have known. After all, Machaeus was so very, very much older than humanity.
“What’s going on out there?” Dawn screamed into her transmitter. She jerked her rifle at the blur that was Darven. She launched a Chrysum ray through his chestplate, thinned by previous strikes. His frame spiraled down to Mukurus, where a shadow was rising. Dawn reloaded and rushed down the railing of the deck.
“Damn them!” Krystis roared through the remaining five Dragons that swarmed the Arcadia. Smoke plumed around it from the holes they’d ripped and scorched.
“I’m not sure… some kind of black mist. Along with five Dragons,” Miller called back.
“And I’m not sure why I’m up here. You retired from Captainship, remember?” Dawn bit.
“But you’re a better shot,” Miller smiled. “Holy… hold on!” His shout was followed by a flameless explosion that splintered miles of Mukurus’ crust.
Chunks of the planet popped up for swarms of black mist to surge free. It was followed by what could only be described as beams of darkness. It shone like glass in the dull sun as it ripped free from the planet. It hurt Dawn’s eyes to stare at its unnatural sleekness. Several black masses skewered the Arcadia’s hull. The rest flung outwards, away from Mukurus. They didn’t slow as they breached the atmosphere. The blackness from beneath joined that of the abyss. From the spreading cracks in Mukurus came reaching claws. They dragged loose beasts of scaly armor; beasts that had slept for longer than humans could understand. Now, besides the five that circled the Arcadia, there were thousands of dragons.
“Drogan… what happened…” Dawn’s shoulders hung loose, hopeless. The next thing she knew, she faced her own reflection in the glass of an auxiliary pod. She transitioned from despair instantly to debilitating shock. The pod popped open. It’s emergency boarding arms snapped out at her. “Miller, what are you doing?”
“Sorry, ace, but you’ve got some time to stretch your wings yet. Keep flying,” those were the last words she heard from him. The pod seized her and packed her inside. No sooner than it snapped closed, it tore free from the Arcadia. From afar, she saw the flames consuming it. She saw the fifteen other auxiliary pods fleeing to the sky. Only Miller remained. His job was as simple as it was essential. He turned the Arcadia, with it’s broken navigation system, straight towards the splintering planet.
Alice’s emotions played as a technicolor light show, so rapidly changing as she fought. Every cannon she had jutted out of the Arcadia. She rained down beams. She hurtled Chrysum orbs. Dragons screamed up at her as they struggled to dodge and survive. Their retaliation blasts chipped away at the Arcadia’s hull. Alice’s passion shone out like a spotlight on her target - the planet itself. All the while Miller kept them on course. He even swung the ship as a ram through squads of rising beasts. Flame danced across the deck. Alice fired until every weapon was empty. All but one.
“Miller!” Dawn screamed into the glass. She grabbed the joysticks to fly back, to help. But someone had already set the pod on a course - away. “Alice!” Dawn whimpered. The hull of the Arcadia parted. The cross-tipped barrel of a fuse pulse launcher slid free. Searing white raged from its base to its tip. “No! Please… Wagner? Drogan? Anyone!” Dawn pounded the glass. A white ball of pure energy flung from the end of the barrel. Its cross split it into four segments that twisted around one another, only to combine on the surface of Mukurus. “Alice…” Dawn murmured.