EDIT: Ok guys, before you read on, check out pages 62 and 63 for my descriptions on the 3 big powered dragons. They should help y'all make things more epic.
@Becki I'll write more about Kamikaze's side when I get the time, sorry! >.< But I assure you I have started a couple of paragraphs or so. =)
Zanden sprawls out on the ground, drenched and still, as life evaporates from him unsparingly, disregarding his former glory. Tatsu leaps seven feet high upon the dragon's head, charging the last of his might into Sora. It doesn't come across as surprising that he wants to mercifully end Zanden's pain now.
How foolish, Tatsu, my disappointment in your beliefs is as high as my pride in your skills.
As Tatsu readies to proclaim his final victory, Zanden speaks: "The Dragon Elites are nothing, now." Tatsu stops his sword swinging down midair and we exchange incredulous looks. "We will all die, anyway," Zanden continues stoically. "Whether it's by you or the Dragon Nobles, we won't live. As a reward for giving me such a good fight before my death, I am compelled to repay the favor."
"If a half-dead dragon can turn the Dragon Forces around for us, by all means," I say, hinting to Tatsu to finish him off already.
"Aisha, the aristocratic bureaucracy, the Governor, the dragons and the commoners... They're all insects... entangled in a web spun by this city's nightmare," the dragon breathes the words out coarsely. I am bewildered but Tatsu lowers his eyes sadly.
"I shall start with us... The dragons, want two things: Runestalz, the most valued material in this world and the total annihilation of your group. We plan to kill Aisha if we think she serves no more purpose after giving away your location."
"What?!" Tatsu and I exclaim together.
"Did you know about this?" I question Tatsu.
"Not that much!" He replies.
How could we have been so stupid?
"She said she was an outcast of the dragons and worked with the human leaders!" I protest.
"The reason Aisha lied to you was because she didn't want anyone to deduce her motivation for turning on you," Zanden explains. "Once your presence in this sector was confirmed, Aisha surreptitiously pounced on the opportunity to summon Shakura's army of dragons."
"But why would she? Does she hate us? What about Suzette? Doesn't Aisha care at all?" Tatsu voices the queries he had been holding back, probably since he came to know about Aisha's treachery.
"I'm uncertain what humans have done to Aisha, nor do I care. My concern lies only with Dragonkind, but I can tell you this - Aisha hates the inhabitants here. However, Shakura has forbidden any dragon to touch the humans, due to the runestalz negotiation, or until Aisha can investigate the secrets of the mining. So, Aisha then acted as a medium between us and the officials and, by Shakura's orders, announced your felonies against the dragons. In return, Aisha wants to prove the Dragon's authority to silence their blind discrimination against her. Shakura also promised her that Suzette will be exempted from her wrath."
I cannot muster the words to express the conflict of emotions I feel.
I know Aisha has been wronged greatly by the villagers but to escalate to this..? What have we been doing all this time?
"Still, as shocking as this is, I understand that the villagers assaulted Aisha under a completely different intent. The illogical issue at hand is the officials, despite knowing the situation, didn't dispel the assaults, and there's the governor himself to consider."
"Well, I should be able to answer that, glad you called me up," an unfamiliar voice croak.
"Governor!- I mean, Yuu!" Tatsu cries out. I grab his hand to steady him, he is still having a hard time locating his centre of gravity.
"And who might you be, young man?" He inquires.
"Friend of Tatsu's" I murmur; I never was good with meeting new people.
"I see... Well, like Zanden-san here said, the officials harbour a vengeful discrimination against Aisha and Dragonkind. Therefore they wanted use the common people as scapegoats if anything happened. Aisha, under Shakura-sama's restrictions, was savaged and brutalized in all manner of atrocities. Raped by the men and stoned by the women, all of whom think she is a demon witch. She was already being judged for her looks and boycotted, living deep into the woods. Then with Miss Suzette's escapade into the outside world from Aegis, our divine shield, Aisha was further shunned and abuse on her has become ordained as a religious ritual."
Zanden has stopped breathing, but to me, it was just another pawn dead in this senseless farce.
"I... personally desired to protect Shinkirou with my ideals and your friends by threatening Shakura-sama with the mining of Runestalz. It worked for a while but my subjects, the bureaucracy under my rule, has instigated mutiny on their own conceited terms. For, if they overthrow me, oppress the commoners further, and force them to labor for more runestalz, the industrial district of Shinkirou can still be possibly kept running, even if Shakura-sama siphons off most of our wealth. To let Her Graciousness Shakura-sama continue her routine, unsuspectingly, and to gain her trust, my officials agreed to Aisha's conditions and called for your capture."
I slump down on my knees.
What have I done? Killing those soldiers, blood on my hands, the grimace on my face, am I never to be unhanded from this erroneous fate of fighting the used? I clutch my face in my palms, frightful of myself.
What have I been fighting for?
"This conspiracy has turned out bigger than I thought, but," I glare at Tatsu. He has changed even more, since I lost sight of him. A crimson red mantle drapes lightly around Tatsu's silhouette. His hair, I swear, had been a little short of his shoulder. But the most conspicuous change is the color of his eyes. They exhale a bright yellow.
Almost like... No it can't be... His blue pupils are strangely uncanny as well;
he feels... transcended. His eyes burn back into my own superimposed scarlet ones, with anticipation. "We have bigger things to worry about," he continues.
"Swift, where are the commander and the rest of the town's residents?" Tatsu asks.
"I left them somewhere safe. They're tending to the wounds I gave them, they won't be able to move. Aisha should have foreseen this, so I assume she's well, too."
"Okay, they'd better be far away because I feel a big one coming!"
Thrandos, the Golden General, and his hundred-strong legion eclipse the sun. Three humans stand upright with their arms crossed, on his head. They are too high up to make out in detail.
Who were they? Thrandos never permits any human to even touch him, let alone trample on his obnoxious dragon brain. I've fought Thrandos and his army before, but this atmosphere is too heavy, way... too heavy, as if the floor is sucking us in. It is taking more than I expected for me to maintain my stance. I stand up, with extravagant effort, nonetheless. Tatsu has his eyes closed now, focusing on regenerating his strength.
"Hmmm, Aegis is gone, that was rather easy - just swarming in here," a chilly female voice rings through the air, so unnaturally loud that I thought I heard it inside of my head. A white winter hail accompanies her voice, impairing visibility.
Thrandos flaps his large aureate wings and, with an impact that explodes in a radius of which Tatsu and I are ejected out, lands on the body of his late comrade, Zanden.
"NOW, WHAT DID I TELL YOU, THRANDOS?" bawls another powerful sound that shakes the landscape. "YOU NEED TO BE RUTHLESS!! A DEAD ALLY WHO GETS IN YOUR WAY IS AN ENEMY! LIKE THE HUMANS! ONE MORE TIME, CRUSH HIS SKULL!!!"
Thrandos's claws tread tentatively on it and his eyes screw up in powerless frustration. Low, mournful growls elude his control. I realize his disposition for Zanden seem more protective than disdainful, that is why he pushed Tatsu and me away from it.
"Yuu you have been of great assistance to us, but I don't think I can help you now. Please, run as fast as you can and we'll stall them."
"M-my apologies, T-Tats-su-san!" Yuu stammers and starts to limp off as fast as his walking stick will allow. He loses his balance and falls. Yuu wearily attempts to get back on his feet.
Then, as soon as it appears, it ends. Yuu drops dead, apparently struck by lightning.
"Swift?! Wh-"
"No, Tatsu, that wasn't me!" I shout, before Tatsu misunderstands. My eyes, accustomed to regular bolts of lightning usage has identified the source of the needless, sadistic murder - someone - one of them, on Thrandos's head.
"HAHAHAAAaa...!!!" A maniacal laughter of yet, a third abnormal entity, ends in a wheezing rasp. "SORRYYY, but...
no one... LIVES ALIIIVE!!
"Kamikaze, connect me with Suzette, now," I send a telepathic message to my counterpart. "Suz..."