Savage Awakening 539. Man vs. Dragon (IX)

A/N:

Sry for the lateness folks! On a plane and couldn’t get the WiFi working, plane is descending and just got 5g so it’s up now!

//

The moment he saw his son submit, the Patriarch felt a sudden coldness. He couldn’t even look at the boy.

That had been an excruciating watch. Like having his whole body freeze up mid-fight for no reason he could fathom. Standing there watching, trembling, as Haxorax flailed like vermin as that man laid into him…

The Patriarch’s jaw had clenched so tight he tasted blood.

He knew his son would submit. Some part of him, deep down, knew… he’d tried to drill hardness into the boy, tried to make a warrior of him. But there was only so much you could get out of a boy like him. 

In that moment he would’ve rather Haxorax stood there and took his fate like a dragon.

There might be a time Lyxandor could forgive him for this. Not now.

Lyxandor found Zane. His eyes narrowed.

“Do you imagine,” he snarled, “that this is over?”

Then there was only violence on his mind.

It blew up his aura like a bonfire, like a primal roar, but he didn’t care. He wanted the galaxy to see what happened next.

The cheers choked off in satisfying fashion.

There was a price to pay for crossing a dragon.

Zane Walker had done far more than merely that. That man knew exactly what he’d done, make no mistake. 

Lyxandor landed so heavily the impact left a crater.

“Zane Walker,” he breathed, and showed his teeth. 

Zane held his gaze steadily. Lyxandor would give him that much credit.

He wanted to see the look on his face when he felt a real Empyrean universe. 

Golden T4 might roared out from him; roared with the rage of dragons. Phantom dragons coiling over a supreme stellar core—an exultation of essence and peak Tier 7 Law—

Hundreds of shards of Creation brought to bear in an instant.

But it never hit Zane.

It met a solid wall. A sphere of absolute black, crackling with chaos, like static. That black-gold seared against it, striking at the line, but it could never break it.

All that energy was simply voided. Made nothing—taken somewhere that’d never return… an event horizon.

T4 universe stopping T4 universe.

Then the Patriarch felt a tremendous danger. His pupils constricted. He leaped back and just missed a black hole of a spear tip gunning for his chest. You could trace the arc it made, this massive tear in reality, running from the stands all the way to the star core.

And at its end stood the Barbarian Sage, spear clenched firm in hand.

“Very good,” snarled Lyxandor. He had no compunctions sweeping this old fool out of the way. 

But just as he made to do so, more universes joined the Sage. Universes of star-grade steel and density, stacking one after another, T3 after T3, a few T4, even. Patriarch Steelheart made landfall too.

The Conclave always was an irritatingly loyal bunch.

“Lyxandor…” Steelheart’s voice came in low. “I would think very carefully about what you’ll do next.”

He laughed. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes,” said Steelheart.

“Very good!”

Then he got the measure of them. Seven T3, all elders. Four T4…

But he would not have to take all of them. He’d only have to break through to get to Zane.

“I know that look,” said the Barbarian Sage. He leveled his spear, which blazed with the light of Destruction—shockingly dense. “Go on, then! I could do with a new dragonscale coat!”  

Before Lyxandor could strike him down there was a puff of flame overhead. The screech of a legendary bird.

Then a letter dropped slowly to bobble in front of Lyxandor. A letter marked with a burning-feather seal.

He snatched it from the air, incredulous. He skimmed the letter, then again.

“…You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

His face was set in a gruesome snarl. Before he could get more out—

“Patriarch!” Sverrex always did choose the worst times to show up. He ran up with a small delegation of dragon-healers, carrying Haxorax’s shattered body. He paused, eyed the the Steelhearts, then Lyxandor, and pressed on. “We need the gate key—we must take the prince to the capital, now! There’s still time to stabilize him, but we must make haste—”

“Do it, then!” Lyxandor practically flung it at the priest.

He took a deep breath. Then he crushed the letter he’d just gotten. There was too much shit on his plate. Just when he thought there couldn’t possibly be more…

He leveled a look on the Barbarian Sage. “I’ll be back for you, cripple. Make no mistake. You and your boy, after I’m through with this.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” 

A muscle spasmed on Lyxandor's face. It took every last shred of will, but he stomped and vanished in a burst of dragonflame.

***

“That’s a damned shame,” sighed the Barbarian Sage. “Would’ve liked to teach the little punk a lesson.”

No one noticed a spark of Destruction a few hundred feet away—a spark right in front of Zane, poking out of reality like the tip of an iceberg.

No one except for Zane, that was, who gave it a wave.

“We’re all good here,” he told someone he was pretty sure was Noughtfire. “You can go home now, get some tea or something. I’ll see you in a bit.”

The spark winked out.

***

After that incident, the Barbarian Sage tackled Zane so hard he accidentally broke a minor rib.

“You did so godsdamned well, you little brat,” said the Sage, sniffling. “Where the hells did you get all that Destruction from!”

The Sage also promised to annihilate Patriarch Azure Flame if he tried that shit again, which Zane fully believed.

The Steelheart crew was behind him as well, which was quite heartwarming to see. Even the Inner and Core disciples who he’d only seen a few times, mostly at Festivals of Might, or passing each other when he lifted in the Plaza as practice. He didn’t know them too well, but they’d still stood up for him.

“Thanks, guys,” he said.

Orin Thunderfist gave him a thumbs-up.

Reina managed to get down to the planet as well and promptly threw herself at him in a hug.

She kissed him quite fiercely and said, “I just… I can’t even believe you!” She seemed to be wrestling with quite a few emotions at the moment.

“I knew you’d do it!” cried Evan. Even when it looked bleak at the end there, Evan promised he never gave up hope.

Avery had managed to finagle her way down there too.

“Nice!” She gave Zane a slap on the back. “Anyone want to get some pasta?”

There was one other thing he still had to think about. He was pretty sure the head of his own Faction, and also the Patriarch of all dragonkind, now wanted him dead. Or at least pretty badly crippled.

He wasn’t sure if Noughtfire would get caught up in it. Though knowing the old fellow, he’d probably seen it coming a mile off.

He could figure all that out later.

For now, it was time for some well-earned rest.

***

1 day later…

Lyxandor sat alone in his throne room.

It was the throne room of all Patriarchs Azure Flame. A triumph of gold and red, proud crimson pillars holding up a gold-etched roof. There, the names of heads were carved proudly—numbering only 144. A few rocs, more True Phoenixes, and humans still… but it had always been dominated by dragons.

Lyxandor was only the last in that line. He’d sought nothing but to show the glory of the True Dragon. He’d carried the flame of his ancestors, the kings of kings…

Now Fate saw fit to punish him for it.

This was a cruel world; true enough! He’d told Zane Walker the truth. There could only be one king in a universe of slaves. Fate had given him that mantle. Fate still gave him that mantle.

He grinned up at the ceiling.

This was a cruel, hard world. There was nothing to be done but to be crueler and harder to match. He would not apologize for it. 

It was a lesson Lyxandor’s own father, the Dreadclaw, had carved into him. And his father before him.

It was a lesson he’d failed to carve into his son.

He’d earned these consequences.

But he’d fix things soon enough. Fate wasn’t done with him just yet. He knew that for a fact.

The sunset streamed beneath the pillars, but that light didn’t reach him. He sat alone in shadow, eyes gleaming.

The hours dragged on.

…He was beginning to think the boy would not come, as Lyxandor had ordered.

Something had changed in that boy. After all he’d given the little ingrate, and this was how he treated him? There was a time he’d thought of Haxorax like his own left hand.

The more he thought about it, the more his fury built. All those elders of his were wyrms, he knew that; their loyalties were nothing without his thumb there, holding them down…

He would’ve expected nothing else from them. But that boy was his flesh.

“That little—!”

Then he saw a shadow limping up the steps.

It was Haxorax.

He was so struck with relief he forgot his rage just then. The boy had come back. Of course he’d come back. They were all they had in this world, weren’t they? Where the hells else would he go? 

Lyxandor was so relieved he had to steel himself, remind himself of his fury, to say what needed to be said.

“You know what you’ve done,” rasped Lyxandor. “I will not lash you this time. You are, without exaggeration, the single greatest humiliation our race has ever suffered. That is the meaning of the name Haxorax. That… is punishment enough.”

Lyxandor stood. “But there will be time to reforge you,” he said. “This time we’ll do it right. This need not be the end of you, boy.”

“I’ve come,” said Haxorax. “To tell you that this is the last you will see of me.”

“…What.” A cold fist gripped Lyxandor’s heart. Then, fury. “What!”

“I owe you nothing,” said Haxorax. “Not an explanation, nor a goodbye. But even though you were never a good father, I can still choose to be a good son.”

“What the hells do you think you’re—”

“I’m not finished,” said the Prince. There was a hardness in his eyes that surprised Lyxandor. Where had he gotten that from?

“I will be off now, in hopes of finding mending,” he said. “To fix what you’ve done to me. Perhaps I’ll never find it. But… I’ll try. I never feared you like the others, but I always feared you’d never approve of me. I’d never be good enough.”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t fear you anymore. I’m not the only one.”

More auras were starting up the steps—Lyxandor recognized them. Two humans, one roc, two dragons—that was Sverrex and Jaxanor, his own dragon elders.

That was most of the Azure Flame Council.

Then there was a flash of brilliant flame, and when it faded, there stood two regal phoenixes. The Phoenix King and Queen—that made nearly the complete Council.

“What the hells is this?”

“A reckoning, Lyxandor," said the Phoenix Queen coldly. “A reckoning that’s long overdue.”