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Storm Clouds
Grin, TheMerlinHawk
Day 1, Morning
Christian, Raven
Christian smiled out the window before using his will to close the door of his office. “Archive tell Raven to head to the top of the Tower. With that Christian got a running start and dove through the window as he passed through it his body rippled and he grew in size to his dragon form in one fell motion. Massive wings beat as he pushed himself through the air towards the top of the tower.
Grey clouds swirled in the air above the tower as he reached out and warped reality into a dimensional bubble in the air above the tower preventing magic and force from escaping it as well as matter. Giving it a flat glass surface as well as adjusting the gravity along the walls of the bubble and adding smoke glass geometric architecture to climb and hide within as he rose towards the bubble. If raven hurried she could catch him on the way towards the bubble.
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The musical sounds of water hitting pavement trickled in the air as Raven’s footsteps tapped against the pavement. She chuckled a little. “He couldn’t ask me in person, could he?” And with that she licks her fingers before running them through her platinum locks of blonde hair. The woman inhaled, then disappeared from existence.
Christian’s Dragon form surged up past the edge of the tower in one fluid motion. Come on my beloved I have a surprise for you The voice resonated in Raven’s head as Christian heaved himself up onto the edge of the tower before standing on his back legs and beating his wings once to stabilize himself.
There was a sound, a holding of breath to prevent laughter. Already Here. Beyond the edge of the tower was the woman in question, standing boots first on the side of the building, arms crossed. Her hair stayed obedient to gravity, however, falling at a 90 degree angle from her horizontal silhouette.
Christian landed on his legs and turned his body slightly so that she could climb onto the spot where his neck met his shoulders where she use to ride all of the time. I moved a dimensional bubble a ways up above the tower I thought we could play a little Christian wiggled his tail and hind legs like a cat waiting on her to climb onto his back.
Raven weakly smiled before swiftly climbing onto his neck. She sat upright, running her fingers along the familiar, yet resistant bronze scales. “Yes of course. To where are we going?” She scratched along Christian’s body.
“You’ll see” Christian’s voice rumbled like distant thunder warm against Raven’s leg as he launched himself into the dark clouds. Climbing on powerful wings that stirred storms Christian breached the clouds and hung suspended in air above a plane of dark grey glass with structures and platforms extruding from the surrounding walls as the whole structure was a ball of the grey glass through which the storm could be seen. “A play ground”
The lady calmly stepped down from Christian, cinnamon eyes collecting the stormy clouds in front of them. After a long moment they then took in the bronze of the dragon in front of her. “Play ground?”
“yes. I wish to see how your skills have progressed since we last parted” Christian shifted back into his human form. “I know you’ve been playing around with the Dark Star Sword and I’ve seen a few of your new tricks.” Christian leapt backwards and landed on one of the platforms suspended in air. “Show me what you’ve learned?”
Raven paused, her brow furrowed. “I won’t use the dark blade on you, however,” With that she leaned down a little, tossing off several layers of her jacket and armors off of her. Underneath it all she had on was a simple black tank top with white wrappings layered over her chest and stomach. Her arms, now completely exposed, had a black tattoos engraved down the left, the intricate patterns representing a sharp norse theme. The right was pure, aside from the slight mint glow strips from the hi-tech metal inside it. “I suppose I could show you a few things I’ve picked up over the centuries.” She smiled confidently. It only lasted a second, but her eyes had their old shine back in them.
Christian smiled “Oh is that so? Well then impress me.” With that Christian popped his neck and thunder ran outside the globe of glass around them. “I think you will find I’ve acquired more than a few tricks of my own my dearest Raven.”
She exhaled and a purple glow appeared around her. An ancient grin appeared on her face, one that spanned since their earliest years, then she disappeared completely.
Christian snorted and flicked his left hand out a nimbus of white light in the form of one of his claws in dragon form swiped at her ledge playfully. Even though it was easily several feet across on the palm of the talon. “You plan on just standing there?” The talon smashed through the glass she was standing on. The glass cascaded across the floor before reforming into another ledge elsewhere.
Raven’s form suddenly appeared and she stumbled and got on her knee. “Shit…” she exhaled before chuckling. Immediately after she charged at Christian, her eyes beginning to glaze over into the purple of clouds at night. The purple around her bathing her and extending the reach of her limbs.
Christian moved faster than the eye could track backwards to the wall and let loose a hail of crystal shards which exploded into electric charges which skittered across the glass. “Have you heard the new Nickname they’ve given me? Lord Shard.” Another fusillade of the crystal shards landed as he leapt again his eyes blazing with lightning. Landing with his feet on a vertical wall he grinned down at her.
Raven lay beneath and took all the hits, her body shaking a little. She looked up at him, her grin still apparent as purple blood started dripping down her forehead. A laugh gurgled out of her. Then, without any warning, Raven shattered into a million pieces of glass. A clone.
Without any delay Raven appeared on the wall vertical to him, sending black bullets straight to his chest before disappearing again.
Christian crossed his arms and projected the heart of Storms in a solid sheet of Crystal in front of him as the bullets slammed into it falling in a hail of lead to the bottom of the sphere. The shield shifted into a single bow. Christian drew and arrow and let it go. The single arrow splintered into two dozen forks of lightning which scoured the thirty degrees of the sphere in front of him before he leapt again. As he impacted the top of the sphere an ethereal draconic tail impacted the roof causing a ripple in the glass to radiate from him as he drew the six and seven of sparks from the deck of storms and unleashed thirteen bolts of lightning straight down the length of the sphere.
There was a crack of the lightning, as if it struck something, then the sight of more shattered glass appeared to the far left of Christian. Suddenly Raven appeared behind him and reared for a roundhouse kick to the head. There was dark energy in her leg, and it swirled and spiraled like a purple singularity at the sole of her boot.
Christian dropped and whipped out with his tail aiming for her base leg as he twisted his legs around in a flurry of hind leg claws aimed at her body. Ethereal wings swiping the air around his human form. Christian smiled as he began to warm to the fight a little.
As Raven fell she felt the connection of part of the tail hitting her body, her hands collecting in a symbol directly under her chin. She shattered again, the faint sound of coughing echoing in the air as she suddenly appeared behind him and used the momentum of her kick to connect knuckles with his shoulder, the energy from her leg popping out her bone and connecting to the glass underneath them, swallowing a huge diameter of it and creating a spiderweb of cracks across the entirety of the bubble.
Christian yelped in surprise more than pain before he simply changed full scale into his dragon from sweeping wings and tail in a circle to clear Raven from the area around him before he shifted back to human form. The Four of Gales appeared in his right hand as he swept it to the side causing a set of four tornadoes which spiraled outwards from him in a circle.
Raven reeled back, her legs buckling as she got sucked back into the tornados. Alright, play that way. He felt her subconscious wink at him. Inside the tornado she let some of the shards of glass cut into her skin and the wind rapidly attack the strands in her hair, giving it a wild look. There was an unsettling noise, like wind being ripped apart, before the tornadoes collapsed into nothing, leaving Raven there with wild eyes and her arms crossed. The shadow energy around her created dark wings that spanned about as large as Christian’s dragon wings.
“Hey now” Christian roared and shifted into his dragon form as the deck of storms began sticking to his skin, transforming everything the cards stuck to into storm clouds, translucent scales and lightning. “Two can play like that” Christian smiled in his dragon form at her.
Raven pouted a little.
Christian gave her a sad dragon face in response.
She looked at his dragon form up and down. “One too many cookies?”
Christian turned and looked down his side. “Nooo. I’ve been building a tower for a millennium and a half. For the record half that darn thing I personally built. Dragons just get...bigger. As we age. No fair making fun of me for being bigger. I’m not fat” Christian looked back at her and frowned sticking his nose in her face and snorting.
“I saw the cookie jar in your quarters, no need to hide it.” Her pout turned into a collapsing smile, threatening laughter. “And the brownie jar, and the dog treat jar--”
Christian nosed her with enough force to spin her in the air, “I built a tower, you brought home a ship. I deserved those cookies.”
Raven couldn’t hold it any longer. She broke into an unusual fit of laughter. Her eyes wrinkling a little from the huge toothy grin on her face. She hadn’t smiled like that in a while. “After centuries of learning martial arts, tech, and the shadow’s ways I come home to my lonely little dragon.” She rubbed his nose and hugged it.
Christian stood on hind legs and placed his two large claws over his nose to hold her to it. “Yes. Lonely.” Christian reverted to the slow halting syntax he’d used when Raven and he had first met. Not out of nostalgia but out of familiarity. “Please stay”
He felt her nod against it. “Bring me to your belly? the boogers in your snout are threatening me..”
Christian plucked her from his nose and curled around her tucking her against his stomach and curling his whole body around her as the cards peeled off his scales leaving him a rather large bronze drake as the sphere compressed and the card glass became softer and he lay curled around her in the middle of the dark storm clouds. “Better” his voice rumbled against the already threatening sky.
Raven pressed her cheek against his soft belly. “I haven’t fought with my full potential in such a long time, my body still rejects me from using anything beyond what I should. It’s like gears rusted over.”
Shifting around her Christian settled. “I’m worried that the new generation of Knights won’t be okay without me fighting alongside them. But I know it’s time to step down. Maybe you and I should retire now that you’re home.”
Raven frowned. “Perhaps some day, but in this day and age there is still so much to live for and help with.” The woman hesitated. “I haven’t used my divine form in almost six hundred years.”
Christian huffed. “I know how you feel. But it just feels like if I could find someone to take over a little more I might be able to step back. The Avatars of Metal and Sand haven’t been seen in 600 years. I’m one of the only ones with a public face and It gets me in a lot of trouble. It’s been tough here without you.”
Raven tensed up a little. “It’s been hard, watching my crewmates grow up and die for me, out of age, disease, or battle…”
“You know I took in a kid who has grown into my Master of Blade, a little girl of a Shadow Elementalist who is the second in line for a position as an Avatar of Shadow and the newest True Fae Akime. All of which have cost me more in the last 800 years than the previous thousand years ever did.” Christian wiggles some more. “And I found a Master of Word who seems intent on outliving me”
Raven’s posture suddenly filled with slight solitude. “Right….Dragons pass eventually…”
Christian rumbled. “Not this Dragon. I’ll leave the rest of my lengthy lifespan. AFTER I stop being the Avatar of Storms. IF that ever happens. Which by the looks of things I’m approaching a critical mass in terms of magic and experience that not much can trump. Especially with almost all the God Weapons accounted for.”
Lady Marrowblade laid back as she played a little with the dark energy swarming her. “Grandma wants me to fully utilize my divine form before she steps down from the moonless night position..but I’ve been ignoring her.” Her face hardened.
Christian Snorted before squeezing her. “You’ll live forever on your own right? Do you want to be a Goddess? I wouldn’t want my dad’s job but I mean if you want to be a Goddess I guess I can take over the family business.”
Raven’s expression remained the same. “It’s not that.” her eyes grew cloudy with melancholy. “I still can’t fully control all of my power. It’s….wreaked chaos to everything around me..I’ve tried, but it’s too dangerous. So I’ve been refusing.” She looked at Christian with sad eyes. “I’ve slaughtered the entirety of one of my crews before. Accidentally.” It was almost as if tears threatened her stare. “I had to clean everything up afterwards..alone.”
Christian peered over the edge of his belly at her. “The first time I used the Ace of Storms the way it was meant to be used I wiped out an entire city while I was fighting a Devil Lord. It brought down a mountain on top of the city I was trying to defend. When I sent the Devil back to the abyss I turned around and walked away. I never once looked back on the city. If you really want to learn control the tower is built like nothing else in this world. It will be safe here. You will be safe here”
Raven frowned. “Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced, but her tone suggested a change in conversation. “Let's talk a little bit more before going back to our duties, I’ve missed this.”
Christian rolled over and took Raven with him clutching her to his tummy as he rocked back and forth on his back before flopping over onto his right side. “So Marielle. Where did you find her. That child has more sass than you the first day you stepped off the boat and a mouth to go with it.”
Raven chuckled. “Reminds you of someone, huh? She’s like a contemporary version of my younger years. I couldn’t help but take her in.” She smiled wryly. “Her backstory, however..” Her smile suddenly dissolved. “That’s where things get tricky…”
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