Queen's Gambit Chapter 29

Draconic Fortune (Noelle)
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https://pastebin.com/nRP4AD5i
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https://pastebin.com/Z1HejS29
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https://pastebin.com/nc3Jpna3
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https://pastebin.com/ZUzduK8f
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https://pastebin.com/A3JdE5Fu
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https://pastebin.com/w7QUsyeT
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https://pastebin.com/x1cjQ1PA
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https://pastebin.com/gsutf9Xq
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https://pastebin.com/Lickn82a
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https://pastebin.com/6rDfF0e2
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https://pastebin.com/iiPxkCYk
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https://pastebin.com/d6SzZFE9
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https://pastebin.com/Q3pYfAzV

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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 17

The Dragonborn Comes
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They ran along the hills as fast as they could. Ralsei and Noelle with their robes lifted at all times and Dasher holding his hat in place so it didn't fall off in the wind. They knew what direction they had to go, they just had to keep going fast enough to catch up. Temptress had to be here somewhere. They knew it, because they weren't randomly running southwards.

Temptress had left behind an entire trail of ravines and holes in the ground, often swarming with small angels. They had to watch out not to stumble, as almost the entire rest of the way, they were moving downhill. The further they followed the trail, the more cherubs were still around the gorges. They were catching up, they just had to hurry.

"Wait, there she is!" At the bottom of a big hill, beneath an oak tree, she stood with a lantern. Accompanied by a few succubi. "Hey! Stop!" On their way down, Dasher called for her. "Temptress! Wait!" You could hear the desperation in his voice. But alerting them of their presence wasn't the best idea.

By the time they were anywhere near close enough to talk to any of them, the two Grunts had already gotten ready for combat, and another succubus with a stetson that they hadn't seen before, pointed a pistol at them.

Not that it got to that confrontation, as before they arrived, the woman in red raised her hand. She was holding something pointy and pointed it at the ground in front of her. With a shrill voice that startled Noelle and Ralsei, she screamed: "Queen's Delight!" When she did, a red, linear beam shot out of the pointy end of the object she was holding, and she used it to draw a line along the ground.

As soon as she was done, the earth began to tremble. Along the red line on the ground that was still shining from when the beam hit it, the earth itself ripped open, revealing a large cavern beneath, followed by a brightly shining swarm of cherubs streaming into the sky. "Curses. More angels!"

"Wait, stop!" The second time round, the archer managed to draw Temptress' attention.

The only words she had to say to him were: "Get lost!" before raising herself upon a little red cloud and flying away. And they couldn't chase her, because the battle-ready succubi stood in the way. The prince ran out of patience with them and just began singing a lullaby like he had with Temptress' army. It worked, they fell asleep and gave the three heroes an opportunity to go after Temptress. They immediately caught up with her, because she was flying about aimlessly. "I can feel it! It is so close! How could that one not have been it!"

"Temptress! Wait!" Whenever Dasher got too close to her, she surged away in another direction in search of what she was looking for. "Listen to me! I know you're scared, but it's all right. I forgive you! You can still walk away from all this!"

What he was saying angered her enough to stop in her tracks. She pointed at him with the brown object. As Noelle knew, a piece of the Knight's armor. Pointy, but curved, less like a cone and more like the tooth of a giant animal. "Forgive me? YOU forgive ME? If there's anyone in need of forgiveness, it's you! For making me waste my time with a spineless coward like you! Now get lost, before I-"

She stopped mid-sentence to pull back and inspect the armor piece. She pointed it Dasher's way and then froze. "I found it..." She completely ignored Dasher and flew right past him. If he hadn't still been harbouring hopes of saving her, he could have easily readied his bow and arrow and shot her in the time it took for Temptress to float from one place in this field to the other.

She was headed for a spot a few dozen feet away from Dasher and once there, floated up to be in a better position when she pointed the armor piece on the ground and repeated the chant that appeared to set it off. "Queen's Delight!"

Again, its ray carved itself along the previously untouched grassland and where the singed earth glowed with residual heat, the soil parted with bits of solid earth cracking out and down to a sound that resembled that of bones breaking. Then, with a much greater strength, the ground pulled itself wide open to reveal a gorge full of fire and molten rock at its bottom.

When the witch moved closer to take a look and found what she saw to differ vastly from what all the other openings looked like, she jumped with the anticipation of a child on a Christmas morning. "Yes! Finally! I found them!"

And she was right. Within the cavern below the field, an entire swarm of horned reptiles flew about. Some wrestling in a contest for dominance, some going about their merry way, but as soon as they became aware that the path outside was open, any previous animosity between them moved aside for the pursuit of freedom. The first to rush upwards was a green wyrm with two backward horns and a very long neck. When with a final, powerful swing of its wings, it surged outside, the gust of wind it cast pushed the archer back and almost swept him off his feet.

By the time Noelle and Ralsei caught up, the scaled giants were already streaming out of the ground in the dozens, oversounded only by the hysterical chatters and bickers of an overjoyed witch. "It's too late!" the archer shouted. "She's already released them."

With her arms spread out, the witch bent backwards to look up at all the passing dragons. And screamed: "Yes! Yes! Show me all the beasts that this world has to offer!"

"What have you done? Why would you do this?"

"I need soemthing to control! Something strong enough to face the guardians of this realm!"

"There's no way you can control them all! Look at them!"

"I don't have to! I just need to find...the right...one!" She was staring upwards at the stream of dragons to inspect them. And by the end of it, she appeared to have spotted what she was looking for and sped up into the sky.

"This isn't good. Those will be a problem." The dragons coming out of the gorge were all the size of a building, or bigger, and flew about so densely in the sky above, that they almost formed an orb made of dragons, that slowly expanded as more joined the swarm.

"Hey!" To their shock, the three Susies from before had reached them as well. And with the one hand that was free, the cowgirl shot them a wink. "Y'all still got problems of your own."

Dasher tried nocking his arrow, but before he could anywhere with that the cowgirl pointed her weapon at him and shot. Instead of firing a bullet, a mechanism on her weapon began spinning and a blue cloud came out of the barrel. From within it, a miniature dolphin shot out his way. On its way to the archer, it grew in size. By the time it got to him, it was a life-sized dolphin and its impact launched him back onto the ground, closer to the hole the elder dragons were coming from.

Holding her gun in place with nothing but her finger by the hammer, the cowgirl gave the frozen doe a wink. "Like it? It's called the 'Barrels of Fate'. I pull the trigger on this baby, anything can happen. Ain't that neat? Sure is neat." The gun had a particular design, with cogwheels on the left and right hand side solidly built onto it. The cogwheels were orange and blue, the barrel red, the grip yellow and the bulbous cylinder holding it together came in cyan.

Multiple bright colours, but strongly in contrast with each other and not blending well together at all. And the cogwheels weren't purely optical, as they were turning just before the dolphin came out. "I'd think twice before gettin' too close. Got no need to reload, so you make one wrong move, I could torpedo this thing into a frenzy." When Ralsei started to give singing another shot, the cowgirl's hand shot right his way and she fired just as quickly.

The clicking of gears turning and the gust of green smoke was followed up with a pile of porcelain plates appearing out of thin air between Ralsei and the gunslinger and falling on the ground. Shattering on impact. The 'attack' didn't reach Ralsei, but it was enough to startle him and get him to stop singing. "Not this time. And no runnin' away either."

They couldn't shoot her, they couldn't sing her to sleep. They couldn't get up close to wrestle the gun from her, because the Grunts to her left and right stood ready to fend off attacks like that. All they could do, was to stand still as a ceaseless flood of large, conventional feral dragons shot out of the ground behind Dasher to join the already expanding cloud above them.

Dasher and Ralsei were out of options. If they wanted to get out of this one, Noelle had to do something. She stood perfectly still, a motionlessness driven by fear. But there was something she could do without moving. Without moving her arms and her staff even an inch, she began channeling the same magic that summoned her vines and made them slowly grow out of the ground, near cowboy-Susie's right hand.

Luckily, it was out of the succubus' field of view. A disadvantage of having a snout as long as hers was that she couldn't see what was on the ground unless she looked directly down. If Noelle could get hold of the gun, then maybe Ralsei would have had the time to sing them a lullaby or Dasher the time to shoot them. "Much better. Now, y'all gonna be nice and lay down your weapons nice and slow."

She had no intention to move. Whether to put down her staff or otherwise. Ralsei and Dasher slowly followed her instructions. Noelle hoped her meekly holding a staff wouldn't be a problem. She was wrong. "Hey!"

With her free hand, the gowgirl pointed at the glowing circles crowning the bulbous tip of her staff. "What's this?"

She had to speed up for this to work. She channeled her magic faster and wound the thorny fibre around the gunslinger's weapon. "Hey! What the..." she managed to get a tight grip on the barrel, but not enough to wrest it from the dragon's hand. And the gunslinger wasn't bluffing either. Her first reaction was to pull the trigger multiple times.

The vines were pulling it down so it wasn't aimed at anybody, but it didn't have to be. Gust after gust of smoke burst out of it, each in a different colour. It made a several metre tall ball of fur appear, a pogo stick that jumped around by itself and a bunch of rocks, all taking position in random places around them. The fourth shot had everyone back away as it started with lit firecrackers coming out of the barrel.

Then bigger ones, full-fledged Sylvester rockets shot out of the gun, made sharp turns and surged into the sky. A whole volley of them came out of the barrel. And on their way up, more and more of them exploded in deafening bursts, followed by expanding patterns of blinding, multi-coloured light. The further up they got without exploding, the bigger the explosion was when they did. Until that final splash of red lights hit part of the ever-growing swarm.

Transfixed onto the light show, everyone including the other succubi backed away from the cowgirl that still tried to free her weapon from Noelle's grip.

"Shi- fu- this can't be happening." She tried shaking it off, but couldn't even get out of the first vines around it, and Noelle made sure to summon more to strengthen her grip on it. While the gunslinger struggled to not let go of her weapon, the dragons above roared in response to the perceived attack. One green wyrm in particular broke from the rest of the swarm, made a wide arc and spiraled down to the ground.

The gunslinger was the only person to refuse to move aside, and so it was her that the bigger dragon made its way to. It plucked her from the ground with its jaws and launched her into the air before adjusting its maw and snap it shut with the cowgirl inside. That was the last anyone saw from the gunslinger, and her gun.

It flew back into the swarm and left everyone else alone, but they all took the same thing from this. "Dude!" One of the two remaining Grunts patted the other's shoulder. "We've got to get out of here." Without further ado, the succubi made a run for it. And in a different direction, so did Noelle and the others. They ran back up the hill to get a better view of the situation.

When Dasher stopped, they all did. The swarm kept growing, the stream from below didn't stop in all that time. "This is bad. At this rate, no-one in town is going to be safe. Wait - get down!" A red wyvern shot down and straight their way. Dasher ducked and pressed Noelle onto the ground as well. Leaving the beast empty-handed after it passed them. The air currents it drew along its way back into the air, attested to the speed and the force involved in its movements.

They didn't get up until Dasher was done watching it rejoin its kind in the sky. "We have to warn the Emperor. I didn't see any of our ballistas, but if we get reinforcements from the Empress, she might send us some. I don't think we can take on big dragons like that without a harpoon or something like one."

When something about the dragon's movements changed, they continued to watch to find out what exactly. Then it became clear that in spite of their number not shrinking, the swarm grew less dense. They were loosening their formation. The archer was the first to take note of what that meant. "Run!"

All three resumed rushing up the hill, along the freshly torn ravines. When the tremors of a giant lizard landing startled the terrified deer, she tripped over her robe and fell on the ground. It took the prince to realize it, and when she turned around, the beast was coming right her way. The shock of seeing it stumble her way so fast, kept her in place, even when Ralsei tried to pull her by her hand. "Come on!"

But it was hopeless. She couldn't move. She always had a feeling she would die this way. Staring her death straight in the eyes, perfectly able to evade it physically, but too terrified to do so. When she pondered her life up to this point, the only detail somewhat amiss was the growing yellow glow in the corner of her eye.

The wyvern came closer and didn't stop until it was so close, that it was blocking her view of the swarm and its shadow in the absent moonlight reached all the way to where Noelle and Ralsei were. But when it was already opening its mouth to douse them in flames, a swarm of glowing cherubs sped into the way of the fire and caught the attack in Noelle's stead.

Giving Dasher the time he needed to run back, grab her by the other wrist and help her back up so they could continue running. In fact as they hurried up the hills, more swarms of little angels converged around them, throwing themselves in harm's way to shield the three of them whenever another one of the dragons caught up and tried to roast them.

Their sacrifice allowed the heroes to get all the way back up to the hill. To the tree and the rocks where the Susies hung out when they first came through. Some of them were still here, and awake, but when they saw Noelle and the others run up to them, the will to take them prisoner was overshadowed by the need to run away from the half dozen large dragons chasing them.

The little crowd of pursuers they had accrued split apart to chase after the strewn groups of Grunts and Berserkers. Giving the heroes more leeway to make their escape to town.

At least that was what they were hoping they could do. It was too late for that. two giant dragons were already on their side of the fields around the town and another one was already IN the town. Setting the sheds and barns and other buildings on fire. No doubt they were going to go on to raze the entire town to the ground if they weren't stopped.

But even if they got involved, what were they going to do about it? Dasher's arrows weren't going to do much to regular wyverns, and these dragons were several times larger. His arrows weren't going to have much of an effect, if any at all. Noelle tried summoning vines, but the ones she managed to grow, were back to normal size. If they had been as big as when they fought Faith, then maybe! But they weren't going to accomplish much like this.

Dasher watched helplessly as the red among among the giants faced down and encased a panicked worker in a pillar of flame. "At this rate, they'll burn down everything! We've got to do something."

The prince told him the same thing Noelle was thinking. "No...no. I don't think anything we can do is going to solve this."

"The Gorge of Desire has been opened!" A survivor from their chase earlier, an angel with the body of a little wolf boy, came flying their way. He had gotten away from shielding Noelle and the others with a singed leg and couldn't fly properly any more. He struggled to keep his altitude on his way and landed on one of the rocks to rest there. "The beasts are unleashed, they cannot be bested by normal means. But there is one they fear! One who approaches and can best them."

The cherub didn't move an inch when a large red dragon landed right in front of Noelle, ready to attack. Before it had any time to do so, they felt a gust of wind press against them from above, coming from something shooting through the air above them like a fighter jet. Something surged straight to the red wyvern and dragged it along its way to the airspace above the town.

The cherub, apparently expecting Noelle's savior, continued unabated. "In our tongue, he is the scion of Mace: Dragonborn!" The figure in question was a person, but an impossible one by light world standards. It was the same person the Drakeforger had showed her. A man that was half dragon and half Boss Monster. He had a broad goat face with fangflaps and patches of white fur littering his green-scaled body. His face, hands, feet and horns were those of a Boss Monster, but he also had the wings and the tail of a dragon. "It is the Dragonborn!"

He wore a plain suit of leather armor with pelts here and there wrapped over it and a helmet with strategically arranged holes to wrap over the base of his horns to make it look as though the horns were part of the helmet and not his head.

He was holding a greatsword twice his height in length and several times over with the width of its hilt. Before the red dragon in the outskirts had any chance to claim more victims, the half-dragon's huge blade buried itself sideways into the beast's back and the force with which it struck upon landing, was enough to flip it over and startle it.

The Dragonborn didn't let his opportunity go to waste and dragged his already lodged sword around the elder dragon's body, onto the belly of the beast, cutting it open all the way down and showering himself in the gushing blood of the creature. When he saw a blue dragon set a larger, public building on fire, he ran towards it, took a deep breath and unleashed a frosty haze cold enough to not just put out the fire, but leave the surfaces he hit littered with ice and snow too.

The blue dragon that started the fire had a long and relatively thin neck. Which was probably why when the half-dragon next swung his wings and lifted off, he made right for the elder dragon's throat and before the giant monster had any opportunity to react to his approach, sliced the bigger dragon's head clean off, leaving it to sag down and catch the brunt of the new pool of blood under it.

The golden one among the giants had a vaguely oval form, with its overgrown head making up the narrow end. Going by its angered roars, seeing its kin slain like that upset it. While it was still in the middle of its rage induced scream, the Dragonborn charged right into its mouh with his greatsword pointed to the front. It closed its mouth in surprise, but moments later, it collapsed and died. Now covered in blood all over, the Dragonborn carved his way through the back of its throat.

The victorious warrior stumbled forward to the slowly closing in doe and smiled proudly with his blood-soaked weapon buried into the ground. "Greetings, fair maiden. Pardon me while I make myself a little more presentable." He looked around, grabbed the first nearby barrels of water and tilted them over his head to shower himself in the water, one barrel at a time. With little regard what someone nearby might have planned to use them for. "I am the Dragonborn, at your service. And what is your name?"

"Noelle. It's good you came. I don't know what we would have done without you."

"Fending off dragons and collecting their souls has been my calling since time immemorial. Ever since mother moved on to new lands, I have not spent one waking hour not fighting the dragons tooth and nail. So when the gorge finally opened, of course I heeded your call. Dragons renew themselves all the time, but those suffering under their destructive nature, remain dead or injured for much longer, if not forever."

To gather with the others, a panda bear monster came along with dozens of excited children. She pointed at the Dragonborn. "Oh look, there he is!" And through her feigned surprise, sent the entire crowd of children out to swarm him.

"Fluffy dragon!"

"It's the fluffy dragon!" They surrounded him and stumbled over each other. They all wanted to touch and ruffle the patches of fur spread around his body.

The adult accompanying them followed them and once close enough, bowed before her saviour. "Thank you so much for coming to our aid. It was our little school you put out. We wouldn't have made it out if it weren't for you."

The Dragonborn needed time until the playful younglings' curiosity was sated and their insistent assault on him let up, so he could struggle free enough to meet their teacher. "All in a day's work. I could never let helpless folk like yourselves come to harm. Not if there's anything I can do to stop it. The corpses will be the signal. So long as I remain in this town, it is protected."

The teacher gestured towards the southern part of town. "Our school has a kitchen. The least we could do, is receive you with a cup of tea and a meal."

"Of course I wouldn't say no to some relaxation and provisions. Now is the time to recover after all. And to plan where to go from here. I was banished with them for a long time. I need to know what about the kingdom has changed in my absence. What these new denizens are."

As Ralsei and Dasher joined back together with Noelle, they were accompanied by a third, less expected follower. "Dragon!" It was the succubus Beauty. The soft and feminine spokesperson of the Susies. The well-kempt dragon girl appeared to have recovered after fainting at the sounds of Ralsei singing with no traces of dirt on her smooth white dress.

She meekly raised her hands and stood in place while the worked-up half-dragon pulled his weapon out of the ground. "I come in peace. I'm as terrified of the elder dragons as you are. I'm one of the nice ones!"

The Dragonborn held up his sword in her direction. "There are no nice dragons! Not that I'd remember."

"Times have changed!" She shouted in protest. "Not all dragons are evil anymore!"

The Dragonborn turned to Noelle and the others. "Is there truly such a thing? Dragons that can be trusted?"

Noelle smiled and watched the children that followed them, fight over who got to touch the 'fluffy dragon's wings. "We've met a few friendly ones on our way here. They helped us, too. I think you can trust her."

"The deer lass seems more trustworthy. If I have your word that well-intentioned dragons have become commonplace, then I shall allow the lady's presence - for now."

The school teacher and the Dragonborn led the way to the school. Past the cheering townsfolk that was thankful for their temporary reprieve. Noelle, Ralsei and Dasher followed from further behind and Beauty slowed down to walk along side the soon sweating doe. "Thank you for vouching for me. Who knows what he would have done if you hadn't."

"You - you're welcome."

"I suppose we are now even after that little trick you pulled on me and the others. I hope Temptress won't come back to haunt us over it."

"I'm sorry for the trouble."

"I understand why you did it, but still. You should feel ashamed for doing this to us." Hearing something like this come from Susie's voice made Noelle twitch.

On the side pointing to the charred fields in the south, the School had a big porch. The panda monster unlocked the gate and asked them all to take a seat while she rushed into the kitchen. The children swamped the Dragonborn with questions on what it was like to be a dragon or what it was like to fight them or what he could do besides fly, spit fire and spit ice.

He was very patient with them and still found time to ask the teacher about her life. And about the things that had changed in his absence. What happened to this or that person that the teacher didn't appear to remember.

Apparently this town had already existed in some form when he was banished. Also, the elder dragons weren't all banished at the same time, but in batches. Him being included in the final one. In conjunction with the times that preceded this, he kept bringing up his mother, another bipedal dragon by the name 'Mace'.

But all this was in the end, a distraction. A distraction from the impending, scaled reality that was building in the distance. And their next worry soon came trampling up the hill. A reptilian creature with eight necks so long, they reached as high as the town's clock tower and snake heads at the ends of them.

And when he saw it, the half-dragon dropped his cup and sprang up in place. "It appears our rest will not last!" The creature didn't come here on its own volition. Its heads were all on leashes made of familiar, dark purple clouds, which led up into the sky above it. There, a familiar woman with antlers came riding on the back of another dragon.

This one was as big as the giant dragons that attacked the town, except it looked able to walk on two legs. The serpentine dragon horns, the black wings and the up to scale tail were complemented by the physique of a bodybuilder bulging with muscles everywhere unlike even the Berserkers. It looked more like a demon than a dragon.

"The hydra is slave to the Destroyer! I must do battle!"

"Wait! Maybe we can help!" They were a little surprise with how fast the Dragonborn switched from relaxation to seeking out battle. The party got up to follow him, but they couldn't keep up with the insane dashes that the Dragonborn's wings made possible. By the time they were anywhere near the hydra's reach, the half-dragon was already carving and slicing his way up one of the necks. Most of its heads were preoccupied with reacting to the Dragonborn.

One of them shot down onto them and buried its snout in the ground where Ralsei was, just before he jumped to the side. Noelle seized the opportunity to wrap its throat in vines and hold it in place. From being this up close, the archer was able to take out one eye, and the prince enchanted his weapon to hit the serpent's face with several gunshots. They focused on dealing with that one head, summoning more vines and hitting it with more arrows and magic bullets, until it collapsed, along with the rest of its neck.

They were taken aback with how efficiently the Dragonborn was dealing with the rest of it. In the time it took them to take down one head, he jumped from head to head, impaling each one with his greatsword or cutting them off wholesale. When only one head was left, he jumped down to the ground, and with a single scream, let loose a wave of pressure so strong, it threw the entire creature back in spite of its weight. When the last head was still dizzy and confused as to what had happened to it, he charged towards it and cut it off.

The children crowded the area just in front of the porch and cheered at their victory. Beauty and their teacher came along with them, clapping all along the way. When Dasher looked back up to check on Temptress and the Destroyer, they were both gone. Grinding and creaking noises drew everyone's sight to the left-behind school building, which was being ripped out of its foundation by the black dragon.

It raised the building as if to use it to attack, and with a swing of its wings similar to how the Dragonborn dashed from place to place, it sped to the teacher and the oblivious children. It was all too far away for Noelle or anyone else to do something about it. He wasn't too far away for the Dragonborn. But even he couldn't do much more than to rush straight to where the civilians were. Right under the building that the Destroyer struck out to crush them with.

With a confident leap, he met the building half-way and with the force his movement gave him, had just enough strength to stop it from speeding down and crushing and killing all these bystanders. That didn't stop the Destroyer from pushing the building close enough to the ground for the Dragonborn to stand on it.

With a sheer supernatural strength, the half-dragon somehow managed to keep the school's foundation from hitting the ground. But this miracle took everything out of him. "Run! Run!" He shouted at them. They followed suit, they all ran off and out of harm's way. All except Beauty.

Those among the children that weren't in the building's impact any more, continued egging on the Dragonborn. "Come on! Fluffydragon! You can beat him!"

They even started cheering in unison while the teacher tried corralling them together and away from the battle. "Beat the dragon! Beat the dragon! Beat the dragon!"

The Dragonborn's arms and legs were so strained, he was trembling all over. And yet, he grinned. Under his gritted teeth, he mumbled. "You know what? I just might!"

"I'm sure you can do it." Beauty cooed at him with a mischievous grin.

The Dragonborn was surprised and confused at Beauty still standing next to him. "Wait! If this thing comes down it will crush you! Get out of here, what are you doing?"

The loosely dressed dragon girl snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. "What I'm doing? Why of course..." When she was done running her hands along his shape enough to distract him, she reached into a little tie inside her dress and pulled out a dagger. She held his chest with one hand, while she stabbed him in the back several times with the other. "...what I came here for!"

"Fluffy dragon! No!"

You could see his instant weakened state from how he allowed the building to budge down for a second. With the last stab, she left the dagger inside him and twisted it. The Dragonborn choked in-between coughing up blood. "Traitor! Murderer! The town - all these people!"

In a sudden hurry, the dragon girl backed away from under the school building and shrugged. "Not my problem. Sides were taken from the beginning. I was just doing what I was here to do."

Beneath the smiling succubus, a platform made of purple clouds appeared, and she seemed to expect it and stepped on it. It carried her up into the sky, onto the back of the Destroyer, to Temptress' side. Up above, the witch was already chuckling and then spoke loud enough for everyone below to hear her. "How on earth did you get them to trust you like this?"

"The oldest lie in the world. I sold them some bogus about 'not all dragons', would you believe they bought it, just like that?"

"No way!" They both broke into wild chattering laughter that sent cold shivers down Noelle's spine. "Destroyer! Finish this!"

With one final push, the black giant overpowered the Dragonborn and brought the school building down upon him. Burying him in its foundation, before flying away. No doubt set for the fountain. The forces between the two draconic combatants left the building crumbling and broken. Along half the area, the walls had already collapsed. "Fluffy dragon! We have to save the fluffy dragon!"

Some of the children were already crying and clinging to the panda monster holding them. Others had hope and rushed into the building to remove any wooden bars and planks that got in the way of them looking for the Dragonborn. Dasher followed them inside to push a few collapsed pillars aside.

Beneath a trap door, in the stone cellar, they found his remains buried under the heap of crudely cut stone bricks that once was the cellar's ceiling. There was no pulse. He spent his last moments trying to struggle his way out of the cellar, and got crushed by it before he could make it.

There was no other way to put it. There was nothing they could say to silence the crying children that wasn't a lie.

The Dragonborn was dead.