The two monsters gazed at each other with equally threatening gazes, both so deadly they’d sear through cement. A battle was looming, hovering above them like a stormy black cloud. Evil was rising, and it came from both girls.
Evil.
Darkness.
Sin.
Those were the things devils-and apparently little girls-were made of.
“Shall we fight this in our true forms, Mage?” Laurel questioned. Her tone was brisk and sharp, completely devoid of any emotion.
Her eyes-deep, dusky like two endless black tunnels-were undaunted. She knew just as well as Darla how this fight would fall out. One of them would end as a corpse, slain and brutalized.
And even Darla didn’t think she could stand a chance against the might that was Laurel Crowe: fearless, statuesque, and radiating ultimate power. It was like pitting a flickering wax candle against a raging sun. There was simply no comparison.
“Fine by me,” Darla murmured, seamlessly tapping into the magic bubbling inside of her. The fire, she realized, was begging to come out. She was never a girl who could turn into a reptilian creature of the night.
No, she was always a monster who occasionally bore the face of a pretty girl. But it was all just a mask, just smoke and mirrors. Darla was a monster, true to the venomous blood pulsing through her veins.
Porcelain skin gave way to metallic golden scales. Razor claws jutted out of her hands and fangs that would rival a saber tooth burst free from her mouth. Eyes went from emerald green to a cobalt blue.
Darla did the same.
She never realized how much she and Laurel truly resembled each other. They were two of a kind. All dragons, Darla had realized prior, were broad-shouldered and thick, like a tiger or a bear. She and Laurel were slender, all sinewy limbs and elegance. Like panthers. Quick, slim, and deadly. Killers-everything about them. They were the final evolutionary products of the dragon race.
The white sword was hot, clenched in Darla’s claws. She gnashed her teeth, staring at Laurel. Magic intoxicated her, wrapping around her neck like a vise. This sword…it was something incredible. Darla had never felt such a rush of pure, raw power as she had the minute her hands braced the golden, gemstone-studded hilt. It was like being filled with an ocean wave of heavenliness.
Laurel moved faster than Darla deemed humanly-no, monsterly-possible. In a flash of golden light and impossibly blue eyes, she hovered above Darla. Luminous wings hung out around the Shadow Master’s lithe frame. Scales glinted in the firelight of the crackling flames. The flames that held the fate of mankind in the every spark, every bursting cinder and curl of smoke.
Darla blindly swung the sword at Laurel, but she dodged each attack as if she was simply batting away a tree branch. With a sinking feeling, Darla realized quite how dire this situation was. Laurel was not her. She was…everything and anything she could possibly be. Darla didn’t stand a chance.
Still, she wouldn’t stop fighting. The worlds-Pharix and Earth-depended on her. Darla moved swiftly to the side, avoiding two careening golden fireballs which were being flung with shocking precision from Laurel’s outstretched talons.
An explosion of pain erupted in Darla’s arm as she came in direct contact with the searing flame. Dropping to the ground, the sword fell with a clatter. Tears pooled in Darla’s eyes, but she refused to give up. No. Never.
Gripping the blade, Darla rose to her feet. It felt like she was being stung by a million hornets all at once. Her stomach was twisting into knots, her blood curdling like spoiled milk. Laurel was grinning like a maniac, mutilating Darla with her fireballs. It didn’t matter which way she tried to turn. It didn’t matter if she swung her sword.
Laurel had no opponent. She was no mere monster, no dragon like Pharix had ever seen. Moving faster than the speed of light, Laurel had time, nature, and all the forces that could possibly exist in any of the realms at her fingertips. She was a god.
With a gasp, Darla collapsed next to the burning pit of fire. Flames erupted from it, sending smoke gasping into the air. Her family was already dead…why did she even care about saving Earth? Let the fire burn, let Earth crumble into ashes…
But Darla knew that she could never allow that to happen.
Blood slashed open on Darla’s scale-armored stomach. With a shriek of fury, she fell once more. Red waterfall, streaming over scales. Eyes blurred. Couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. The golden dragon with eyes like the ocean flew above her, baring its deadly fangs.
“Give up yet, or are you going to die here like the pathetic little hatchling you always were?” Laurel spat, her words ringing in Darla’s ears.
Was she even alive anymore? Was anything really happening? As golden fire-the most powerful of the magical fires, they said-continued to pierce her, Darla felt herself drift from the Caverns into some far-off fantasyland. A sickening crunch of bones. Skin being melted. Blood. Lots of blood. Pooling all around her.
She could only see red. Bright red, death red, venomous, acid…it was all there, surrounding her. Heat from the fire-or perhaps from looming death-bit into her skin like the jaws of a grim reaper.
This must be where crazy little girls who see monsters and try to fight them in shadow caves go when they bite it. A place of torture, of eternal pain and misery, worse than hell itself…
But what could be worse than Hell if you’ve already seen the devil’s face, and it looked just like yours? Beautiful, golden, with eyes the color of dreams…
Amidst the sea of red, emerging like a beacon of light through the intoxicating fog of pain that erupted around her, a light appeared.
It was a girl-the shimmery, silvery-white outline of a girl anyways. An essence, a spirit or soul that lingered after death. A whisper, a breath, a depth of the person who once lived.
Slender nose, wide eyes, and small lips revealing a tight smile. Curls that fell past her shoulder in an unruly curtain.
It was Arabelle. Darla would recognize her anywhere. Maybe they only had a day together, but there was something between the two of them that felt like they had known each other their whole life.
“Darla,” Arabelle’s essence whispered. Its voice was feathery soft, light as a gentle snowflake. “There is no time. You must stop the Final Fire.”
“How?” Darla replied, feeling completely stuck in oblivion, in an endless void of bloody torture and painful eternities. Was she alive or was she dead? Somewhere in between?
“You know what’s controlling the fire. Even Laurel isn’t powerful enough to demolish Earth on her own. What’s doing this, Darla?” Arabelle asked.
What was? That was certainly the question of the hour. Darla still had no idea. All she knew was that Laurel had merged the essences of innocent people to her great sword.
Wait a second.
“The essences!” Darla exclaimed. “You guys-Benny, Azura, Wimble-must be controlling the fire!”
It made perfect sense that the apocalypse would be triggered by the untimely murder of innocents. From killing comes more killing-that was the way the world, any world for that matter, functioned. Death reaped death.
“Laurel used us-our innocence in our times of death-to fuel the fire. She infused us with the Spirit Sword. But…there’s one way to stop the fire,” Arabelle murmured. Her voice was tight, and Darla could see the anxiety in her eyes. She didn’t deserve this. The girl was dead, for Heaven’s sake, and she still couldn’t get a break.
“The fire can be stopped by the thing that released it,” she explained. “In this case, it’s the golden fire. That’s what the Sword is made of. That’s what Laurel’s made of.”
Darla stared, taking in each word as if it were a morsel of pure gold. “So what you’re saying is that I need to get Laurel into the pit of fire? That’ll stop the apocalypse from destroying Earth?”
“Golden fire will save or doom the day. The choice is yours, my Darla,” Arabelle whispered. “Now go. I command you back to your home realm. Today is not your end. Not yet. There are great plans in store for you.”
Great plans indeed…
The red exploded in the nuclear bomb equivalent of pain. Each nerve in Darla’s body erupted, singed and destroyed. Bones jagged, flesh torn…everything inside of her was broken and crumbling.
Still, Darla could move.
Golden fire will save or doom the day.
“I see you’re stronger than you look. I really thought you were dead. I considered offing you then, but decided it would be much more interesting to see the light fade from your eyes when you were awake,” Laurel taunted, hovering above Darla. “Can you fly, Dragon Mage? So pitiful, so weak. A waste of golden fire.”
A waste of golden fire.
That was what she was, a waste. Pharix no longer needed her here. She was sent to destroy the Shadow Master-and that was definitely not going to happen anytime soon. Darla was folded on the ground, crippled and battered. Laurel was without a scratch, beaming victoriously.
She’ll never get into that fire.
Golden fire will save or doom the day.
It is the only thing that can stop the fire.
Golden fire will save or doom the day.
Or is it?
And, at that moment, realization crashed in. Could a broken dragon fly?
Yes, if it was going to save the world.
It would do anything.
With a lunge and a crack of bones, a tearing of fragile muscles, and bursts of blood, Darla lunged for the fire.
Laurel didn’t even scream. As Darla flung herself into the bottomless pit, she could only stare. Her face was a ghostly white.
Monsters didn’t do this.
They didn’t throw themselves into burning pits to be devoured by monstrous flames. They didn’t burn and crumble and die to save Earthlings, sickly humans who had persecuted them for centuries. Enslaved them. Tortured them, tore down their homes and separated families.
But Darla wasn’t just any monster, no.
She was the Dragon Mage, and that meant she had a mission. To save Pharix, to protect innocent essences.
To stop evil.
And fight for the good.
And so, the dragon with scales so gold and eyes so blue collapsed into the fire as if it were the only home she had.
Because, after all, golden fire was the only thing that could save or doom the day.