She had lost all sense of time and place. It could have been hours, or days, or years. She did not remember where she was. She had almost forgotten who she was.

She knew there was only pain, infinite and absolute. So endless was her agony, she knew not whether she was alive or dead. Whatever her state was, it was perpetuated by primal torment, focalized right into the very core that was Her. Nova-hot, limitlessly-sharp edges cleaved her essence, crawling in all directions, deep and less deep, vast and narrow, within and without, searching for something.

She had no memory how long it took.

She only understood, distantly, on the rim of her perfectly-fixed awareness into the pain, when Separation happened.

She was Lessened.

Her Essence was Diminished.

Her soul was Reaved.

In the span of a singular eternity, the pain was gone. She sagged, so drained of vitality her being had no strength to even slip into blackout. She watched, her eyes opened by default, as a mote of her very life ascended from her and floated into the shower of light which kept her prisoner to another.

The another, Mentoria, raised extremities and made sounds of praise.

"He was telling the truth! At last my path to transcendence is open! Not even Heaven itself can stop me now! I shall possess the ultimate power!"

Mentoria lowered herself and gazed at Veralla.

"Are you ready for us to become sisters, Great One?" she laughed, and with a ripping motion stripped herself naked. She made a graceful step and entered the energy field. They floated next to each other, the torn essence of Veralla's soul hanging above them, tethered by a single silvery thread to its rightful possessor.

Then Mentoria severed the thread and absorbed the essence of a Primordial dragon.

 

***

 

"By the Ancients, what's that crazy bitch doing!?" Tehalix exclaimed.

Veralla's torture had continued for hours. By then Airo had become half-insane, wounds which had barely healed torn open once more in his mind and soul. The Radiant Knights had tried to console him as best they could, yet even they were driven into despair by the incessant agony of their dear friend.

Now, without warning, the screams had stopped. The comparative silence was deafening. The Knights all pressed forward, trying to see what was happening. Airo suddenly lifted his head and hauled to his feet, his physical injury searing his chest.

"The Goddess protect us," Lung rawr–ed. "She has taken part of Veralla's soul!"

Airo pushed away the Knights just in time to see Mentoria undressing herself and entering the Æther forge alongside Veralla. There, a small, ephemeral orb hovered above both of them, and to Airo's eyes the orb was somehow simultaneously made of the purest light and the greatest darkness. Then Mentoria reached out, and absorbed the orb within her body.

As one, all of the Radiant Knights gasped in horror.

"Great Cosmos," Magus Dei whispered.

Mentoria abruptly left the Æther forge, naked as she was. She made several stumbling steps, her lascivious shape swaying, and she laughed as her whole body began to glow.

"Yes! Yes! Oh, YES!" she called, her laughter becoming hysterical as the primeval werelight engulfed her. "I can feel it! I can feel the greatness rising in me! I–"

Her rave turned into a primal screech. The supernatural glow consumed her, leaving behind only shadow, yet at the same time kept perfect clarity, as if the change about to take place was no mere metamorphosis.

Mentoria's shape began to twist and deform, molded by an unseen force. Her body vastened, growing and bulking into monstrous proportions. Her limbs realigned, tail and wings sprouting from her back, followed by heavy bony protrusions. Her neck elongated and thickened. Her face contorted and extruded forward, becoming a fierce jaw filled with rows of gleaming teeth. Great, broad horns thrust out from her skull. Her flesh darkened, skin turning into rippling scales, and her fingers and toes extended with huge, wicked talons.

Mentoria's screech turned into a deafening roar, as she fully transformed from a human into a dragon.

Yet Veralla's Essence wasn't done with her. She continued to grow, becoming many times larger than any of the Order's dragons. Her limbs and torso bulked up with muscle, flesh swelling beneath solid scales. Her wings stretched, giant and vast, covering the entire laboratory end to end. Her tail surged and snaked, reaching twice and more the length of her body. Mentoria fell on all fours, overwhelmed by the metamorphosis, yet she didn't cease expanding in size, until her massive shoulders pressed firmly against the soaring ceiling of her sanctum.

And she grew still more.

Her draconic body enlarged without pause and the inanimate matter surrounding it gave under the static assault. Worked stone, futuristic metal, and sculpted crystal all parted away with shrieking wails. Mentoria burst through the floor of Ilsorin's next level, then a second level, and then a third, debris raining down her enormous girth. Sections collapsed into clouds of crushed structure. Her body darkened altogether, becoming black as the cosmic void, while large, claw-shaped stripes of brilliant silver emerged upon her scaled hide

Her roar, pain and triumph equally present in its reverberation, finally died down.

Mentoria's growth came to an end and the supernatural glow around her faded. She stood tall among the ruined interior of Ilsorin, like a god who had half-broken out of its shell. Her titanic form radiated raw power, a Primordial dragon made real. She shifted herself to test her body, smashing more walls and sections in showers of debris, and grinned with a million teeth, her blazing silver eyes full with lust and arousal.

Throughout this whole process, Airo watched with a patient, unblinking stare, his mind focused only on two things.

Suddenly, there was another thundering rumble.

The explosion's echo felt more absolute than the demolition of mere matter. Reality staggered for a moment, then readjusted focus in a nanosecond.

Mentoria lifted her giant draconic head and roared in surprise.

Somewhere out there a great, nebulous being perished and the air vibrated with a subtle change.

The resonance barrier fell.

Airo's teeth flashed.

He rushed forward before anyone else could react. He crushed the Æther forge's frame with a power-armored fist, the blow reaching and pulverizing the delicate components inside. An emergency shutdown initiated and Veralla fell free from the machine's grasp. She turned weakly to meet his gaze. One look into her amethyst eyes was enough to mend his bleeding heart.

This time, he would save her.

He continued onward and stood before Mentoria's titanic dragon form, himself an avatar of fury and love.

"Time for payback, you bloody witch!" he shouted.

Mentoria let out a roaring laughter, the deafening sound shaking the walls. "You think you can fight me, you pathetic has-been?" she asked, her voice a cavernous rumble, her silver slit-pupiled eyes full of hunger.

Airo had no weapons and he had no magic. The starblade was lost somewhere among the rubble and his power armor was nothing before such an enemy. Yet he stood his ground, his warrior soul bright and unwavering.

"I am the Dragonslayer, beast," he declared. "Your life ends here!" Laying everything down on a gamble of faith, he raised a hand and then shouted the most absurd words he had ever spoken: "I SUMMON THEE, STARBLADE!"

And like a wish come true, the glorious sun-sword appeared in his grip, its radiant glow washing over him, erasing all of his injuries and exhaustion. He stood, starblade in hand, its glow outlining his figure and that of the monster before him.

Mentoria roared in rage and fear as Airo let out a battlecry and charged her.

He leapt high, calling forth the power of the starblade, making it colossal in breadth and reach, while remaining weightless as a ray of light. He swung this stellar weapon, yet Mentoria ducked under the blow, her speed and reflexes heightened a thousandfold. Without pausing, Airo timeshifted, channeling his latent power through the starblade, the world closing around him with preternatural pressure upon his senses. Mentoria lashed out in counterattack, her enormous claws crushing everything in their path, coming empty as Airo blinked away, already blazing into temporal overdrive.

The starblade flashed in a torrent of light, each strike fueled by righteous fury and deadly determination. Airo's enemy put claws and wings in his path, raw cosmic energy erupting from the impacts of celestial fusion and living flame. The Primordial dragon before him roared, relying on sound and intimidation as her weapon, yet the Dragonslayer was implacable. His onslaught came from all angles, accelerated to a liminal line of guided intent, walls crumbling, crystal-clad datacenters exploding, nanofabricators bursting apart, thresholds collapsing as the enemy tried to claw him down in vain. He danced in a constellation of timeshifted jumps, his insignificant size compared to her majestic magnitude granting him the one advantage he'd never have under any other circumstances – positioning.

Still his enemy was an unparalleled adversary, fighting with peerless prowess regardless of her predicament, each minute shift of her body being a defense and assault at the same time, her form flowing like a dark river intent on drowning a single dashing mote of light.

But in the end they both knew.

Airo was going to kill Mentoria.

She launched a desperate attack, risking the loss of her foreclaw for the price of his life. He did not commit to the exchange and instead lunged sideways, airborne as he was, and thrust the starblade underneath Mentoria's belly. She bolstered her scales to avoid herself being severed, yet Airo swept the starblade crosswise between her legs, willing the artifact to augment his might, and heaved, knocking Mentoria to the ground with a crash. He finished the trajectory of his jump and landed right before her head, lifting the enormously-sized starblade for the finishing blow.

Mentoria had waited precisely for such an opening.

"Enough!" she roared, and her silver eyes flared. Twin rays of dark viridian werelight shot out from them and struck Airo, enveloping him completely.

In an instant he became nothing, erased from existence itself.

 

***

 

Veralla was still weak from the severance of her Essence when Airo freed her. Without pausing, he went on and challenged Mentoria into battle, bringing the holy power of a sun against the primeval might of dragonkind. Veralla wanted to help Airo. She growled in defiance at her weakness, willing herself to rise, when a large, heavy claw pressed her back.

"Let me go!" she hissed, turning to see Magus, Lung, Tehalix, Glosserax, Samantha, Teyalinar, Richard, Boyd, Merryl, and many other Radiant Knights who watched the unfolding duel with apprehension and awe.

"Are you crazy?" Zeromon exclaimed, who was holding her. "You can't enter this fight, Veralla!"

She struggled to break free, but the larger dragon kept her pinned. "Airo is in danger! I need to help him!"

"He has a freaking starblade to use against this eldritch... thing!" Tehalix shouted. "What can you possibly do to help!?"

Her words were punctuated by explosions and a deafening roar. "Defensive barriers, now!" Lylana shouted, and screens of translucent energy shimmered as several Radiant Knights cast invocations to protect the group from shrapnel and impact waves.

Airo had timeshifted, becoming a blur of motion, his starblade trailing after him like a giant golden comet. Mentoria roared again, barely deflecting his blows. Her lashing strikes destroyed machinery and equipment, gouged walls, and tore the ruined surroundings into pieces, yet not once she found her target. Airo dodged with flawless grace, the trailing light of his starblade sweeping ever closer. Mentoria growled, her enormous bulk sapped of mobility between Ilsorin's walls, her invulnerable scales susceptible to harm against the potency of an entire sun.

Veralla followed the battle closely, her twin hearts full of fear and hope for Airo. The Radiant Knights also gazed after, humbled into inaction by such a titanic clash. None of them could have interfered in any meaningful way, and it was evident that this was a fight to the death.

Mentoria lifted a foreclaw to lash out and Airo blinked out instantly, appearing to her side. He thrust the starblade between Mentoria's legs while in mid-air and swung, tripping her. Mentoria crashed and Airo landed in front of her, ready to strike her down. But Veralla sensed a terrible wave of energy gathering around Mentoria and saw her gaze focusing on Airo.

"No, no, no!" she cried out, straining against Zeromon's grasp.

"Veralla, stay back!"

"Airo!"

"Enough!" Mentoria roared, and cast her gathered power through her gaze, the terrible spell reaching Airo instantly. Its dark energy touched him – and then he was no more: his body, his mind, his soul, his entire life – removed, washed away from creation.

"NO!" Veralla roared, reaching a claw out toward his last spot, screaming his name even as the very memory of him began to fade. "AIROOO!"

 

***

 

He stood at the edge of infinite dark limbo. He knew not whether this was afterlife, or someplace else. Identity itself seeped away, passing through an hourglass funnel into primal entropy. Sense of existence receded, spiraled into collapse.

He turned. Nothing beyond.

He turned. Nothing to the side.

The unraveling deteriorated. No longer the self. Time faded. Sun went down, drifting, darkening. Pathways closed. Strands thinned, severed, lessened. Even darkness ceased...

...seconds... left... trace... away... the... last... eternity...

...a sudden light.

And then – from a distant shore, came a single call, carrying his essence with the song of love.

"Airooo!"

 

***

 

Wracked with terminal anguish, Veralla screamed, putting every ounce of her being into her cry. She focused onto this one infinite moment, casting her power, her love, her entire self into it, and reached out, willing the very universe for Airo to be returned.

The world became bright beyond measure. Everything stopped, halted into perfect stasis. A clear, pure note chimed. For an instant, she saw a great, radiant flame, blazing endlessly across the cosmos.

And then Airo stood once more amidst the ruined laboratory, where Veralla still stretched her claw at, the starblade slipping from his numb fingers onto the floor. She collapsed, utterly drained from the exertion. The Radiant Knights cried and roared in shock and astonishment. Mentoria herself paused at this fantastic feat.

"So the offshoot fledgling has finally awakened her full potential," she growled, her voice booming with scorn. "No matter. My goal is not to kill any of you. Yet I shall replenish myself with those who you have taken under your aegis."

Mentoria drew herself to her full four-legged height, damaging further Ilsorin's gutted interior, and the silver stripes on her void-black body began to glow. Her voice thundered again. "And then I shall spare you in the ultimate manner, by defeating the one who tried to bring the end of us all!"

"It was him, was it not!" Magus Dei shouted, coming forward as more debris fell. "Ferrtau has given you the means to complete Project Ascension!"

"He did indeed," Mentoria rumbled. Her giant teeth flashed into a grin. "And now the fool shall learn the error he had made. Suffer no more, dear Magus. I shall succeed alone in saving this galaxy where you and your entire Order have failed!" She lifted her head, and the glow on her stripes intensified.

"Mentoria, wait!" Magus shouted. "You do not know the full extent of Ferrtau's powers! He is luring you into a trap!"

Whether she heard him or not, Mentoria made no reply. She let out a low, basso roar, her glowing stripes flashing once – and she vanished, leaving in her wake only the scattered crash of loose structure and the distant wail of avarial alarms.

Veralla at last gathered enough strength to rise. Without pausing to think, she rushed at Airo, crying out his name. He turned, confusion written on his face. She tackled him, burying him under her, wrapping around in a tight embrace and began to cry, relieved he was really alive.

"What... happened?" Airo asked slowly.

"You were erased from existence," Magus said, approaching with the rest of the Radiant Knights. "Veralla... she brought you back."

Airo stared in numb astonishment, while she continued to cry and nuzzled him fervently with her snout.

"Mentoria?" he queried.

"She escaped."

"Airo!" Veralla cried, tears flowing down her snout. "Airo! Airo!"

"Shh, relax, everything will be all right," he said, patting her soothingly. "I am here now."

Except, nothing was going to be all right.

 

***

 

It was Kiana who in the end had saved them all from Mentoria's imprisonment. She had carried a serefi with herself as a precaution against Revenant and the constant warpstorms, and she and Nightsong had just reached Dragon Retreat when Mentoria's kill-switch command had triggered even across half the planet.

"And then the voiddamn thing tried to strangle me!" Kiana fulminated as she recounted her harrowing experience. "I'd been done for if it wasn't for Nightsong, who clawed the bastard to shreds! Dragons for the win, dude!"

"But how were you able to defeat the serefi that surrounded the fortress, Ki?" Zuckeroff asked. "That, uh, monster, I guess, had created a whole mini-dimension!"

"I'd taken a heavy veronite cluster bomb with me; insurance policy, ya know." Kiana explained. "After the serefi I'd taken along freaked out, figured something must've gone very wrong back home. I scrambled the jet and when we arrived, whaddya know – the mountian looked all weird, the hidden exit flashing like a bad case of software crash, refusing to let us inside.

"So I blasted this giant serefi right in the strobing ass, and it was enough to kill it. Then me and Nightsong rushed to the rescue, but the party had already finished. Anyone mind telling me what the fuck actually happened?"

The Radiant Knights brought her up to speed, but even they, living among the greatest wonders of the Æther Age could scarcely believe the events that transpired, even though they witnessed them firsthand. Kiana's reaction was a general summation of everyone's feelings.

"You're telling me Mentoria became a fucking dragon god!? And Veralla did WHAT!!?"

Following Mentoria's escape, the Radiant Knights reasserted control over Ilsorin and took stock of the damage done. The lower levels of the stronghold were all in ruins, with the base's industrial capacity almost completely destroyed. With the demise of the largest resonance field, the Guardian, Ilsorin was no longer hidden within the manifold of Terra Para, so Ilsorin's emergency E-beacons had to be activated. The Knights were on alert for the lesser serefi, yet Mentoria's creations seemed to have fled by unknown means.

Yeoman Cloud reported it had been shut down by them, which enabled the security breach in the first place. Thankfully, everyone was alive, captured either by the resonance fields or the subverted security systems, and were subsequently freed once the serefi had scattered. It was a very minor relief compared to the tremendous amounts of tension, confusion, and fear prevalent in the wake of what happened.

But no one was prepared for the true horror, when the Radiant Knights went spaceward to check the situation there.

Mentoria had soul reaved everyone aboard Ouroboros.

There were bodies everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of people lay among the decks, the control sections, crew quarters, hangars, service tunnels – all now lifeless shells. The artificial gravity had been finally turned on and the dreadnought's interior looked like an enormous morgue.

Throats were choked and breaths cut short, as the living stared in dread and shock at the horrid scene.

"Great Cosmos..." Magus Dei uttered, even he becoming pale at the sight.

They tried contacting the H'raal sphereship. When they received no response, Lylana, Glawlrhain, and Stamat formed an away team to investigate. The three of them returned quickly, bearing the same grim news: the aliens had all been killed, robbed of their souls.

They were all alone. A mere hundred Knights, a company of Consortium and Union soldiers, and a handful of remaining refugees. The last survivors of Terra Para, whose time was fading away even as they struggled to not succumb to utter despair.