"Nope, not this time, you are a member of the Council and I am going to insist you let us know what you are up to. I the last two months you have managed to get a high ranking Paladin dead, lasso a demon prince, fight an angel to a draw, challenge a top tier wizard to an archaic duel, restore a ley line to downtown Detroit, and sit down to tea and crumpets with dragons. You're off the reservation and I'm going to have to bring you in, I expect full disclosure by tomorrow," he said.
Really? I was going to have to deal with this now?
"You really don't want to pull rank right now chief," I told him in what was probably a dangerous voice.
"Martin you have to realize I am not your enemy here. There are members of the Council that want us to censure you and the Paladins are licking their chops waiting for a chance to get at you. I am not saying you can't do whatever it is you want to do. I just want the Council to be in the loop. Frankly it is in your best interest to fall in line a little bit. If we were to censure you, there would be no protection from people going after you," he said cautiously.
And now I was pissed. I remembered a line from the Watchmen graphic novel that fit so well here.
"Xath, the minute you censure me I am coming after the Osirons. Within a week there will not be a single one of those bastards that will to step into the darkness because they know a demon is waiting for them. The day after your censure goes down I will have a personal treaty with Victoria done that will ensure me the help and cooperation of all the Vampyres. The things she wants me to do would make me so much more powerful on this plane. As for the Paladins, the minute one of them made a move I would tear the soul out of their number two general and feed it to Ajak. They did such a good job letting him out I would let them resume their play date. Did you know that Percival Brightblade manipulated his daughter to dump me five years ago? I would send an extra special present to him. You need to wrap your head around something here boss. The council doesn't protect me from the supernaturals, it protects the supernaturals from me" I was shaking with rage by now.
Gwydion and Xandra popped their heads in at that point and noticed the chill in the air. Both of them backed out slowly.
Both of us were trying to gain control of our tempers. After a few seconds Xath relaxed a little and spoke.
"Let's talk after the fight tomorrow. Emotions are running high right now" he said, stiffly.
"Yeah, let's do that," I replied.
We each retired to our quarters. I really didn't need this shit now.
------------------
Having never been to the Coliseum in Rome I have no idea how to compare the scope of The arena we were fighting in. All I can say is that it was HUGE. Walking in at one end I could barely make out the opposite end. The size made a lot more sense when Damion dropped in. He was roughly the size of a jet in his dragon form and his scales were black like a raven. There were two horns that curved forward. Apparently a lot of this fight was going to be fought in the air. The arena was maybe half full with most of the Dragons sitting in their human forms and anxiously awaiting the action.
The Queen stepped forward and announced the terms of the duel. There was a large gong behind her and when she hit it all hell broke loose.
The stadium seating where my friends and the Royals were sitting was bathed in dragon fire as a huge purple dragon exploded behind them. When the flames settled you could see a thin blue sphere encompassing everyone. Xath had managed to get a water shield up in time to save the people but not the area they were sitting in. The structure underneath Xandra, Sofie and Chloe fell out and into the arena. I saw them get up and dust themselves off. A portal opened up about 100 feet in front of them and two packs of hell hounds raced through followed by two hound masters. The hounds jumped for the ladies as the big dragon circled around. I saw Gwdyion jump down to help them but in mid air he switched to his angel persona and took off like a shot. He intercepted a smaller silver hued dragon that was coming fast to flank the royal seating area. I looked at Damion and grinned.
"You broke the rules," I noted.
"Rules are made to be broken, and your friends are only distractions," he replied. His dragon form made the sounds come out clipped.
I realized what he meant a split second later when his tail came around and caught me dead square in the chest. I knew ribs had broke and if one of them would have punctured my heart or lungs I probably would have been dead. Thankfully my regenerate spell managed to start fixing the damage as soon as they broke. As I was flying through the air I realized that the end of the stadium should be coming up soon. Sure enough I hit the upper balustrade and felt my hip bone crack. I needed a second. Damion had jumped into the air and was circling, watching the drama unfold beneath him. Big mistake. I wasn't dead yet and he should have try to finish me off. I watched as my girls started to fight.
The thing about hell hounds is that they are notoriously tough to control. Their natural tendency is to tear every living thing they see into shreds whether man, demon, or angel. Enter the hound masters. Hound masters are a demon that specialize in controlling a pack of hellhounds. They basically whip them into submission and bind them to a jewel via a blood ceremony. They then attune the jewel to themselves so only that particular hound master can control that pack. The advantage of this is that you don't have to summon or control five to nine individual hounds, you only have to control one hound master to get a pack. Sophie showed what the downside to the arrangement was.
Sophie had summoned her rifle and pegged the two lead hounds. With a touch of breathing room she shot at the houndmaster, not his physical body, instead she targeted the jewel. The stone in his hand shattered and all of a sudden half the dogs stopped and sniffed. They then turned to their former master and went after him. No demon likes being bound and the hellhounds were no different. The hound master demon went down under the weight of his own pack. The howls and yips for the free pack made it harder for the other houndmaster to control his. Another shot rang out and a second jewel exploded. For now the other pack was occupied in taking down their master.
I looked for Xandra and didn't see her, then all of a sudden a black form appeared riding the purple dragon just behind it's head. I was able to make out Xandra's whip around the throat of the dragon and saw her start punching the back of it's head. Xandra might look like a librarian out of a porn movie but she still had demon strength. After about 5 good punches the Dragon started to coast down to the ground. Then I looked for Chloe.
Chloe had come around the rubble and stood in the open arena. What happened next is almost indescribable but I will try. A shimmering translucent curtain of black and green energy sprung into existence in front of her. She sent it streaking toward where Xandra was going to bring the dragon down. Some of the first pack had taken care of the houndmaster and were running toward the seemingly defenseless girl. As the curtain touched them they simply were gone. Xandra jumped off just before the curtain hit the dragon. As the curtain moved over the body it seemed to peel away all flesh and scale and muscle. On one side was a regular dragon body, after the veil passed over it was just bleached bone. The curtain stripped everything from the dragon and continued on to the rest of the hellhounds. Soon there was only a dragon skeleton sitting on the arena ground. Then it started to move. It picked itself up and walked over to Chloe who hopped into the rib cage she then went and picked up Sophia and smiled as Xandra popped in. The undead dragon walked over by the royal seating area and set up guard.
If a dragon's face could show emotion all you would see is shock on Damion's face. Even more registered as he was buzzed by a silver dart. With my hips healed up I could stand and watch as the silver dragon that Gwydion intercepted appeared to be chasing a white streak. I was amazed at the speed Gwydion was able to achieve as he kept just out of reach of the predator behind him. Every few seconds crimson would drop from the dragons form so my friend must have gotten a hit or two in already. Gwydion went straight up and was out of eyesight in seconds with the dragon following close behind. Everyone held their breath for the next couple minutes and soon we saw a shape tumbling down ungracefully high above us. As it got close we could see that it was the dragon's body but it was missing it's head. The headless corpse almost hit Damion and seconds later we saw Gwydion in angel form drifting down carrying his bloody trophy. He landed next to the bone dragon and saluted in my direction. That brought Damion's attention back to me.
My ribs were healed up and I was back to full strength. I switched to my fiend persona and grinned. Now it was my turn. As I started flying slowly in Damion's direction I started to get mad. Really angry. I tried to stop the rage that was building up inside but I just couldn't do it. I launched a strong bolt of Hellfyre at the dragon. He whipped his head around and breathed fire. His breath weapon took out much of the punch that my Hellfyre had but enough got through to make him circle around for another pass. I launched a bolt of Angelfyre at him and he did the same thing with pretty much the same result. I had sent my soul siphon tendril out and was in for another shock. It slipped right off. It was like trying to attach to a eel covered in oil. I was in for another shock when I felt a tendril attach to me. There had to be something to being a dragon because I never even saw it coming. It instantly started draining energy and I almost panicked. As I was losing strength I remembered how Raphael had broken my collar. If I could draw more energy from the planes I might be able to do something. I focused on grabbing more power. I felt it surge into me, I pictured gathering more and It felt like a valve opened. I was no longer tired or weary. I was pulling in more power than he was taking out. I opened myself for even more. Now I was suffused with planar power. I felt him try to end the connection but now I wouldn't let him. I reached for more. He broke it off with a strangled bellow and started to fly away from me. I reached out and grabbed him, only slightly surprised that he was now only about the size of a mastiff to me. I was so full of rage. This guy was willing to kill my friends and was trying to stop me from completing my project. He tried to take Xandra, Sofia, and Chloe away from me. I drew more power. I felt my hand around this weaklings throat and squeezed. I was still in my fiend persona but I realized my size had expanded. I gripped him and threw him down into the ground. As he lay there twitching I was still angry. I drew more power yet again.He was now about the size of a cat and I summoned my mace and brought it down as hard as I could on it's body. Gore and blood flew everywhere as I literally pulverized the interloper. I couldn't help but shout in triumph and draw even more power. The amount of energy I had could level continents, hell this much power could extinguish a sun. I looked at Xath. HE wanted to censure me? I started to form a gout of Anglefyre that would obliterate any trace of him when I realized what I was doing. I desperately tried to shut off the flow of energy but I couldn't. It had taken on a life of it's own. It had to go somewhere and I couldn't let it loose on this plane. My last thought was to find somewhere safe to let this loose. I felt a shift. I felt a weightlessness just before I let loose a torrent of order and chaos infused energy. It felt like it went on for a millennia but it was over in a flash. I was now standing on a featureless plain of hard earth. I tasted something metallic in my mouth and felt blood from my nose running down my face. My ears were ringing and when I reached up to touch them my fingers came back bloody. I felt weak and numb and collapsed to my knees. I had time to wonder where I was before darkness enveloped me.
