Halloween Special 2016

Eighty years prior to the fall of Smith Street Station, and the real beginning of Daniel’s journey, Elizabeth Selby had just finished her rite and was an adult under Draconian tradition. As the first child born after the great calamities began within the den, first to successfully reach adulthood, El demanded the oldest known rite, rather than the rite that came about after contact with human society. While many of the Draconian traditions were lost to time and the arrival on Terra, the true rite of kin selection was one that was remembered, but still not followed, out of necessity.

The modern rite was once considered the cowards way out, an option that was equatable to a vow of celibacy, yet still resulted in the death of many that attempted it. Knowing that, it became apparent just how much worse the old rite was, that Draconian were willing to accept shame to allow their numbers to even slightly grow once they arrived in the new world.

But El was too proud, too strong; her blood was too Draconian to even think about taking the easy path, and entered the old rite without the slightest concern for her life. Before the great calamities, the den’s elders would have stopped her attempt, but after the fall, they had given up on the world. Many of the council had lived on the old world, a place where blood and valor were always honoured, and when they found themselves awakened on Terra, they could only see a world that lost its way. To see two worlds fall was more then the elders could take, and many felt that the destruction of life would be somehow better. In those early days of the fall, the elders had ordered many wars.

With just her sharp claws as her weapons, with just her red scales as her armour, El walked into the heart of the den, a nest located far below the water that filled the centre of the mountain. Those dark tunnels were chilled by the water and untouched by the sun, making the air icey and unpleasant. With pure instinct, El walked those dark tunnels, knowing full well that every moment down there was a step closer to her blood going thick from the cold.

Monstrous bats and insects tried to block her path, but that meant nothing to that determined Draconian. With her fire filled breath, anything that stood in her way just became a torch to reminder where she had already been. Several times she had walked past the skeletal remains of ancient Draconian who had attempted the same rite as her, their bodies telling her what it meant to be weak. El had never allowed herself even the slightest bit of weakness, and that drive was what drove her to attempt the old method.

While the cowards way allowed a Draconian to join the kinship of their strongest parent, the old way allowed the successful to choose any that they liked. Having been born from one of the lesser kinships, and having to watch them scramble in cowardice after the fall, El worked herself to make it into the Selby kinship, to make her way into the elite guard, and eventually as a matriarch, lead the council as she pleased.

While her red scales marked her as an upper-class variant, it was still amongst the lowest therein. Knowing that, El couldn’t allow anyone to be stronger than her if she wanted to reach her goals. Every day she trained her body, lungs and mana to enture that that was always the case.

As she walked further through the darkness, she encountered a body that was more intact than the ones she had encountered before. It wasn’t any newer, in fact it was likely much older, but instead had something that the other didn’t. Along the neck was a Tower interface, a kind of technology that allowed for the energies of the Towers to enter bodies, before they started to generate nanites to do that. Seeing that disgusted El to her core. To cheat on the rite was an immensely lowly thing to do, especially considering there being another option. Out of rage, she slammed her foot into the still flesh covered skull and reduced it to paste.

At the end of that tunnel, there was a large chamber. In the middle was an elaborate and sprawling magic array, complete with a pedestal with a dish in the centre. It was the final aspect of the rite. The array would drain whatever mana she had, and she would have to fight whatever monster was summoned using her mana. Cold, naked and unarmed, she would have to bring back the head of a beast that used all of her mana to bring into the world. Naturally, the more fearsome the creature she brought back, the more honour she would earn herself, as well as the greater the reward the array would grant her.

It was said that the materials used in the elite armour were gained through the rite. With the cost and performance of those armours, it wouldn’t be surprising if that was the case. After all, the den only had four of them, and each of them was made before the fall. El could imagine how proud she would feel while holding some treasure of unimaginable worth while looking down on the pathetic people that took the coward’s way out.

As she fantasized about her definite victory, she cut her hand and let blood pool in the bowl. As the liquid reached a waterline, El could feel her mana drop to a level near zero. At that level, it wouldn’t be strange if she fainted, but the array seemed for forcefully keep her awake. As the array glowed with an otherworldly blue light, a grey mass started to form directly in front of her. Before her eyes it formed into the silhouette of a creature, twice her size, nearing the cavern’s ceiling, and covered with blade like spikes as fur would be on another creature.

As the grey turned to colour, it the creature seemed to be mole-like, though its breath was steaming in the cold, like ghosts framing its dark red eyes. Each and every strand of its long fur was like a sharp cutting blade and even getting close to it seemed like a deadly prospect. With its dangerous size and appearance, a burning flame was lit deep in El’s mind. Even if she wasn’t in a rite, she would still have felt the need, the all consuming desire, to challenge that creature.

Without a care in the world, she ran towards the towering creature as its blade like claws swept out to parry her own. Rolling backwards to ward off the unmatchable force of the impact, El regained her footing and charged forward again.

Unlike the first attempt, this time she managed to avoid the first strike and get batted away by the second claw. The third attempt saw her avoid the second claw, and even get an attack of her own in, landing her sharp hand against its body. The damage dealt by that was negligible, and in return its bladed fur cut clean through her palm.

Where others would have realised it was impossible, that the fight was unwinnable, for El, that challenge just drew her to it all the more. Avoiding two more claw, El tensed her hand and forced her natural healing to take care of it. The healing reaction was slowed by the cold and that wound, that would normally have been nothing to her, had become an actual danger. As such, an idea sprang to her mind. She waited until her mana had restored slightly, while avoiding the creatures onslaught, and built up a prana/mana mix in her throat. When the moment was right, she let out a burst of fire breath that lit a patch of the creature hair alight. While it was shaken for the sudden fire, she pressed her bleeding hand against the burning fur to let the fire seal the wound shut.

The pain filled her completely in the absence of other sensation, a condition caused by the cold, and she could feel herself get wet from the excitement of it all.

As it opened it sharp toothed mouth to let out a raging cry, as the fire reached the roots of the fur and scorched its skin, El made another daring move. Dashing forward and jumping on to of the creature’s claws, uncaringly letting the creature’s fur cut against the scales on her legs, she pushed off of those limbs and dashed through the air, towards the open mouth.

Its cry was cut short as El sliced its tongue from its mouth, letting the long sensory organ flop moistly against the ground, spasming as though life remained in it. Regaining distance and avoiding its careless and rage filled attacks, El watched warm blood stream from its mouth. Just as the heat stolen from El’s body was a danger to her, the blood loss was a danger to it. With each passing moment, its movements grew duller and its attacks slowed. As the ease with which El avoided grew, she became more confident and launched further attacks, amining for the patch of scorched skin that had its fur burnt away.

As the cold started to dull El’s movement just as much as the creatures, she took a more radical motion. Ducking under a sweeping charge, she rolled through a puddle of fresh blood, letting the creature’s body warms permeate her skin. A minute later, she was coated from head to toe in the creature’s blood, and it was dead.

Her satisfaction over that fight was so great, that she let out a gushing orgasm and dropped into the flooding red pool beneath her. As she regained balance to her legs, El ripped out the creature’s eyes for a meal, and singed the fur from its neck so she could decapitate it.

In the bowl on top of the pedestal was a black object that hadn’t been there before the fight ended. It was the reward the fight earned her. Picking it up and feeling its weight in her hand, knowing that its grip was the perfect fit for only her hand, she admired the sleek workmanship of the weapon. It was a black revolver, with a barrel that showed that it was a weapon beyond what a human’s strength could handle. The cylinder didn’t have any space for bullets, however, and was instead a large, red gem that matched both her scales and the blood that coated her. She had heard of such weapons before, mana guns that made their own bullets. It felt just right for her, a powerful weapon that would only grow more useful as she got stronger. Rather than a reward that was immediately useful and eventually became pointless, that kind of prize suited her more.

Dragging the creature's head and wielding the gun, Elizabeth made her way back out into the light and warmth of day. Even though she was moments away from the cold death that all Draconian hated, she left that tunnel and let out a roar that could be heard in every corner of the den. Holding the severed head above her own, she sneered at all of those around her, letting them know that they were cowards, inferior creatures that stained the name Draconian with their actions. The old rite was doable and their acceptance of the new way was only shame.

She walked naked up to the leader of the Selby kinship and placed the head at her feet.

“Elizabeth, child of the Southernment Den, having completed the Old rite of ages, demands the name Selby.”

Her hand was clenched on her weapon and her voice sounded every bit as dangerous as the gun. Other Draconian, born on Terra, were shocked that El dared to make a demand like that, but the older ones amongst them knew that it was her right. As someone that had completed the old rite, the only ones who had the right and courage to compel her were the elders of the council. If El had wanted the senior position in the Selby kinship, she had the right to take it. That she didn’t could be seen as some sense of modesty.