Jessica swooped down, her wings angled for a dive attack. She didn’t know how exactly she knew to do it, but some mechanism in her shared mind with Peep gave her access to his instincts. And the little parrot dragon loved flying.

The mage was shaping the power she had been summoning for the better part of a minute now, the mass of power that surrounded both her hands had a viscous visible look to it. A property Jessica had never seen mana take on before. Whatever she was planning on casting, she knew it was going to be a doozy.

Burn her! Peep shouted in the space where their minds touched, and Jessica didn’t argue.

She opened her new mouth as she grew close, and multi-colored flame with sparks of white light that reminded her of sprinkles emerged, hot and angry. Jessica bathed the entire landing in the attack. Half way through, something struck her.

Burning of a different kind, red hot and sticky ate at Jessica's scales. Her feathers had turned to smoke almost instantly filling her nostrils with an acrid smell. She screamed in agony, but peep took control.

As their wings melted, and scaled scarred Jessica fell out of the sky. But peep, peep kept their mouth open, their lounge pumping like bellows, and their own bout of white hot angry flame pouring out of them. Jessica dared open her eyes to see how the fight was going.

Her eyes burned. But before they melted to slag she saw she was covered in a green tar like acid. Her own attack had burned through the blob of deadly magic and even now was battering at the shields of the woman who was their opponent in this duel. A white shield had sprung up and was blocking most of their breath weapon. A weapon Peep was still breathing out in his internal almost incoherent rage fueled by the pain of both himself and his mother.

But enough of the flickering multi-colored fire got past the defenses that she looked almost as bad as Jessica felt. The woman was nacked her clothes having burned away to ash long ago. Her skin was nearly completely charred black. She was bald now, her once beautiful golden hair gone. She was screaming, just as Jessica was.

Then, the acid won out. Her vision was gone, and the pain overwhelmed her. The blackness consumed her and Peep both. She floated, alone, not even Peeps presence there to sooth her wounded mind.

You have died. You have been . . . Error. You have killed your opponent.

Calculating.

Congratulations human! You have drawn with the Armies of the Dragon Emperor! There are no personal consequences. There are no bonuses granted. There are no faction gains from this outcome. Neither side achieves a victory.

Error. . . Calculating.

Due to large level disparity, you have been determined to be the Technical Winner of this bout. This does not count towards your faction's victory and will only come into effect if there is a tie or draw.

Prepare yourself Human, the next dual is about to begin!