Herah had five simple wants in life.

One, to honor La Flamme, her savior.

Two, the ability to create her art in peace, for it was a source of great pride.

Three, to forge weapons and armor worthy enough to be wielded by a Nettoyant, so the beauty of her work could be truly appreciated by not just her people but by all they conquered.

Four, meet a space Cendre, because that would be fucking awesome.

Five, have or meet someone to continue whatever legacy that would be left in her wake.

Herah also had three simple responses to anything that tried to stop her from completing these wants.

Beat it.

Break it.

Or in extreme cases-

Kill it.

It was Tarkos, the second day of the week, and Herah's second cycle at Noir E. Blanc Academy. Dressed in a red tee and a pair of red jeans, the youngling sat at her normal desk in the back right corner of her first class of the day.

Being apart of one of the latest generations within the Cendreux race, Herah was of the average height six-five, with a slim but muscular physique that did nothing to detract from her overall femininity. Her skin was a scarlet tone, with her arms, legs, and the top portion of her face from her nose and up having an extra layer in shiny red scales. Two horns that curl upwards framed her head, said head resting lazily against a tightly clenched fist with her long, red hair braided into a ponytail that reached down to right above her tail-bone. Her eyes were emerald with slit, black pupils to fill them and narrowed into a glare. Her mouth parted slightly in a small grimace, a few of her many fangs easy to see. A pair of blood-red wings were neatly folded against her back, with the standard opening in the back of her shirt for them to breathe.

At the very front of Herah's class, a shiny pink scaled and bubble pink-skinned Cendreux with the respectful height of eight-three stood wearing a pair of mint slacks and a dark pink dress-shirt. Much like Herah, a pair of curled horns framed her head and her eyes had slit, black pupils with the rest of the eye color being a purple-pink known as kunzite. The teacher was also noticeably fit with lean, strong muscles covering the entirety of her body and a noticeable bust that never seemed to impede her.

Happily speaking about the beginning of the current age in the history of their species, the teacher keenly watched each of her equally scaled and skin students while twirling a pencil in her left hand.

“So, it was with that experience that Violette began asking himself questions. Yes, La Flamme had cared for us during our early days, but our race, our species, had grown without her for many years with no help required. We had done so much more without her than with her, so why should we still give her praise? Why should we still fight and conquer in her name? Why should we still create monuments to her? And it is thanks to these questions that Violette had a revelation. There was no reason at all to continue such things, and thinking this is what led Violette to become the first of the Ravivé.”

Herah scoffed at the words coming from her elder.

‘To sing praise for a heretic, what a disgrace. Many of your children have fallen far and hard my mistress. The fact that you still offer them love is astounding.’ Herah let out a slightly disappointed huff as twin jets of smoke shot from her nose, 'But don't worry, I'll one day show them the same light you showed me.’

These thoughts soon changed as Herah returned to her previous task. As her pencil dashed to and fro across her paper, the youngling seeped into a hyperfocus.Said focus was placed upon her latest work of art: a portrait of Elder Rose, the teacher spouting history at that moment. The parts already done were her soft, round face, eyes and the horns that framed her head. Having just completed drawing the scales that covered Rose’s face, Herah’s attention went to the elder’s full teeth smile. With speed and expertise, each fang was drawn to full detail and looked just as real as Rose’s actual ones once completed. However, as Herah finished the last one, her focus was broken by her teacher.

“Mmmhmm.” Rose called out, disapproval clearly heard.

‘Wonder who caught her eye this time. The weaklings here normally behave this early in the morning.’ Herah shrugged to herself, ‘Welp, Rose doesn’t fuck with me anymore, so it’s none of my concern.’

Herah returned her attention back to the portrait, now working on the elder’s pink, single bun hairdo. Just as before, once completed, Rose broke her focus.

“Mmmhmm.” This time, the elder sounded a bit more forceful and closer.

‘Ok,’ Herah’s unoccupied hand slowly tightened into a fist, smoke flaring from her nose in a quick spout, ‘I swear, whichever one of you faibles bâtards it is, if you don’t look at her right now I’m going to hurt you.’ The youngling then returned back to her work, ‘Now to just finish her eyelashes and I can add-‘

“Mmmhmm!” Rose said, now casting a shadow over both Herah and her desk, ripping away her concentration for one final time.

SNAP!

Wooden pencil fragments fell to Herah’s desk, green fire flaring from her nostrils and a deep frown coming to her face. Still looking down at her portrait, Herah took a deep breath and began to speak low and with a slight growl.

“I swear to La Flamme, whichever of you dickheads isn’t paying attention is about to get launched to the fucking hospital.”

Herah raised her head to glare at whoever Elder Rose was attempting to capture the attention of, only to begin blinking in surprise when her eyes found the teacher standing before her. The elder’s scaled covered arms were crossed and lips pursed while staring Herah down with what the youngling assumed was supposed to be an intimidating glare.

“Oh.” Herah pointed to herself and bluntly stating, “I’m that dickhead.”

“That you are Herah,” A somewhat masculine, cocky voice said with a chuckle from Herah’s right, five desk and students separating the two, “How does it feel to look like an idiot?”

Herah turned towards the Cendreux with a glare and a snarl, causing the students that separated the two to move their heads out of the way in fear.

This allowed for Herah to get a good look at Bleu, an extremely muscular and large youngling with ocean blue skin and shiny blue scales, dressed in an orange polo shirt with white stripes and a pair of blue jeans. The youngling was leaning on his left arm (which had his arrow-tipped tail wrapped around its large bicep) fist to cheek with a smirk on his face. Making direct eye contact with Herah, his entire body managed to take up much more room than the standard student. Herah cared little for this, however, and instead made note of the single bead of sweat that rolled down Bleu’s shiny bald head before grunting and dismissively threatening him.

“Watch it poltron, or I’ll shove your head up Vert’s ass again.” Bleu flinched at Herah’s words, before quickly looking away from the youngling with several more beads of sweat now rolling down the side of his head.

“Please don’t!” A boyishly scared voice begged from the front-right desk, directly three desks ahead of Herah’s own. “I’m still having phantom pains from last time, plus I haven’t even done anything to you!”

‘I can’t believe our youth has been turned into such cowards!’ Herah thought to herself with another angry flare of smoke shooting from her nose.

Herah turned her glare to the front, the three younglings that divided her and Vert moving their heads out of the way to reveal the lime green-skinned and shiny green-scaled youngling looking at Herah with a terrified expression on his face. Vert’s dark green mohawk waved from side to side as his body shook in fear. This youngling was more of the standard look of their species, with noticeable, lean muscles covering his body. Herah also took note on how Vert’s tail was nervously wrapped around the entirety of his wine-colored shirt and his neck, slight spasms occurring through the appendage at random.

“So it wasn’t you who gave Pourpre the idea to try and take something from my backpack, is that what you’re saying?” Herah asked her lips drawing thin while leaning on her right arm with an unbelieving look.

Hearing Herah’s words, Vert sniffed the air before frantically look around the classroom before turning back to Herah and fearfully asking a question.

“Where is my sister?”

“In the nurse’s office last I checked,” Herah said with a slight smirk and annoyed twitch in her eye, “After I found the dumbass’ left arm pit deep in my backpack, I broke her jaw and stabbed in her the eye with one of her own ribs. Your sister should be back and up here any min-“

Herah paused in her sentence, a scent and the quiet sound of feet sneaking causing her head to suddenly turn to the door that was right next to the whiteboard with a smirk on her face. Not a second later, a knocking was heard and followed by a nervous, feminine voice stating that they were entering. Once opened, Herah was able to get a good luck at her most recent topic of discussion.

Pourpre had grape purple skin and shiny purple scales covering her body. The youngling was six-two and noticeably fit. Pourpre wore a grey t-shirt with words that normally slandered Herah’s mistress and a frilly, black skirt that normally reached down to her knees.

Now, however, her shirt was riddled with holes and covered in flakes of dried blood that marred anything that it had to say while her skirt now just reached down to just below her crotch. Pourpre’s normally long, straight and wavy plum colored hair was now in a state of disarray, with chunks of it clearly torn out and its length shortened to the point that it didn’t even reach past her neck.

Pourpre shuffled into the room while purposely avoiding eye contact with her attacker as her legs took her to her seat in front of the door. Seeing Pourpre and her condition, Rose let out a sigh and sternly asked her,

“What happened to you?”

Pourpre flinched before turning back to Rose and saying with a bit of shame,

“I got into a fight and lost Elder Rose.”

“Who was this fight with, if I might ask?”

“Herah.”

“Why were you and Herah fighting?”

“Because Herah is a rabid fanatic who attacks anyone who disgraces her mistress.” Pourpre spat out any previous shame gone and replaced with disgust, with particular venom being placed upon the words mistress.

“Bitch!” Herah shouted, popping her claws and shooting up from her chair, “You know what the ash you did!”

“Herah!” Rose turned to the student in question with a glare on her face, “Can I handle my own class, please?”

Herah rolled her eyes at Rose’s words before sheathing her claws and sitting back down with a huff.

“Your lucky that I’m a Cendreux of my word, menteur, or I’d be kicking your ass again for that shit.”

Rose then turned away from Herah and back to Pourpre with an annoyed sigh leaving her. Levying a glare at Pourpre, Rose then asked,

“What exactly did you do to disgrace Herah’s mistress, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Pourpre began to fidget nervously under Rose’s prying stare.

“Nothing worth getting into a fight over th-that’s for sure.”

“Then you shouldn’t have any problem telling me what it is you did.”

Pourpre looked away from Rose and whispered her next words so low that Herah found the sound of her fist clenching louder. But Pourpre was heard nonetheless, by both her attacker and the rest of the room's occupants. Even with this, Rose seemed to have decided it best to repeat Pourpre’s words aloud.

“Because you were in not just her locker, but her backpack as well.” Rose said, ire riddling her tone, “Why might you have been in her backpack?”

Pourpre once again whispered her reply, and before Rose could repeat it, Herah cut in with her words.

“YOU WHAT!?” Herah shouted as her fist slammed into her desk. Green fire began to leak from her nose and mouth, her head about to go into flames.

“HERAH!” The youngling turned to glare at Rose, who glared back at her with a growl. The youngling let out a small growl of her own, before stopping her flames and looking away again.

Now done with the pacification of Herah, Rose turned to Vert who now looked even more nervous than before with his tail twitching nonstop under her gaze.

“Because your brother figured that taking something of Herah’s and blackmailing her with it would finally shut her up about La Flamme.”

Herah watched with no small sense of satisfaction as Vert nervously averted his eyes away from Rose.

“Is what your sister said true Vert? Did you really convince her to try and take something from another student?”

“But this is Herah we’re talking about!” Vert said, gesturing to the still very much pissed youngling, “She’s a complete and total bitch!”

Before Herah could do anything herself, Rose reacted for her.

“I’ll be damned before I allow a student to show such disregard for another’s privacy and possessions!” Rose shouted, blue flames that bordered on becoming indigo flaring from the orifices on her face and shrouding her head for a brief moment before the teacher abruptly returned to her calm and collected visage.

Vert flinched and hurriedly looked away from Rose, his tail spasming wildly as sweat began to profusely run down his face. His teacher then glared at both Vert and Pourpre before saying,

“You will both stay after school and hold a four hundred fifty thousand ton boulder over your head for two hours for your actions. Am I understood?”

“Yes Elder Rose.”

“Yes Elder Rose.”

The siblings said with meek and ashamed bows of their heads. Rose nodded at this before walking back over to Herah and setting a hand on her desk.

“Class, since you’re ahead of all the other classes at the moment, I’ll end it early today and allow you to go eat or whatever.”

Immediately one of the students in class let out a whoop, before nearly everyone abandoned their chairs and rushed out of the room.

Everyone except for Herah.

“You’re not gonna try to go?” Rose nodded towards her door, “I did say you could all leave.”

The youngling rolled her eyes before leaning back in her desk and giving Rose an unamused look.

“We’ve known and been at each other's throats for nearly two cycles now Elder Rose, you know I don’t care for games.”

“Then I’ll skip to the point,” Rose sat atop Herah’s desk and let out a sigh before resting a hand on her student’s shoulder, “We need to nip the problem that the two of us have in the bud.”

“You mean the problem you have,” Herah corrected knocking her teacher’s hand off of her,” But I agree. We should handle this… issue of yours.”

Herah watched as one of Rose's eyes twitched, before the elder got up and took a few deep breaths. Once done, Rose turned her sights back to her student and calmly spoke.

“I would ask that you abandon your belief of superiority for a moment and open yourself up to some dialogue.”

Herah scoffed and twin jets of smoke flared from her nose.

“It’s not a belief if it's true. That just makes it fact.”

“I find it hard to believe that you truly think anyone who doesn’t worship La Flamme inferior to you.” Rose replied with her own scoff.

“I’m not gonna repeat myself.” Was Herah’s short and quick answer.

Rose just rubbed her nose before sitting atop the desk in front of Herah’s with one foot on top of it while the other sat on the floor.

“I propose-”

“I reject,” Herah cut off, uninterested in the twitch of Rose’s eyes at her interruption, “The customs of our people determine that the only way we’re solving your problem is through obeying my demands as the superior Cendreux, or one of us defeating the other.”

“Herah,” The youngling could hear the annoyance in her teacher’s voice, “We both know that what you speak of is of a time long past. Nowadays, we solve our problems in a much more civilized manner than that, and as your elder, it would be irresponsible of me to be fighting my student.”

Red flames flared from Herah’s nostrils as anger began to well up inside of her. Returning to a proper position in her seat, the youngling growled at Rose.

“Let me make this clear to you Elder Rose,” Herah jabbed a finger at her teacher, “Your failure to prove yourself when I attempted Ash va s’installer, means that you have no other option than to do what I’ve already stated. That’s how our customs worked and will work as far as I’m concerned.”

“For someone who says they don’t care for games, you’re really playing one right now.”

CRACK!

Herah let out a growl, this one much stronger and deeper than before, while lifting her left hand from her now cracked desk.

“Don’t you DARE, insinuate that our customs are mere games.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Rose got up from her desk and stared down at Herah with a growl of her own, “Our old customs are a game.”

SPLITCH!

The smell of iron and other metals flooded Herah’s nose as hot blood splattered across her face and stained her claws.

Rose looked down at her now fuming student in surprise, a hand shooting up to her throat as blood flowed from her wound.

“The time for words has passed.” Herah growled out, standing up from her desk and pointing the hand that had just been used to slit her teacher's throat at said teacher, “I will no longer stand for your disrespect to our past. So now, I command you to respond back with your own declaration of attiser les flammes and only then will I show you your place.”

Rose instead backed up away from Herah, bumping into the chair and desk that was behind her. The furious student stepped around her desk and walked up to her teacher just as the elder took her hand from her now healed throat, large amounts of smoke rising as the wound burned away.

“Herah, you better not-”

SPLITCH!

Crimson liquid sprayed into the air and across Herah’s shirt as her claws tore through Rose’s throat once more.

“I’m not going to repeat myself.”

Rose stumbled back while Herah stalked towards her, green flames spewing from every orifice on the youngling’s head.

“Herah, wa-”

SPLITCH!

“Please, st-”

SPLITCH!

“ASH DAM-”

SPLITCH!

“Sto-”

SPLITCH

Feeling the flow of hot blood beneath her feet, Herah backed Rose all the way up into her whiteboard. Behind the furious youngling, a trail of blood and hastily moved desk and chairs could be seen, a different splatter for every torn throat. Rose went to open her mouth again, but Herah shut her up with a quick spearing of the neck. Twisting her arm, a short spurt of blood squirted in her face while a wet gurgle left Rose’s mouth.

“You know what has to be done to get me to stop.”

Rose grabbed Herah’s extended arm and wrenched it free from her neck with a wet SQUISH filling the air.

Herah’s other hand quickly shot into Rose’s throat, causing the teacher to pull it out and hold both of her student’s arms out to opposite sides.

“Herah,” Rose said after her throat healed, her voice becoming deathly serious,”At eighty cycles, a Cendreux can reduce mountains to dust with a single strike of their fist. At eight hundred, we’re capable of destroying our planet the same way. I’ve already reached my six hundred forty-fourth cycle while you’re only in your fifteenth.” Rose glared down at Herah, “This isn’t a fight you can win.”

Herah scowled at her teacher before exhaling two jets of green flames from her nose and attempting to remove her arms from Rose’s ironclad grip.

“Due to sheer age, you are much stronger and faster than I am. However, the hubris that is common amongst the Manquant de Chaleur tells me that you’ve never trained a day in your life.”

“So what?” Rouge asked snidely, the youngling in her grasp still struggling in futility to get her arms free, “What amount of training that you’ve done makes you think you even have the chance to win?”

“Power and speed come with time, but strategy and knowledge can conquer both.” Herah told Rose matter-o-factly, having finally stopped trying to break free, “And I have quite a bit of either.”

“Are you trying to say that you could somehow outsmart me?” Herah’s eyes drifted down to her own foot as Rose questioned her. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Fact cares not for belief,” Herah said with a growl, a flex of the toes on her feet causing her claws down there to unsheathe, “And enough with your words, do what I’ve ordered.”

“I think not,” Rose responded with a sneer, smoke wafting from the corner of her mouth, “You can not make me obey you, and I refuse to do something as barbaric as fight. Plus,” Herah felt her teacher’s grip on her arms tightened, “You’re currently unable to do more than talk-”

Rose let out a surprised noise as Herah suddenly leaned back and her left foot shot up-

SPLITCH!

-and into Rose’s throat.

“Rose,” Herah’s cold voice and glare seemed to pierce through the teacher in question, “I’m not going to repeat myself.”

For a single moment, Herah just stared at Rose who seemed to be lost.

Then that moment passed-

CRUNCH!

-and Herah felt both her wrist get crushed until they resembled fleshy noodles.

A shout of pain left the youngling’s mouth, as jolts of agony shot up her arms. Quick as a flash, Rose pulled Herah towards herself then shoved her away. This caused the youngling’s foot to tear free of her teacher’s throat and for her to fall back-first onto the bloody floor. With the back of her shirt and pants now stained in cool blood, Herah sat up quickly and-

SPLITCH!

-found herself choking on her own crimson fluids.

Wide-eyed and shocked, Herah looked up to Rouge’s now blood-splattered and rage-filled face.

“That’s Elder Rose to you!”

A pink fist slammed into Herah’s face (the sound of breaking cartilage being heard) before flinging her back and through the air.

“And it’s about time I beat some respect into your skull!”