"Was that Melanie?" Brandi asked.

"Yes. She just took off and-" Kelly found herself at a loss for words. Her best friend had changed into a massive dragon. While she knew it was going to happen, the knowledge of it did not compare to the reality of how she truly looked.

"Where is the King?" Brandi asked.

"The Queen believes he is hurt o-or...D" Lynx couldn't bring himself to finish the word.

"No. That...isn't possible. There is no way." Brandi staggered slightly and Leo caught her.

"I should not have left his side." Heather snarled. "I must check on my love and my King." She bent low and sprang up into the air, four wings lifting her up over the city. Fear and concern thick on her face.

"Shouldn't you go too?" Kelly looked to Maalceus who struggled with himself.

"I should but I must protect the palace and you." He smiled a saddened grin. "My King would not have it any other way." Though even as he spoke. It was easy to read the mixed resolves he felt.

Maalceus truly wanted to go through the streets slaying every Vikara along the way until he found his brother and whatever had wounded him. His attention was pulled away as Kelly reached up and touched his face.

"Go. We will be fine."

Maalceus looked down upon his claimed woman and in a rush of passion and fury he pulled her in. Their lips and tongues intertwined with one another in a passionate embrace. For several long moments they shared the passionate deep lusting embrace for several long heartbeats before pulling away.

"Stay close to the palace. I have no idea what I would do if you got hurt." He smiled down at Kelly.

"I promise you. I'll remain close."

Maalceus closed his orange and yellow eyes and reached for his draconic essence. His skin darkened and his body grew. The charred and charcoal colored body of his large halfway transformed state smoked and steamed. The cracked channels along his charred skin filled in with magmatic liquid that blazed with heat.

Reaching out to the void, he stretched up his hand. In a blast of heat and smoke, a black double edged sword appeared. The hilt of the weapon glowed with a bright orange heat that spread up to the blade. A horned winged dragon acted as the guard, both wings spread out and upward. He walked forward into a run leaving a trail of smoke and fire behind him.

*****

Marvin curled protectively around his King. His slender silver scaled body protected his lord from the Vikara. A dozen border guards battled the remaining goblinoids. Metal on metal rang out across the border. Marvin outstretched his neck clamping his jaws down upon a wounded Vikara. The resurrected green skinned creature screamed once before dissolving into ash.

His silvery grey eyes caught the flicker of movement above him and he watched as his lover descended into the last vestiges of battle. Her short sword flashed out like a leaf on the wind. She spun backwards catching a Vikara by the head before reversing her flow and plunging into the eye socket of another.

With a full withdraw she repositioned herself and countered a clumsy strike with an ax. The weapon skidded off the flat of her sword and she returned the strike not missing her mark. The pale green skinned enemy fell away into ash. Heather glanced around and took stock of the dozen warriors who remained.

Half of each were barely standing and ther other half were exhausted but ready.

"Warriors! A protective border!"

Heather shouted commandingly.

The six exhausted warriors helped their wounded comrads up and into a semicircular boundary around Marvin's silvery dragon form. Heather walked to her lover and her bright gaze met his. She could see the pain and anger in his gaze, even transformed she could feel their bond.

Marvin's wing folded up revealing their King. Heather gasped and fell to a knee beside their lord. A large searing hole burned through his chest and out the back. His tan skin looked pale and drained of blood and life. Heather looked to Marvin who looked back at her just as helplessly. Before either of them could make a move, a wintery blast of air hit them chilling them to the bone.

*****

Melanie's draconic form moved through the air. Every flap of her white wings sent a rush of frigid cold air that washed across the city. The tops of the buildings frosted over. The Vikara running through the streets paused, momentarily stunned by the chill in the air.

Drawing in a deep breath, the warm wind drew deep into her lungs where it froze over. As she unleashed her breath, it rushed forward in a stream of white frozen air. Everything within her path froze in place. Perfectly crystallized and preserved with lifeless ice.

The Vikara ran frantically about, no longer consumed with taking lives and only trying to preserve their own. She let out a shrieking cry filled with pain and agony.

*****

Blood dripped off the staff of Pluktu who stood on the thick tree branch. Bleeding from his shoulder where King Lucian had speared him through. Adding his own dark green blood to the staff, the crystal glowed. Once more he raised the staff to the sky and sent out a spell to the gods above.

His black eyes were fixed upon the white dragon that flew above the city. With every life that was taken, the Vikara mage drank in the death essence further adding to his stores of energy.

"Membunuh! Membunuh! Membunuh!"

A blast of black and green energy rocketed up to the clouds. Thunder rippled out across the land and the mage felt the lightning inside himself before it lanced down from the skies.

*****

Melanie felt the rotten decayed energy like she had been slapped in the face with a corpse. Her bright blue eyes followed the beam of deathly energy as it went up to the clouds. When the thunder roared above her, instincts told her what was coming. She flew to the border and over the wall. In her frosted white nostrils she smelled the rotten putrid scent of the death mage.

As she crossed the border, her eyes trained upon the mage in the tree line. Her pale white scales lifted slightly and thickened. Her breath came out like a blast of frozen snow straight from the glacier peaks. Pluktu jumped off the branch and only his feet caught the immediate frozen bite of her breath. The sky above rumbled with thunder and with an abrupt crack that split the air itself, lightning crackled across the sky.

*****

"Our Queen needs help." Heather growled and looked to her lover. "I love you. Always."

Heather didn't wait for a reply. She did not need one. The look in his eyes was enough. On four black wings she lifted off into the air and changed into dragon form. Her skin turned red with scales. Her hair became a full head of horns and in a rush of fury and courage she became a four winged red dragon.

Thirty feet long with blazing eyes that could have killed with sight alone. The sky rumbled and she knew knew exactly what that meant. The same thing it meant the last two times. Her four wings propelled her forward. Yards became feet and just as the clouds opened up, the lightning tore down through the sky.

Heather felt only a moment of pain before all went numb. She had no regrets as her body and mind dissolved. She could feel the cold aura of her Queen's energy. A magnificent thing in truth. She could feel the bond between herself and Marvin, a single strand of love that warmed her heart against the numbness of death.

Heather's mind relived a thousand happy memories before all went dark. Her body disintegrated into nothingness as the lightning struck her giving her an instant death.

*****

Melanie shrieked with rage and anger. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the last moments of Heather's courage. Melanie surely would have died if it had not been for Heather's actions. Her bright indigo blue eyes blazed with a rage that froze Pluktu to the core. His frozen floppy feet had succumbed to frost bite and there would be no saving them.

His fingers and hands had gone numb against the cold aura of the Queen. Every second he spent within ten yards of her presence only pulled him closer to a frozen death. With every ounce of energy he tried to drift up and into the forest hoping to use the trees as barriers against her breath. There was no saving himself though.

Not against the frozen death that was Melanie's frost dragon. The plump Vikara mage only heard the sharp exhale and scream of her rage before he felt numb pain take over his body. Whiteness took him over as his body froze into a solid crystalline shard. His blood and muscles froze solid, as did the very air around him.

Every water molecule and ounce of moisture in the atmosphere froze solid. The vikara mage fell two hundred feet to the ground where he shattered into a hundred frozen fragments of green and black ice. Melanie screamed out her victory and revenge to the world.

Lifting her head up high and releasing a blast of cold air that froze the evaporating clouds above. Snow flakes drifted on the warm breeze like an early snow fall.

*****

General Wyatt and his parading army of three hundred reached the city edge and met the onslaught of five hundred Vikara warriors. Their weapons drenched in blood and their eyes bulging with more blood still to be spilled.

"Strike them down!" General Wyatt shouted.

As swords met crude weapons the Vikara tensed and screamed in agonizing pain before exploding into bursts of ash and dust that littered the cobblestone road. General Wyatt and his warriors shared bewildered expressions. They reveled in the battle won all the same and charged forward to rid the city of what vermin remained.

*****

General Lin and her two hundred border guard stormed through the streets like an armored plague. As the Vikara erupted into fountains of ash and dust her warriors cheered but not her. She knew better than to give into such emotions. Until she saw the Vikara General's body or dust pile, she would not...could not relax.

*****

General Vikara snarled in outrage as his warriors began erupting into piles of dust and ash.

"Pluktu!" He growled.

The green skinned General, drunk on blood lust and fury did not think about who might still be hunting him when he shouted out. A billowing stack of smoke and heat loomed towards him. His dark eyes went wide as he saw death approaching. Charred skin and fiery veins that leaked out streams of hot steam and smoke.

The blazing eyes of Maalceus bore down upon his foe who had led an army into his city. There would be no stopping him or his sword of magmatic destruction. Standing a full foot taller than the Vikara General, his supernatural speed and strength gave him the upper hand in every way.

"Fucking bastard!" Maalceus screamed out as he swung his sword horizontally. Kuraya blocked the attack but no weapon, divine or demonic could halt his sword. General Kuraya felt a moment of heat and pain before his vision went dull. His dark eyes blinked once in confusion and then twice before darkness took him.

Maalceus watched his foe fall into two separate pieces and collapse to the ground. Maalceus let loose a roar of furious victory. The channels of his energy glowed brightly and the steaming smoke bellowed up further. He wasted no time as he continued toward the border to see about his brother.