Planar dragons do not divide themselves into two groups as the dragons of most material planes do, each dragon species is its own group. Most planar dragons are stronger than chromatic or metallic equivalents. It is also a mistake to assume a planar dragon is not in fact native to the plane it is encountered on, the division is that these species are not native to material planes. They are in ascending order of rarity: Spectral, Elemental, Alignment, War, Shadow, Radiance, Mana and Void

Adrian

The drive to the fort takes longer than I had hoped but it comes into sight and aside from a section of roof missing from the central building there is surprisingly little damage done to the place. Most of the vehicles seem to be in good shape even if they have all taken fire.

There are corpses scattered around, the uniforms colors are off but their weapons look serviceable. The dragon did not loot them. There are still a lot of shadows even if dawn started several minutes before we arrived.

“Any idea where the dragon is?” Bryan asks.

“You failed your spot check” I just point to the largest building that happens to have a section of roof torn off.

“No, the damage doesn’t mean it is still in the ruined building just that it was there.”

“Fair enough, but I think it’ll be in there, no other structure shows signs of the dragon breaking into it and it’s not lying out in the open.”

“When will me move to attack?” K interjects.

“In a few minutes, any protection spells against negative energy or illusions should be set up now.”

My three companions each cast a spell or two but I’m starting to think something in the Mana prevents directly understanding the words. I can recognize the languages but never the meaning.

Ria looks startled for a moment after casting something and mumbles to herself in a tongue with some similarities to elven. Sylvan, she did mention knowing the tongue of the woods.

I try to feel out life forces in the vicinity, there is only a single cluster inside the main building. Negative energy is all over the base though, shadow creatures perhaps?

We walk down to the rent gate and walk into the fort without any problems. I pick up an assault rifle from a guard's desiccated corpse as I examine him.

It looks similar to what happened to that tree yesterday, only more extreme. I drop the rifle into void cache. Even if it won’t help me against this dragon it will be useful against other creatures. We should try to find all the ammunition and weapons we can here after the dragon but before going back to the farm.

We stay spread out to minimize any surprise breath weapons as we approach the main building. The safety precaution ends up unnecessary.

Inside the building most of the walls have been knocked down on the interior, leaving support beams but I don’t think there are enough to do what it is doing. I also sniff the air checking my supernatural senses against a physical one.

Stagnant and stale, more than it should be but I can smell something draconic. Not like either of the two dragons before, this one is female and something else.

[Eggs, the female is ready to lay eggs.]

Great, she will fight harder than ussual. That does explain why she would have attacked, she had to have a place to nest.

We spread out once more to avoid surprise attacks hitting all of us and proceed into the rubble. After a few more minutes of careful approach I finally see the dragon.

She is far larger than anything I have ever seen before. Easily three or four times larger than my dragon form.

“A male has finally come. A young one too, show me your true self. I’ll not have the seed of a deformed male sire a clutch.”

[Do it. She’s interested in mating.]

[We’re not here for that. We’re here to kill and eat her.]

[We can still do that after. She’ll be weaker after laying the eggs.]

[You’re disgusting.]

[I'm you, and it’s a good plan. You could also attack after exhausting her if you magiced up stamina and healed you fatigue while mating. . .]

[Tactically you make sense but I’m not going to sex up a female so I can kill and eat her. That is just wrong.]

[I’ll do it for you, besides I know we want to try out dragon sex]

[Not happening, I also promised K to not do stuff like that without her consent.]

[Then ask for it.]

I ignore dragon-me as K asks, “what did she say?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Well little male?” the dragon asks and I respond with a sneak attack. I don’t like the condescension in her tone and planned on attacking anyways.

I exhale a beam of light at the dragon’s wings. She screams in pain and rage as I remove her ability to fly.

Ria

I don’t understand the words the shadow dragon speaks to the man who saved me. I glance around the room, my spell of True Seeing only showing that the man who saved me isn’t human but I already knew that.

The face he wears isn’t the only one he has. I can see two others; the dark dragon of starlight is one but the other I had not seen. A male half again as tall as he stands now, covered in the pitch-black scales of a dragon. His hands larger versions of the claws he used to slay the fiend I was to be sacrificed to. A long tail and wings that are scaled back versions of the image of the dragon. A half dragon of a species I can’t identify.

The beam of light that tore through a nabasu repeats that destruction on one of the wings of the enemy dragon.

An instant later the sounds of the dragon’s pain ends and I shiver at a coldness that isn’t temperature. The darkness inside of the building thickens as shadows waft off the dragon’s injury.

I turn and dodge an attack I feel forming in front of me. I react too soon as my shadow stops following my movements and its tail strikes me from below.

I hit some of the rubble and somehow manage to keep the rising panic down. It hurt but like me this shadow does not have much physical strength, it might even have less.

The man who saved me's shadow and the werewolf's shadow grow and turn into the forms my True Seeing showed me. The other male however just looks at his shadow as it forms and both of them smile, unlike everyone else’s his shadow does not attack him.

'I need to be a good girl and good girls are useful' I repeat to myself to try to get over my fear. I jump to my feet and throw fox fire at my duplicate. It did the same and our fires snuffed each other out.

I hesitate for a moment but shadow-me doesn’t, she starts chanting and I recognize the spell as one used to conjure shadows to make partially real illusions. Something the shadow dragon already did or I would not be fighting my copy, but I shouldn't let them become more real.

I begin a counter spell barely managing to undo the magic. The werewolf is doing poorly against her shadow in it’s hybrid state. Only the aid of Bryan keeps her from being mauled.

My shadow charges at me once it’s spell failed to do whatever it though of doing with Shadow Conjuration. It knocks me over again and I feel weaker, my shadow became slightly more solid and I recognize what it is.

Shadow doppelganger, if I can’t beat it it will consume and become me. I feel another hit land on me before I struggle to get up. It has to be vulnerable to light so I push at and overcharge a Dancing Lights spell.

Dozens of far too bright moves swirl around me, I hear what is probably the words to Darkness in reaction.

I start speaking the words to another spell, shadow-me finishes her counter spell and strips me of the protection of the lights and charges at me. My Shadow Conjuration finishes before another hit is landed, black chains isolate shadow-me from everyone else.

Adrian

I didn’t expect the dragon to turn our own shadows against us. I look at my shadow in confusion as it continues to enlarge and mutate into a reptilian beast of the same scale as K's hybrid form. Her own shadow shifts to said form while Bryan’s just smiles at him.

I dodge a clawed hand, I can understand why K's shadow could shift forms but why did mine? At least why is it some hybrid form instead of full dragon?

I manifest my own claws but the angle from my larger shadow gives me a disadvantage, I am pushed back. I lose focus on my friends' fights as I dodge the continued attacks of my shadow, it has the same level of skill as me.

I make a claw swipe and it dodges as I would have. I can see a mirrored version of my own intelligence in the creature. I don’t think I could beat it in melee but I can certainly not lose. It should have made the same conclusion.

Why hasn’t it tried magic then? Is it waiting for the shadow dragon to do something instead?

I draw on the Sphere of Light and try to replicate my dragon’s breath as it is still on its recharge period. The released beam looks as brilliant as the real thing but it felt like something was missing.

The intense light tears through my shadowy duplicate but it does not do near what my Radiance Breath would have. The magical nature of the shadow must have resisted the attack. Do I need to reinforce it somehow to get the full effect?

At least the shadowy duplicate retreated from the attack, giving me room to prepare another attack. I get startled by the incoming mass of shadows from a breath attack and I try to dodge even though I have nowhere to go for cover.

I feel energy leave me as it does with Void Cache and my breath weapons, the shadow vapor passing over me vanishing before it touches me to reappear behind me. I just did something to evade but I’m not sure what.

I wrap my claws in a glow of light, the idea of shadow banishing light as the focus rather than pure light as was my last attempted attack. My duplicate attacks me and I put my claw through it’s chest while taking a hit in my shoulder.

I feel a coldness seeping into me from the shadowed claw. My strength being leeched from me but my shadow is dissolving. I can’t help but wonder why it never tried to manipulate reality.

Bryan and his shadow are helping K keep her shadow at bay while Ria just chained her double in chains made from shadows. I should get her to teach Bryan some shadow magic after this.

I feel my breath weapon become readied. I roll out of the way of a charging shadow dragon, only by manipulating Time did I have the speed I needed. I try to make a line between myself and the two hostile shadow doppelgangers.

As I release my breath the shadow dragon appears out of the shadows of the room and her claw knocks me into the rubble. I hear the dragon let out a roar of pain from the burns my breath no doubt left on her claw.

I groan from a broken rib if not more from the impact, grateful that I didn’t get hit by the shape edges of the claws themselves. I have agro and dozens of blades made of shadows fly at me. I almost try to control the darkness in that attack but I doubt my command of that element is as strong as this dragon’s. Maybe I should have used one of dragon-me’s plans.

A shell of light blocks the blades but prevents me from seeing what the shadow dragon was doing. This level of light manipulation isn’t enough, it needs to be more. . . like what I did to my shadow doppelganger. Weaponized light, reinforced so that it destroys shadows.

I twist the shell of light and it shatters, shrapnel flies at the shadow dragon and it sinks into a shadow to dodge. I glance at my friends, not much has changed but I think Ria will beat her double soon, it is starting to disapate from whatever she is chanting.

A blast of negative energy hits me from behind, I feel cold and weak. I don’t manage to reverse the effects with Life before having to dodge a claw swipe.

I almost get out of the way, the dwarven chain does nothing to protect my chest. I hear my blood splash on the ground as I fall.

I glance at the wound, I can see bone and scrapes on the bone. I already start healing myself but it feels harder to heal like K and the silver inflicted injuries.

The dragon's paw comes down to crush and finish me off. I feel something shift and hear a scream of pain that is not mine.