Destiny II

'There's so many flaws in this system,' said John. 'It's not fair, to begin with. I'm sure some Majoris races are much stronger than the others. The cards are stacked way in their favor to begin with.'

[Ninety-five years ago, the Angels put forth the idea of the Sabbath: a one hundred year ceasefire among the Majoris. The intent, of course, was to grant each Majoris people a fair chance of preparing for the confrontation]

'That still doesn't sound fair at all,' said John. 'What were the Angels thinking? Wouldn't the strongest races just stomp all the others? One hundred years to prepare just means even more time for the strongest to get even stronger.

And what about the gods? Where were they during all this?' A sense of deep frustration welled up within John, because he knew war. It was almost a cliche to say it, but war was hell. He spoke to Mel, more venting than anything. 'And war? If the Angels wanted to save lives, don't they care about the quality of them too? War is just chaos and suffering and misery packed into one horrible box.

And they want to shove every living thing inside that box?'

[The Angels value life, but there is a reason why their War Angels are feared across entire realms. They are no stranger to the battlefield, and their purpose is only in the preservation of life on an absolute scale.

Anything short of mass extinction is not something they will busy themselves with. If they determine that for long term 'peace' that a culling must be enacted, then they will not hesitate.

And the gods?

My child, you will come to understand, but it is the gods that have driven this conflict to the forefront to begin with.

The Primordial Gods, the likes of Deus, the Supreme Father, and Alta, the Supreme Mother who govern on the universal scale do not bother themselves with realm wide conflicts such as this. They are absolved of blame.

However, the lesser gods, those that are patron deities of specific peoples and their worlds, they are governed by the same selfish desires as the peoples that worship them. It is they who have rallied their peoples and roused them to war]

'And now there's only five years left before the Sabbath ends and everyone fights,' said John. 'Five years for me to get strong enough to the point where literally everyone in the entire solar system won't just instantly kill me.

Five years to stop the war to end all wars.'

[I have full belief that you shall fulfill the destiny that you bear] said Mel. [Already, you have far exceeded my expectations. Which thus leads me to telling you of the full nature of your destiny.

I have told you that our kind rests now in the Beyond, the Lair of the Great Elder that lies in a plane of existence that no other peoples may reach.

There, we slumber]

'Right,' said John. 'I was always wondering why that was the case if the dragons were so strong. Wouldn't you all be the front runners to win the Finalis? Why retreat into the Beyond?'

[Ordinarily, such would be the case] explained Mel. [However, five hundred years ago, there arose a disease known as the Skalrynthis, or better known among the Majoris as the Scalebane that spread among us.

One that caused our scales to soften and wither, turning them ashen grey and disabling our Immortality Matrixes.

Even worse was that as the Scalebane advanced, it caused irreparable and severe madness, breaking apart many of our clans from within.

For fifty years, our kind tried to find a cure for it, but to no avail.

We knew not even of its origins, let alone a means to undo its foul effects.

Before the disease could ravage and destroy all Draconia, the Great Elder called upon us to enter into the Beyond with him, for there, we could sleep in suspended space and time, halting the advance of the disease.

As we left, we created the protocol of the Great Offspring.

Twenty-five children from each of the four Dragon Monarchs were to be hatched.

These offspring were specifically bred and blessed to have the highest evolutionary capability ever known among our kind.

Thus, though the ordinary dragon may only develop one affinity and adapt to one environment across their lives, you, as a Great Offspring, are engineered to adapt to any situation, to take in the forms of any creature.

Normal dragons also require much time for their bodies to acclimate to their power.

A normal Wyrmling would take ten years after Molting to harden their scales and form their Immortality Matrix, for example, where you require but a few hours.

For as a Great Offpsring, that imperfection has been bred out of you, for time, perhaps for the first time in our existence, is of the essence for our kind now.

No more can we afford to simply revel in our strength and pride, to allow the other lesser beings to gain strength so that they could be a worthy challenge to us.

Thus, we spread these one hundred Great Offspring across the many eighty-eight Wild Worlds in the hopes that in time, one of them would grow strong and in the process of doing so, utilize their vast evolutionary adaptiveness to develop an immunity to the Scalebane.

Your destiny is therefore two-fold.

To evolve a body capable of overpowering the Scalebane and then to ascend into the rightful stage of the Dragon Monarch, at which point you may call to the Beyond and bring our people back]

'Mel, you mentioned I was the last of the one hundred Great Offspring,' said John. 'Then am I the only chance that dragon kind has left?'

John felt an immense sense of pressure weighing on his shoulders. This entire solar system and its many worlds and peoples were going to go into all out war, and every single on of them saw him as a target.

If he wanted to survive, he needed to get insanely strong insanely fast.

But even that was not going to be enough.

According to Mel, Dragon Monarchs had already fallen to others before.

Becoming a Monarch, especially when he was alone, was not going to cut it. He had to find the Scalebane cure and bring back all of dragon kind to stand a chance too.

And in pursuing this goal, John was all alone.

He was supposed to have ninety-nine brothers and sisters with him, but if all of them were dead, something or someone had wiped them out, hunted them, and they would be after him too.

[To be more precise, I know that seventy-five of the Great Offspring are fallen] said Mel. [One Dragon Monarch, the Monarch of the North, did not enter the Beyond. Instead, he remained to ensure his twenty-five offspring grew properly.

The Monarch of the North has not entered the Beyond, and we presume him to have fallen. The fate of his offspring is not known, though likely, they too have fallen]

Mel paused as she noticed the pressure John felt. Her voice softened in comforting tone. [My child, do not worry. You feel alone, but when you have become a Monarch and lead us back from the Beyond, you will be the sole Monarch to govern us all.

We will bend to your will, and you will know the company and warmth of your brethren.

And with the Draconia fully united, we will triumph in the Finalis and reign supreme]

'Right,' said John. He knew Mel meant well, but her words did not take the pressure off of him. In fact, it made him even more keenly aware that to stand a chance, he needed to become a Monarch and that an entire race relied on him.

It was not as if John was the type to buckle under pressure.

No, he considered himself the type to rise to it, but this was pressure on a scale he had never felt before.

The greatest pressure he had ever felt in his past life was college entrance exams and job interviews.

This…the fate of the solar system, of an entire race of dragons, no, of every single race and peoples, was on a totally different scale.

But John took in a breath and steadied himself. He had to take this pressure. He had to overcome it.

Because otherwise, he was going to die, and it wasn't just him that would fall. He would fail the countless dragon lives relying on him, not to mention if he did not win the Finalis, who knew how brutal the reign of the new winner would be?

This was not just about him anymore. This was much, much bigger than him, and he had to either step up or die.

He could never fail.

[And my child] said Mel, her voice almost quiet but still gentle, still warm. She sensed John's emotions. [This…this may be heresy, but I will say to you know that I, as your mother, do not mind if you fail.

You are still my child, and as my child, what I desire most upon you is not the burden of destiny, but the warmth of happiness.

Happiness throughout a long life, yes, happiness as the Great Monarch of our people, yes, but if it is such that you struggled to your best and still could not achieve this, then I will not mind.

I will be content so long as you lived a life with memories you could cherish, regardless of whether it is short or not.

I know you will face many a great battle and many an arduous conflict, but in the midst of this harshness, so long as you can experience joy and love, I know my greater self in the Beyond will be happy.

That is to say, it is still right to keep your destiny in your mind, but do not let it consume you. To devour you whole and take over your every thought and joy.

Enjoy your life in the moments that it is right to]

'Thanks, Mel,' said John. His head perked up as his spirits raised. He knew that in the grand scheme of things, Mel saying she was fine with John failing did not mean much, but her words still did warm his heart.

'That makes me feel a lot better. But don't you worry. Once I set my mind on something, I never fail. Or at least I try not to.'

"John, my friend," said Hemet. He held a seared bat leg to John with a smile and comforting nod, which was when John realized that while thinking hard, he had absent-mindedly utterly devoured every piece of his bat, bone and all.

"I am very much full, and you seem to have much, much upon your mind. I will not pry into your thoughts, but perhaps we may talk of something that may rouse our spirits?

Maybe about the great treasure that will soon fall into our hands, eh?"

"Yeah, that sounds great," said John with a nod of his draconic head, noting that maybe he was also not as alone as he thought he was.