Prologue (part 3): The rival's fall

In the following days Kalos keeps the nest under control even more. He keeps dimming the flames to cool the eggs, but keeps an eye on the valley at the same time. He has to be very careful not to get noticed not only by Neytiri, but also by his new dangerous rival.

As expected, the old male didn't give up: Kalos saw him several times as he flew over the valley. He's looking for the nest. If he destroys it, Neytiri will become interested again and he will be able to mate. The old male therefore will not stop until he has found the eggs and has torn them apart one by one.

Kalos can't let him do it; that is his offspring and he is not willing to let anyone else destroy his dinasty. Every time he sees him, he tells him to leave. The old male gets furious every time, but he doesn't want to attract Neytiri's attention before destroying the nest, so he swallows his pride and retires; a dragon fight isn't exactly silent after all. But Kalos knows he'll be back the next day, and the next, and the next. The old male will never give up.

Kalos has discovered that his rival is called Shruikan. It was an accident: the old male told him while trying to intimidate him. He probably hadn't noticed it either. Kalos doesn't care: he isn't interested about his rival's identity, he just wants that Shruikan go away.

It has now been a month since Neytiri laid her eggs, and Kalos continues to covertly guard the nest. But today is the last day he will enter the cave. The eggs will not hatch for another two months, but by now the sex of the hatchlings has already been determined. Kalos knows that surely two or three eggs will give birth to males, but all the others will be females. He can rest easy for the moment; he will be able to take care of his sons at a later time.

Kalos blows on the fire for the last time, decreasing its intensity and cooling the eggs, then he goes away. Before leaving the cave, he takes a last look at his progeny: the eggs seem healthy, so the young that will be born will almost certainly be robust and strong. He will be a father of a very powerful line. While probably less than a fifth of his children will survive to adulthood, it's still a source of pride.

After that last look, he turns and heads for the exit. He will never go back to the nest again. But as he is about to leave, a huge shadow blocks his way and a thud signals that something big has just landed in front of the cave entrance.

It's Shruikan. He finally found the nest and the presence of Kalos confirmed that he was in the right place. The old male snorts as he catches the scent of his rival. This time he won't retreat: he will destroy the eggs at all costs.

Kalos wastes no time: he leaves the cave and takes a defensive position. He knows he has no chance against Shruikan; the difference in forces is too great. He is a young male of only 80 meters, while his rival is a veteran of over 150 meters, with much more experience, strength and power. His only hope is to hold on until Neytiri returns. "Get out of the way!" Shruikan intimates him one last time showing his huge teeth. "Go away and I'll let you live; oppose me any longer and I'll rip off your wings, then I'll break your horns, and then I'll rip your head off your neck!"

But Kalos doesn't move; instead, he growls, thumps his tail on the ground, and spreads his wings in intimidation. Shruikan snorts furiously and then opens his jaws. A gray ball forms inside them, which after a few seconds explodes in a gust of wind that hits his rival like a hurricane. Kalos is nearly smashed against the wall by that blast of air, but his claws are firmly planted in the ground; he closes his wings immediately to prevent them from being damaged and flattens his body on the ground to gain more resistance. As he had guessed before, Shruikan is a wind dragon.

As dragons become adults, they unlock mastery over a wide range of spells and magics called 'domain'. The domain contains all the magic related to a certain element: the fire domain grants total mastery of fire magic, the water domain grants mastery of water magic, and so on. Because of this, dragons don't need to study magic or learn spells: they are imprinted on their brains the instant they unlock their domain. It is their natural trait that makes them superior to all other species. One amongs so many.

The color of dragon scales isn't random, but reflects the element of their domain. Red dragons like Kalos are fire dragons, while gray ones like Shruikan are wind dragons. However Kalos also knows that every 400 years of life a dragon unlocks a new domain. And in fact the scales of Shruikan, although gray, also have a reddish hue, a sign that it can also control the fire element. In practice Shruikan surpasses him not only in size and strength, but also in magical abilities.

Around Shruikan's wings the air thickens and condenses into vapor, and that vapor turns into spearheads. The spearheads hang in the air for a few seconds, then the great dragon hurls them full force at Kalos. The young male recoils, unable to hold against the onslaught. He knows he can't survive by simply being defensive, so he belches a breath of fire. The spearheads vaporize, but some manage to strike it, creating deep wounds on its scales. However, Shruikan doesn't intend to give him a break: he jumps on him and breaks his right paw with his huge claws.

Kalos roars and breathes a second flame against Shruikan; this time the great dragon is flat-footed and recoils, but his skin enhanced with fire and wind spells protects him from the heat. Kalos hobbles away between him and the cave entrance. The broken leg causes him great pain, but he doesn't have time to worry about that.

Shruikan opens his jaws; this time it's his turn to breathe fire. A blaze of continental proportions is hurled at Kalos, who in turn breathes fire at the opponent. But there is no comparison between the two attacks: the flame of Shruikan is almost white, a sign that it has a temperature of thousands of degrees, while the one of Kalos is red and much, much colder. Kalos can feel the intense heat of his opponent's fire, even though they are far apart and he too is breathing fire. The stone around them turns red and rapidly begins to melt.

But Kalos has the advantage of experience. Shruikan probably hasn't gained the domain of fire for long and doesn't know how to control it well. There is an abyssal difference between the wind element and the fire element: while with the former the attacks are instantaneous, rapid and fluid, with the latter they are much longer, more durable and more powerful. Shruikan isn't used to keeping an attack going for that long, and in fact he used too much mana to fully heat up his flame. His energy reserves are depleted quickly, while those of Kalos, who has used them sparingly, remain intact.

Shruikan's fire begins to rapidly diminish in intensity, and the great dragon stops realizing that his power is running out. But now he is vulnerable; it's Kalos' turn to attack. He belches his fire with all the force he can muster and slams the opponent full, who is forced to use up another good amount of mana to protect himself from the intense heat. Now the rocks around them are completely liquid and even steam is starting to come out of them.

Now the great dragon has lost much of his power, but Kalos has also exhausted his reserves of mana. However, even though he has used up more magical power, Shruikan still remains much stronger physically. The great dragon resets the distance between the two and taking advantage of the greater speed he places himself in the blind spot of Kalos, preventing him from attacking him with another fire breath; after which he hits him on the head with his tail with unheard-of force.

If any other creature were under that tail, they would be turned to dust within a second. The young dragon falls to the ground; the blow received has an immense intensity and to boot he already has a broken leg. His vision blurs, his hearing is muffled, and his senses seem to shut down. For a moment he becomes unable to understand what is happening. Shruikan wastes no time and stands on top of him, intent on crushing him with his enormous weight.

But unfortunately for him, he didn't consider the possibility of an external intervention. A new flame strikes him, but much more intense, burning his left side and making him roar in pain. The great dragon backs away, involuntarily freeing Kalos, who however is still too dazed to react properly.

Shruikan turns to see Neytiri returning with a furious expression on her face. She saw them and she didn't like the intrusion. Trespass on another dragon's territory means unleash their fury, but approach a mother dragon's nest means courting death. The great dragon doesn't hesitate: due to the fight with Kalos he is tired and has little mana left, in a fight with the female dragon he would surely perish. He takes off and flies away as fast as he can.

But Neytiri won't let him go. She opens her mouth wide and the surrounding clouds converge inside it; whereupon a jet of boiling, steaming water hurtles at supersonic speed against Shruikan. The male dragon is hit in the right wing, which can no longer support him now. Shruikan tries in vain to keep airborne, but two more jets of water hit him with the force of a bullet, injuring his neck and shoulder.

Apparently, just like Shruikan, Neytiri is a dragon with two domains: she not only has the fire domain but also the water domain. Her red scales with a slight blue tint prove that. If Shruikan were at his full strength, he could probably defeat her; but since he lost a lot of his power during the fight with Kalos, now the odds are in Neytiri's favor.

With his wings too damaged to support him, Shruikan plummets and falls into the valley. In the end he crashes to the ground raising a cloud of dust and unleashing a roar that can be heard from across the valley. The impact is so strong that a crater at least five meters deep formed beneath him and the earth shook for several kilometers around. Shruikan is still alive, but he no longer has the strength to get up. Blood oozes from his body and many of his bones are broken. The great dragon gasps and uses all his remaining mana to heal himself, but it's too late. Neytiri drops from above and with a single movement of her jaw she snaps his neck.

The old male is dead. Shruikan will never threaten her offspring again.

Now that Shruikan is eradicated, Neytiri rushes back to the nest. She clearly saw that there were two male dragons, so there's someone else to take care of. She attacked Shruikan first only because he seemed to be the stronger of the two and therefore the more dangerous. When she returns to the nest, however, Kalos has already disappeared: the male dragon snuck out as soon as Neytiri drove Shruikan away. The mother dragon can't do anything but go back to her nest in frustration. The eggs are still all intact: it's still a victory for her.

In the following days Neytiri controls the whole territory, but Kalos is already gone. He's not stupid, and he knows it's not a good idea to go back there right now, unless he wants to be torn apart by Neytiri. Kalos is already beyond her territory, waiting for his wounds to heal. His rival has been defeated: the eggs are now safe. He has also already finished his task of cooling the eggs, so he has no reason to stay there and risk being found by Neytiri. Kalos will return in the future, when he will have recovered from the wounds and he will be again in his full power; by then his children will have already been born and he can worry about eliminating further competition.

Neytiri now has an easy and durable food source. Shruikan's huge body will feed her for months. Every day she goes to eat a piece of the carcass. She has no fear that some other predator will steal it: a dragon's scales are too hard for anything other than a dragon's claws and teeth to pierce them, unless they are magical weapons. So no one can steal her food even if they want to. Cannibalism is not a problem for her: while before the mass extinction it might have been considered problematic or even morally wrong, dragons had to do far worse to survive the disaster. And even now that the environment is safer having a supply of fresh food is not something to spit on. Before he died Shruikan was nothing more than a rival to Neytiri, and now he is easy food.

Furthermore Shruikan can also be used as bait. Neytiri has noticed that the carcass attracts many scavengers, who even if they can't eat it, still try to do so. The dragon uses this opportunity to kill a large number of prey. He has to stock up on food after all: she'll soon have many more mouths to feed.

For another two months he continues that routine. Then, finally, the brooding comes to an end. And here, my dear readers, is where our story really begins. The story of a dragon who changed his destiny and the one of his dying species, as well as the one of his entire world.