First Demonic Dragon

Despite certain sinister impulses, Audrina did not drop the bomb on the frightened colony like she had been inclined to do.

Instead, she did the polite, reasonable thing and knocked on the barrier… using the missile.

*Knock, knock!* “Why don’t you let this thing down for just a moment so that we can come in and talk?”

As a direct result of her frightening greeting, she witnessed several of the colonists fall over from the horror.

“I would have felt worse about this if Glenn hadn’t just told us that these bastards are basically a bunch of elitists who had left their poorer population out to die.” Nyx yawned.

“I believe I would also have felt bad if that were the case.” Isabelle agreed.

Audrina stared at the bugs inside the dome.

Unlike Glenn and his other colonists, these bugs seemed to be a bit more streamlined in appearance.

They were stronger, with sharper mandibles and larger physiques. In addition, their clothes were a bit finer and at least somewhat clean.

Audrina could tell they had far more necessities here: running water and at the very least, a stable farm of some sort.

From one of the buildings, a squad of what seemed like troopers rushed out.

They were led by an insect fairley larger than all of the rest. Carrying an equally large rocket launcher.

He pointed it at the floating sphere of shadow and placed his finger on the trigger.

“Rest.”

L’asir held out his hand and a green pulse left his palm.

It bathed the entire city in a wave of mana that was harmless to a humanoid race, but for an insect-based species like this one, their nerves were quickly overwhelmed.

An entire city’s worth of bugs went quiet as millions of them collapsed all at once.

Audrina almost seemed amused at his choice of action. “You were aware that he couldn’t hurt us, right?”

L’asir seemed embarrassed. “Ah… forgive me for acting on my own. I confess that I could not allow for that vagrant to point his weapon at you in my presence.”

The other three soldiers nodded as if L’asir’s choice had been the only logical one.

“So dependable.” Nyx remarked.

For a moment, everyone inside the sphere heard his heartbeat double in its intensity.

Audrina stared at Nyx hard. “…He’s too young for you.”

“I’m sorry, did you not start pining after your husband on the very same day that he turned eighteen?”

“… Let’s just go down.”

Audrina created a pair of shadowy appendages and forcefully ripped open a hole in the barrier.

As she passed through, the opening, she noticed her sister’s brow furrowed slightly.

She hesitated to speak to her after their prior conversation went as poorly as it did, but took a chance on it anyway.

‘Something on your mind..?’

When Audrina spoke to her mind, Isabelle was reminded once more of the things that she should have said earlier.

Despite her better impulses, she stuffed those words down again.

‘I was just wondering… What are the chances that Dad has… You know. Retained his memories and personality from the last time we saw him..?’

Audrina paused to ponder. ‘It’s… more than a little likely by this point.’

Isabelle looked up at the hole they had just torn in the dome. It was already beginning to repair itself.

‘Then… assuming he’s still that same mad, power hungry vampire that he’s always been… Do you think there’s any world where he isn’t able to get through that dome?’

Audrina had already considered such a point.

While Lailah was the expert on probability and statistics, Audrina was not necessarily ignorant of the subject herself.

That said, she was willing to wager that the probability of her disgraced father not being ‘powerful enough’ was around 15-20%.

And those were some very generous odds…

If they continued operating under the assumption that their father did have all of the power necessary, then they had to confront two distinct possibilities.

Either Dagon had left the colonists inside because he didn’t need them, or because they served a very specific purpose being left on their own.

Both scenarios bothered Audrina in their own unique ways.

‘…We’re going to figure it out. Together.’ Audrina reached for her sister’s hand.

Isabelle started to pull away. ‘Drina, I said-‘

‘I know what you said. But I am never going to be able to walk away from you. You’re my sister, and I will love and support you forever. Even if I haven’t done the best job of showing you that so far.’

The group landed on the ground just as Isabelle’s eyes started to water again.

She wiped her face furiously as she walked over to the largest insect colonist she could find and shook him like a stripper having a seizure.

Isabelle was the type of person who habitually took her problems out on others because she didn’t know how to work through them herself.

“Wake up, you big b-bitch! I’ve got questions and you are going to answer every single one of them or I am going to send you to your god!”

Several jaws collectively dropped behind her all at once. Save for Audrina, who had seen her sister’s swift change in temperament a few times before.

The bug quickly awoke after all of the shaking, and he was clearly more than a little bit surprised.

“I-Invaderrs?! No, no, this can’t be happening!”

“N-Nobody is invading you, you shot a god damn missile at us!”

The insect’s bug eyes bulged. “Y-You were the cause of the rising fires..? We thought that was the work of the undesirables!”

Isabelle pulled out the golden ball where Glenn and his friends were at peace.

Audrina watched as her sister struck the commander over the head with the ornate object.

“My *bang!* friends *bang!* said *bang!* fuck *bang!* you!”

Audrina had to pull her sister away when blood started flying. She was worried that it would stain their clothes and never come out.

Isabelle dropped the soldier on the ground and his hand immediately went to his gaping head wound.

Audrina dropped the missile right next to his body with a loud clang.

“Do tell us why you took it upon yourself to shoot this at us. If you don’t spill quickly, then I may not be able to hold my sister back for very long.”

Isabelle may as well have been a rabid dog in the eyes of the insect.

Or a can of Raid…

“P-Please, hold that atrocious creature back! My men only fired upon you because we believed that it would serve us better to cut our losses!”

“Your losses?” Audrina raised a brow.

“Atrocious creature?!” Isabelle accidentally spat flames.

The bug shook with terror and covered his still-bleeding head.

Audrina flipped him over with her foot and placed her boot directly on his chest. She applied just enough force to make his exoskeleton groan from stress.

“Talk. What did you mean just now by cutting your losses?”

“It *gasp!* It was a theory of preservation! We thought the undesirables were attempting to destroy the flower fields, but every time that they are disturbed, the black ones’ forces arrive…! Our hope was that if the land was destroyed, this time they would not come..!”

Suddenly, the hairs on Audrina’s neck stood up. Her scales reflexively hardened.

“Empress.”

Audrina glanced over her shoulder and found L’asir making a serious expression.

“A large object is approaching our position. Quickly.”

Unanimously, the seven of them turned their heads to the sky.

Around two minutes later, they finally saw a large mass drop out of hyperspace.

Audrina had scarcely ever seen something so twisted before.

It was a creation, but somehow alive. The entire thing throbbed like a heart would.

Audrina could not place whether it was made of metal, stone, or flesh.

It had a diseased, sickening appearance. Red openings oozed like rotting sores and pulsed with an ominous red light.

From out of the openings, terrible figures crawled out.

They were twisted, abominable creatures beyond any hope of recognition. Whether they had originally been humanoid or insectoid didn’t matter, as they now all resembled this strange collective hive…

Eight beady eyes, a tan-colored exoskeleton, and inhumanely long digits resembling talons.

They screeched aggressively at nothing-no, at everything.

Anything that moved seemed to be subject to the violence they could inflict.

Looking at them unsettled every nerve in Audrina’s body. And filled her with rage over this twisted stain on biology.

“…Disgusting.”

Space itself shifted, and a titanic figure emerged among the darkness of the cosmos.

An ethereal construct made entirely of shadow emerged behind the foreign ship.

It smashed the structure between it’s thumb and its forefinger- crushing it into rubble before disappearing.

‘Jesus…’ Isabelle knew that her sister was an old monster now. But seeing it in practice was about as jarring as seeing her text messages between her and her husband.

“More are coming.”

Six more ships dropped out of hyperspace just after the first was destroyed.

Isabelle looked to her sister to destroy them once again with her supercharged divine might.

But then, she noticed her sister’s troubled expression.

In the next second, they all heard the familiar voice that reoccurred within her nightmares.

“Children… As always, you are good for nothing except getting in my way.”