The ocean roared, not with the natural fury of a storm, but with a primal battle cry.
Falazure, the embodiment of undeath and decay, had gathered himself, his obsidian wings poised to unfurl, and flee.
However, observing what Falazure was about to do, Aasterinian immediately acted first.
"Oh no you don't!"
Aasterinian's roar sliced through the sudden tension in the air, a clarion call that echoed across the vast expanse of sea and sky.
Her blue scales, usually shimmering with the benign light of curiosity and innovation, now pulsed with an incandescent fury.
Before Falazure could even flap his massive black wings, she was on him, a blur of iridescent blue streaking across the azure.
WHOOSH!
Her massive form, like a living javelin, slammed into Falazure's left flank, a thunderous impact that reverberated through the very bedrock beneath the ocean.
He let out a guttural grunt, the surprise of the lightning-fast assault momentarily robbing him of breath.
His intended take-off was violently aborted, sending him tumbling sideways, his claws scrabbling for purchase on the rocky outcrop of the island.
Aasterinian, with an almost playful ferocity, didn't release the pressure.
She pressed her advantage, her powerful fore-claws digging into his scales, pushing him further off balance.
CRACK!
Falazure felt a shuddering crack as he was shoved roughly into the sheer cliff edge of the island. Dust and stone chips exploded outwards, but before he could retaliate, before even his mind could formulate a counter-attack, Bahamut descended, a silver comet streaking from the heavens.
THOOOM!
She struck with the force of a falling mountain, her own colossal body ramming into Falazure's right side.
Caught in a crushing pincer, the evil dragon roared, a sound of pure outrage that momentarily drowned out the crashing waves below.
He was lifted clear off the island, suspended between the two radiant goddesses, their combined momentum driving him upwards, away from the solid ground he had so desperately sought moments earlier.
"You dare…!" Falazure's voice, a gravelly snarl of indignant fury, was cut short as Aasterinian unleashed a blast of concentrated air from her jaws.
It wasn't a destructive breath weapon, but a concussive wave, a blunt force trauma of pure atmosphere that hammered into his face.
FWUMP!
His head snapped back with a sickening lurch, momentarily disorienting him.
Bahamut didn't miss a beat.
Her large tail, tipped with razor-sharp plates of silver, whistled through the air.
SWISH!
CRACK!
It connected with Falazure's midsection, a bone-jarring impact that sent a wave of excruciating pain through him.
He felt ribs groan, perhaps even crack, under the sheer force.
He gasped, his attempt at focusing a virulent breath weapon dissolving into a ragged cough.
The two goddesses moved with a synchronized grace that spoke of an unspoken understanding. They were not merely fighting; they were dancing, a deadly, celestial ballet with Falazure as their unwilling partner.
He was a dark smudge against the brilliant sky, a plaything caught between two titans.
Falazure tried to retaliate, twisting his massive frame, aiming a vicious claw strike at Aasterinian's face.
But she was too fast, too fluid.
She ducked, her head dipping just beneath his swipe, and then countered with a swift, powerful head-butt to his underside.
BWOOMP!
The impact knocked the wind clean out of him, sending him reeling.
Before he could recover, Bahamut was there, circling, her movements fluid and relentless.
She rammed into his skull, rattling its contents violently.
It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it caused the nerves in his scales to suddenly contract, making them stiff and clumsy.
He tried to flap, to regain control, but his movements were sluggish, uncoordinated.
'This is not how this was supposed to go!'
Falazure seethed inwardly, his mind a maelstrom of rage and humiliation.
He was a god, a primordial force of death and destruction, being treated like a hatchling by these two… these two hags!
Aasterinian took advantage of his struggle, lunging forward with a powerful bite.
Her jaws clamped down on his left foreleg, not with the intent to sever, but to crush, to bruise.
CHOMP!
GRRRIND!
Falazure roared, a raw sound of agony.
He thrashed, trying to shake her off, but Aasterinian held fast, her immense neck muscles straining, using his own momentum to twist and yank him further off balance.
WHOOSH!
Bahamut, seeing the opening, delivered a colossal body blow, ramming into his side with her shoulder.
The force of it flung Falazure sideways, dislodging Aasterinian, who then seamlessly transitioned into another attack.
She slammed her tail into his flank, a relentless percussive rhythm of pain.
THWACK!
THWACK!
THWACK!
Falazure was becoming a battering ram, a living projectile being tossed between the two goddesses.
He tried to unleash his own breath weapon, a cloud of dark cloud of energy draining, but the constant jarring, the relentless physical assault, made it impossible to focus.
Each time he began to gather the energy, a powerful claw swipe, a crushing bite, or a concussive blast would scatter his concentration, leaving him gasping for air and clutching at phantom wounds.
Below, on the mainland shore, Draco watched, his own body still trembling from exhaustion, a wide frown stretching across his face.
'Vicious' was the only word that could describe what he was watching.
Dimitra, Vasiliki, and Vasileios on the other hand, stood beside him, their faces a mixture of awe and relief.
The sheer power on display was overwhelming, a spectacle of godly might that made the very air crackle.
Falazure, the embodiment of their greatest fears just moments ago, was being rendered utterly helpless.
"They're… they're just playing with him," Vasiliki breathed, her voice barely a whisper.
The cold dread that had seeped into her core had evaporated, replaced by an elation.
...........................…
The churning sea beneath him offered no solace, only a mirror to the chaotic destruction above.
Falazure, after being tossed and turned for several minutes, finally managed to land a strike back.
His claw shot forth, connecting with a shallow, failing graze against the left wing of Bahamut.
It was a momentary touch that drew a spark of blinding silver and a negligible ripple across the goddess's flawless scales.
It was a pathetic, futile attempt at defiance, barely registering on the colossal, silver deity.
Bahamut merely narrowed her eyes, her irises darkening, a silent promise of overwhelming and merciless retribution settling over her features.
They had played long enough.
"Feisty, aren't we, Falazure?" Aasterinian chuckled, the sound a low, resonant rumble that carried across the water, full of dark, predatory amusement.
"Let's see how much fight you have left when we are done."
As if to demonstrate the utter hopelessness of his struggle, Aasterinian swept beneath him, her massive, powerfully muscled head rising with alarming speed.
CRUNCH!
Her powerful jaws snapped shut on his underside, just below his chest plate, the force displacing air and water.
Falazure let out a choked shriek of surprise and agony as he was hoisted, his legs dangling uselessly, his immense weight irrelevant against the might of the goddess.
Aasterinian didn't hold him.
She spun, whipping her body in a terrifying centrifugal motion, launching the flailing, disoriented Falazure directly into the waiting maw of Bahamut.
Bahamut did not bite to kill.
That would be too quick, too merciful.
She bit to maim, to demonstrate power, to send an agonizing message etched in blood.
Her teeth, each one like a polished white dagger, scraped and tore across his left shoulder….not quite piercing deep enough to crush bone, but leaving long, ragged, gashes in his dark, sleek scales.
TEAR!
GRIND!
Falazure roared again, a sound now twisted by pure, unadulterated despair.
His vision blurred, becoming a swimming mosaic of pain and glittering silver light.
He was Black and Blue, his magnificent form marred by deep contusions and heavy lacerations. His wings, once powerful instruments of flight and terror, were aching, their membrane stretched and torn in places.
One of his obsidian horns had been chipped during a previous exchange, and warm, sticky blood trickled freely from several wounds, evaporating in black motes.
He was losing the will to fight, driven now only by the basest instinct of self-preservation.
Every bone in his body screamed in protest, every muscle was a tight, agonizing knot.
He tried, weakly, to access a magical tool, a last-ditch attempt to escape this living nightmare, but the goddesses seemed to anticipate his every move.
Bahamut's roar, a deafening sound that vibrated through his very bones, somehow disrupted his concentration, scattering the gathering nascent energy like dust in a gale.
'No escape. No escape…' the thought echoed in his battered, darkening mind.
"Time to wrap this up, Bahamut," Aasterinian called out, her voice devoid of its earlier playfulness, now carrying the sharp, cold edge of finality.
Bahamut nodded slowly, a grim, righteous resolve settling upon her majestic features.
They had enjoyed their sport, had taught the arrogant Falazure a crucial lesson in humility and the perils of siding with the evilus.
Now, it was time for the true execution.
Aasterinian positioned herself beneath the flailing form of Falazure one last time, gently but firmly gathering him onto her back.
With a powerful thrust of her legs and wings, she arced steeply through the sky, carrying the battered evil dragon toward the isolated, craggy island that jutted from the waves miles away. Falazure, now too weak to resist, too broken to care, was little more than dead weight on her back.
WHOOSH!
She executed a final, brutal maneuver, dipping sharply and then flinging him with all her terrifying might.
He was hurled across the remaining distance as a projectile.
THUD!
CRUMBLE!
Falazure slammed into the rocky peak of the island, the impact dissolving the stone beneath him, sending a geyser of pulverized gray rock and dust erupting into the air.
He lay there, a broken heap of black scales and writhing, desperate pain, barely conscious, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
His magnificent, terrible form was a ruined spectacle; his eyes were glazing over, the last vestiges of his dark amusement long vanished, replaced by exhaustion.
High above, Bahamut descended slowly, gracefully, her eyes burning with a cold, absolute, righteous fury.
The power she had been silently charging, the force that had been coiled and ready since Falazure's initial surfacing, now pulsed around her like a living, incandescent aura.
Her silver scales shimmered with an unbearable brilliance, light gathering around her as if the sun itself had chosen to manifest through her divine form.
"This… is for my children," she announced, her voice resonating with authority, a pronouncement of judgment that Falazure, even in his stupor, could not possibly ignore.
"And for the peace you sought to shatter."
She drew a deep, shuddering breath, her chest expanding with unimaginable, contained energy. The air around her began to crackle, distort, and shimmer violently.
Her massive jaws unhinged, revealing a blinding, pure white light that intensified with every passing second.
Falazure, with his last conscious thought, didn't try to resist.
He only watch the light grow with fascination.
FWUUUUMMMMM!
A pillar of pure, consuming energy erupted from Bahamut's maw, a concentrated beam of holy might that descended upon Falazure with the force of a cosmic hammer.
It struck him square in the chest, engulfing his entire form in absolute light.
ROOOOOAR!
Falazure's roar was abruptly, violently cut short, drowned out by the thunderous, explosion of the impact.
The island beneath him shuddered violently, the peak splitting and cracking under the immense pressure, sending shockwaves through the very seabed.
The light consumed him completely, purifying, dissolving, stripping away his physical manifestation layer by layer.
Then, piercing the thunder, a magnificent golden pillar of light erupted from the epicenter of the blast, stretching towards the heavens, signifying that a deity had been forcibly sent back to heaven.
When the brilliant light finally faded, where Falazure had lain, there was only a gaping crater in the island's peak, still smoking from the residual, sizzling energy.
A deep silence descended upon the sea, broken only by the gentle lapping of waves against the ravaged shore.
Bahamut, her wings still radiating a faint, residual glow, slowly turned her gaze toward the mainland, where Draco and his remaining siblings were gathered, watching the distant battle's end.
A soft, satisfied smile finally touched her lips.
The battle was over.
And for now, peace reigned.
But a deep, seething worry plagued Bahamut internally.
The victory was immense, the execution necessary, but she recalled something she had seen earlier.
She had seen not one, but two pillars of golden light erupt from the distant Orario earlier that day.
She couldn't help but wonder what two gods had been so violently and suddenly sent back to the heavens, and what consequences it would have on Orario.
The tranquility of this moment felt brutally fragile.