A serial tale of a hero/ine whose Manifestation offers hope to an entire mythical species, and gives promise to many awakenings in a sleeping world very much like our own.

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Sorry for the delay. I'm trying to get out a new part every day, but sometimes I have an especially busy day here or there, and I'll miss here and there.

-Arianrhod.
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"Aryllia!" the giant red dragon bellowed with a voice that filled the mountains. "How dare you emerge in this world again?"

"You know as well as I that the Time of Renewal is approaching. Did you really expect never to see me again, Maoten?" Aryllia responded scornfully.

Maoten paused, and then grinned viciously. "No, I suppose not. But I relish the opportunity that your appearance has GIVEN ME!" The red screamed and channeled an enormous fireball that engulfed the air between his beating wings in brilliant orange.

I assumed that it would take a minute, at least, for him to complete his attack and fire it -- thereby rendering it worthless other than as a demonstration. I was also very wrong.

Maoten launched his fireball mere moments later, but Aryllia had a response. Gathering her will about our mutual body, she summoned a much smaller sphere of void in the maw of her mouth, and spat it contemptuously at the scorching doom that hurtled towards the ground. It connected solidly in the middle of the fireball, and the resulting explosion sent a shockwave rippling across the mountains for miles in all directions. The dissipation of fire and shadow could almost be considered beautiful, if not for the dire circumstances of its creation.

"Pathetic," Aryllia mocked. "You always did put too much effort towards show, Maoten, and never enough towards actually stopping your opponent. Even in this youngling's body, I can wield enough power to stop your weak attacks."

I could tell even from my observer's perspective that Maoten did not like that comment one bit. He dove towards the ground, and slashed savagely as soon as he was within range. Aryllia ducked to the side, but was hit in the side with a blast of flame from Maoten's mouth as a reward for her trouble.

From the flashing pain that I could feel coming from Aryllia's mind, I could tell that she was going to lose control over our body. At that point, we were as good as dead, since her experience was the only thing that had been keeping us alive in the first place against Maoten's formidable attacks.
Luckily, we weren't alone in the fight.

"Maoten, leave her alone!" Llew yelled as she emerged from behind a smoldering trunk. She extended her arms and closed her eyes in concentration, and two silver blasts of energy shot forth, arcing towards Maoten's gargantuan form. Unfortunately for Llew, they didn't so much as scratch the ancient red dragon.

He turned his head towards her, sizing her up. It didn't take long for him to decide that she wasn't a threat.

"Die," he bellowed, and stretched his mouth wide as a stream of liquid fire, resplendent against the twilight that was settling in around us, scorched forth.

But Llew was not alone. Ghorder, Kaldon, and Promely were making motions with their hands, and erected a glowing barrier in front of their comrade. The earth began to shake, and Trena slunk out from behind a boulder, with fury in her eyes and rocks swirling around her head.

On the other side of the former grove, Tailtiu had begun to channel water from the atmosphere around us into two balls of liquid, centered around each fist. Rauthor was charging Maoten, with a gleaming longsword in each hand.

Moments later, the glade erupted in a bombardment of light. The stream of fire deflected off of the barrier, sending it harmlessly into the sky. Streams of water were being pounded into Maoten's eyes, and Llew had resumed her barrage of silver energy. Trena's rocks were hurtling into his sides, but were bouncing off of his scales.

Aryllia's eyes grew wide as she realized that she had an opportunity, while Maoten was distracted. The Sidhe didn't have enough power to deal with an Origin, but she could -- perhaps -- even the playing field.

Struggling painfully to stand, we both were startled as Rauthor's limp form hurtled in front of our eyes, before slamming into into a tree.

We need to finish this, now, before we lose our newfound allies I told Aryllia urgently.

I know. The problem is that your body cannot handle the amount of power that is needed. I can summon more, but the backlash would probably kill us both she replied mentally.

If we don't try, we're going to die anyway, and the Sidhe too. I like probably much better than certainly

Aryllia nodded her assent, and grit her teeth. Swinging her head around, she examined the wound that the blast of flame had dealt us. It filled up the greater portion of our side, and was an unhealthy shade of charred red mixed with the onyx of our scales. Fortunately, the heat of the attack had also served to cauterize the wound, although it still hurt like hell.

The Sidhe were still doing their best to hold Maoten off, although Trena, Tailtiu, and Kaldon had all joined Rauthor among the ranks of the motionless.

"Spirits of the dead, hear my call," Aryllia intoned softly. She began inscribing a series of arcane symbols in the scorched earth before us, and repeated the phrase several times.

Sensing the upwelling of energy, Maoten turned and regarded us scornfully. "Trying to draw on the power of your dead lineage, Aryllia? I think not." A scorching blast of flame and heat was searing through the air seconds later, but was dissipated by a breath of void -- one that did not come from us.

Instead, it seemed as through the rippling air in front of us fired the attack itself. Looking a little closer, I could see why. The shadows all around us were rising up from the ground, and taking on the form of dragons -- dragons much larger than myself. The shadow-dragons clustered around us as they formed, forming a protective circle around the body that carried the soul of their ur-dragon.

"Lend me your strength, my children," Aryllia said sorrowfully. "I had hoped to see you again under happier circumstances, but I need to lean on you now, lest all is undone."

One of the shadows spoke, much to my surprise. "Do what needs done, Origin, as you always have. We will deal with the consequences."

"Anoseth," Aryllia began tearfully, "You know that I will likely never see you or any of the others again, if this works?"

"We know, and as I said, we will deal with it. We accepted our fate centuries ago," he replied quietly.

"Stop your YAPPING!" Maoten raged.

Is is just me or is it getting colder I asked.

"It's not just you," Aryllia answered. "He's sucking the heat out of the surrounding area, probably several miles in diameter. He thinks he can annihilate us in one fell attack."

"Don't hesitate, Origin. Do it," the one once called Anoseth said. His voice was joined by those of the others, rising in a chorus of death and shadow.

The Sidhe who were still conscious were huddled underneath a fluctuating barrier that may or may not have been able to withstand the force of a moderate breeze, let alone an explosion of the cataclysmic variety that Maoten was planning.

In desperation, I added my voice to that of the others, and Aryllia heard me.

Fighting back her sorrow, Aryllia choked out doom for the ur-dragon of fire, and for her shadow-comrades as well.

It took the form of a gigantic ball of void energy so black that it seemed as though it would devour all the light in this world. Raising her head, she sent the sphere to hover overhead, and each of the dead shadow dragons fired a void beam at the ball. Over a hundred shades contributed their energy to her final, desperate attack. Looking through Aryllia's eyes, I saw Maoten charging his fiery Armageddon, and realized that we didn't have much time left.

By now the voidsphere was crackling with an odd contrast, as native electromagnetism sizzled like lightning against the unnatural absence looming against the night sky. As was to be expected of two Origins, their devastating attacks finished at the same time, and met with a thunderous fury over the beleaguered forest that had become an impromptu war zone. But while Maoten's blast was fueled by a hatred of man centuries old, Aryllia's response was filled with the power of her entire race, and the void sliced through the fire as if it was not even there.

So great was the power of Aryllia's strike, that it felt as though we were being torn apart. As we channeled the energy of the black dragon species, I understood why Aryllia had warned that we might not survive ourselves. We might be torn asunder from the tremendous energies that we had unleashed.

I cast an eye towards the Sidhe, who were still hiding behind their failing barrier. Llew was trying to yell something, but I couldn't hear her over the tumultuous roar of the energy. Frustrated, she gave up and pointed and in the direction of Maoten. Then I noticed what she was trying to tell me.

Maoten was disappearing.

I don't mean to say that he was being eaten away, as he would have been if he was truly struck by Aryllia's assault. Instead, the air around his giant form was shimmering as if a barrier were protecting him, and behind that barrier, he was evaporating.

I had no idea what that meant, but Aryllia clearly understood it."No!" she screamed. "Get back here, you coward!"

Maoten's only response was a ghostly chuckle, and then he was gone like valley mist. The shimmering barrier disappeared with him, and the remnants of Aryllia's attack ate away a large section of the forest behind where he had been standing. Later, human rangers would come across the battle site, and be stumped by the strange, warped things that had been left behind by the ravaging void.

Aryllia's wails only intensified as the shadow-dragons who had once been alive disappeared one by one. In her sadness, she didn't notice what was happening. She didn't realize that our shared body was literally being torn apart by the forces that she had unleashed, even as the shades returned to whatever netherworld they inhabited.

My anguished and terrified mental screams eventually brought her back to her senses, as she realized that we had a more immediate problem than her loved ones falling back to nothingness. "Annie, try to stay calm," she said, although I thought I heard a note of panic in her voice as well.

The corporeal degradation had already consumed the lower half of our body, with wild energy erupting from the flesh underneath our armored scales. Within the rifts in our body, I could see more rifts forming, and yet more within even those. They were all expanding and growing, slowly consuming our body and turning it into a void not unlike that which we harnessed as a weapon.

As the dragons around us disappeared, the conscious Sidhe moved in. Seeing us in agony (and the decay that was occurring) had them obviously confused, but Promely was quick to offer her services as a healer. Aryllia and I weren't exactly in the condition to tell her to do it, so Promely went ahead on her own.

She said something to Llew and Ghorder, and they both held hands with each other and Promely, forming a magic circle. Magic energy raced along the circle, spinning until it became a solid stream of silver energy, glowing against the night. Then they separated, and the light flew towards us.

Even as we screamed in anguish, we could feel the magic working its way in, healing where it could...but also causing a peculiar separation. It seemed to affect Aryllia much more than me, and the strain caused her to black out, which put me back in control of our body. Oddly, I was pain-free.

I looked down at my flank in shock, and the rifts were gone. The burn wound from Maoten's flame breath was healing quickly, with silver magic bouncing around like a ground-bound firecracker, restoring vigor wherever it hit.

Nodding her head in satisfaction, Promely moved away to tend to the other Sidhe scattered about the smoldering crater that the woodland glade had become. Grimacing as the last of the magic faded away, I shapeshifted to human-ish, and joined the Sidhe.

"Well, that was fun," Llew said sourly.

"I agree," I replied. Aryllia still wasn't answering my mental calls, and frankly I was a little worried. "Any ideas how that Maoten found us, exactly?"

They all shook their heads. I remembered Pyrandon, and wondered if I was doing something unconsciously that attracted magical notice.

"It could just be random bad luck," I said as much to myself as to them. "I know that they're looking for me...it could be a coincidence that he happened to be flying around in this area."

Ghorder shook his head. "I seriously doubt it. My guess would be that since the other eight ur-dragons all participated in the Sealing of Aryllia, they have a means to track her now that their Seal has come undone."

"How do you explain Pyrandon finding me, then?" I asked pointedly.

"It may be that there is your random luck. Or perhaps they have passed on the means of tracking Aryllia to their subordinates. It's impossible to say, really," he said quietly. "At any rate, we need to heal and recover our strength before we can assist you much further."

I surveyed the Sidhe, and agreed. None of them were in any condition to help me, now.

Llew disagreed, however. "I'll go back with you, Annie. I'll be good as new within a day or two, and then I can help you get started, at least."

"You really shouldn't..." I began, but cut off when I saw the glinting look in her eyes. I'd seen that look several times before from girls I'd known at school, and I knew better than argue when it was present.

"I'll teleport us back to your house." Assuming something of an air of command unlike what I had seen from her before, she turned to the other Sidhe. "The rest you take the wounded further back into the woods, well away from this place. I will find you and come back to help as soon as I get Annie back.

Before I could protest further, she grabbed my hand and we were falling through the peculiar silver-blue light again.