Chapter 21:

Chapter 18 “The creature who speaks”

Age of Ember beta



The celestial dragon kept its death glare on Sabrina. Ziggy couldn’t help but wonder what his wife had done to make such a powerful creature mad.

“It knows your name?” Ziggy asked Sabrina in utter confusion. Sabrina was hesitant to say anything.

“N-nothing important,” Sabrina initially responded. “So, while I was searching for a way to cure Odrian, I found a cute little dragon egg floating on the water.”

Ziggy waited on her to elaborate on what happened. She wasn’t trying to budge

“That’s not all, is it?” Ziggy pressed for a response. He saw her fidgeting as she tried to smile back at him.

“No,” She said in an elongated manner while looking down at the boiling sea below. She couldn’t maintain eye contact with Ziggy. “Okay! Fine! I ate it! I was hungry since the flight was long, and it just happened to be floating around!”

Ziggy’s jaw dropped in astonishment. Hie looked over at Odrian and the others, seeing they were prepared to attack.

“If you thought it was cute, then why did you eat it?” Ziggy ranted in disbelief. “Why would you ever? A celestial dragon egg of all things? H-how did it taste?”

Sabrina was surprised that his serious tone would shift to that of curiosity.

“It was actually kind of sweet,” She recalled how she cooked it and was chased down for days by the celestial serpent until she left the sea far behind. “I liked it.”

“Sabrina! The great serpent roared toward her. Its shockwaves from its voice had pushed back Odrian and the others. “I have a bone to pick with you!”

“Mom,” Odrian called over. “We’ve got this. Stay away… As far as you can.”

“W-what? No!” Sabrina felt like she needed to stay there, but Ziggy was trying to draw her away.

“We’ll let them handle this,” He told her.

“Ziggy, this is my fight,” Sabrina insisted.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with sending the young ones to fight our battles. It happens all the time!”

The serpent could no longer stand the sight of everyone associated with Sabrina, so it dove deep down into the hole it created. Everyone couldn’t help but wonder if it was over. Sabrina knew what was coming next.

“Uh, yeah!” Victor cheered. “It was scared of us!”

Everyone looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

“Are you sure you still want them to handle this?” Sabrina looked at Ziggy, expressing her concerns. They knew that the celestial serpent was far more powerful than all of them combined.

“They gotta figure this one out,” Ziggy insisted with confidence, knowing that they would face tougher challenges.

The water surrounding the hole began to fill as the air pressure subsided. They spotted the serpent swimming in circles around the hole. It was attempting to create a whirlpool. But as it picked up speed, the whirlpool was so strong it began to stir the air above it.

“What is it doing?” Landon wondered as he was stricken by fear.

The grand vortex began pulling everything towards the center, while simultaneously creating a widening waterspout. It took all most all of their energy not to get sucked in as they continuously flew higher. Any semblance of progress was soon dismissed as the vortex still had a hold of them.

“We need to get out of this,” Sarah panicked as she saw everyone drawing closer toward the center.

“I’ve got an idea,” Odrian called out to everyone. “Fall straight to the center.”

“You must be out your mind,” Victor yelled out. “Err, I better not regret listening to you!”

Everyone allowed themselves to be pulled toward the center. And right before they could all made contact, Odrian summoned a white hole that was close to the size of the vortex’s center. It forcefully pushed everyone out above the chamber of the waterspout, giving the chance to gain some distance.

“That was fun!” Victor shouted excitedly.

“We could’ve died in there!” Sarah attempted to reprimand Victor.

The celestial dragon became furious and expanded the waterspout to grander proportions. Ziggy and Sabrina retreated further away from the kill zone. The serpent started moving erratically underneath the water.

They all separated immediately, but the massive serpent covered much ground, faster than they anticipated. Shooting out one water blast after another from all angles underwater. These random attacks confused everyone as it wasn’t making any attempts to strike them down. Not too long after, the water blast that were still in he air began to shoot off in their direction like tree branches, pushing them back toward the center. Although everyone dodged vigorously, Victor and Sarah were struck and sent toward the center.

Everyone else was running low on energy. No one could take this level of torment.

“It’s missing intentionally,” Landon screamed out. It was so chaotic he couldn’t come up with a plan as the serpent was manipulating the water from the water system it created.

“I’m going to help them,” Sabrina watched from afar said as she pulled away from Ziggy.

“Just give them a little more time,” Ziggy grabbed her hand back.

“These are our children.”

“And they’ve got this.”

Back within the bowels of the waterspout, Verona got shot into the vortex. Caught up in the ravaging whirlpool, Victor slowly begins to lose consciousness as he drifted along with an already knocked-out Sarah. Odrian saw the evasion as avoiding the inevitable and saw it best to face the serpent head-on. The odds were stacked against them, but he couldn’t bear imagining the loss of those he cared for.

What is he doing,” Landon thought as he continued dodging the water blasts that were coming from random directions at this point.

Odrian’s anger had built up over time, and he took a nosedive into the raging sea. Colliding with the water, he propelled himself toward the center of the whirlpool. Out of some miracle, he froze the whirlpool along with some of the immediate water that surrounded it. He effectively froze the waterspout's too a great degree.

Victor quickly broke out of the ice, digging out Sarah. Verona broke out not too far from them. She had a lot of faith in Odrian’s strength as he hovered below them. Odrian seemed surprised himself.

“Since when could you freeze anything?” Victor asked as he caught his breath while holding an unconscious Sarah. Odrian was lost as to if this was magic or his forux.

“Me either,” Ordian seemed amazed by his newfound ability.

“My forux will finally be of some use now,” Arachnia thought while landing on the ice next to everyone else. Spider legs sprung out from her back and began weaving. They were onyx-colored with lavender tips.

The celestial dragon wasn’t happy with how things had transpired. It attempted to charge at them but was blocked by invisible metal webs that were protecting them. The angered serpent couldn’t get through the webs, so it went back under the water, and within seconds it came up breaking the webs off the ice with monstrous force.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Ziggy was examining the now-visible battle along with Sabrina. “Her webs held off a celestial dragon. I was right, she is way stronger than I imagined. We should be cautious.”

Sabrina nodded as she saw the serpent shoot toward the sky.

Reaching the clouds, the serpent looked down on them once more.

“You put up a good fight,” The serpent spoke. “But you’re all still too weak.”

Everyone was still trying to catch their breath and regain energy after the long-winded battle. Arachnia exhausted herself after building the web. It was simply not enough.

“I’ve got this,” Verona looked Odrian in the eyes. Her wings opened up, and she flew up to the celestial serpent. In an unimpressive spectacle, Verona furiously punched her way toward the top of the serpent. Her attacks were super ineffective. She continued her attacks in vain.

The serpent bellowed a laugh as it observed her attacking it.

“Is this really the best you’ve got,” The serpent mocked. “You're not even worth my time!”

Landon couldn’t standby watching her do all the work. As he looked up at Verona, he could feel her strength and speed growing. He found this astounding.

“I'm ready to go,” Metal-bladed wings sprouted out of Landon's back. He shot away from the ice floor, creating a shattered crater in its wake. It nearly knocked everyone into the water. He flew faster toward the sky as he got closer to Verona.

Landon uppercut was aimed at Verona but he missed and hit the serpent with so much force, it created shock waves and knocked it back a little. Its long body started to fly toward the sky, but Verona grabbed its tail. While in midair, she spun the serpent in circles reaching incredibly high speeds. She threw it violently back into the remnants of ice below her. Tidal waves were created upon impact as everyone had flown out of the way. The water droplets went high into the sky, falling back down as though it were raining. Verona felt proud of what she had done as she spotted Odrian. Confidently, she said of the fallen serpent:

“That's where you belong! Stay there!”

However, the fight was far from over.

Ana Fowl
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