The History of Nol.
Nol, the Azure Dragina. Once a high ranked general for a well established Psychic Army . . . Now a lowly beast, hiding in every shrub upon his reckless path. In his younger, less perplexing years, Nol and his twin brother Rein lead a sound division of the Dilosian Army. His techniques focused on defense and magicks, allowing the troops to protect themselves against any odds. Rein, of course, controlled the soldiers with complicated mechanisms and pure force. They both prepared for a war against the “City of the Mountains”, Etulid. Nol and Rein’s respected King ordered his army to deploy the islands of peaks and valleys and obliterate the almost defenseless Etulid. Reluctantly, Nol directed his throng into battle.
He left the island smoldering with burning flesh and bone. No one was left alive.
Rein rejoiced every repulsive minute of it. Gazing upon dissolving heartbeats only provided his fiery spirit reason to destroy the weak. Nol was not so pleased. The death of innocents tore and twisted his stomach into thorny patterns of muscle tissue.
But for the King, these generals of war merely did what they were ordered. Since the Red Dragina left the city in shambles, the emperor praised him with a legendary weapon, the Atma.
Nol received nothing.
Jealousy engulfed his spirit like a flock of vultures over a rotting corpse. But he restrained the abhorrence he had for the Red Dragina, awaiting for the ideal opportunity to erupt.
Seventy five years inched away at the Azure Dragina’s heart. Rein scoured in obscurity, shrouding himself, and the sacred Atma, in blackness. The kingdom had been a calm land, and there were no use of a war strategist mastermind, so the Red Warrior kept himself busy with other dreams. Nightmares of conquering Fou Lu, devouring the fragile, and to flourish the Psychic Elementals once more warped his already mangled mind. But with those sorts of dreams, one would need a God’s power. . .
Rein’s might grew as his sanity diminished. He plotted against the God of the Mind, and clouded his thoughts so heavily with such complex walls that even Thanatos could not decipher. But he would not use his vicious tactics until other certain events occurred.
The third King of Dilosia slept in his deathbed, and there was no direct heir to the throne. The kingdom had gained great adversaries in its time, from the two draginas obliterating every city that questioned them. But times change. Threats gathered intensely against the Dilosian Empire, and the monarchy needed a leader who was as vile as their foes.
Nol had taken little interest in warfare, and had been concentrating his time on the religious aspects of the Psychic Element. He studied deeply in the history of the world, preferably the creation of his brother’s blade, the Atma. Slowly, knowledge began to replace the importance of his physical energy.
In the heir’s last words, Rein became the Crimson King of Dilosia. With an entire military under his dragina wings, his vile visions would become a certainty. He ignored other countries and their countless threats, only granting time to his plan; to capture a God. A complicated web of disciples and heartless soldiers trained vigorously in both mind and body, arranging to ripple the river of fate, and tear reality into a twisted fantasy of their King’s dreams.
During a feast to celebrate yet another victory upon the theater of war, Nol weakly proposed to sign an alliance treaty with a thriving village of dragina townsmen. “To align with the town of Ryube, milord would surely annihilate the potential risk of having our beloved Dilosia overrun by rival clans and kingdoms.” Pain stemmed terribly from his words; he was not accustomed to bowing before his own kin.
“Your heart is as blue as your dirty locks, brother.” Rein paused, raising his goblet. “And this is exactly why I have chosen to eradicate the natives of the city in which you planned on affiliating with. . .”
“But brother! They are the last of our kind!” Nol pleaded, bewildered by Rein’s sudden detestation toward his own race.
“Silence, and be gone. . .”
And since that catalytic evening, the Azure Dragina has never stepped into his brother’s darkened fortress. He treaded blindly into the wilderness, searching for unfamiliar territories, expecting to study rather than conquer, unlike his twisted kin.
However, before he left Dilosia, Nol took a certain souvenir, reminding him of his ghastly past.
Decades slipped from his frail grasp. Many miles and mountains trailed beneath his calloused feet. Entire skies dissipated along his whisking wings. Everything of his brother was behind him, and a new frontier peered gleefully before his eyes.
. . . Or so it seemed. The bloodthirsty King of Crimson assigned numerous of his finest soldiers to seek his stolen blade, the Atma. “Retrieve my sword, and feed the thief to the worms. . .”
Years of failed attempts, fallen samurai, and reckless skull bashing, left Rein tremendously aggravated at his incessant losses. At that time, he decided to undergo his plans of dominating a God. . .
During the launch of the winter solstice, and also during Thanatos’ weakest moment in time, Rein plunged deeply into a meditated state, concentrating deeply upon the temple of the Mind. He momentarily suppressed all Psychic Elementals which were worshipping their God on that eve, leaving Thanatos absolutely vulnerable to Rein’s doing.
In a profoundly convoluted trance, the God of the Mind full heartedly agreed to “unite” with Rein, and to contribute to the well-being of his islands, and of his races. Unfortunately for all of Fou Lu, those were not Rein’s true intentions. He would have stopped at nothing to regain his Atma once more.
Nol, while weakly recuperating an assortment of fatal lacerations from a prior skirmish, somehow stumbled upon a dwindling grass hut in the heart of the woodlands. An aged man, enveloped drastically in various garbs and wraps, sluggishly ambled to the wounded dragina.
Through ruthless months and crushing rains, the elder mended the Azure Dragina’s abrasions. They both exchanged tales of the past, philosophies, and theories of a better world. Nol also told of his horrific brother and of his onslaughts upon his very race. He explained that he and his perverse kin were the last of the dragina, and that he would not stop at the first genocide.
The elder nodded, and began to remove the tarnished rags from his worn face. “There is still hope,” he whispered, revealing his long scaly ears, pointed snarled nose, and serrated teeth. Leathery wings shredded eagerly from his garments, unveiling his true identity.
“A dragon’s underling!” Nol addressed surprisingly of the events which unfolded in front his cerulean eyes.
“Nay. I have stepped beyond the subordinate ways of the dragina.” He silently articulated.
“Only one has surpassed those stages to enter supremacy . . .” Nol paused, organized himself and squinted at the ancient. “. . . Thorne?”
The elder stared into Nol’s empty expression and began to explain himself. “I protected the King of the Mind’s temple for several millennia. Nothing passed my blade, the Dark Frost.” Thorne directed his withered finger to the corner of his hut, exposing a securely sheathed sword. “I fought for Him, bled for Him, and killed for Him. But the tyrants grew stronger. . .”
He continued his story, amplifying the days of old. “Inside, I fought a wicked rage, which collided against my endless love for Thanatos. I had to be His wall, but my power dwindled against their malice.” He sighed briefly, “And then it transpired. . .”
“It?” Nol questioned. “Are you to tell me that those legends are true? Your form converted from dragina to . . .?”
“Dragon.” Thorne interrupted. “I regret it every living day that passes behind me. My fury overcame my spirits, only to manifest an unstoppable creature of hate. The army before me fell, as did I.”
“You are leaving holes in your story, friend.” The Azure Knight stated clearly.
He paused, nodding. “. . . I became too strong; uncontrollable by even the six Gods. I banished myself to this abandoned forest, not only to protect Thanatos, but to protect myself as well. Over time, I slowly regained my sanity and managed to alter back to what I am in front of you now, Nol.”
The injured dragina glanced temporarily on the sword which rested lifelessly against the grass shed. He then stood, ambled to the blade, and grasped the sheath securely, smiling. “There is still hope, Thorne.”
. . . And Nol never looked back.
He traveled for many more epochs, reaching dwarf dwellings, human homelands, Elvin abodes, and tersid tears into the earth. The eyes of kings opened to the new Element which rose above Fou Lu’s moons; Rein’s hatred for all of existence. Every moral race and kingdom to the edges of the planet agreed: Evil thrived for far too long.
An uncountable horde, both good and evil, journeyed far to the center of the world, to Althena’s continent, the Holy Land. And for ten long, death dealing years, they fought for their beliefs, no matter how pure or vile they may have been. . .
The Azure Knight swung his instruments of destruction valiantly, clashing thoughtlessly into the undead and twisted variations of other races, which decided that malevolence was the only true path. Stacks of dead bodies decayed under his blood stained boots as horrendous powers of magic surged beyond him. The butchery never seemed to stop for the last untainted dragina.
Mercu set His great sun, Helios, over the Battle of the Apocalypse for the final time. All was quiet as the aura of corruption emanated dreadfully beneath the soldiers’ feet. The Wicked paused every sword, every spell, and every racing heart coldly.
Rein rose from the shadows while shreds of an amethyst mist coiled royally along his powerful form. His maniacal laughter poured profoundly from his ever smirking lips.
And his brother did what any hero would have done; he charged. Both the Atma and the Frost sadistically collided against his violet ambiance, and neither showed a sign of disturbing the Scarlet Lord. Nol thrashed and pounded recklessly upon his brother, seeking his crucial flaw. The Crimson Dragina retaliated brilliantly, striking down upon his kin like a hammer to a nail. He stood before Nol, who was twitching uncontrollably. The Dark Frost lain between the brethren; the Atma grasped deeply within the Azure Knight’s bleeding fists.
“Give me what is mine,” Rein grinned, speaking of his beloved Atma. However, in that moment, ignorance eluded him as he glanced upon the Dark Frost, knowing of its past. “What do we have here. . ?”
Nol struggled to stand, his withered bones begging for forgiveness. “The power of a God. . .” He felt Thanatos’ crying rage within Rein’s vicious fists.
As he reached to his feet, Rein crashed the blade of the Frost into Nol’s sternum, leaving only after shredding a vertebra into shards of bone. His eyes emptied into blackness as he weakly clinched along the wintry cerulean sword.
“Disappear,” Rein calmly said, just as he pulled the blade from his brother’s torso.
Thoughts of a better day focused in his dying mind. Dreams of soaring within the delicate clouds alongside his Crimson kin drifted away. He then centered upon Thorne, the heroic dragina from before his time, recalling the stories he told of, especially of the transformation.
And then he felt the rage. . .
His skin distorted into jagged scales, his face stretched into a lizard’s jaw line, and his spine augmented magnificently into a spinning tail. Nol’s figure extended madly along his brother’s blue blade, leaving a bewildered expression upon Rein’s face.
He reached the point of supremacy; the Azure Knight became the Cerulean Dragon.
As in a form of a dominant instinct, his towering claw swept Rein excruciatingly into the Temple of the Elements, leaving him buried under the shattered monastery where true Elementals once worshipped.
The smoke settled as the swords, axes, and bows of both armies dropped. They all listened for a whisper, for a faint cry, and for a reason to keep fighting.
Just as both phantoms and men began to lose hope, the cement shards of the Temple shifted as the being beneath it grew. A crimson wing erupted from the rubble, much more intense than that of a dragina. The shattered building ejected unsystematically into the corroded air, the ruins tossing into both enemy and allied masses. Rein began to feel the rage.
There stood the impeccable dragons, facing the fatigued warriors and the fallen sanctuary. Virulent snarls bellowed from their snouts as they both banefully faced one another. Nol’s tail cracked menacingly as Rein poised serenely, permitting his vehemence to infest his inner element.
Soldiers lifted their weaponry while the warlocks conjured new enchantments, igniting the last battle with their very last bits of strength.
Nothing was virtually as momentous as the dragons’ carnage upon the battlefield. Claws struck, tails blocked, and jaws mauled. The twin behemoths flew deep within the clouds, clashing with great might, enduring the considerable amount of pain, only to strike back at their adversary. Magics of unknown origin incinerated the Holy Land beneath them.
Nol’s valor dissipated as he struggled to stay within the air. The power of Thanatos struck into the Azure Dragon, stripping him of his very last threads of strength. He rolled from the sky, spiraling within the slender clouds, gazing weakly at the charred land in which he was destined to crash against. But before his fates were to end him, his claw snatched Rein’s tail, bringing him along for the last ride.
The dragons crashed into the earth, manifesting an invincible ripple in the winds, propelling the soldiers to the ground in its wake. And once again, the sword fighting ceased to be; the weary armies could fight no more. Incredible dusts engulfed the eyes of kings, knights, and demons.
The dust vanished, revealing a substantial crater, but without either Nol. Rein lifelessly lain within the crater, refusing to show any sign of animation.
A soft violet aura emptied from the hole, as it whispered along the ears of the dying. Thanatos had been freed from his cage. The weakened Crimson Dragon could hold upon the God no longer.
The Dark Frost and Atma Weapon sharply stood from inside the basin, both stained with gore and hatred.
The war had finally ended. Rein was shipped off inside one of his great Airships; now lead by his subordinate, Chaos the Grey. The soldiers of good were lead off by Gren, the King of the Elves, since their true leader somehow vanished, engulfed by the war.
Years later, theories and wishes of Nol’s whereabouts spread whimsically within barmaids and drunkards. “He must be alive!” One would say, “Rein’s alive! And their blood is shared! If one were to perish, the other shall as well!”
Two hundred and fifty years passed. And Nol has yet to be discovered . . . But in the lives of decaying old soldiers, only hope of the dragina's life left them wanting for the next tomorrow.
