When Destiny Burns, Ep. 1: A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover

Chapter 8. 5 A poisoned mind pt. 2

As the grey human attempted to grab her wrist, the beating of her heart increased and she leaped backwards, desperately trying to escape his attack. Her first death at his hands might have been humiliating, but her second death had been plain torture. He had destroyed her body with a ferocity that fitted only with the cruelest of Lethrblaka. It hurt her to merely think about it and the very presence of this human was a tortuous experience for her mind. She did not want to fear him; she was Raia! The most unique and gifted among her kind! Graced by her mistress mercy and gifted with the darkest of magic. He should not be so mortifying...but he was. She couldn't forget what he had done to her and it clashed so much with what he was. Humans were never so cruel, or brutal.

Sure, she would get attacked on sight everywhere she went. Sure, the humans would try to skewer her heart with every ounce of strength they could muster, merely because she was evil in their eyes. But that death was nothing compared to what this rider had done. He was a twisted, sadistic and spoiled bastard that had been gifted with the two things that she could never ever have been gifted with: love and admiration. Love from a deeply-running bond with a dragon and admiration of a nation that depended on him.

Raia pressed the assault performed a series of quickly-escalating slashes with her sword, hacking at him from her left shoulder, twisting the sword over the same shoulder before placing it at the other, continuing the fluent movement that would only end once she had killed her enemy

.Her enemy's abilities were far beyond anything she had ever seen before. She could not harm him physically and even when she got lucky and hit him with an otherwise bone-crunching strike, an unknown ward would deflect her attack. How much energy did this monstrous child possess? Just how much luck had live granted him?

The rider's ability only served to further infuriate her and she continued to slash at him, wanting to make him feel every bit of her rage and wrath until he lay dead and mangled at her feet. She could not express just how much she despised this one.

The rider struck at her again with his dark knife, drawing blood as he pierced the skin of her cheek. It was a minor scratch, but it broke her concentration and a counter-attack was initiated by the human. His probe was singular and that made his attack less than hers. But his probe was smooth, sharp and powerful. It latched onto her mind and pierced her defenses, forcing her to relive some memories as they came bubbling out from her sadly twisted mind.

She was standing on the side of a mountain, watching as the hated human and his black dragon approached her trap. She would make him feel what her life felt like before she killed him. She would kill his dragon, forcing him to live through the worst agonies and pains of feeling a part of him be consumed in darkness. To be alone in the world, knowing that it had once been differently. That was how she would punish him and only then would she be happy.

She screamed with rage and drove her burning nails deeper into the mind of her enemy, forcing him towards the pit that was his dragon's pain. Forcing him to embrace her attack. The harming of his partner must have been deeper than she had expected, because she made her way past the initial defenses and forced him to spill his own memories.

The human stood atop a hill, clad in his armour and wearing a large weapon. Ahead lay a human, hidden in surroundings that she did not recognize. How certain he felt of himself, how prepared he was to take the lives of his fellow men.

Raia cried out in pain as all the information on this boy clashed ferociously. He was a human boy, a teenager. He wore armour, but was too young to block her. But he moved faster than an elf did and struck harder than a Kull did. His brutality and ferocity matched that of a mindless shade and his endurance far outclasses that which she knew of, with his poisoned body and bleeding mind. His dragon was dying and he was still standing, while he should be in shock. She saw him as selfish and sadistic and hated him for having what she did not, but that single memory added yet another thing to the pile of chaos that the rider was. Killing was not fun for him, murdering was not a sport. He simply did. Why? Why did he do that? Why had he hurt her so much? Had that been because she had attempted to kill his dragon?