He had to move. But moving hurt. Blood is everywhere. His scales are more red than black. His straight horns, normally gray, are bloody and cracked. This is bad. This is so very very bad. The little dragon, he's only 3 years old, yet the humans somehow know the importance of the round object clutched in his talons. They don't care if he's a child. They want him dead. Then they can take it and study it.

  Darkness wouldn't allow it. He couldn't allow it. If he died today, not only would the egg be lost forever, but Smokewind would have to raise the other one all on her own. She couldn't manage that on her own. She could barely feed herself on her own!

  Through the forest he ran. He couldn't fly. Even considering that his left wing is 9 places and dripping blood everywhere, he is too young to fly. Dragons can't usually fly until they are 5 or 6. Then he hears a crack. He whips his head around just in time to see a mecha. A huge metallic human-shaped thing over 10 meters tall. It just threw something at him. Is that… oh no! Jump! oof! Crack!

  He can't move. He can’t feel his hind left leg. He looks back. Where his leg one was is a bloody crushed stump. He tries to scream. He coughs blood. He has to keep going. He needs to keep going. He manages to stand up, putting minimal weight on his leg. He looks forward. Oh, thank the imperium, the cave! A massive hole in the earth going straight down into the ground far below. But wait… even if he can't fly, usually he can glide. But with his wing like this? In this dreary state of mind? He's lost so much blood.

  He turns back and sees that there isn't one mecha. There's 3. And there is 2 rider drones. Large, flat surfaces mounted by humans armed with a mounted railgun that floats in the air. He starts to run. He stumbles through the grass. He can barely move at all. But he keeps on moving. Then he hears the blast. But he was ready.

  Mana shield!

  He whips one talon in the direction of the blast of plasma, and an ethereal black shield or dark mana forms to intercept the blast. The blast shatters right through it. But he knew that would happen. He had already leaned out of the way, letting it fly past and slam into a tree. A tree that cracked and fell over directly into the chasm. He couldn't miss this chance. He jumped and gripped onto the tree. His talons digged in as hard as they could and he began to plummet.

  He had only been down here one time before, when the worshipers had brought him down here to assign him his mission. At the bottom of the chasm was a huge pool of water. But even if there was water, it was so far down that if darkness just jumped down he would likely die on impact. He needed something to slow him. And now, with the tree, he had it. He began to charge the technique into his legs. Black mana veins ran through his 3 undamaged legs. He had never done this technique with a broken leg before. Gods, why did he not learn to use the wind mana transformation construct? He would have never needed to worry about falling like this after that! But noooo, of course he is a pure dark magic mage. His name is literally darkness, for the moon's sake! Now he's just rambling to himself. He needs to stay focused on his imminent death. A death he can now see below him, as the wind whipped into his face. He's been falling for over a minute now. This was very deep. He can see the water. Only one chance.

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  If he failed this, he would die. Ready…. NOW!

  Mana push!

  He launched straight upwards as the tree continues to go down, the blast increasing its acceleration as it slammed into the water with a loud smash. Well, he didn't exactly go upwards. His push managed to equalize the upwards and downwards speeds, so now hes just sitting midair for a moment. Now the moment is over, and her falls, spinning, into the water. The egg is still clutched in his jaw. He cant let it go. He cant… let it… blackness.

  “Darkness! DARKNESS!” Darkness woke up to the feeling of being shook. He opened his eyes and coughed out water. The water came out of him with more blood then he would have liked, but that was life, he supposed. He's in so much pain.

  “Darkness, get up!” Something is burning his scales. He turns his head. Smokewind is there, shaking his shoulders, and leaving little burn-marks where she touched him. Then her claw brushed against his bloody stump of a leg and he lets out a shriek of pain. Smokewind jumps back with a shriek of her own.

  After a moment to calm down, he turns to smokewind.

  “You dragged me out of the water?” Smokewind nods. “Oh, good. I thought I was in hell.”

  Darkness picks up the black egg beside himself. It's a darker black than even his own scales, and pulses with a powerful purple essence. Time mana. Darkness took this moment to look around. They are inside a massive, deep cavern beside a large body of water. All the light seemed to be coming from the water. A soft glow of a color his mind couldn tseem to comprehend. He forced himself to look away.“Where is your egg?”

  “Its in the spire.” She says, flinching from his glare.

  “Lets go. We have no time to waste. This egg NEEDS to be at the spire.” He begins to walk away form the water. He shakes himself off and both water and tiny blood droplets fly everywhere. He hears the sizzling noise of water contacting Smokewinds magmatic scales as she follows and gets hit by a few stray droplets.

  “But… why?” Smokewind asks eventually. “Darkness, why couldn’t one of the adults do this? We are kids! I barely know a spell!” Darkness sighs.

  “Itd because we were told to. We do what we are told, smokewind. The temple of the imperium received a divine message from the god of time and darkness himself, with orders. The god knew our names, our age, everything.” Darkness shivers at the thought. “The third most powerful god in the world ordered us to raise these eggs.” Smokewind nods.

  “I know… but I… I'm scared.” They reach the end of the cavern, which leads to a cave angling upwards. this would go under the ocean for hours before surfacing at their destination. “Im scared that we aren't good enough. That we will fail the god. That… that we will die. Darkness, the conquerers know these eggs are special. They will KILL us for them. I don't want to die…” Darkness abruptly stopped, turned, and pulled her into a hug. He didn't care how much it hurt. She needed this.

  “I will protect you. Forever.” Darkness vowed. Smokewing looked up at him. Glowing tears fell from her eyes, but she rubbed them away. They turned together to the entrance.

  “Time to be brave.” They said as one.