Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leo stared down at the motionless figure atop the ancient Nilai-Kanai temple, the temple that had, ultimately, saved his life.

Now it was simple flaming rubble under the weight of the defeated Dagahra, who Leo almost mistook for dead when he'd dropped him on the structure after their admittedly short final bout. When the temple had started to explode, Leo had thought the creature was done for. To Leo’s surprise; he wasn’t. Wounded, but still alive. Gashes across his stomach from where the stone had exploded outwards in all directions, but alive. Alive and motionless as he threatened to be consumed by the blaze around him. Leo didn’t know what came over him but he’d pulled Dagahra free of it before dropping him on the ruin in a split-of-the-moment decision.

Leo had honestly expected a tougher fight, Dagahra had been a far more difficult opponent than Desghidorah had proven to be. Even when they were on the land or in the air and Leo had the advantage the ocean monster still pushed Leo to his limits.

So, even when the temple had defended Leo against Dagahra when the sea creature had taken him by surprise, and when the little creature, Ghogo, the living treasure of the ancient civilization who'd created Dagahra, had given his life to transform and revitalize him; Leo had expected a tough fight. Of course, Leo hadn't gotten the full grasp of just how much stronger he was either. On wings of rainbows, he'd risen, intent on a fight to the finish with the cruel creature.

So, Leo went all out, he'd battered Dagahra until he'd fled into deeper waters and then followed him there, tearing apart his toxic biology from the inside out and ultimately coming out triumphant.

Leo was going to finish off Dagahra, he would collapse the temple with a slice of his wing, sending the last remnants of the Nilai-Kanai back to become one with the elements of the Earth. The temple and Dagahra would join with the sea from which this whole unfortunate story had brewed. However, Leo was curious, perhaps too curious for his own good.

Call it stupidity, but Leo couldn't simply be done with Dagahra like he was a pest, it felt wrong to him. Sure, Leo knew Dagahra had to go, the toxic creature and his barem parasites were too much of a threat to be kept alive, at least if Dagahra insisted on continuing to consume pollution. But Dagahra brought about a hesitancy to finish him that Desghidorah had not.

Why was that? Well, it was quite simple.

Dagahra had spoken to Leo.

Leo could remember how shocked he had been when the creature had first taunted him, voice visceral and full of spite, when they fought off the shore of Ishigaki island. Dagahra was only the second Kaiju other than his Mother whom Leo had encountered and, while he certainly knew more existed, it was surreal that he could communicate with someone not of his own species.

Leo wondered why Desghidorah couldn't do the same, but quickly chalked it up to being an 'alien thing.'

That brought Leo back to the present. Wounded Daghara, smoking ruin of a temple, and far too much curiosity for his own good. It wasn't exactly Leo's brightest idea, but he at least wanted to come to a semblance of understanding Dagahra before the creature was to perish, if he could. Leo hoped it would help to make him a better guardian if he could learn about his foe, and why he did what he did.

Of course, the simple desire to converse with another Kaiju may have also tied into it even if it was a poisonous parasite-spewing demon creature.

So it was that Leo landed on the steps of the temple, a flap of his rainbow-colored wings being all that was necessary to suddenly stifle the present flames into little more the cinders and smoke. The hefty creature that Leo was looking for was right where Leo had dropped him.

At first, Leo worried a bit at how motionless the sea beast was, he thought he'd felt that Dagahra was holding on well enough, although there was always the chance the Divine Moth had jumped the gun with his new power and Dagahra's wounds would be imminently mortal. Leo had thought he'd missed anything vital when he'd hit Dagahra from the inside, he'd really just intended to immobilize the creature, though as he'd already said; he was sort of a rookie at this.

Thankfully, Leo was comforted when his radiant green eyes could pick up on the fact that Dagahra was breathing steadily and evenly, which comforted Leo in more than one way. He could take note of his own self-control not being as bad as he thought and also it made clear he hadn't inflicted any grievously painful wounds on Dagahra. The green aquatic creature was still injured, but at least it wasn't too painful.

Leo was worried for a second that he'd been prolonging Dagahra's suffering with his curiosity if he was already halfway to death's door, and while he appeared comatose... Leo could fix that.

The moth hesitated for a moment, but then quickly assured himself that Dagahra was no threat to the planet, the humans, the Elias, and especially not to him anymore. Leo just needed to give him a little nudge to wake him up.

Leo was still reluctant to provide his healing to an enemy of the planet. But at the same time, Leo wasn't eager to condemn him to death until he'd both asked his questions and confirmed Dagahra was definitively on the destructive side. He also wasn't about to make someone he'd weakened so much in their fight talk to him in such a state by forcing him awake.

So, the logical conclusion was to heal him, regardless of Leo's qualms about whether or not this was something a guardian should do. He could take care of Dagahra if he tried to flee or cause any more damage, and he was hoping he could ask Moll and Lora if they had something with which they could seal Dagahra... or at least return him to sleep.

Leo knew it was necessary sometimes, but he was still no fan of killing another sentient being, it's why he'd pulled Dagahra from the collapsing temple after the smoke had cleared.

If Leo was going to condemn anyone to death, he at least wanted to be sure they were beyond saving.

So, in the end, Leo's debate about being a good guardian came second in the moment to the desire to understand Dagahra and, hopefully, find a way to avoid killing him. After all, he was at Leo's mercy, surely something could be done to avoid his death?

Green and blue energy pulsed through his wings, the rainbow colors that had blossomed on them shining in the vapor, the sun, and the buildup of power as he hovered over Dagahra. Energy flowed out from Leo in a wave of particles from either side, a technique Leo knew resembled the egg-creation method of all Divine Moths, one of the few memories he had managed to inherit from his mother.

The principle was the same even if the purpose was different, you were expelling your energy and bringing it together into one space to create life from your own essence. It could create an entirely separate life, as was the case with the egg, or it could flow into existing life and restore it as Leo had done with the forests of Hokkaido after Desghidorah's rampage. The spreading of this energy of life in those simple particles encompassed all of it.

Leo's energy flowed over and into Dagahra's motionless body, Leo expending just enough to pull the ocean monster up from his current state and hopefully alleviate any major pains Leo's barrage of beams and internal attacks might have had on him. As Leo said, he wasn't trying to make Dagahra suffer; he really wanted to see if there were alternatives to killing him.

Leo wanted to believe Dagahra wasn't beyond saving.

It wasn't long before Leo's efforts bore fruit, the motionless oceanic creature at once shot up, mouth wide open and gasping sharply, Leo backed off slowly but surely as the beast hauled himself to his feet, breathing rapidly and labored. Leo winced, jumping back a little further and landing on the side of the pyramid, as Dagahra coughed and hacked up some non-existent substance before stabilizing himself.

Leo didn't like to see other sentient beings in pain, even if they were as destructive as Dagahra, so seeing the ocean monster sway unsteadily on his legs as his wings seemed to be too hefty for his proper balance was not something Leo enjoyed. Leo couldn't have healed him more, he was still afraid of the possibility of Dagahra trying to flee and going back to infecting the sea with Barem, but hopefully, he'd healed him enough to where the green-scaled dragon facsimile was not in any true pain.

Just weakness. Weak enough for them to talk, weak enough for Leo to understand him.

Leo waited patiently as Dagahra seemed to get his bearings, he wasn't all there for a while, again leading the Divine Moth to hope he hadn't done any permanent damage to his opponent that would leave him without his senses. Eventually, however, Dagahra did get his act together. When his eyes came to rest on Leo, his frame tensed and his eyes narrowed.

"You..."

Dagahra's voice was low, but just because it was low didn't hide the sheer disdain behind that single word. It was almost accusatory, accompanied by a low growl that hung in Dagahra's throat long after he finished speaking. Leo nodded his head as if to confirm Dagahra's obvious statement.

"Yes. Me."

Dagahra seemed to realize they were close and backed off from the moth, posture indicating he was ready for another round of their fight. Leo let out what could best be interpreted as a sigh, desperately hoping Dagahra didn't prove him wrong already in hoping they could talk it out.

Dagahra's growls grew louder as he backed up, that was until he reached the edge of the pyramid. The creature froze in place, realizing he'd reached the edge of the space he had to distance himself from Leo, his growl turned into a snarl as his eyes darted back with a slight tilt of his head, seemingly contemplating diving into the ocean. Leo couldn't let that happen, wouldn't let it happen.

"Don't."

Dagahra jerked his head back to Leo, in an instant snapping straight back into that same, transfixed look; the look of prey cornered by a predator.

"Don't flee. I don't want to hurt you."

Dagahra bit back his growls and snarls, though a low, indescribable sound of hostility still emanated from the creature's maw even when he clenched his teeth together, seemingly swallowing Leo's words, digesting them bit by bit. Then, he spoke again, an accusatory tone to his voice and bitter beyond description.

"What... what is this?"

Leo turned his head quizzically, but before he could speak up again Dagahra cut him off.

"What kind of trick are you playing, do you think I'm an idiot!? We were fighting, I was going to kill you, and now you're pretending- acting like this is normal?"

"No, I-"

"No! You should be trying to kill me- you should be dead!"

Leo tensed up, ready for a fight at the inflammatory words. But it seemed Dagahra himself was running through the emotions, he was confused, and he didn't understand the situation. Leo could see why, if Dagahra had suddenly cut off his assault and left Leo alive with nothing seeming to change then he too would have been perplexed.

"We- we were fighting and I was winning and then-"

Dagahra snarled and took a step forward, anger bristling on his features. Leo tried to stay calm, tried to keep that same inner serenity and outward calm display that his mother was known for, but he still felt tense all the same at Dagahra's resurgence in viciousness.

"Then you changed into... into whatever this is. Then I fled and you chased me and-"

Something in Dagahra's thought process seemed to click at that moment, he stood rigid, eyes widening and jaw dropping slightly as he seemed to lose so much of the fight that had returned upon seeing Leo. Daghara's head dropped, eyes turned to the floor as he was hit with realization.

"I... I should be dead."

The sea creature raised his head, tail still, wings flexing, unfurling, and folding back into themselves in micro-movements in what Leo recognized was probably a display of discomfort. Once again, Dagahra locked eyes with Leo and spoke, though this time much of the malice had drained.

"Tell me, little guardian, why am I not dead?"

Leo knew the answer, the answer was him. His curiosity, his conscience, and perhaps his naivete were the reason Dagahra was alive. Leo's baseless claim that Dagahra couldn't be all bad, that there had to be a reason. That was why

Instead, Leo gave him the short answer.

"I saved you."

Dagahra was, understandably, shocked. He seemed more frightened by those three words than he was by the fact Leo could likely blast him to pieces in an instant if he so wished.

"W-What...?"

Leo braced himself, shook his head, and spoke up with a hint of hesitancy.

"Our fight was over, I dropped you on the temple and it started pulling you towards it and it started to explode and I-I-"

Leo remembered that moment, the contemplation that came with the fact this would have been the first living, sentient creature he'd ever killed. As he watched the temple go up in a ball of fire he had to make an uncomfortable choice; condemn his opponent to death or risk the possibility of Dagahra hurting more people by rescuing him from the destruction.

Leo had chosen the latter. It was an uncomfortable decision, a highly uneasy scenario. But once Leo committed to it, he stuck to it and lifted Dagahra from what remained of the inferno. Leo was fine with accepting whatever happened next was totally on him.

"I saved you, I pulled you from the pyramid after it was destroyed."

Dagahra was in some mix of utter disbelief and a half-hearted rage, trying desperately to rationalize for himself why the one he'd nearly killed had saved him from the same fate.

"You... You lie!"

Leo didn't have much to say, it wasn't like he held physical proof. He held his head low and sighed deeply, he almost couldn't believe he'd done it, either.

"What reason do I have to lie about this?"

Dagahra bared his fangs, a hiss in his throat building and dying just as fast as he shoved his head down and to the side before lifting it, surveying the ruins of the temple and pondering them for a few seconds. Some of the tension left Dagahra's body, slackening only a little, but he seemingly admitted defeat to Leo's words.

"If you speak the truth... then... why?"

Dagahra turned back to Leo, eyes still alight with malice, but now equally filled with concern and confusion.

"Why save me? Do you wish to torment me, make me "pay for my crimes" perhaps? You will not find me a willing participant."

Leo's entire body seemed to twist at the mere suggestion, the very notion of it instantly revolted Leo as soon as it left Dagahra's mouth. If Leo physically could be nauseous, he thought the very suggestion of him torturing anyone consciously would make him want to hurl. The very idea was so... so... unnatural, so cruel and disgusting.

Leo... Leo would never do that, he didn't even think he was capable of it. It would take a lot to push him to that point if it even existed.

"W-What!? N-No, No...! I would never-"

Dagahra seemed patient, whereas before in his snappiness, anger, and desperation, he'd seemed eager to cut Leo off, now he was waiting sternly for the moth to finish speaking. Dagahra was probably just as curious as Leo was when he'd recognized Dagahra probably didn't deserve to die, albeit for different reasons.

"No, Nonono, I would never do that. Not to you, not to anyone."

Dagahra huffed, seeming almost disappointed in Leo's answer not being as clear cut as he wished, but apparently expecting it.

"Well then, little guardian, if it is not to prolong my suffering... why did you help me?"

Leo wished there was anyone, a solid and good answer to that question, something he could say for certain that would answer that question. But it was a few things that had influenced Leo's choice, and he wasn't sure if any of them took priority over the others. He thought any answer he could give would upset Dagahra but he felt the most simplistic answer for the sea monster to digest, and the one he himself wanted to believe, was more forthcoming.

"Because I don't think you deserve to die."

"Oh, how noble of you..."

Both Leo and Dagahra's heads snapped to the source of a third voice joining their own, and both of them recognized it almost immediately. Leo could already feel a migraine coming on as his eyes caught the small figure he'd hoped would have vanished off into the horizon by now.

Oh Earth, haven't I had enough of her for one day?

Much to Leo's frustration, and possibly Dagahra's too judging by the guttural growl he let off, Belvera was hovering a fair distance off from them over the water, as always mounted atop Garugaru. Leo genuinely wasn't in the mood for her antics at the moment, he'd have preferred if he could have sent the Dark Elias into the drink with a flap of his wings.

Of course, he didn't think Moll and Lora would be too pleased with him if he did, so as always, he refrained.

"I never thought of you as the pitying type, especially not for such a destructive beast as this. Then again, pitying such beasts is why you protect those humans, right Mothra?"

Leo internally felt a spike of agitation at the name. While it was what everyone called him, Moll and Lora included, he'd never quite taken the name as his own even if he embraced the mantle for the sake of providing the world with the hope that the symbol of Mothra brought. Normally, he brushed off the small sense of unfamiliarity that came with the name, but hearing it from Belvera was insulting. He still remembered how she'd released Desghidorah, how she'd cheered on his mother's death.

All with that smug and stupid smile she was wearing right now.

"Then there's you, Dagahra, what happened? Did you get cold feet? I thought you were supposed to be a real calamity?"

Dagahra growled at her in response, clearly not taking the direct negative comments lying down. Sure, Belvera had cheered Dagahra on at times and at others disparaged him, but he'd tried his best to ignore her in the face of attacking the humans and then fighting Leo. There were no such distractions now, Leo was worried Dagahra might flat-out try and annihilate the Elias at that moment.

Unfortunately, if he tried, Leo would have to step in, which is something he really did not want to have to do, especially after he finally got talking with Dagahra, but he couldn't exactly let the dragon reduce Moll and Lora's sister to ashes. Of course, Belvera didn't seem bothered by Dagahra's agitation.

"Now then, why don't you come with me and we can find you someplace nice to rid of its pests?"

Leo felt a knot form in his non-existent throat. Of course, she'd try and ruin his plans, the moth wondered if Belvera was genuinely just trying to milk Dagahra for as much human death as possible or if she was trying to do this simply to screw with Leo. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if it boiled over, that only seemed to anger Dagahra further.

"Who are you to command me, Elias? I do as I please, do not give me a reason to reduce what little remains of your species by a third of their number."

Leo was taken aback by the comment. No, not because of the threats, Dagahra's first words to him during their fight had been something along the lines of this same threat, which told Leo Dagahra was familiar with the Divine Moths in some way. That was part of the reason Leo had wanted to speak to him so badly, but because of where they were aimed. It seemed Dagahra also knew of the Elias, had Moll and Lora encountered him in the past when he first awoke...?

If so, why didn't they say anything?

Belvera didn't take the remark particularly well either, her condescending smirk being turned into a bitter frown as she scowled in distaste.

"Better than being the only of my kind like you and this overgrown--"

"Belvera!"

Leo felt a sense of calm come over him as he recognized the twin pair of voices shouting out their sister's name. The two Elias sisters had an almost constant soothing effect on Leo just with their presence. They were the closest thing he had to family, at least after the untimely passing of his mother, and he always felt welcomed and strengthened by their presence.

Belvera, on the other hand, went through a brief rollercoaster of emotions as her sisters came riding in on the back of Fairy, shouting her name. Leo recognized the first sense of shock that came over her, only for an instant there was a sense of relief and gratitude seeing them again after they'd nearly been trapped in the temple, then she evened herself back out again to a completely neutral expression.

"Moll, Lora."

The two Elias both seemed equally desperate to talk to their sister, something which hadn't been commonplace in the many millennia they'd spent opposed to each other. Moll seemed more reluctant but held herself more level emotionally.

"Belvera..."

Before Lora could get any more in, Moll spoke up.

"Belvera, what happened in the pyramid, you-"

"What I did back in the pyramid doesn't matter, it will not happen again."

Belvera tried to turn her nose up at her sisters, acting like she didn't care, but that didn't stop them from trying to convince her.

"Belvera, please. It's been so long and- and we just want to talk."

Lora was visibly and audibly desperate, her sister clung tight to her back, bracing against her shoulders as if to comfort her. Moll spoke up in support, trying hard to choke down her own anxieties as much as she could.

"Belvera... sister, we don't have to fight like this-"

"But of course we do!"

Belvera interrupted, almost a little too quickly, cutting off Lora not out of spite; but what Leo recognized as her not wanting to hear anymore. Leo wondered if Belvera knew it would pull at her heartstrings to hear her sisters plead for her or if she was simply trying to stay as oblivious as she could by preventing such a thing from happening.

"We have different ideals, different goals, we will always have to disagree with each other."

Moll tried to speak up again...

"That's not-"

...but quickly found herself cut off.

"As long as you are insistent on protecting those disgusting humans, we have nothing to discuss, dearest sisters."

Leo and Dagahra were the only ones of the five present who heard Belvera's subtle shift in tone with her last words. She'd tried to be venomous, as vicious as she could, but the smallest break audible only to the hyper-developed ears of the two Kaiju showed a half-heartedness, a pain that he was certain Moll and Lora hadn't picked up on, but Leo did.

"Garugaru, go!"

With that, Belvera delivered a kick to the side of her mount's head, eliciting a yowl from the mechanical dragon as he sped off away from the other Elias. Belvera clearly wasn't up for a conversation with her siblings right now, or possibly ever.

"Belvera wait...!"

Lora cried out and it seemed that Moll agreed as they both urged fairy forward to follow their sister, before slowing and turning to Leo. Both Moll and Lora eyed between him and Dagahra wearily, Leo knew it was likely due to the recent battle, but he couldn't shake the thought that they hadn't told him something. How else would Dagahra know of the Elias, not to mention exactly how many there were remaining?

"We have to go after her. You'll... you'll be ok without us for now, right Mothra?"

Lora's voice was filled with a hint of doubt. Leo knew that she'd never quite recovered from watching Desghidorah brutalize his mother. It had been nothing short of traumatic for the Elias to witness and they likely held more worry for him now that he'd come so close to death himself. Well, these two Elias anyway, the other Elias was busy cheering it on, for which Leo would never really find it in himself to forgive her.

Leo nodded, although he'd love to talk with the two right now, he knew they'd rather see if Belvera would be willing to give them a chance, even if she never had before. Usually, as they'd often told him, they'd just let her go after each of these incidents. But Leo supposed whatever had happened in the pyramid had changed their perspectives enough for them to want to chase after her.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I've got this... got him, under control."

Leo said while giving a slight tilt of his head to indicate the sea creature beside him was who he was referring to. Both Elias nodded, with Moll speaking up this time.

"We won't be long... please be safe."

With that, the two took off with Fairy in the same direction he'd last seen Belvera heading. It was unlikely they'd be able to catch her, but Leo couldn't blame them for trying. Whatever happened today must truly have reignited the desire to see if they could iron things out with Belvera, and Leo couldn't fault them for missing their sister.

So it was that the brief interruption that had broken up Leo and Dagahra's conversation was over, and they were once again alone. Leo tried to get back into it, hoping, for the sake of making his conversation with the ocean monster simpler, they could ignore what had just happened.

"Sooo..."

Dagahra turned to him, the anger present in his eyes earlier had smoldered to a low simmer and he seemed far more composed than he had earlier. Leo could see why, he'd had some time to process his predicament, and that the fight with Leo wasn't still going on, it would make sense he'd be calmer.

"So, what?"

Dagahra huffed and, unexpectedly, turned his back to Leo, shuffling over to the edge of the broken pyramid and taking a seat on it, overlooking the sea he'd recently infested. Leo flew over, closer to him, landing next to him with a fair bit of distance in between. While Leo hoped this would go peacefully, he'd had his wings bitten into by the sea beast far too many times today to trust it wouldn't happen again on goodwill alone.

"I um... I wanted to pick up where we left off."

Dagahra only gave him a side-eyed glare in response before licking his lips slowly, something which totally did not make Leo uncomfortable whatsoever, and turning back to stare out at the water. Leo waited a few moments more and was rewarded when his former, possibly still current, adversary spoke up again.

"What else is there to talk about? The only thing your answer told me is you are even more naive than I thought."

Leo's wings twitched slightly in agitation at the accusation, not that Leo held any high belief in his own decision-making skills, quite the contrary, but he was hoping Dagahra would be the least bit thankful for not being killed. In some ways, it unnerved Leo how the whole experience of near-death didn't seem to bother the ocean creature all that much.

"How is it naive to think that you should be able to live?"

Dagahra didn't break his gaze from the ocean but replied all the same.

"Because such sentiments are only for the fortunate. Mercy is only granted by the arrogant or the foolish."

"Would you have preferred I let you die?"

Dagahra didn't budge, didn't flinch, though he stopped breathing for a few seconds as he thought the question over. Leo was almost afraid he'd say yes for a second, but thankfully he met Leo's semi-rhetorical question as he expected.

"No."

The sea monster turned away from the ocean and stalked away from Leo. headed for the other edge of the pyramid, to which Leo waited for him to move and see what he would do, and then swiftly followed. If Dagahra was moving to get away from Leo, he didn't show it, he seemed to barely acknowledge Leo at all.

"I will not turn down the benefit your foolishness has granted me, even if I detest it."

"Even if it is a luxury, as you say, how is it foolish to spare someone?"

"Because, the ones you spare will only come back to kill you later, and they won't share in your so-called 'mercy' when they do."

Leo shifted uncomfortably at the implications of that statement, electricity briefly sparking across his head. Leo really hoped Dagahra wasn't implying what he thought he was, he just wanted this all to be over.

"So... you plan to fight me again?"

Leo was surprised when he almost immediately got a reaction, far from what he expected; Dagahra started chuckling. It was deep, dry, and almost without mirth, though a tinge of amusement did flare through.

"At least you are not so oblivious as to miss my meaning, little guardian. But no, as much as I would love to punish you for your mistake, I have neither the power nor the fortune to drag you to your grave anymore."

Then the ocean beast turned to him, a wide, splayed grin that showed off Dagahra's admittedly impressive set of fangs radiated amusement and a sense of mischief.

"Best not let your guard down though, I'd be happy to give you another bath if you should cross claws with me again."

Leo shivered involuntarily at the memory that statement brought up, Dagahra dragging him into the water, bruised and battered and covered with barem biting and digging into his body that hurt, hurt so much had been the worst he'd gone through so far. Sure, Desghidorah's stomping and biting on his larval form had hurt, but it hadn't quite felt as sickeningly invasive and yet somewhat almost intimate as Dagahra's preferred method of tormenting him.

He still remembered desperately fighting the creature off him when he felt Dagahra's venom-dripped fangs brush close to his neck.

"You'd best not threaten me because no matter what you think of me sparing you, it won't happen a second time if you threaten the planet again."

Contrary to his intent, Dagahra's smile only seemed to widen at that, the cruel set of jaws he held were enough to intimidate Leo on their own, but seeing such genuine amusement on his face was somehow worse than when they curled in fury or in malice. Dagahra chuckled once more, apparently enjoying himself, walking away towards another edge of the collapsed temple yet again, like this was a game.

"Perhaps not as foolish as I thought then, you are such an interesting thing. It will be fun to see if you would follow that threat up, pretty little moth."

Leo's brain processed that statement in a couple of very different ways. The rational part of him assumed, totally correctly, that Dagahra was merely mocking him, a title meant to imply he was fragile, weak, and pathetic. Of course, the rational part must have been on vacation because a far larger part of his mind utterly drowned that out with a cascade of sudden embarrassment.

"W-What?!?"

Leo's words came out shrill, in utter confusion and surprise, it was enough to draw Dagahra's attention back to him, turning his body slightly and halting his walk to the other side of the temple, giving him a quizzical expression.

"I meant what I said."

"Uh, uhhhhhm- o-ok then."

That was all Leo got out of Dagahra before he turned his back to him and continued to move over to the edge. Leo, meanwhile, was left with an absolute cluster of a mind as he felt his fur heat up. Yeah, divine moths could blush as weird as it was, and so he was. He had no experience with this, it occurred to him he'd probably vastly overthought that little comment but he couldn't think straight like this and-

'There's no way he just called me cute. I'm overthinking it, Leo you're overthinking it-'

Apparently, Dagahra took notice of his lapse in judgment, because the next thing Leo heard was a massive splash that shook Leo from his thoughts. It only took Leo a moment to recognize he'd probably just fucked up letting himself get distracted as he pushed himself over to the edge of the temple where Dagahra had just been.

Indeed, Dagahra had decided it was a good time for a swim, and he'd dived fast.

'NO! Why am I such an Earth-damned idiot? He's going to destroy everything!'

Leo freaked out, of course, he was freaking out, He'd possibly just let a planetary-level threat slink off into the deep waters and head in who knows what direction, all because he'd- Well, he'd just tell Moll and Lora he'd been 'distracted' when it happened if he had to explain this to them. It was technically accurate and he didn't have to, no, would never tell them the details.

It was just then the rational side of Leo's mind returned from the vacation it was on while he was spaced out. Of course, it was just to chastise him.

'Yeah, it'd go over so well if you told them you let Dagahra go because you had a case of the hots.'

Leo knew that. This was precisely why they'd never find out. Even if Dagahra survived Leo was going to have to find a way to remove that one particular memory just so neither of the Elias would find out what had just happened. The sanctity of the mind he'd usually preached be damned, this never seeing the light of day was paramount to his survival. He'd never hear the end of it.

Leo already lifted himself off the ground, taking flight over the seas. He had to keep on watch for Dagahra, the creature had disappeared too fast for Leo to get a lock on him. While he may have been faster than the sea beast in his Aqua Mothra form, he had to be able to know where he was first, which is something Leo couldn't do if his opponent had already slipped away from him. Leo would just have to wait, Dagahra couldn't produce barem anymore so the only harm he could do is if he came up on dry land. If he did, Leo would catch him.

'You know, this could all have been avoided if you hadn't insisted on staring.' The rational side of him from before, eager to take its swing at his stupidity, chipped in.

Staring? Leo knew he was spaced out, but was he really that zombified by a simple set of words? He truly was the worst guar-

'It was a nice view though!' The side of him that had gotten him into the mess overinterpreting a few words chirped out.

Wait, what was he staring at-

'Don't lie, you were totally digging those haunches~'

'I WAS DIGGING HIS WHA-'

Dagahra had missed being able to swim freely like this.

It had been oh so long since he'd been able to glide through the ocean, to tear through the depths without restraint. Dagahra didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but the world had certainly changed in his absence. Or rather, the circumstances had changed.

It ultimately would always be the same.

Nevertheless, all Dagahra wanted to do right now was swim. It was a way for him to think, to contemplate. He usually didn't take much time away from his destructive tendencies, but he wasn't exactly being given a choice to return to such acts at the moment. Sure, he could go around tormenting some of those pathetic, callous humans as he was prone to do, but he was missing a key component.

Dagahra couldn't produce the barem anymore.

The moth had taken that from him. The guardian whom he had loathed in ancient times and whom he still loathed now. Dagahra didn't even know if he could survive without being able to produce the barem, he knew he had to feed on pollutants to keep his body functioning, the barem were Dagahra's only method of waste disposal so it stood to reason without them he might become bloated on toxins and die eventually.

That or starve to death, that was always an option.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing Dagahra was thinking about. There was the moth, the little guardian. At first, when they'd fought Dagahra had assumed this was the same one he'd fought all those years ago. Or, at least a reincarnation of that creature. The same fairies were hanging around and Dagahra had seen that little reincarnation trick when he'd won the first fight with the guardian back then so he'd assumed this one was just another of those same manifestations.

That line of thought changed when the moth pulled him free from burning rubble, the collapsing remnants of the last of his so-called creators. Honestly, Dagahra would have been fine dying in the fireball if he could take satisfaction knowing the Nilai-Kanai were to suffer in whatever hell might await him on the other side, every remnant of their existence wiped from the face of the Earth. Still, he definitely wasn't complaining about outlasting them either.

All because of the moth.

The old guardian would never have spared him, much less consciously saved him from the hole he'd dug for himself in his many attacks.

But this one did.

Dagahra couldn't believe it at first, it was a trick, there wasn't another explanation. Then, he thought, it was a matter of payback, of making him live to suffer for what the guardian deemed to be wrong. That too, turned out to be false.

The truth was so mind-numbingly simple that Dagahra couldn't have thought of it; the moth was naive. Young, inexperienced, and foolish as could be, although Dagahra wouldn't complain about what benefited him. It should have been simple to write it off, naive idealistic optimists were bound to end up dead, end up the victims of those more lucid and cunning.

That wasn't it, though. There was something behind those brilliant green eyes that reminded him of another era, another being. He felt his curiosity peeked by the creature, by such a sickeningly sweet little thing.

Dagahra dived down, down deeper and into darker places of the world as he swam. He'd swam straight, dodging and weaving along the ocean floor around rocks and rises and falls, around living creatures, coral and shipwrecks. Swimming was second nature to him, he'd been free long enough before his sleep to know so much of these oceans like home.

Dagahra knew exactly where he was going, and where he wanted to be. A place so deep and dark, the deepest he knew, that he'd be sure to be able to think, to rest and sleep, without disturbance.

Dagahra had been heading south for a while before he found it, the deepest trench carved into the ocean's floors. He took it, diving down beyond the reach of light, beyond the world above, and into the one below into pitch blackness. He passed all the manner of strange, small creatures that lived here on his way down, some glowing and others not, content with so little having changed down here over so long.

It wasn't long before he'd reached the bottom, the very lowest point that he'd ever swam to, a place he'd often come back to when he wanted to avoid the irritating attempts at killing him the Nilai-Kanai would try so often. A place where he almost felt at home despite him never having one.

It was strange how Dagahra could appreciate the beauty of the ocean when his very existence was made upon destroying it. His very survival depended upon poisoning the waters in which he found such freedom. In this place, with all creatures scattering before him and leaving him alone, he felt at peace.

The water pressure was like a blanket covering him, weighing down on him. The silence, the pure darkness, and the absolutism of the nothingness that he could find here were not replicated elsewhere. There was no sun, no stars or moon, no shining cities, and pretty things that irritated him so.

No guardian moths, no humans, no masters.

Freedom.

Home.

The simplicity of it all was what he needed, the simple feeling of being free, of belonging somewhere even if that place was something of so little life. That was what he was, wasn't he? Something that burns through other living things. Even in freedom, he'd still be enslaved to his biology, to their handiwork.

A tool, a way to clean up mistakes they couldn't be bothered to deal with. A weapon.

Dagahra glanced around, the still and frigid waters of the Challenger Deep a comfort to him, the creatures that had scattered upon his descent would not come back to bother him, at least while he was still awake. He made himself at home, settling in and relaxing, curling up on himself as his wings formed an almost protective layer.

So it was, he would sleep. Dagahra would sleep for millennia longer if necessary, conserve his energy, and ignore his curiosity. The guardian would give up on finding him, and the last remnants of the Nilai-Kanai and their scum were wiped from the Earth forever. He was wounded, perhaps too impaired by the destruction of his barem-producing organs to be able to process his only food source.

Of course, he didn't know the lack of them meant blood poisoning was soon to come.

Dagahra would slumber, would rest through the ages. If his barem production would return over time, if feeding could help him regrow those organs, he did not know. If not he was likely to starve or poison himself to death, choking on his food. Dagahra never let it bother him, he was designed this way, it had always been made clear he'd had an expiration date.

Even when he'd gained his freedom and took his vengeance, he had always known when he finished wiping the human plague from this Earth then he, as their bastard spawn, their tool, their weapon, would follow them into oblivion. With no more pollutants to consume and no more purpose to have, Dagahra always knew no matter what his tale would end in death.

Whether he was killed in battle seeking his revenge, poisoned by his own food source without the barem as it faced him now, or left alone after the end of humanity to starve and wither away, it didn't matter.

Dagahra would die regardless, it was just a matter of when and how quickly.

Dagahra settled on those thoughts and, after a while, slipped off into the realm of dreams.

. . .

"You will be our savior one day, you know that?"

No, he'd be their doom. He’d unmake them.

"I believe in you, you're such a marvelous creature."

She believed wrong, he was a tool, a weapon, an abomination.

A disposable thing, an experiment, a beast.

Imperfect in their perfect world.

"You've grown so much! I couldn't be more proud of you!"

She lies, she doesn't care, she didn't help him.

To her what he is to everyone else toolweaponfreakmonstersubject-

"How does Dagahra sound? Do you like it?"

How he wished he could forget his own name.

. . .

Dagahra snapped awake.

Dagahra looked around, none of the creatures had returned. Checking himself, he wasn't covered in layers of silt either.

He hadn't been out very long, then.

Dagahra's brief, unpleasant dream had him spinning. He was tense, uptight, and restless, he wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon, especially not for centuries on end.

The sea monster uncurled himself, a wave of sand being flung into the water as he stretched out from where he'd made his bed. He had to get up, had to go out somewhere. He thought about going up and trying to attack the humans again... he figured that'd be a waste of time, the Moth was likely still about, maybe still looking for him if he'd only slept a couple of days, or worse, hours.

Dagahra crouched down and then pushed, the sheer force of his momentum sending him bolting from the floor and upwards at a rapid pace as he swam straight upwards and towards the surface, the surface he loathed. The light was almost offending to him, it didn't burn his eyes, but it seemed to tear away at his soul. It revealed there was too much in this world, too much natural and good.

As he broke through the surface of the ocean he noticed it was nighttime, a full moon high in the sky. It was early into the young evening if his judgment was right, he had no idea what time of year he'd awoken in, he didn't particularly have time to care before returning to exacting his vengeance and feeding on the humans' foul waste.

Dagahra was neither natural nor good, he would never have what such pretty, normal things had, and would never have a chance to enjoy the world for what it was.

Because Dagahra knew the truth, it was all a lie. The pretty things he loathed lived in lies, lived in delusions and pretensions of the world being better than it was. It was easy for them, after all, they were beautiful things, wonderful and charming like the moth was, something to be admired.

It was easy for them to lie to themselves, to make the world seem rosy because they saw themselves in it.

Dagahra was different because he was the opposite. He was a monster, an abomination, a bio-engineered freak of nature intended only to clean up the problems of those who saw themselves as his betters. They scorned him, hated him for the imperfections they designed him to hold. The little humans viewed themselves as perfect, benevolent, and wise.

Hypocrites.

Dagahra knew their perfection was a lie, the concept of goodness or kindness- they were both lies. Humans deceived themselves into believing it so easily, that one even tried to preach it to him! Of course, he'd never be so easily fooled. He was born in the shadow of perfection, in this long-stretching black shape of worldly beauty.

It was only under the cover of this pretentious shade, forged to be a disposable, mangled wreck, fitting in with all the other undesired ugliness the humans had buried, that Dagahra could see the world for what it truly was.

Filthy, malignant, cruel, and torturous.

While they rested on their laurels they poisoned the Earth, while they made him, made a monster, a repugnant little thing, to clean up their own mess they condemned all those they saw as unfit to languish in misery. Dagahra and his barem were only what the humans of the Nilai-Kanai had made them; monsters, horrendously imperfect monsters with one purpose.

That's why, as he found himself crawling ashore on a barren stretch of land, he hated this world.

He hated its inhabitants, he hated the plants, the animals, and above all the humans. They lived their lives like they all wouldn't be wiped out one day, by themselves or by the natural cruelty of the world, they lived in splendor and opulence without seeing that all their arrogance and pretension were built upon an illusion.

The illusion that any of it was worth living.

Dagahra's rage, his frustration reached a boiling point as he snarled and danced angrily in circles on the patch of ground amongst the rough and endless waves. The same thoughts played in his head, the process of his creation, the torture that had been the way they raised him, raised him as what he was; a tool, a weapon.

What was it all for? What did any of it matter? No matter how pretty and how perfect the humans and their creations were at the end of it all they would end up just like him, like the monster they had helped create.

A bunch of ash on the winds of a dead world.

Dagahra roared, he roared in rage and pain and fury to the heavens. He cursed the Earth, he cursed the Nilai-Kanai- and all the other humans he could name. He cursed their perfection, their beauty and happiness, and their ignorance.

He cursed destiny for robbing him of his barem, of his vengeance, of the only thing he knew how to live by; of his poison and cruelty. Dagahra howled that he could no longer rot their pretty little world down to the dirt.

Dagahra snarled and roared and bellowed as he cursed the moth, he didn't care if he heard him.

He cursed the guardian for leaving him without a purpose.

By the time he'd finished, he'd have been surprised if the moth hadn't heard him, and wasn't already on the way over to blast him into nothing.

Good... good.

If he couldn't take his fury out on the humans, if he couldn't feed upon their toxins, poison the seas and scorch the lands-

Well then, he wasn't even good enough to be the tool he was designed to be.

Much less a functional, living being.

Dagahra curled his lips back at satisfaction thinking about having the moth put him down. Let him! The humans he so adored would someday realize the moth was not a part of their perfect, ideal world, was not as beautiful as they were, not as deserving of life or freedom of happiness or purpose.

Dagahra's triumphant thoughts were short-lived. The moth wouldn't kill him... he didn't even know if he could still fight the moth hard enough to make the guardian try to kill him. The moth had saved him, the moth was fragile naive, and foolish. Dagahra wasn't sure he could make the moth kill him even if he wanted to.

Dagahra wouldn't live raging like this and being able to do nothing about it, that much he knew.

But that stupid moth... stupid, pretty little moth.

Why wasn't he like the other moth, the female? Why wouldn't he be like the humans he protected, why wouldn't he condemn the ugly, the ones they saw beneath them, down to die? It didn't make sense, all those fat, arrogant beings sat at the top and decided who lived and who died how they were to live, and what they were to be-

Yet the moth had saved him, let him go?

Dagahra was left to bask in his helplessness, his inability to do anything. The moth wanted to talk to him, wanted to speak with him and learn about him, possibly even teach him.

Why did the moth insist on treating him as what they both knew he wasn't? He wasn't a beautiful thing, he wasn't a creature meant to live, think, comprehend, and wonder about the world. He was meant to embrace the toxicity of it all, meant to spend his 'life' embracing the ugly, cleaning up after the destruction of others.

Even when he could be free of that, all he was, all he would ever be, amounted to a destroyer.

A monster, a weapon, a beast.

Yet the moth tried to make him think otherwise, tried to talk to him like they were equals instead of perfect and imperfect, instead of person and object.

The moth was just like her.

Dagahra's rage was stifled in an instant as his mind drew that comparison, that comparison he'd hoped to never make to any other living beings. It was only a denial of the truth to think she ever cared for him, to think that she viewed him as anything beyond an abomination. She hadn't believed that- she couldn't have, she was too intelligent to think he shared in their illusion, their escape from reality.

To think he deserved to live.

Whether she believed it or not, she told it to him. The moth was just like her. He could hear the same curiosity in their voice and could see the same subtle concern and passive insecurity that they showed in their movements. As much as he'd like to deny that she'd ever meant what she said, she'd still spoken it to him, still treated him that way even if it was a lie.

The moth did too. The only ones who ever did.

He- he didn't understand why, why did those who didn't have to confront the ugliness, who didn't have to embrace it, choose to? Why did they pretend things could be like they were not, why did they hold such hopes? They both thought the same way, too. Dagahra could see it in them, that youthful hopefulness tempered with that lack of sureness, that impressionability and curiosity somehow balanced evenly with that same strong belief in life.

It was foolish, they were both foolish.

...but in some way, their lies or their misconceptions, whatever they may be, were nice. The only niceness he'd ever had, the only one he'd ever get.

Yet it didn't change what he was, what they were, and why he could never be anything but what he was always meant to be.

Wingbeats grew louder and louder, breaking the silence of the night air as Dagahra looked up and saw that the moth had found him. Such a pretty thing, so naive and so young... so much like her, yet so different.

As the guardian descended towards him, blowing sand and seaweed and the dead, dry grass around away with the force of the gusts, Dagahra found a sense of calm in those eyes, the confusion and the rage dulling as he stared into those vibrant, green orbs. Staring into those eyes was like staring into another world, a world where he wasn't an abomination, where the world was kind instead of cruel, where any of them deserved to live.

Above all else, it was like he was laying eyes on Anno again.

By the time Leo finally found Dagahra again, he was exhausted.

Leo had to shrug off a brief reunion with Moll and Lora who, evidently, had not managed to break any ice with their sister, about an hour after Dagahra had slipped away. He'd barely had time to acknowledge them before he'd zipped off again, continuing a patrol of what amounted to the entire Pacific Ocean for hours.

Leo had felt bad about it, and he could feel that they were chasing after him for a while, but eventually, he figured they realized he was just in a mood and left him be. Leo hoped they were back home, they'd been brave enough today and really shouldn't be out here just because he'd been stupid enough to let Dagahra go by- by-

'Getting distracted.'

Yeah... yeah that was going to be Leo's excuse when this was all over. He still couldn't exactly comprehend just how easy it was for Dagahra to set him off, he'd wondered for a while if Dagahra knew it would have that effect on him somehow and had engineered that comment purposefully with the intent of causing Leo to get stunned.

It was a roundabout way of justifying the fact that Leo had absolutely zero exposure to those kinds of comments and he'd been incapable of reacting to them appropriately.

Leo had never been more relieved when he heard the cry of the sea creature, a flurry of cries. At first, Leo had worried, rushing as fast as he could in hopes of stopping Dagahra if he was in the midst of another attack.

Instead, Leo found the ocean monster sitting on a barren island in the middle of nowhere, doing absolutely nothing. Leo had never been more thankful to see someone being lazy for once.

Leo lowered himself down to the ground, rapid wingbeats breaking his momentum and turning into a set of more even, steady beats as Dagahra stared at him on his way down. Leo didn't know why, but something in Dagahra's gaze made him... uncomfortable. There was no malice, no cruelty, judgment, or even fear.

There was something Leo couldn't describe in those eyes that definitely made him uncomfortable, but otherwise, he didn't know what to make of it.

Leo tried his best to ignore it when he landed softly, a fair bit away from Dagahra just in case he did want to restart their fight. This time Leo was absolutely not going to take his eyes off him no matter what kind of... interesting comments he made.

The silence that followed quickly became awkward, Dagahra seemed content to stare at him with that same, inexplicable expression that still made Leo uncomfortable where he sat while a combination of that discomfort and general awkwardness kept Leo stunned into silence. Ultimately, Dagahra spoke first.

"Did you come here to stare at my scales or did you need something?"

If he could have, Leo would have blinked a couple of times there as it set in.

"I- I was worried you might be going off to try destroying things again."

Dagahra let out a huff, but unlike the indignant ones from before this was more muted, softer, and almost like a sigh.

"As much as I would like to, I can't. You've seen to that."

Did Leo really weaken Dagahra that much? He hadn't thought he'd done that much damage, the only notable damage Leo thought he did was to the barem-producing organs which Leo knew weren't inherently vital to Dagahra's functions.

"I... I did? I didn't think I did that much damage..."

"Of course you did, you took away my ability to produce barem."

Leo couldn't deny, the panic of fearing Dagahra would go out and attack humans having faded, Leo was quite concerned for his.... enemy? Leo didn't know if they were anymore. But yes, Leo really hoped he hadn't made a stupid decision at the moment that had crippled the sea creature in some way.

"I didn't know producing barem had... that much of an impact on you."

Dagahra snorted, finally tearing his eyes from Leo as he turned to face the sea, though Leo didn't do the same, too afraid that he would leap off into the sea and Leo would lose him again.

"Then you don't know much about me, losing my barem has been... debilitating, to say the least."

Leo felt something inside him knot up as his fears were concerned. He thought that was the best way to neutralize Dagahra without killing him at the time if this ended up turning Dagahra into a cripple or possibly getting him killed... Leo wasn't going to let himself live it down, ever.

"I- what exactly does losing the barem... do to you?"

Dagahra seemed nonchalant about the whole thing, still staring off at the waves and giving Leo the occasional side-eye, before sighing and turning back towards Leo.

"I can't process my food without them, so I'm much weaker and I can't harness the Irabushan energy to fire my beams. So I can't destroy anything if that's what you were worried about."

Knowing Dagahra couldn't was certainly a comfort, or it would have been if Leo hadn't hyperfocused on those first few words. He... couldn't process his food? Wait wait wait, that didn't mean-

"H-Hold up, what do you mean you can't process your f-food?"

Dagahra made a low rumbling sound that resembled nothing Leo could define in particular but seemed to convey acceptance before continuing.

"Curious, aren't you? It means what it sounds like, I can't eat my food, or at least not without suffering from the effects of the pollutants."

Dagahra paced away from the shoreline, seemingly unconcerned about the implications of his words for poor Leo.

"One of the Nilai-Kanai... scientists, as you call them, compared them to another organ, the 'liver' as they called it. Do you know what that is? Then they are like that, I guess."

Leo froze on the spot, that was- that's-

'Oh Earth, I fucked up-'

Leo didn't know- couldn't have known- that the barem-producing organs were that important. No wonder Dagahra was weak! If those organs really did function as Dagahra's liver, though Leo wasn't an anatomy expert, from what Moll and Lora had told him that would mean-

Dagahra was not long for this world.

Which means, ultimately, Leo gave Dagahra a death sentence. An excruciating, painful, and drawn-out death sentence.

'Fuckfuckfuck-'

Leo stared over Dagahra with frantic eyes as he began to flutter his wings in agitation, something which served as a soothing behavior, thinking about what he'd done to the sea creature. This was messed up, this was so messed up!

Leo had to stop himself from having a minor panic attack in front of Dagahra, though even the dragon-like creature seemed to have picked up on his state of distress.

"What, does that disturb you?"

Leo choked back a cry of surprise at the question. Yes! Yes, of course it did! What reasonable being wouldn't be mortified at the thought they just- they were going to force someone to die of blood poisoning?

If Dagahra wasn't comparatively resistant to his body's chemicals without the barem-producing organs then it was likely he'd die even faster than a human would with how generally poisonous his biology seemed to be, Leo vaguely remembered how aloof Dagahra's venom had made him when he'd gotten ahold of his wing.

"I-I-"

Leo had to fix this, and he had to do it fast. He couldn't just let Dagahra die like that!

Leo could heal him, he knew he could, he could restore entire forests of trees from nothing but their dead roots. But healing the barem-producing organs obviously meant bringing back the barem, which meant the sea was going to be poisoned again.

"I-I, I... can heal you. I can bring the barem back, I can keep you alive."

Dagahra almost reared back at that, as if he'd just been struck with a tremendous blow he had no answer to. Confusion danced across the ocean creature's face, uncertainty and doubt were here too.

"But why would you...?"

Leo got himself into a rhythm of wing beats, almost like a human breathing exercise to try and level out his heart from the sheer terror that the thought he'd sentenced the one across from him right not to a death like that.

"I-I can bring them back, I can! But... but you can't release the barem into the water, ok?"

Dagahra's look of confusion turned into one of contempt, a clicking sound coming from his throat as he morphed his expression into a scowl, almost looking and sounding like he'd been insulted.

"You act as if that is something within my power, if I don't release the barem I produce then they will kill me. It would be no different than if you'd just left me without them."

Well... that ruled that out, but Leo knew he could think of something, there had to be a solution to keep Dagahra alive without risking the safety of the planet, there had to be! Leo stormed over thoughts in his head, over possibilities, what he knew of the limits of his power and of what Moll and Lora had told him. The only thing he could come up with was the Seal of Elias, which might be able to give him normal organs... but that would risk releasing Desghidorah if used to such a level.

'Come on Leo, think, think!'

"...of course, even if I could choose not to, I still would."

Wait. What!?

"W-What do you mean you still would?"

Dagahra turned to him, a twinkle of malice in his indignant look, something dark and excitable.

"It's exactly as I said, if I could live without poisoning these seas and killing humans I would do it anyway."

Leo was stunned, he was trying to give Dagahra the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he'd gone on a rampage, SURE he'd destroyed the Nilai-Kanai all those years ago, but Leo assumed he must have had a reason. He wasn't simply feeding, leeching off the planet like Desghidorah was, he could have had some ulterior motive!

Yet, Dagahra had just told him that it wasn't about food, or survival, though Leo rationalized that even if he hadn't held any malice the death of humans still would have been the result.

"W-Why?"

Dagahra took a seat, staring across at the divine moth, a look of disinterest on his face as the apparent insult of asking him to stop the barem like he could, though apparently he still wouldn't even if he could, dried up.

"Why what, little moth?"

"Why would you choose to kill humans, why would you still do it if you didn't have to-"

"Because it's what I am."

Dagahra pulled his lips back into a wide smile, though Leo couldn't tell if it was genuine... it looked forced, wrong. Fake.

"I am a beast, a monster, and a destroyer. It's what I was created to be and it's what I am. You should understand that better than anyone, shouldn't you, little guardian?"

Leo felt anger rising at the statement. Leo may have followed in his mother's footsteps, but that was because he wanted to! Sure, somebody had to defend the planet, but as cruel as it may have been he could have just walked away, could have let Desghidorah suck the world dry as he fled and hid.

Leo chose to be this way, he chose to keep doing this, and the fact he could have even turned out like Desghidorah or Dagahra if he had chosen that path was more than enough for Leo to be convinced that nobody was pre-determined to be anything, much less a destroyer.

"No! That isn't what you are meant to be, nobody is meant to... meant to kill like that! Besides, you weren't even created to be a destroyer, you were made to help them, and instead you..."

Leo swallowed the lump in his non-existent throat and pressed forward even as Dagahra growled at him, clearly not liking Leo's rebuttal.

"You killed them all."

Dagahra seemed to build in fury for a few seconds, bristling and growling, before suddenly letting all the tension drop, teeth still clenched in frustration as the growl moved into low laughter. After a few seconds of this, Leo's spark of anger had turned to confusion.

"What's so funny, Dagahra?"

It was the first time Leo had ever addressed the creature by name, something which evidently was not lost on the hybrid. Dagahra choked back his laughter, which Leo wasn't even sure was authentic given how strained it sounded, that same fake smile from before plastered on his muzzle.

"Just you, little moth. You and how utterly naive you are, that statement of yours just proves it."

Leo felt his confusion only grow, sure the insult and the explanation for the laughter were giveaways that said sound had just been mocking, the last part hung on him long after Dagahra had dropped into silence.

"'That statement of yours'?"

Leo mimicked Dagahra's words with a questioning tone. He got an almost eager response in kind.

"About me being made to help them... I'm sure that's what you were told, I don't blame you, but your ignorance is telling."

Leo got what Dagahra was grasping at but... what? Moll and Lora both had told him some of Dagahra before, although he had a feeling they knew more than what they told, and how he'd been created to clean the waters of pollution by the Nilai-Kanai.

"Weren't you created to clean their waters, to save them from the pollution?"

"Yes, partially."

Dagahra paced closer to Leo, wings ruffling at the sea monster's sides as he did so and almost prompting Leo to leap and fly backward. But he stayed, he remained still. He wouldn't be intimidated by a simple walk forward.

"I was indeed made to clean up their mistakes. Of course, they wouldn't be human if they didn't cause a problem and expect it to fix itself, would they?"

Dagahra got increasingly bitter, anger in his voice rising with every syllable as he continued on, but then it flattened back out as he strode closer and closer to Leo. Leo hadn't even realized it, too focused, on Daghara's words, but the sea monster was right in front of him now. Leo averted his eyes as he felt himself grow warm in the face at the sudden close proximity, only shook from the brief sensation of embarrassment by Dagahra's words; barely above a whisper.

"Tell me, little Moth, if I was meant solely to clean the waters of their filth; why is it that I produce such toxic creatures and hold enough power to lay out a guardian such as you in a fight?"

Leo shivered at the words, only partially because of the words themselves and more so by Dagahra's hot breath on his fur. Thankfully, Dagahra turned away and began to pace in a circular motion further away.

"L-Look, I'd love to talk about the past all day, I understand-"

"You don't understand anything."

Dagahra's voice, filled with bitterness and growing spite, cut Leo off suddenly, much to Leo's frustration.

"I didn't even say any-"

"No, but you don't have to. You don't understand me, you don't understand what it's like."

Dagahra had clearly been suppressing his emotions, keeping them under lock and key this whole time. Judging by how engaged the cries from earlier that first led Leo here had sounded, that seemed highly likely. He was coaxing it out of him now, as much as Leo hated to make people unhappy, it was getting Dagahra talking which is what he needed to get to the bottom of this.

"Ok, maybe I don't! But that doesn't explain why you can't choose to be different, no matter where you came from or what happened you still have a choice!"

"Choice!? There are no choices for me, there never have been!"

Dagahra snarled back at him, wings flaring at his sides slightly and stance becoming overtly more hostile as his pacing turned aggressively, stalking back and forth in front of Leo, a growl in his throat and contempt on his face.

"Those loathsome little humans with their lecherous need for power never gave any!"

Leo bit back almost instantly, frustration mixing with a desire to pry, to get Dagahra talking more about himself.

"And now? Now that you've wiped out the ones who created you, do you not have a choice now?"

Dagahra bit together hard, turning away.

"Now? Now it is the same as it was then, I'm still a monster, they still want their perfect world and nothing really matters."

Leo couldn't help but ask it again; why? Why did Dagahra think that, why did he have to be the monster in his own story? Why did he loathe the humans so? Why, why did he feel nothing mattered?

"Why, why do you think that? You don't have to be a monster, Dagahra. You don't even have to see the humans again if you don't want to."

"I do have to be a monster because it's all I am! I do have to see the humans again, I'll always have to see the humans again! They made me feed on their waste, their toxic pollutants! I can't survive without them!"

"Then why do you want them dead?! Why do you need to destroy, why can't we just figure it out-"

"Because I hate them!"

Dagahra nearly screamed those words out, it was louder than his roars, it was so loud Leo could tell it had the creature lacking breath. Leo was stunned into silence by the sheer ferocity, the unbound malice of the ocean creature on full display. Neither of them said anything, Dagahra was smoldering in his fury, huffing and catching his breath while Leo was too stunned to say anything.

"Because... because they are such arrogant creatures, so confident in their own perfect little worlds, in their own crafted delusions! They play Gods and tamper with life like they aren't going to end up as nothing but dust one day just the same as I am, just as you are, and just as everything will!"

Dagahra pivoted in place in frustration, the creature's long tail slamming irritatedly against the ground, sending sand flying and shaking the earth. He dug his claws into the sand, scratching and pawing like a bull rearing to charge.

"Because they made me live, they forced me to live! They forced a monster to live when it never wanted to! They forged a weapon that never wanted to e-exist in the first place!"

Dagahra broke into a cackle, descending into something between a giggle and a sob after only a second or two, the dragon thrashing his head wildly to and fro as his tail flailed in agitation and his wings unfurled and pulled themselves tight repeatedly. Eventually, the action died down, Dagahra's mad laughter turning into a low, almost pitiful set of short, half-baked laughs choked out between what Leo almost assumed to be sobs if they weren't also soaked in roaring fury.

"That's a w-why, little moth! That's why I hate them! That's why I must be a monster because they made... they made me to be a monster! For that... I will never forgive them!"

Leo may not have lived very long, and while it seemed like this whole time he was pushing against Dagahra... he was only trying to understand why. Now, he knew. Dagahra wasn't acting this way because he liked to cause chaos, he wasn't acting this way because he felt superior or because he needed to use humans for food. It was because they'd done something to him, they had to have, no sentient being would get like this, would break down like this, over a simple hatred as Belvera had.

This was deeper, this was more painful. Leo didn't know what had happened to Dagahra exactly to turn him into... into this, but he knew just from seeing that display, the rise in anger drowning out the half-choked sobs. Pain, pain that ran deep. Dagahra could cover it up all he wanted, but behind all the hate was a deep, personal torment that Leo was only now recognizing the true extent of.

'Oh, Earth... what did they do to him for him to end up like this?'

Leo felt his words choked before he could get them out, it was getting too hard to bear to press on Dagahra like this... but he couldn't stop now. Leo could help Dagahra, he wanted to help Dagahra... but he had to get to the root of this before he could even try.

"So... so you'll k-kill them all?"

Dagahra seemed half-dazed, taking a moment to register what Leo was asking as he was gasping for breath, he shakily nodded, before turning it resolute.

"What will you do when they are gone, what will you feed on? How will you... survive?"

Dagahra stumbled, giving the divine moth a look.. a look Leo couldn't quite describe. It was sad, it was filled with recognition, but still with the ever-present hate layered on top of it all.

"Like... Like I said, we are all dust in the end... if I get there now, then or t-thousands of years after, what... what difference does it make..."

Leo was now seriously starting to notice Dagahra was out of breath, there was a growing amount of concern over how weak the sea creature seemed to be, swaying back and forth on his legs, tail trailing weakly behind him and constantly gasping for air. But those concerns were overridden by Leo's need to see this through.

"If you had a better life, if you had a choice back then... would you like things to be different?"

Dagahra glanced up at Leo, That same fake smile, a smirk intended to be devilish but so empty and lacking in genuine malice, was ever-present. The sea dragon was tired, weak and everything about him exuded defeat; the lack of the will to go on.

"Does it matter...? I-If that was the case we wouldn't be... be here."

It was now that Leo noticed Dagahra was visibly shaking, his legs wobbled, his tail was sitting behind him, slouched still, his wings lay limply at his side and his head was hung low. His whole posture lacked energy, lacked life. Leo wondered how he hadn't been picking up on this sooner, probably being too enthralled by Dagahra's rant, but he was now.

"D-Dagahra?"

The dragon didn't even seem to recognize Leo had spoken, his breathing was ragged, labored, and hoarse and he seemed totally out of it. Leo really shouldn't have been surprised when, much to his abject horror, Dagahra's eyes rolled back in his head, the dragon went limp and promptly toppled over into the sand. Before he'd even hit the ground, Leo was already moving.

"Dagahra!"

Leo leaped into action, a hurricane of sand being sprung up as he launched himself forward and with a flap of his wings sent him gliding over to the collapsed creature's side. Leo was frantic, already contemplating that this was caused by the lack of the dragon's barem-producing organs. Leo didn't care about the consequences if he had to restore them, a few moments earlier he'd seen the vulnerability in Dagahra, he'd seen that agony.

He'd accept the consequences of whatever might go wrong giving him back his source of strength, but Dagahra was Not. Fucking. Dying.

"Dagahra! Dagahra speak to me, D-Dagahra! Wake up, come on wake up!"

Leo'd already started healing, and already gotten to work as fast as he could. He wouldn't lose him, he wouldn't let him die. It didn't matter what he'd done, what he might try to do. Leo wasn't going to watch someone else die in front of him when he could still save them!

He'd never fail anyone like he had his mother. Never again.

"You..."

Leo froze up when he heard the soft whisper of the dragon's speech, his eyes were almost glazed over, and he looked like he was in a sort of trance, soft, choking gasps came from his throat as he tried to speak. Leo couldn't say anything, he kept healing, but he couldn't say a word.

"You... you don't u-understand..."

Dagahra swallowed roughly, Leo was just about to tell him to save his strength before he spoke again.

"Now... now you w-will..."

"W-What are y-"

Without any more hesitation, Dagahra used what must have been the last of his waking strength to push his head up against Leo's the crowned, horned helm of the dragon brushing the furred, plush head of the guardian moth.

Leo didn't have much time to comprehend it before he was being offered something... offered memories.

Leo normally would never look at someone else's memories... but it was a heat-of-the-moment decision. If Dagahra didn't wake up then he'd never see them, if this really was his last wish then-

Leo felt the offer of the memories slipping as Dagahra threatened to fall into unconsciousness... and so he made up his mind. Leo lunged forward mentally, psychically ensaring his mind with Dagahra's own...

The world faded away as he was dropped into Dagahra's past.

Chapter Text

The world was cold.

The dragon had spent so much of his time someplace so warm, in a glass tank surrounded by water, and alone with nothing but his half-aware, dreamy thoughts.

But then, some people came and took him to someplace new!

It was so big in here... he was afraid of how big it was, he could never fit in here like he had in the tank. It was so much colder here, so much more spacious. He wanted to explore it, but he also hoped there was water there.

The dragon liked the water, but the air wasn't as cozy, the air made him feel a little dizzy sometimes.

The dragon didn't trust the people who brought him around very much, he could only half-understand what they were saying and they all seemed to be afraid of him.

But, he hadn't done anything, had he? Had he been out of the tank before and forgotten?

The drake didn't think so, but he didn't know why else they would be afraid of him.

A lot of time went by when they stayed with him where they took him. They walked him around and he was happy to find that there was water there, he had to resist the urge to leap in while he was being given the tour.

The sea creature ignored how dry his throat was getting.

Eventually, they finished, and he was left alone. He eagerly dashed over to the water and threw himself in. It was comfortable and natural, it was like home.

Did the dragon have a home? Home was the tank before, did that mean this was home now?

Maybe he just didn't have one.

Eventually, the people came back. They were dressed in such strange clothes, he'd seen them without them before so he knew they weren't normal. Those long, silvery suits with face masks that covered their bodies and concealed them whole.

One of them had motioned for him to get out of the water, so he did. He didn't see why he shouldn't listen.

There were seven people, the one who'd motioned him out of the water who carried nothing, two beside him who carried strange sticks that... gave him a bad feeling, and four carrying a large tray.

They brought something with them, it was difficult to see with the four people carrying it even if the dragon did stand almost four times their height. He didn't get a good look until they dropped it right in front of him.

The dragon didn't know what it was, it looked disgusting. It was a large, soggy, mushy, and amorphous pile of blacks, grays, and greens with no particular texture. Despite its confusing appearance, it smelled awful.

He almost instinctively backed away from it as the smell hit his nostrils, almost using his underdeveloped vocal organs to growl at the pile. Then one of the little people, the one who wasn't carrying anything, spoke.

"We brought something for you. Now, be good and eat it."

'Eat that?'

It sounded crazy to the dragon, it smelled so bad, it looked so weird, it just seemed too disgusting. But then again... what did he know?

So he trusted the little person, he flicked his tongue across the surface of the nasty stuff and immediately jolted back. It tasted awful, it felt wrong to even touch with his tongue and worst of all...

It burned.

The sea creature looked over at the person again, he looked back and forth between the two as if to display his questioning.

"It's fine, eat it."

The dragon definitely knew it was not fine, but what could he do? He'd been offered this... he'd been told to eat it, these were the only creatures he'd ever know, and he couldn't disappoint them.

So, he tried again. Slowly he lowered his jaws to the substance and bit into it again. It burned, it burned badly. it tasted awful, he could already feel nausea welling up in his head. But he tried! He really did, he tried to swallow it, but it was so awful, it tasted so awful and it hurt.

So he spit it out after he couldn't take it anymore.

The person sighed, they were disappointed. He was sorry! He tried!

"Subject, please don't make this difficult. Eat."

The creature wasn't going to try that again; he couldn't eat it. It hurt, it was... it was all wrong! He'd never eaten much of anything before but this wasn't what eating was like... right? He backed away from the mound of stuff, shaking his head furiously with a low cry of disagreement

"Well, if you insist on being difficult-"

The person motioned forward to the two flanking him, the ones carrying the strange sticks.

"Mr. Takahiro, Mr. Shiro please persuade the subject to reconsider."

Dagahra backed up even further at their advance, one of them pointed the strange stick at him, and then-

Pain.

It was white hot, running through his whole body in a matter of moments as he collapsed to the floor, his head filled with static and his ears were ringing. It was difficult to move, difficult to think, everything seemed blurry, like it was in a haze. What... what the hell had they done to him?!?

The dragon regained consciousness long enough to hear the one who'd ordered the others around speaking.

"Well, at least we know the Irabushan weapons work as intended."

The dragon hauled himself to his feet, the static and the pain clearing from his head; but he was all the same furious, but the fury was quickly drowned by fear when he saw those same sticks still pointed at him. What had he done wrong?

"Now subject, unless you'd like another round of persuasion from our friends here, I recommend you eat as instructed."

That was what this was about... he- why? Why did they insist on him eating this horrible stuff, it hurt, it burned him! The sea creature didn't even know if he could keep it down.

"Please, subject, we only want what's best for you. If you don't eat then you will go hungry, and we don't want that, do we?"

The drake eyed the person wearily. They wanted what was best for him, right? Why... why did they hurt him then? None of it made any sense, they'd never done this before. Maybe he'd just really messed up by not eating, maybe this was all a misunderstanding.

"Eat."

Once again came the command, the call to do something that he resented but couldn't refuse. This was what was best for him, right?

The dragon hesitantly lowered his face to the plate of mush again. There was a lot of it. He scrunched up his face and pulled back his lips in a soft snarl, but he continued to get himself closer just to show he was going to eat it, he didn't want to go through... whatever that was again.

After contemplating the pile for a while, the dragon bit the bullet and lunged for it, taking a huge mouthful all at once with a large bite. It burned his tongue, burned the insides of his mouth. He pushed through it, he swallowed it, he forced it down. He shivered in disgust and winced in pain as he felt the same burning sensation trail down his throat with it.

It settled uneasily in his stomach, like a lead ball in a rubber glove. The sea creature had to strongly resist the urge to try and force it back up. This stuff wasn't supposed to be in his body, this wasn't right-

'They said it was what was best for me, I... I trust them.'

The drake tried his best to clear the taste from his mouth as he stared down at the human he'd denoted as being the one in charge here, as if to say 'There, happy?'.

"Very good. Now, please consume the rest if you would, subject."

He winced but made something akin to a nod before taking another bite. It was one, then two, and then untold countless more bites into the mess that apparently qualified for his food. By the end, his eyes stung, his mouth burned like it had been lit aflame and his throat felt raw and hoarse. He felt uneasy, all of it felt wrong in his stomach, it sat too heavy, and it burned and made him curse in pain as he moved and it made him feel sick when it hadn't even been digested yet.

"That will be all for the day, subject."

Those were the only words he'd gotten for his unpleasant triumph of managing to stomach whatever it was they were feeding him. The people vanished through a set of mechanical doors too small for him to see through, and he was once again left alone.

The ocean creature returned to the water after that, he swam for the bottom, a bottom so deep it seemed impossible to reach. He hated the air, the air was burning by the time he'd finished, and he hadn't felt well. Then again, he wasn't sure if it was the air or this... this stuff sitting in his stomach.

The hybrid had no idea how long it took before he started to get the head pains, the feeling like lead, the incredible tiredness. He knew he wasn't supposed to feel like this. It was then, for the first time, only a day after he'd been out of the tank for the first time, the creature cried. He sobbed softly into the water, moaning cries of displeasure echoing through the liquid as he rolled about in the pain and discomfort his meal had caused.

The dragon could only hope future days wouldn't be like this.

. . .

The dragon had hoped wrong.

The past few weeks had been much of the same for the creature, he'd been force-fed that awful stuff and it had hardly gotten any easier. After the first couple of days he stopped trying to resist the feeding, but he also quickly lost any belief he had that these people were doing this because it was best for him. They kept shocking him with those sticks, which he now understood to be weapons, even for the slightest offense and they fed him this fowl stuff which caused such pain.

At first, he'd tried to rationalize it away, tried to insist that he was the issue, that he just needed to fix whatever he was doing wrong and they wouldn't shock him. Of course, that was dashed quite quickly. Even the smallest misstep could get him hit with those blinding, painful shocks and it became apparent sometimes they would shock him if only to remind him who was in charge.

It had been a miserable stretch of existence, whatever this mess they were feeding him was it was sapping his strength enough to where he could do little but sit at the bottom of his titanic-sized fish tank and rest it off. There was no sense of day and night here, but he assumed they were feeding him once a day based on his biological clock's rough estimate so he'd been keeping track of the days counting them when they fed him.

It had been 33 days since he'd first been put in here. Counting the days was a sort of comfort when everyone consisted of essentially the same thing, he was likely to go insane without that simple method of keeping time. He'd expected an ordinary day, as painful as that was, for this feeding.

It started the same as it always did, an alarm would blare which the dragon was told meant he had to stay away from the doors which they came through and also to alert him, something which had become commonplace a few days in when they'd evidently got tired of beckoning him from the water. He'd tried to ignore the alarm one day and simply stayed in the water.

They'd shocked him for that, so he didn't try it again.

The hybrid swam to the surface and hauled himself from the water as he usually did, claws digging into the material he couldn't define that made up every square inch of his cell. The material was white and made up of interlocking panels. Whatever it was, it was resistant to his claws, he hadn't been able to scratch them yet, although he'd given up trying after, you guessed it, he was shocked by one of his attempts.

He'd also soon figured out that the ceiling of this place was coated with massive electrodes that delivered the same shocks as the little stick weapons, only much more powerful. The water he made his home in was in the absolute center of the room, and he'd been warned consistently not to go close to the walls. Judging by how doing anything else that they didn't like got him shocked, he figured that would have been the result and did as they asked.

As always, the man who remained perpetually unarmed, unlike the rest, and who the dragon had recognized as the one in charge entered first. He'd overheard the name one day, a name he'd come to loathe in his short time in this world.

Dr. Isamu.

He was always cold, seemingly courteous, and extremely professional. Of course, it was hard for the drake to see the courteousness and professionalism in shocking him and forcing him to ingest this horrid filth that they shoved down his throat at the end of their weapons. The coldness? Yeah, he saw that.

The man was unflinching in the face of everything, even the guards tensed up or took steps back, sometimes getting an itchy trigger finger whenever he made sudden motions. While the creature never considered himself a threat, at least not until he'd started to hate these people who tormented him, he still believed Isamu had to have either otherworldly self-confidence or supreme stupidity to not be so much as bothered by the sudden motions of something which could flatten him with ease.

Isamu greeted him the same as he always did, today with a nod of the head tacked on.

"Subject."

'A bad morning to you too, you shriveled little sack of bones.'

The dragon found his only comforts in his mind, this stark white hell with a pit of water was taking its toll, and spending his time conjuring up insults for the doctor and his goons had quickly become a pastime. The plate came as per usual, the large messy mass was ready for consumption while the doctor, his guards, and the four who wheeled the stuff in watched on as usual. After the first two weeks, he didn't think Isamu had spoken another word to him other than that one he used to acknowledge him.

Subject.

As he buried his muzzle in the disgusting meal that burned his gums and made his tongue numb, grimacing with every swallow, he pondered that. Subject was the only name he'd ever been given, but he wasn't about to identify himself with it. He'd stay nameless before he admitted to being someone else's plaything, even if he'd quickly figured out that's why he was here.

They didn't want to help him, they hadn't told him anything and had merely fed him, shocked him, and left him to stew for weeks. They were just here to toy with him, which he knew he couldn't even do anything about.

The creature didn't know if he'd get out of there, but he dreamed of the day when he could paint these irritatingly clean white walls with Isamu's blood. It would be nice to be able to make some stains on their perfect world.

But that day was not today, he had no clue what kind of punishment they'd give him for lashing out at the doctor or his minions. The shocks were never kind, they left him reeling for hours sometimes depending on how strong they were. So, unfortunately, he had to hold off on taking out his rage for now and simply be content to eat this poisonous mess that hurt like hell.

It seemed to be just another day, that was until, as he was reluctantly wolfing down his meal, trying to force it into his stomach, he felt something else force its way back up. It wasn't the first time this had happened, the nausea this slop caused him was the cherry on top of the pain and revulsion sundae it already caused. He'd always choked it back down, he'd thrown up on the second day and been shocked relentlessly for it, so he swallowed it again if he couldn't keep it swallowed.

This time was different.

The hybrid had tried to bite it back, tried to force it back down, but the pressure of the mass building in his throat soon became too much, along with an absolute burning sensation of pain that wracked his body with its sudden appearance. Eventually, he couldn't help but double over and heave, a groan of pain coming before he shut his eyes and began to vomit.

"Oh shit!"

He recognized that voice as belonging to one of the guards, in quite a panic. The outpouring of liquid and chunks of what he only assumed to be his food. It was only when the burning in his throat did not go away and when the pain that wracked him remained far worse than anticipated he knew something wasn't right. The dragon's head spun, it was difficult to stand and the pain within him wasn't dying down.

The drake opened his eyes to find himself standing in a pool of blood.

The hybrid's eyes widened, and he stumbled back in shock as he found his clawed feet and finned webbing dripping with a sticky red mess of blood and... other unidentifiable body fluids. That wasn't the most horrifying part, standing in your own blood was bad enough, but seeing chunks of flesh amongst the puddle was a tipping point into panic.

The dragon continued to stumble and force himself back away from the brutal mess, heart racing in panic at what had just happened. Or rather, the fact he was asking himself what had just happened.

The guards had backpedaled immensely, and the other humans had straight up turned and fled a fair distance at the sudden cascade of gory fluids and bits of flesh. The only one who'd remained still, still as a statue, and seemingly no worse off other than the fact the lower half of his suit was covered in the sea creature's blood, but that didn't seem to bother him, was Isamu.

Instead, Isamu had reached down, hooked both of his hands in a chunk of flesh, and hoisted it up.

'What... what the fuck is that!?'

The piece of flesh was in a shape the dragon struggled to place at first, with five points, six rises and falls, and a bulge in the middle. It was mangled, a discolored, disproportionately sized piece of flesh, but the shape was what caught him. It reminded him of a star, like they'd shown him when he was in the tank among other things. Of course, he'd never seen a real one so he wouldn't know, but it looked like one! A six-pointed star, why was something coming out of him shaped like that?

The hybrid looked around to find that the other chunks of flesh were similarly shaped, some were smaller, some were bigger and some seemed shorn in half or malformed entirely but the general shape of these fleshy mounds was the same. Just staring at them gave him a sense of unease... were these pieces of him? Why had he vomited them up, why was... why was there so much blood? There were too many questions and no answers.

Apparently, Isamu had the answers, after pondering the piece of flesh for a while he stepped back with it, looked at him, and spoke.

"Subject, do not move until we have removed ourselves from the chamber."

He didn't wait for an answer, instead turning to the two guards who still seemed shell-shocked from the experience, them gripping tightly to their weapons in frozen silence.

"You two, watch the Subject and ensure it doesn't move."

"Y-Yes sir!"

As the two moved up to the dragon he watched them, tense and still confused and in pain from what had just transpired. Isamu paced over to the other four which once again caught the creature's attention.

"You four, gather as many of these as you can," he said, holding up the star-shaped piece of flesh "and gather some blood samples, put them on the cart, and then we will get out of here."

'What are these things, why do they want them... w-why are they coming out of me!?'

The hybrid couldn't do anything but fret, while he was in great turmoil he had heard what Isamu had said and he knew going against what Isamu said meant getting shocked. So he didn't he waited. The drake waited and watched as Isamu's little goons sifted through the congealed mass of his blood and picked out those same, strange chunks of flesh.

He could do nothing but stare in muted horror as they did, could do nothing but wonder. So he did, he stared and waited and watched for what seemed like an hour as they went about their task. When they were finished, at least hopefully so, Isamu spoke up again.

"Guards, to me. You four, get the samples out of here."

Things went into motion as he said, the two guards nodding and sprinting to his sides while the four others wheeled the once-empty plate that was now full of flesh and blood towards the doors. Isamu turned towards him and spoke as clearly and coldly as ever.

"I will send a cleaning crew in late with guards, do not trouble them, understood?"

All the hybrid could do was slowly nod his head.

"Good. That is all for the day, Subject."

They all left after that, and he was alone once again. He didn't return to the water like usual, instead, he made his way over to the puddle of blood that was left behind and stared at it. It had settled since his violent expulsion of the substance, forming a clear and somewhat reflective surface. The creature stared into it, stared at his own reflection. He had seen it in the water before, seen it much more clearly there as well.

It should have been nothing new to see his reflection, nothing odd. But as he contemplated what had just happened, as he bit back the desire to freak out and thrash around over what had transpired, he found it the only thing he could use to ground himself.

His image was distorted, it was tainted and shaded red, messily reflected back in a distortion he knew wasn't accurate but he found himself incapable of removing from his head.

Staring back at him from the pool of his own blood was a monster.

. . .

Things only got worse from then on. The following weeks were far more painful.

While there were no more massive instances of vomiting blood going forward, there was a horribly and increasingly common amount of coughing. It was far too often he'd find himself coughing up blood, hacking up those same star-shaped chunks of flesh every so often, spraying the floor with red mist. They always sent someone to clean it up, both flesh and blood.

Thankfully if it happened when he was underwater he could hold it back long enough to do it on land. They didn't clean his water, so he couldn't afford to muddy it with his blood.

A strong element of fear was introduced to the daily routine after this, after all being forced to wait painstakingly in discomfort for the possibility of having to spit up your own blood was certainly anxiety-inducing. It had happened when they came to feed him more than a few times, fortunately, they seemed to realize that was out of his control and didn't shock him for it.

Though considering every time it happened they all jumped, except Isamu who just seemed to be permanently aloof to anything remotely surprising, the dragon was surprised he hadn't been shocked out of panic yet. It wouldn't have been the first time, though he guessed they'd either gotten used to him by now or the blood itself was an indicator of him not being a threat.

Oh how he wished he could prove them wrong when they still did shock him and tear-

The hybrid winced at the taste of blood in his mouth, cutting his thoughts short. Yeah, how he wished. It wasn't like he depended on them for food and he was already weakened by this whole... problem with coughing up blood. So, it would remain a wish for now, but just as he had many times before he spent his long stretches of free time between meals, and now relieving himself of his blood, pondering different ways to mutilate those same 7 people he saw every day.

The ones who shocked him, who made him live in this stark white, perfect little hell, who even made eating torture. He spent so much of his time daydreaming about their deaths, about goring them on these pretty white tiles that drove him insane day by day while his body revolted against him and his waking hours became a cycle of pain. How he wished he could kill them!

Especially Isamu.

The day so far had been particularly uncomfortable for the sea creature, there was always a usual set of pains that built when he needed to have one of his coughing sessions, but today was particularly bad. Usually, the pains were just in the lower sections of his body, but this time they'd hiked up to almost every area. His head was killing him, his legs felt weak, and every inch of muscle and bone felt strained. He felt like a sagging, overfilled balloon just ready to burst at the seams.

Even the water barely seemed a help to his pains today, it usually helped to soothe his aches and his torments just to be in the cool, deep pool that he'd slowly grown to fit more comfortably as his time there had continued. Usually, whether it was food-related or caused by his blood-related issues, the water helped to provide some ease to the process. Today? It just hurt too much for it to make a difference.

The worst part was he didn't even know why it was so different! The worst incident he'd had was the first when he'd vomited it all up, and even then the pain had been nowhere near this bad during the experience, and the pain he had now was before it had even started.

Part of him wondered if this was the day when the humans and their seeming biological torture would catch up with him, he'd eventually linked the bloody coughing back to whatever it was they were feeding him. He had no evidence, but given how the symptoms of both were similar in the leadup he'd assumed being overfed on this stuff was the cause of his problems.

Or probably just being fed on it at all, he at least knew he could digest it since he hadn't starved to death yet, but there had to be something else he could eat-

It was just then that the dragon felt a sharp, painful pounding in his ribcage.

This was a usual symptom of his coughing fits... but it didn't start this suddenly, and it was usually more towards the stomach than the chest. He needed to move, he needed to move now.

So he did, he bounded off the floor of his aquatic resting place and, with growing pains, swam to the surface. Even with his speed and size, the massive tank took a couple of seconds to navigate to the surface. When he broke free to the air above, he quickly hauled himself ashore as the pain grew and grew. It had never, never gotten close to this level before.

It was suddenly that the pain shifted, traveling up his body, from the chest to the undersides of his forelimbs, and then the pain turned from splitting to debilitating. He roared, no, he screamed at the sudden burst of pain that traveled up his shoulder blades.

What was this!? what the fuck was this-

The hybrid's thoughts descended into irrelevancy as a second, stronger wave of pain hit him. His skin felt like it was bulging, his upper body felt like it was filled with weight, it was like it was trying to tear through him-

Something was moving, something was moving inside him.

The dragon screamed again, he dragged himself forward, throwing himself onto his back and thrashing it against the floor in agony. He slammed his back on the ground, he slammed where he felt it inside of him into that stupid, perfectly white ground hoping it'd crush whatever was inside or split it open so it could escape.

The sea creature couldn't even think anymore, he kept bashing and bashing his back against the floor, sometimes catching his wings in his path and crushing them. It hurt, but he didn't care, he needed this fucking thing out of him and he needed it out of him now-

In an instant, it was over.

The pain alleviated, other than what he'd caused by bruising himself against the floor, but that was negligible. The pain inside was gone, and the dragon couldn't help but slump against the floor as he thought he'd finally crushed whatever it was.

Color him surprised, then, when despite the pain being gone he could still feel the motion inside him. It was uncomfortable, and it still felt wrong, but whatever it was had evidently cleared whatever blockage it was caught in and was no longer trying to kill him. He hoped that was the case anyway, if that pain was to become a new normal his skull would be the next thing he would bash against the floor to get rid of the pain instead.

The thing, or things, inside him, moved up and up, and even the discomfort ceased as they moved. Something instinctual suddenly told him to get off his back, to get on all fours. Naturally, the dragon followed his body's instructions, rolling himself over, ignoring the pain that came with the bruises he'd likely inflicted trying to quell his pain and hauled himself onto his legs.

No sooner had he done that than a cascade of red liquid fell from his shoulders. Blood, his blood. It wasn't surprising, he was used to seeing it by now.

It was thinner than usual, whatever he coughed up was thick and rife with what the dragon had deduced to be phlegm or mucus. Thick, sticky, and disgusting. Now it was but a sheen on the floor rather than a sickly coating. Furthermore, a scarlet mist permeated the air, it smelled of iron and copper and the creature could tell it too was made from his blood. That wasn't the interesting part, however, what was interesting was what came with it.

Normally, the only thing that came up was mangled pieces of flesh, those indiscernible masses of six-pointed soft and star-shaped squishy tissue. Something else came up this time. Sure, it looked squishy and soft, it was definitely tissue and the shape was the same, with those distinct six points and the star shape he was familiar with.

Rather than sickly pink, and brown as he was used to, these were a blood-red coloration. No, he wasn't just saying that because they were covered in blood, even beyond that he could see that they were a distinct and vibrant red. They were also covered in shades of yellow, their surface was not smooth like the previous pieces of flesh, they were covered in rock-like bumps, hair follicles, spikes, barbs, and disgusting ulcer-like protrusions.

Above all other differences, where the others were dead chunks of flesh, these were living creatures.

The hybrid watched in morbid fascination as the star-shaped creatures flopped around, spasming in the spray of blood that had come with them. These had been what was inside him. These had been what his body had been... been trying to get rid of with the vomiting and coughing these past several weeks? Where did they come from, what were they for, why were they inside him?

They didn't look like they belonged on land, the large clumps of them that had fallen from the newly opened cavities on his shoulders flailed about in panic. It would make sense if they were, like him, preferential to the water. He still didn't understand... were they parasites?

No, no that didn't feel right, but he didn't know what to make of them.

The dragon took some comfort in their ugliness, in their viciousness and repugnancy. He was beginning to worry he was alone in being a monster.

Just then, the dragon heard the door open and snapped his vision to the entrance. There were only six this time, the four who usually hauled his food in and the two guards. The four had long sticks of their own, though two were something he recognized as nets and the others seemed like spears. Only six, it didn't take a genius to realize Isamu was the absent one.

That was most unfortunate, he was hoping he'd get to watch if whatever these things were decided to maul the loathsome little man to death.

Speaking of the devil, it wasn't long before Isamu's voice came on over the loudspeaker, something which startled the hybrid at first as he didn't even know they had one. This was the first time he knew it had been used.

"Subject, step away from the barem immediately."

Barem? Is that what these things were called? He'd remember that, he figured he'd be seeing more of them in the future, though he prayed to whatever deity might be out there it wouldn't come with those same pains next time. He eyed the creatures with a bit of pity for whatever his captors had planned for them if he was any indication they weren't exactly kind to their test subjects.

The hybrid didn't fancy getting shocked, so he did as instructed and slowly but surely backed away from the creatures until he hit the edge of the water, at which point he sat on the edge and simply watched what was about to unfold. The group of six humans sprinted up until they got a couple of meters from the barem, stopping and settling into an uneasy semi-circle around the group of creatures.

They were hesitant, they were afraid. What they didn't understand scared them of course. He knew he'd used to scare them, he wished he still did, the guards he knew weren't afraid anymore, the rest he only assumed.

Stupid little humans... they were so scared of the ugliness in the world. They could be so confident when they understood, things when they thought they had control, but whenever there was an imperfection in their supposedly flawless plans, in their illusory and perfect worldviews, they couldn't be more terrified.

Isamu was the epitome of that arrogance, it wasn't long before the cold, cruel, and conniving doctor's voice was back on the loudspeaker.

"It is imperative that at least one specimen be captured alive. Do not leave without one."

The six humans seemed to take a moment to digest that, before advancing slowly and cautiously. The dragon was amused, they could face him down every day without hesitation but a couple of these little things suddenly had them on edge. What an idiotic breed of creature they were.

The hybrid assumed they'd have no trouble capturing one of the creatures, the four with the melee weapons and equipment advanced forward while the two guards stayed on the flanks to provide a clear angle of attack. The dragon assumed it would be as simple as sticking one of them and dropping it in the net, but he didn't have anything else to do and he was interested to see how the barem reacted, so he watched on all the same.

It seemed he was to be proven correct, the two with the spears advanced, cautious step by careful shuffle, while one with the net moved forward between them. The other hung back, closer to the guards, evidently more afraid than their fellows. Eventually, one of them got confident in their distance enough to try and stick one of the barem with their spear.

The sea creature assumed that was it, they'd hoist it up in the net and be out of there just as he predicted.

...he didn't expect the barem to spit something at the unsuspecting human with their pointy stick.

The next few moments were a blur. There was a scream. the one who had stuck the barem moved back, their helmet smoking and them grasping at it recklessly as they bellowed something incomprehensible, falling on their ass as the barem that had been stuck made something of an intimidating noise. The other spear-wielding human quickly turned away from the barem and towards their fellow, running over to the fallen one who was twisting and rolling on the ground.

"Shit! Sakuma- Oh fuck, Sakuma!"

The hybrid stared with a sudden curiosity at what had brought the human so low, he could see it clearly from his high vantage point; whatever the barem had spit had melted through the human's helmet and exposed their face, which was also smoking. The dragon put two and two together quickly, the barem had spit acid at the human.

'Intriguing...'

The sea creature would like to say he was sickened at the sight of smoking, burning flesh, at the possibility of death right in front of him. But he wasn't he found it to be good karma. Sure, these four hadn't been shocking him like the guards, issuing commands, or putting him down like Isamu, but they'd been feeding him that awful stuff every day, they'd been poisoning him knowingly and watching him be tormented day after day.

They'd watched him being shocked and tortured like an animal, they'd seen him hack up blood and hadn't been the slightest bit concerned, they'd just followed behind Isamu like the good little sheep they were and saw nothing in him but what he was; a monster.

So, in return, the hybrid could see nothing in the dying human, being burned away by acid, other than another pile of dust that would have met its end eventually but now was to go sooner than expected. It was a cruel but fitting sense of justice for those who tried to play God to be met with such a grizzly end along the way.

It was the first time that the dragon had ever seen death, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Kawashima- Kawashima you bastard don't- don't just stand there, get your ass over here and help me- help him!"

The one with the net, evidently named Kawashima, had been frozen on the spot since the barem had attacked the other human, who was named Sakuma. The hybrid didn't know why he was remembering the names of these people, one of them was going to be dead soon anyway.

At least he could think better about how much he hated the other one now that he had a name to a non-existent face.

Kawashima eventually did answer the call of their co-worker and ran over to the human who the sea creature had already written off as dead, he'd stopped moving and what little he could see of his face beyond the melted helmet looked like it was quickly going to mush. They grabbed their fallen compatriot by the arms and dragged him backward, towards the doors.

Doors that were closed.

"Dr. Isamu open the doors! Dr- Furuya you motherfucker open these Ishara-damned doors right now Sakuma's fucking dying!"

The dragon wasn't even doing anything, but watching them bang on the door and beg for the help of their precious Isamu, who he now also had the full name of that he pocketed away for later contemplation, was almost therapeutic. They were the helpless ones for once, they were the ones who were trapped in this hellish white room, dying with no hope of escape.

The hybrid was almost sad when, after several minutes of begging, the good doctor finally acquiesced and let them out.

There were no further instructions over the loudspeaker, no more humans in his room, and only a dispersed pile of barem for company. As much as he'd love to examine the little creatures further he felt that the differentiation of the day with the justice brought to one of his tormentors, or at least those complicit with them, was more than enough for him.

Besides, he was exhausted and sore all over from the process of getting the barem out and his violent reaction to the pain and he just wanted to get back in the water and sleep it off.

That was precisely what he did, he swam down to the bottom of his admittedly big puddle amid this prison and slept.

He only awoke when another team of humans, this time more armed, tried again to get a barem captive later. The hybrid was disappointed when they succeeded, without any casualties this time. They came back soon after they'd gotten the one out and killed the rest. It was sad, the dragon was almost starting to like the little things.

Not being the only abomination in the room had made him feel less alone.

. . .

As the creature had gotten bigger, as he'd remained here, he'd noticed a few things.

For one, his senses had dramatically improved, especially his vision and hearing. It was rare for there to be any new sights or sounds in his cell to use them on, but it seemed like with each passing day he could make out more details on the humans who entered, could hear their whispered conversations as they entered the room almost like they were shouting

Second, there were observation windows where Isamu and some of his compatriots spent a lot of their time hanging about. The dragon was too small to reach them currently, although if he kept growing he imagined he could. But that wasn't what he was wondering about.

Unlike everything else in this room, those windows didn't seem to provide very much soundproofing at all. The hybrid would occasionally pick up mutters and bits of conversation through them if he lingered outside the water for long enough. It wasn't something he did very often, and he'd never tried to listen carefully to anything they said.

But, a couple of hours after they'd come in to clear out the barem, the sea creature was curious about the day's events. What were those things?

So, he had waited, waited, and pretended he was asleep. He had more than enough oxygen built up to stay on land for a while so he camped out closer to one of the observation windows and simply listened. He couldn't get too close to the walls, he'd long learned that would result in him being shocked, but he could get close enough.

Close enough to hear Isamu talking with someone.

The sea drake was surprised when he first heard it, he perked up a little.

"Dr. Tadashi, there was something you wished to discuss?"

That was Isamu's voice, there was another too- probably this 'Dr. Tadashi'.

"Come now Furuya, must we really be so formal? We are the only two here."

"I am always professional in the workplace, Dr. Tadashi."

"Acting like you don't have a bottle of Sake in your desk drawer right now, then, 'Dr. Isamu'."

There was silence. Who was this to be so casual with Isamu? That emotionless freak never even responded when some of the others asked questions whenever they'd come in. Eventually, a heavy sigh broke the silence, one belonging to Isamu, and then he spoke again, this time with a hint of emotion.

"If only because you and our colleagues make me need it, Kishimoto."

"Aha! Where's Mr. 'professional in the workplace' now? You really need to lighten up more, Furuya."

There was another pause in the conversation, giving the hybrid long enough to contemplate the fact Isamu had just displayed a hint of being an actual living being and not acting like a total machine. Don't get him wrong, the dragon still utterly despised him. If anything, it was a comfort to know he could possibly make him afraid before he was to perish.

"You still haven't told me what it is that you wanted to speak to me about."

"It's about today."

"What about today?"

"The barem."

That piqued the dragon's interest, it was exactly what he wanted to know. He remained still on the floor, but internally he was twitching with anticipation.

"Furuya, the acid- we didn't design the barem to be able to do that. On top of their unusually slow development and the display, Subject-47 put on today-"

There was a break in the man's words, then he started up again.

"I'm beginning to have doubts about using the Irabushan energy on this project."

"It's only one mutation in the barem, it is far from-"

"You know that's not true, Furuya. Subject-47 has already mutated thanks to the influence of the Irabushan energy to the point where it has become unstable."

"I am aware that the regeneration of redundant tissue within the barem-producing organs is a valid concern, but the situation has addressed itself."

The hybrid wondered what this 'Irabushan energy' was, it was definitely related to him, to 'Subject-47'. But something that caught him more in this conversation was one phrase, 'barem-producing organs'. So that was where these things came from, then, he made them. Why? What purpose did they serve?

"Furuya please, even if the barem ate their way out and cleared the blockage, that's not the point."

"Then what is the point, Kishimoto?"

"The point is that we have no idea what effects the Irabushan energy has already had on Subject-47. The wings were already an unintended side-effect. While the mutations thus far have sorted themselves out what happens if it gets out of hand?"

"For instance?"

"What if it develops the ability to project the Irabushan energy as our weaponry does?"

There was another, long, silent pause.

"That's impossible Kishimoto, and you know it."

"We thought the Irabushan energy causing such mutations at all was impossible, yet here we are with a divergent species of barem."

There was the sound of something scraping the floor, possibly a chair, and Isamu grumbled something so low even the hybrid couldn't hear it.

"The barem was an exception, we have and will continue to monitor Subject-47's development closely. We would catch any such mutations right away."

"Then what, Furuya? You know this is our last chance, we won't get any more funding if-"

"I know. Why do you think I'm not prying into this? Of course, I'm concerned about the side effects of the Irabushan energy and the mutations, but this is our last chance. We've come too far to stop now."

For a final time, there was a pause, a silence in conversation. Kishimoto broke it.

"Do you still intend to go through with the plan?"

"Yes. The mutations in the barem and Subject-47 do not change that. Subject-47 can still consume pollutants and can still produce the barem."

"Are you certain this is the best idea, if the Queen finds out she will-"

"She will not find out Kishimoto."

Judging by the soft sound of footsteps, Isamu was pacing now.

"Furuya, I know we are in this together, but surely there must be another way."

"Having second thoughts?"

"Only because releasing Subject-47 on Mu runs the risk of our own civilization being caught in the crossfire."

"You'd accept the alternative, to wait for Mu to crush us as they have the others?"

"No, of course not, but we need more time-"

"You said it yourself Kishimoto, this is our last chance, we no longer can afford the luxury of time."

Both men seemed eerily calm despite the dragon realizing what they were talking about. So that's what he was? He'd suspected it, suspected his purpose was not something benevolent for him or for anyone else, but now he knew.

He knew he was a weapon.

Isamu continued to speak.

"Subject-47 will cleanse our waters as planned, it will then release the barem into the waters of Mu as we have designed and we can simply claim we lost control of it. From there, Mu will either ask for our assistance and become subservient or it shall perish to the barem."

"You are certain the Muans would ask us for aid? I was to understand they were a proud civilization."

"They are, but attitudes can change quite quickly when you are facing extinction."

There was dead silence, not one of many pauses like before, but those last words hung over the room like a deathly fog that didn't seem to break even when Kishimoto spoke again.

"I see."

It was incredibly awkward now, even seeing neither of them the hybrid could almost feel the sudden tension. Isamu seemed eager to be done with the whole thing.

"Will that be all?"

"Yes."

"Then have a good evening, Dr. Tadashi."

"The same to you, Dr. Isamu."

Then it was over. He hadn't done much but listen the whole time, but the dragon didn't really want to hear more even if he could have learned something else. The sea creature lifted himself up and carried himself over to the water, letting himself fall into its cool embrace as he sank to the bottom. He definitely had a lot to think about.

The hybrid prepared to sleep the night away, his thoughts filled with thoughts of the conversation he'd just witnessed; about the barem, this 'Irabushan energy' they spoke of the mutations that came with it and the discussion of his purpose.

It took him a while to fall asleep, too preoccupied with the thought that he was a weapon.

The dragon fell asleep dwelling on the fact he was nothing but their disposable monster.

. . .

Things after that were a lot drabber... and frankly, lonely.

After the incident with the barem, he didn't see any of the usual humans again. Instead of his food being hauled in by the four with the guards and Isamu there to greet him every morning, it was wheeled in by remote. He figured the cart was remote-controlled anyway, or maybe it was a thinking thing as well. That'd be ironic, a thinking thing enslaved to serve another, enslaved thinking thing.

At first, he was glad to have Isamu and the others out of his scales. However, slowly but surely, he felt a hole open up where they had been.

Sure, the dragon hated to be prodded to eat every day, he hated those miserable little creatures who fed him this stuff that burned him when he ate and made him sick to digest. He despised them, wanted to swipe them through, crush them, or gore them and his claws and jaw. But at the same time, the subtle and idle motions of those cruel creatures were one of the only things he had to look forward to in his days.

Their idle little chatter, low as whispers and never meant for him but heard all the same, was the only thing resembling conversation, news, or entertainment he had. Even Isamu and his infuriating commands that made him smolder in rage and wish he could drown the insufferable human in his water were something he missed.

Why, you might ask, did he miss the people who tortured him?

Because dreading pain was better than idling in insanity.

It had only taken a couple of days for things to start to get to the hybrid, he started trying to listen in on conversations from the observation windows at first, chalking it up to boredom. Unfortunately, it seems what he got a taste of the other night was a rare incident. Workplace chatter was already rare, but those observation rooms and windows were barely ever frequented. Why Isamu and the other scientist had been there that night? He didn't know, but he wished they would come back.

Because as much as he hated these humans he was quick to realize that he was slowly losing his mind.

There were no sounds at all in this room, nothing other than what he'd make himself. It was all flat, featureless, and that perpetual shining white so there was nothing to look at. Without the humans, his days were marked only by cold, lifeless white-colored metal and endless, insurmountable silence.

There was no change, nothing to mark the passage of time. He'd wake up, pace about this increasingly too-tiny enclosure, jump in and out of the water, swim a little, sleep, eat, and then sleep some more. He tried to keep himself busy with physical activity, running, leaping, practicing swipes with his claws, bites, and more.

Sometimes he'd get a little too close to the walls doing it and get shocked, but that was at least something different. He dreaded it before, but now he was ambivalent. It'd happened so often that the pain was just a passing phenomenon.

When in the water the hybrid would swim, spin in place, bound off the walls back and forth, angle off like he was practicing an attack, and sometimes ram himself into them. Like on land, sometimes this got him shocked when he would hit the walls too hard, but he didn't mind, the pain was worth it just to be able to do something.

It was here when he discovered his wings had a practical purpose, he could glide! He had yet to test if he could truly fly, but his trying to test it out also got him shocks. He had a feeling they really didn't want him flying. They'd electrocute him and punish him for doing it, yet he still tried anyway. His attempts were never particularly successful, but he thought he was keeping in the air longer every time.

Days turned into weeks without seeing another living soul, without hearing anything. All he had was his plates of disgusting, visceral food, a little mechanical, robotic tray that brought it to him, and the thoughts of vengeance clouding his mind.

There were only two ways for him to tell that time had even passed at all; the plates of food that came in which still worked as his method of marking the number of days, and the fact he was still growing. He had to be almost three times the size of when they first put him in here, and he was growing little by little every day.

He was taller, stronger, faster and his claws were getting sharper, and more dangerous. His tail and his wings grew proportionally larger in length compared to the rest of his body and the horns upon his head grew in size and in display of power!

...yet all of it meant nothing.

What could he do with his growing strength, his increasing size? What could he do?

The dragon could run, swim, and try to fly. He could slash away at the floor and try to visualize one of the many humans who kept him imprisoned here getting gored, could even try to escape only for absolutely zero progress to be made.

What could he do?

Nothing.

Eventually, all of it was unsatisfactory. No matter how much strain he put on his body, no matter how much time he spent pretending like he was hunting or fighting or- or whatever he could think up, it stopped working.

There came days when he'd just try and sleep it off, and there were some when he'd get a sudden bout of anger or he'd panic at growingly existential thoughts and thrash about, usually a shock was the result.

Wake, move, eat, swim, sleep.

Repeat.

The hybrid didn't even have his regular bloody coughing fits anymore, there were no more barem coming up and out of his shoulders either. The food was still as toxic as ever, but that just made him feel miserable and that was the same every day.

Everything was the same every day.

There were never any differences, days blurred together until even his counting method slipped up. He'd panicked the first time he couldn't tell whether two or three days had passed since a certain event, and from there it just went downhill. He couldn't tell how many days went by anymore, he just knew that it had been months since the barem incident.

Those indistinguishable, perfect white walls kept mocking him. The four corners of his cell blended together as if it were all one endless white void.

They begged for him to try and escape, to try and break them down just so he'd get shocked and thrown back on his ass every time. They taunted him, he almost thought he'd heard them speak at some points. Day after day after DAY he felt like they were speaking to him, gazing down at him scornfully and laughing at his helplessness.

Stupid walls... stupid humans... stupid everything!

Eventually, the dragon had too little motivation to continue with his exercises. He might pace around, take a couple of swipes at the impregnable surfaces of his cell, maybe try and swim a bit, but for the most part, it came to an end.

The hybrid ate, slept, and hoped tomorrow would be different.

But tomorrow never was, it was getting harder and harder to tell when today stopped and tomorrow began. The creature long lost track of the days, he'd stopped counting the plates, he thought it'd been months since he lost count, sometimes he thought it was weeks, and others possibly even years.

Eventually, even sleep wouldn't save him from those damn white walls. They made their way in, they forced their way in. He started to dream of them, blank, sterile, almost reflective. In his dreams he could hear them for real, could hear them asking for him to try and touch them, begging! He'd wake up, he'd crawl out of the water just to make sure they weren't speaking to him, then he'd go back down and try to sleep again.

Those perfectly pristine white walls, his perfectly cubic cell, even the water was starting to seem too perfect!

One day the dragon thought he saw a face in one of those walls, thought they were laughing at him... living, breathing things, emblems of perfection designed to mock him. He saw this, he saw this illusory thing at the lowest point he had yet been at, and finally, after everything, the dragon snapped.

The sea creature had charged the wall, he'd barreled towards it and leaped for it, trying his hardest to at least make a dent in it- anything to make it so it wasn't as perfect anymore. They shocked him, but he didn't care. He kept trying, kept trying to do something- anything to the wall. He'd been at it so hard the pain of the shocks was almost easy to put out of his mind, they'd shocked him while he clawed away and rammed his skull into it over and over and over-

The dragon had gone until they'd shocked him so hard it knocked him out.

It was after that when he knew it was over, he'd broken. He embraced it, embraced the insanity and the pain and the rage rather than stay put in the mire of despair. Every day after that was a test to see how long he could go at those walls until they'd hit him with a shock hard enough to end his attempt. He'd have to wait a while and recover his strength before he could try again each time when he woke up after a failed attempt. He had to do something about those walls, it was all his mind became focused on.

Sometimes they'd take away his food, sometimes it was only one or two meals they skipped and others felt like ten. The hybrid had no frame of time, so it was difficult to tell exactly how many they'd missed. He didn't care, it was poison, it hurt him to eat and it only took time away from going at those damn walls.

Judging by how they held it off usually when he'd make a particularly insistent string of attempts, he assumed the lack of food was meant to be a threat, a punishment. He couldn't care less!

The pain so far had been extreme, it had cowed him into complicity along with the other bevy of issues he'd faced. But now? Now!? He refused to live in their manufactured, perfect little world any longer! He wasn't stopping until he'd put a blemish on those walls, at least a scratch- something to damage them!

This false, illusionary perfect little world the humans had made for him, he couldn't stand it anymore! He'd rather they starve him, rather they shock him to death than to live in it any longer!

But he knew even those were all empty threats, oh yes, because he still remembered that conversation he'd listened in on, the reason for his very existence.

They wouldn't risk killing their last shot at making their perfect fucking weapon.

So he threw himself at those pillars of their arrogance, of their "perfection" day after day. He'd be the opposite of perfect, he'd be ugly, he'd be brutal and imprecise and cruel and chaotic! He'd dedicate himself to tearing down these perfect walls and then their perfect world!

He'd be the monster they created him to be.