Dragon's Last Hope

Chapter 14

The Nullifier's eyes widened, his composure cracking for the first time. "Impossible. High Dragons were eradicated centuries ago."

"Clearly not," Maya replied, golden light pulsing beneath her skin in waves that matched her heartbeat. "And now you face not just me, but my seven bonded mates and nineteen dragons who have answered my call."

The man's gaze darted between Maya and the approaching dragon formation, his enhanced perception allowing him to see what ordinary humans couldn't: the intricate bond patterns connecting her to the seven males surrounding her, the resonance waves emanating from her core, the unmistakable royal signature of her magical frequency.

"The Protocol Seven authorisation," he said, understanding dawning in his eyes. "It wasn't just precautionary. The Order knew this was possible."

"Your Order has been hunting us to extinction for centuries," Leon said coldly, shadows writhing around his fingers. "Did you really think we wouldn't eventually fight back?"

The Nullifier's hand moved toward a control panel on his tactical vest, but Cassius was faster. A precise lightning strike hit the device, frying its circuitry without harming the human wearing it.

"I wouldn't," the storm dragon advised pleasantly, electricity still crackling between his fingers. "Your suppression technology is currently being... repurposed."

Throughout Pioneer Square, the Order's equipment continued to malfunction spectacularly. Suppression fields designed to dampen dragon magic were now amplifying it, creating visible auroras of elemental energy that danced between buildings. Weapons calibrated to disrupt draconic resonance patterns were overloading, forcing operatives to abandon them or risk injury.

"You don't understand what you're doing," the Nullifier said, his voice steady despite his precarious position. "The balance..."

"The balance was broken when your kind decided ours had no right to exist," Maya interrupted, her voice carrying harmonics that made the very air vibrate. "Tonight, we restore it."

The nineteen approaching dragons had reached the perimeter of Pioneer Square, their massive forms no longer bothering with human glamours or size limitations. They circled the district in a display captured on countless civilian phones and security cameras, scales gleaming in streetlights, wings spanning entire city blocks, elemental auras turning Seattle's night sky into a spectacle of colour and power that no one who witnessed it would ever forget.

Through the global network, Maya sensed the remaining dragons around the world engaging their hunters. No longer isolated targets fighting desperate last stands, they were now coordinated predators, their tactics guided by her expanded consciousness through the ley line connections.

*Sydney secured,* came the earth dragon's weathered voice, satisfaction evident in his mental tone. *The Order's vehicles are now part of the landscape. Permanently.*

*Tokyo cleared,* the water dragon reported, her fluid consciousness rippling with deadly precision. *Their drones make interesting reef additions.*

One by one, reports flowed in through the network, making her smile widen, “Don’t believe me, your kind came to ours looking for a place to live that was safe, and your kind repaid that kindness by hunting us. Allow me to show you that I am what I say, a High Dragon, the city you know and love wouldn’t exist without our kind.” As the last of her words left her mouth, she began to shift.

The transformation was unlike any Maya had experienced before. This time, she embraced the change fully, allowing her High Dragon nature to flow through every cell of her being. Her human form dissolved in a supernova of golden light, her body expanding, elongating, transforming into something that defied conventional physics.

Wings of crystallised sunlight unfurled from her back, spanning wider than the museum's entire roof. Her scales shifted across the entire spectrum of light as per her father’s bloodline. Her dragon’s body was still mainly gold. Still, now with visible changes, the spikes down her back embodied the elements of her mates, showing to the world that she wasn’t just a mated High Dragon but one with all seven elements to mark the truth, that humans had tried to kill out all those years ago from her mother’s bloodline.

The Nullifier fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the sight of Maya's true form. No human had witnessed a High Dragon's transformation in over eight centuries, and the reality far exceeded the Order's historical records. Where ordinary dragons were magnificent, Maya was transcendent, a living embodiment of draconic divinity that made the very air around her seem thin and insubstantial by comparison.

"The Celestial bloodline," he whispered, recognition and horror mingling in his voice. "The Protocol Seven briefing said it was theoretical. A worst-case scenario."

Maya's massive head lowered until one golden, pupilless eye was level with the kneeling human. Through that gaze, she projected not hatred but understanding, a cosmic awareness that made the Nullifier's enhanced perception seem like a child's toy by comparison.

"Your Order has spent centuries hunting shadows," she projected, her mental voice bypassing his ears to resonate directly in his consciousness. "You never understood what you were truly fighting against. Or for."

Through their completed bonds, Maya's seven mates shifted simultaneously, shadow and fire, ice and storm, earth and light and void, their draconic forms arranging themselves around her in a formation that spoke of ancient protocols and power structures that predated human civilisation. Where her High Dragon form was golden light given substance, they were the spectrum through which that light expressed itself, seven aspects of draconic power united under a single will.

The nineteen dragons that had converged on Seattle landed throughout Pioneer Square, each choosing a position that corresponded to the ancient ward system Maya had reactivated. As they touched down on rooftops and in plazas, the entire district seemed to sigh with recognition, buildings that had stood for over a century suddenly revealing their true purpose as anchors in a massive magical matrix that spanned the entire neighbourhood.

Through the global network, Maya continued coordinating the worldwide response. Dragons who had been in hiding for generations were now emerging, their combined power forcing the Order's teams into retreat across six continents. What had begun as a desperate last stand was transforming into something unprecedented, the first coordinated global action by dragonkind since the Great Purge.