The Storm Assassin II A Wings of Fire Fanfiction

== Welcome ==
Hi! I'm Weaver. This is a cliched story I decided to make as a joke and then got addicted to writing up, and it's been lying around in my Google Drive. So I decided to publish it.
I have to warn you, it's quite cliched, but I promise I'll try to give good quality writing. I'll update once a week. Please do not steal any of the characters, as they all belong to me.
This story takes place nine years after the Viper Wars, a time period 300 years after the main events of Arc Three.
Summary:
A killer is hatched in the heart of a storm. That night, two dragons die. A mother watches, pleased with what she sees. This dragonet will be her greatest weapon.
Growing up under the ambitious eye of Blizzard, leader of the Dark Moon rebellion, Maelstrom has never liked his great destiny to kill Queen Moonstone. She may be unpopular after the Viper War, but she doesn't deserve to die, in the eyes of the small hybrid. But with a mother hungry for revenge, what choice does he have? 
Determined to keep his talons clean and his soul pure, Maelstrom seeks help from two unlikely sources: the daughter of one of Blizzard's most loyal followers, and an ancient dragon born to kill.
A bloody knife. A shattered crystal. Twin storms, ice and water. These might just rid Pyrrhia of the dangerous Dark Moon. Or they might bring a murderer to the throne of the IceWings.
Please enjoy!
== Prologue ==
A dragon as dark as the night sky was tucked into the cliffside like a shadow, hidden from the prying eyes of dangerous enemies and oblivious passers-by. His tail curled tighter around the smooth oval he was protecting, waiting for the only dragon that was safe from his claws and teeth and fire around his precious charge.
A crack of thunder illuminated a long, lithe and muscular figure and an icy blue dragon with bold patches of bright cobalt flashing along her wings and dappling her talons like ice dragon blood spread her wings.
She swept into the cave and picked up the egg. “Pathshaper,” she nodded to the NightWing.
“Blizzard,” he greeted her gruffly.
“You did well keeping the egg from harm,” she said, setting it back on the ground.
“That is why you trusted me with it,” Pathshaper reminded her. The IceWing looked at him intently, and a million hostile thoughts flashed across her eyes.
She turned to him and hissed, “But I didn’t trust you.” Pathshaper’s eyes widened like the moons, and he stiffened as his IceWing partner curled her serrated claws around the egg.
“What do you mean?” he stammered. “I - I thought… why would you want to have an egg with me if you didn’t trust me? Let alone like me.” He beat his wings nervously.
“Ah,” Blizzard smiled slightly at that, turning her egg in cold talons and inspecting the shadow of a dragonet stirring beneath the shell. “That. Let me tell you the truth, Pathshaper. The thing is, I’m technically not supposed to be alive. Ask any IceWings. They all think I’m dead.”
“What?” gasped Pathshaper.
“I was executed. ‘For leading a coup’, they said. Fortunately, they didn’t actually know what I looked like. It was a good use of my least favourite rebel. No one was sad to see her go. I and the rest of my justice seekers left the kingdom unnoticed and safe. Set up in the foothills of the Claws of the Clouds. Not far from here, actually. We thought, ‘Might as well bring up a deadly trained assassin.’
Here’s the problem, though. The IceWings know there were more rebels than just me. If a relentless killer from my tribe turns up killing everyone, they’re going to notice something. Rumours will get out. Search and kill parties will be released, and that will be the end of us. But. I’m famous for my belief in pure bloodlines. No one will suspect me if that relentless killer is obviously not a pure IceWing. And then I heard of your work, bounty hunting and all, and I decided you would be the perfect father.”
“I’m just the thing that makes it possible, then you can fling me to the side and raise our- my- the dragonet to be a killing machine.”
“Oh, he’s a genius,” Blizzard smirked, inspecting her claws. “Well done, you guessed it. Now, I am truly sorry, but now you know. I’ve got to kill you.”
Pathshaper roared and sent a jet of fire straight at Blizzard. She threw herself back, protecting her body with her wing. The flames hissed against her cold scales and she shrieked. Seizing the opportunity, Pathshaper leapt forward and grabbed the egg. He launched off into the storm, and Blizzard screamed, “Catch him, catch him!”
Four IceWings materialized from just outside the mouth of the cave. They shot off after Pathshaper. Blizzard hissed with agony and stumbled to a puddle that was quickly growing outside.
Pathshaper beat his wings, swooping and soaring like he never had before. He clutched the egg and flew for his life. It didn’t last long before serrated talons closed around his wings and he was grappling with four IceWings. He roared in pain, and the angry beast inside him went ablaze; fire blasted out of his mouth. One of the IceWings went up in flames, and she spiralled to the ground, shrieking. “FROSTBREATH!” yelled one of the remaining three IceWings, and he dived towards her.
Distracted by what he had done, the last two overpowered Pathfinder and brought him back to the cave. Four more IceWings were there now, tending to Blizzard's wound and pulling out chains. The two that had survived capturing him threw him to the ground, and instantly chains wound around his wings and talons and snout. Four IceWings pulled him to the back of the cave, and Blizzard turned to him. Her eyes widened when she saw his empty talons.
“Where’s the egg?” she hissed.
“Here,” said one pure white IceWing, handing the obsidian oval to Blizzard.
“Undamaged,” she breathed. “Good. Now hush. Tonight is a full moon, and while it may be shrouded with clouds, this is half a NightWing. May the moons grant the dragonet inside a great gift.”
She lay the egg at the cave entrance and the dragonet inside stirred.
Crack. Crack-crack. Craaaaaaaaaaack.
The eggshell splintered, and a tiny black dragonet with lightning bolts of neon blue streaking down his body stumbled out and reached his talons towards the storm clouds. A little sliver of moonlight caught itself on his claws and he purred softly, cradling the crescent of light.
Blizzard smiled down at him. “This is a momentous day. The first two sacrifices for our cause, a valiant soldier and a father, who brought to this world the birth of a wrath. How fitting a name to mark this day would be.” She stepped up to her son. Swiftly, she took a small throwing knife out of her pouch and sent it whistling across the cave and into the neck of Pathshaper, who yelped quietly before slipping into nothing. The attention quickly turned back to the tiny dragonet.
Blizzard held him to the shrieking sky and the flashing clouds, and her son reached for the moon again. “Members of the Dark Moon,” she announced over the driving rain, “say hello to the key of our success. Welcome to the world, Maelstrom.”
== Part 1 || A Bloody Knife ==
The innocent will draw a knife... Dragons will die. Friendships will be forged. And enemies will spill blood.
== Chapter 1 ==
It was raining, and Maelstrom didn’t like that. It was the kind of rain that tried to drive you into the ground and squish you to a wet pulp. It was the kind of rain that would keep any decent dragon indoors. But Maelstrom’s mother was not a decent dragon, so of course, they were out at the crack of dawn, training through the downpour.
“What was that?” hissed Blizzard as Maelstrom’s claws slipped from beneath him and she pounced on him, serrated claws digging into his shoulder.
“What do you think?” Maelstrom snapped, batting at her talons with his bright blue wings. He winced as her grip drew deep purple blood. “It’s raining way too hard. I slipped.”
“If you were in an actual battle in these conditions, you would have just died. Do better.”
“Maybe I would if the weather wasn’t trying to drown us or you woke me up at dawn,” he complained, shoving Blizzard off him and rubbing his shoulder, trying to wash the blood away.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the IceWing snapped. “Try again.”
Giving him barely a moment to recover, Blizzard roared and dived straight towards Maelstrom’s heart. He yelped and jumped into the air, wings pounding against the rain. He slashed at his mother’s snout and turned to face away from her as he landed. He tried to whap his tail into her chin, but landing and swinging it around like that threw him off balance and he slipped onto his side again. Cold talons dug into his shoulder and he sighed.
This was going to be a long training session.
By the time Blizzard had finished with Maelstrom, the rain had stopped. Two IceWing attendants, the twins Cyro and Caribou, the pair that always followed the leader of the Dark Moon around and did her bidding, stepped forward with large bowls of icy water to wash off the blood.
Maelstrom paused before dipping talons slightly smeared with his own blood and a little bit of Blizzard’s into the water. He stared at the deep blue blood as it mingled with his own, and smiled. He remembered when he’d started training, only a year old, he couldn’t lay a scratch on his trainer for two years, and the next two very rarely. Now he had her blood on his talons nearly every training session. Maelstrom shook those thoughts off and plunged his claws into the bowl, shivering as his dark blue talons hit the freezing water.
“History next, I think,” Blizzard said from right behind him, making him jump.
“Do we have to?” he groaned, cleaning the scratches on his snout and washing water over his shoulder wound.
His mother fixed him with her piercing glare. “Yes,” she hissed. “We do. Do not question your orders, trainee.”
Maelstrom sighed and finished washing. He got up and followed Blizzard, but he sent his whip-thin tail into his bowl, spilling the water that was left. His mother hissed at him and he growled right back, before ducking his head and following her.
That was exactly how his life had always gone, actually: Blizzard striding confidently and arrogantly ahead, with him unwillingly trailing along behind. Dragonets of the original Dark Moon rebels poked their heads out of caves and nooks, watching the special dragonet that was going to kill Queen Moonstone going to his special private lessons. I don’t want to be special, he grouched to himself. I don’t want to be the one who holds the future of the IceWings in his talons.
They entered the history cave and Maelstrom plopped into his seat, huffing quietly. Blizzard unrolled a scroll and peered at it for a moment.
“Alright,” she said in her ‘no-nonsense’ voice. “Let’s begin.”
Here we go. Another hour wasted on dusty old history.
“The Dark Moon formed because…” Blizzard trailed off, glancing up at Maelstrom.
“Because Queen Moonstone is a greedy tyrant who exploited her subjects to pour wealth into her talons,” he grumbled, parroting what his mother had always said.
“Because of the Poll Tax,” she corrected. “Tell me about it.”
“Moonstone spent all of her treasure on the Viper Wars, so the Poll Tax was invented to refill it. Collectors went out to the IceWing towns and took the savings of the dragons who lived there.”
“Correct. It exploited the poor and benefitted only the rich. The idea was that she who holds the most treasure is the highest-ranked. The Tax was designed to keep the monarchy in place, instead of electing leaders like the NightWings and SandWings are beginning to do.”
“So then you decided to rebel, but you weren’t sneaky enough to assassinate Moonstone, and now we’re here.”
“Don’t sound so pouty about that, dragonet,” Blizzard snarled, setting the scroll down and storming towards Maelstrom. “If that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here, so be thankful for what you have,” she spat.
Maelstrom wiped saliva off the top of his snot and glared right back into the piercing bright blue gaze of his mother. “If killing is the only thing I’m good for, then I don’t think I would have chosen to be hatched!” he snapped.
Blizzard’s lips curled dangerously. A bolt of pain shot through Maelstrom’s skull and he winced. He unwillingly imagined his mother slashing him apart and staining her talons with deep purple blood. She could raise another killer if she needed too.
The dangerous moment of silence was interrupted by an angry yell outside. The cave shook a little, and the scroll rolled off Blizzard’s desk and clattered along the floor. Blizzard’s head snapped up and Maelstrom sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever had distracted his wrathful mother.
“Stay here,” she hissed and placed an inkpot and sheaf of parchment in front of him. “Write an essay on the negative consequences of the Poll Tax.” She whirled around, hitting him in the snout with her tail as she stormed out the door. Maelstrom winced and rubbed his snout. He sighed and turned to the paper.
I shouldn’t make her mad. I’ll do my essay, and get the story out of her later. He dipped his talon into the ink and started writing. The letters started swimming around the page, jumping and wriggling away. He gave up after three sentences of what must have been absolute gibberish. Maybe I could follow her.
Maelstrom abandoned the paper and started towards the door. He winced as the mountain rumbled again and another headache splintered through his skull. Something’s wrong. I’m in danger. He only got these headaches when he was going to have a vision. And the only visions I have… are life-altering.
You’re in danger you’re in danger stay here STAY HERE.
He tried to ignore the pounding at the back of his mind and stumbled into the tunnel. He pressed himself against the wall and folded the darker outside of his wings over the electric blue interior, and pressed them close to his body so they covered the similarly coloured zig-zag bolts down his body.
Maelstrom slipped along the passage quietly, until a loud crash alarmingly close sent pebbles skittering on his talons, and he slipped. He couldn’t help but cry out as he hit the floor and a vision headache ricocheted around his head.
And then it came forward - Maelstrom saw stalactites and boulders falling from the ceiling towards his wings, pinning him down, splitting through his skull, crushing him, killing him as the mountain collapsed around him and became his eternal tomb.Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions
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