The dust from the broken doorway begins to descend, settling on the glittering, shimmering marble floors of Faerie Castle’s royal chambers. A fitting image, Drakara thinks as she steps over the crumpled, supine form of the Battle Faerie, hardly sparing her a glance. Let her lie there. Fyora had already broken her right hand; let the left one shatter, too. 

Fyora herself, though—the foolish queen risks a glance at the fallen Battle Faerie, then returns her gaze to where it should be. Where it always should have been: right on Drakara.

The Faerie Queen’s eyes harden, and she lowers herself into a fighting stance, the dust beginning to swirl about in the air again as a breeze kicks up around her.

“Please, don’t make me do this,” Fyora says. Her voice is cold, but there’s a tremble in it—could that possibly be a hint of regret at what she had done? Or is that simply fear for what is to come?

Either way, it nearly draws a laugh from Drakara. She clicks her tongue, tsk-tsk-tsk, as the light in the room begins to change. Orange and yellow and green and blue and periwinkle and violet all begin to swirl around Fyora as her hands and her staff begin to glow, and she summons a shimmering orb of white-pink light before her. 

Drakara lifts the Acrimonious Paint Brush, holding it loosely, almost lazily, in her hand. Fyora grits her teeth. That does make Drakara laugh, and she steps forward, pulling back the hood of her cowl.

“Try me,” she says, welcoming the fight she had been dreaming of for almost longer than she can remember. 

They move at once. Drakara brandishes the Acrimonious Paint Brush: sloshing rivers of grey sludge and Void essence whorl around her feet, rising into the air to surround her. They bubble and glimmer, Void energy and Faerie-magic combining with the brush to create something stronger, more powerful than that paltry tool, her failed Grey Painter, could ever have conceived. In time, perhaps—if he had been left in the forge just a little longer—he may have proven worthy of her careful planning. But now, as ever, Drakara knows she must only rely on herself.

The streams of grey and void and magic converge into a wave, and Drakara sends it rushing toward Fyora with a cackle of glee. It is all Fyora can do to raise her arms up before her and divert the tsunami with a wall of pink light, sending it cascading past her in two separate rushes. The dual waves crash against the walls, decimating everything in their path, sending furniture flying and glass and wood shattering. A part of Drakara internally sneers at the shoddy craftsmanship of everything in the room, but she isn’t terribly surprised by it.

The last of the deluge fizzles away, and Fyora leaps into the air. She conjures her magic again with her staff, pink glowing against the remnants of grey sludge, while her beautiful, perfect wings flutter to keep her aloft. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Drakara!” she cries.

“Oh, that’s funny,” Drakara retorts, though there’s no laughter on her lips. “You certainly seemed set on it before!” 

Something snaps in Fyora then. She sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and grunts, shooting a beam of sparkling pink magic at Drakara from her staff, flecked with rainbow hues. It’s child’s play compared to the power Drakara now wields, and she sends another wave of grey magic at the Faerie Queen, meeting her head-on. 

The two beams of energy collide, erupting in a flare of power that sends both Faeries careening back. Drakara manages to keep her footing, but Fyora, with all her dulled edges from years of complacent rule, is not so lucky: her back hits the chamber wall and she slides a short way down it, staff falling from her hand and clattering to the floor.

She manages to land on her feet after pushing herself off the wall, but the landing is rough: her knees buckle, but she stays upright, and she glares at Drakara through the messy, misplaced strands of pink hair that have fallen over her face. Through her teeth, Fyora grinds out, “We don’t have to do this. We can work this out—”

Another deluge of grey slings itself at Fyora, nearly knocking her back off her feet. At the last second, she manages to pull up another barrier—without the aid of her staff, this time—but it isn’t enough. The grey energy is supplemented, now, with tendrils of void energy, each and every one of them lashing against the barrier like greedy, starving tongues. 

“Oh, like that’s ever been your strong suit!” Drakara sneers, pushing harder against Fyora’s barrier. Harder, harder, harder; more and more force applied—a hammer striking at a crack, a whittle carving around a flaw—until the barrier shatters, and Fyora is once more sent staggering back. 

Drakara advances. One step at a time, the steady ring of a struck anvil sounding out with every click of her boots. 

“But then again,” the Dark Faerie says, “you always were afraid of what I was capable of, weren’t you? You were afraid of what my weapons could do. How they could so easily strip you of your power.” Her lips curl up into a sharp, joyless smile. “That’s really why you did what you did, isn’t it?

Fyora steps back. “Drakara—”

“Don’t call me that,” Drakara snarls. “You lost that right long ago, Fifi.”