First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1222: Squabble Up

Chapter 1222: Squabble Up

Apophis, despite not being the oldest, was the big brother for all of his siblings.

His carefree, attentive personality was the very hallmark of his identity.

But underneath these features lay a short fuse when it came to his siblings.

Courtney was the biggest benefactor of her brother’s overprotective personality.

Unlike the rest of their siblings, who usually tended to laugh him off or shoo him away, ever since she was young, Courtney had always wanted to be around her brother.

She idolized him. And in turn, Apophis thought his baby sister could do no wrong.

There was no bone in his body that would let Nihil’s near-blasphemous words skid by unpunished.

His cousin knew by the intensity of his flames that Apophis wasn’t in a joking mood. If he so much as twitched at Courtney, he would melt every hole in his face shut.

“Apologize.” Apophis’ tone was neutral, but his heat was anything but. There was no room for refusal here.

“..So-”

“It’s alright, Apophis.” Courtney stepped out of Thrudd’s shadow.

Instead, she comes face to face with Nihil, her unabashedly wild smile is full of sharp teeth and venom.

She is every bit her father’s daughter.

Courtney is not a beast of anger. She is a prideful creature, bursting with the need to prove a point.

It is the first time her brother, sisters, or aunt had ever seen her like this.

They cannot help but feel closer to her in that moment. She is truly one of them.

“Step outside. I won’t ask you again.”

Fiona broke free of Thrudd’s grip.

“Guys, stop, this is going too-”

The dragons vanished before Fiona could even complete her sentence.

“Damn it…!”

She rushed toward the staircase with Thrudd following closely behind.

“Where ya going?”

“To stop the two of them! This is exactly what I was afraid of to begin with, I’m so stupid!” Fiona hit herself in the head.

Thrudd hadn’t thought what was happening was all that big of a deal, but with her friend being so upset, she naturally tried to comfort her.

“H-Hey, it’s alright. It’s just a little nothing-burger spat, they’ll get over it in-”

“They shouldn’t be fighting over me at ALL! Their family, I’m just…” Fiona paused when she finally made their way outside, and the world was perfectly stable.

Nothing felt out of place or disturbed. There were no signs of struggle.

Fiona immediately whirled around to face Thrudd.

“Where are they??”

Thrudd swallowed.

“Fiona, you really need-”

“Thrudd, so help me god, you better tell me where they are, or I’m going to sneak into your bed while you’re sleeping and superglue your pubes to your thighs!!”

Thrudd swallowed.

Shakily, she lifted one of her fingers and pointed up. Straight up.

–

Mars was, infact, a barren planet. Usually.

It’s boundless red sands lie across the world, disturbed only by the winds that race across the planet.

But today, a calamitous force was shaking the planet from the north to the south poles.

An explosion rocked the dunes of Mars as a figure bounced off the plains.

Courtney rolled on the ground for a bit before flipping to her feet.

Just as soon as she got upright, Nihil was back in her face, clearly enraged and sporting his own litany of bumps and scrapes.

He drew back his head and smashed his forehead into the bridge of Courtney’s nose with a loud crack.

Courtney’s head snapped back instantly, but her eyes only showed invitation, not pain.

She flattened her hands like blades and chopped Nihil on both sides of his neck, causing his eyes to bulge out and blood to spill past his mouth.

Courtney raises her leg at an impossible angle, kicking her cousin in the jaw so hard that he flies into Mars’ upper atmosphere.

Growling, Courtney stomped on the ground hard, and spears of Martian sand shot into the air after Nihil.

Dizzy from the kick, the dragon was a bit late to notice the attack headed his way, but his body responded instinctually.

A tail springs free from his lower back, covered in impossibly hard scales and as thick as a man’s thigh.

He swiped his tail across the spears and shattered them instantly.

Courtney burst through the cloud of rubble like a ghost, her sword in hand.

At the sight of it, Nihil’s eyes practically bulged out of his head.

“That’s cheating!”

“Pussy!”

Courtney swung her sword at Nihil’s face.

His teeth quickly sharpened as he caught the blade in his mouth.

Courtney recoiled. “Don’t lick my sword, you disgusting dweeb!”

“Then you shouldn’t have pulled it out, you emo bitch!”

Nihil lengthens his tongue so that he can fully wrap it around Courtney’s blade.

His antics cause her to pull away, but it comes at the cost of numerous cuts along his tongue.

“You’re so gross!!!!”

Courtney slapped her cousin back into outerspace at a speed so astounding that his clothes caught on fire.

She flicked her blade hard to wipe away her cousin’s saliva.

In the midst of her cleaning, she is tackled hard by an unexpected force.

Courtney and Nihil hit the ground once again, the force of their strikes causing a seismic event strong enough to shake the entire planet.

Nihil kicked Courtney off of him and tossed her as far as he could.

“It always has to be like this, doesn’t it!? Everyone always has to fall all over you and bend over backwards to make you happy!”

Courtney catches a punch Nihil aimed towards her face. Drawing her arm back, she rips her arm clear out of his socket and smashes him across the face with it.

“Don’t give me that shit! No one treats me any differently than they do you! You’re just mad because someone started to see Fiona for what she was worth after you treated her like a sleazy hook-up!”

“I! Was! Playing! Hard! To! Get!”

“Well, how’d that work out for you, numbnuts!?”

The two dragons stripped using magic and kicks and instead focused on openly slugging each other.

“Die!”

“No, you die!”

“You suck! I’m sick of you acting like you’re hot shit all of the time and being such a smug asshole!”

“Yeah, well I’m sick of everyone fawning all over you all the damn time!”

“I told you to stop saying that!”

“Yeah, well, it’s true! Everyone just acts like you’re so perfect all the time just because you’re adopted! You’re not even..!”

Nihil’s fist stops just a hair shy of Courtney’s face.

She has not moved to defend herself for some time.

Despite her adult form, her eyes are those of a child again.

They tremble and shake as if their very world has just been turned upside down.

Nihil feels anger flee his body at such a rapid pace that it is dizzying.

All that is left behind is the immense guilt and sorrow.

He unballs his hand and steps toward Courtney.

“…I.. I didn’t mean that.”

Courtney backs away and wipes her face hard. “Sure seems like you did…”

“Y-Yeah, well, I was just… being an ass. Again. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone that far.”

Nihil tries to touch his cousin’s cheek, but she knocks his hands away.

Her eyes are a different kind of red than before. They are fragile and difficult to look into without worsening the guilt that Nihil feels inside.

Nihil abruptly wraps his arms around Courtney, and she struggles to break free.

“Get off of me, you pig… I hate you!”

Nihil smiles sadly, though Courteny cannot see it.

“…Yeah.. I hate me too.”

It has been several minutes since the two bothered to speak again.

Nihil holds on to Courtney tightly, refusing to let her go.

Similarly, Courtney has stopped fighting and no longer tries to break free.

Nihil is the first to break the silence after several minutes.

“…I’ve always been a little bit jealous of you since you came around. You kind of… made everyone in the house fawn all over you andI guess Ialways wanted some of that attention for myself. Only… I had to act out to get it.”

Courtney sniffled. “No you didn’t, you bastard… You could have just told your mom you felt neglected like a normal fucking person…”

“I… probably could have, yeah. But I guess my pride was too big even as a kid. So I just… tried to figure out a different way to make everyone notice me. And the only way I could do that was by being different from the rest of you.”

“…Being a slut isn’t really being different. Our family has like six of those.”

“…Touche.”

Silence envelops them once again.

Nihil only breaks it to say the words he has rarely ever said in his entire life.

“I’m sorry… really.”

“…Me too.” Courtney apologizes back.

“I want you to know that no matter what I say, or do… you’re always going to be my little cousin.”

Courtney nods slowly. Her own guilt wells up when she remembers how she behaved, and she can barely even face her cousin.

“A-About Fiona… I just wanted to say that-”

“HEY!!!!!”

The dragons turn their head towards the sky abruptly.

There, a large red dragon is breaking through the clouds of Mars and flying towards them.

Sitting on top of it’s back is a very noisy human carrying a bullhorn.

“Stop the violence! No justice no peace! I know I’m hot but this isn’t called for!!!”