Centuries had passed since the wars of gods and titans, and for the Endless known as Discord, eternity had begun to sour into monotony. He slouched upon his jagged throne of paradox and shifting geometry, eyes glowing with restless amusement that was slowly hardening into boredom.
Creation moved, yes, but it moved in predictable rhythms. Mortals squabbled, gods preened, and empires rose and fell. Even the tragedies were rehearsed. It had all grown… dull.
"Oh, how I hate the sound of stillness," Discord muttered, twirling a goblet that refused to stay one color, shifting between gold, obsidian, and dripping shadow. "Eternity without spice is just ash upon the tongue."
One memory stirred within him, however, a curiosity he had put aside long ago. The Burning Martians. Once the apex predators of their red world, their flesh wreathed in living flame, their minds sharpened only for endless war. The Guardians of the Universe, in their obsession with balance, had deemed them too dangerous and had shackled their descendants with a genetic weakness: fear of fire. Thus, the Green and White Martians were born, more docile, more civilized, shadows of their forebears.
But Discord, ever contrary, had plucked six Burning Martians from extinction before the flame was smothered. Four males, two females, preserved in a timeless stasis, like insects caught in amber. He had kept them as one might keep forgotten toys in a chest, meaning to play with them one day.
And now, after centuries of silence, that day had come.
With a snap of his fingers, the chamber of his throne warped, and six towering figures appeared before him. They stood frozen mid-roar, their bodies crackling with restrained fire, their savage eyes burning with hatred.
Discord leaned forward, his grin wide and feral. "Wake."
Reality rippled, and their forms shuddered to life. The six Burning Martians gasped as the weight of time returned to them. They ignited instantly, their bodies cloaked in fire, their minds reaching out instinctively to each other in a storm of telepathic voices. Their fury was palpable, but so was their confusion.
"You have slept," Discord said softly, his voice echoing across the chamber like a thousand whispers. "While your kin were broken. While their fire was stolen."
Images flared in their minds, visions of Green and White Martians, peaceful, chained by fear, no longer true predators. They roared, their fire flaring higher. The chamber shook.
Discord chuckled. "Oh yes, be angry. Rage is your birthright. But know this, I have not kept you here to laugh at your decay. No, my lovely sparks. I have kept you because I see… potential."
One of the Burning Martians growled in halting speech, their mind struggling to form words in a tongue foreign to them. "Why… you keep… us?"
Discord stood, spreading his arms. "Because you were too beautiful to waste. Too terrible to tame. And now… you will be more. No longer Martians, no longer bound to a single world or a single weakness. I will remake you into creatures who thrive in the void, who bend worlds to their will. Dragons. True terrors of the cosmos."
The word dragons echoed in their minds, primal and resonant. Discord fed them visions: wings vast enough to blot out suns, firestorms that reduced civilizations to ash, claws that tore through steel, minds sharp enough to outwit gods. He showed them children born of their kind mixing with others across the stars, hybrids, abominations, miracles. A future of chaos unending.
They recoiled at first. Change was anathema to warriors who had lived only for battle. But then came understanding. In his promise, they saw not diminishment but ascension.
Discord's grin sharpened. "Do you think I would make you less than you are? No, no, no. What comes will be horror, yes, but horror wrapped in majesty. Entire civilizations will whisper your names in fear. Worlds will burn and adapt in your wake. That is what you shall be."
He leaned forward, voice dripping with velvet menace. "All you must do is accept."
The six looked to one another, their fire burning higher, their minds weaving together. No words, only a shared thought pulsing between them. At last, in unison, they turned back to him and spoke aloud, their voices thundering as one:
"We accept."
Discord's laughter filled the chamber, sharp and wild, echoing through every corner of his realm. It built into a cacophony of delight as he raised his hands high.
"Wonderful!" he purred, eyes glinting with both mischief and malice. "Let us see what nightmares the universe will dream of when the last sparks of Mars are reborn as dragons."
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The chamber of the castle grew dark. The torches that lined the walls sputtered and turned upside down, their flames burning downward instead of up. The six Burning Martians floated above the black marble floor, their fire warping into a storm of chaos-light that ate at their flesh and rewove their essence.
Discord circled them slowly, like a maestro conducting an orchestra. His voice was smooth, velvet and venom, a lullaby woven with madness.
"Every masterpiece requires… definition. Chaos births infinite possibility, but to shape you, my darlings, I must give you form. You will not all be the same, what fun would that be? No, no, you will each carry a face of terror, an echo of myth, so the universe may remember you in sixfold harmony."
He snapped his fingers, and the first Martian screamed as his body elongated. Wings tore from his back, vast and leathery, three heads blooming from a neck that multiplied, each mouth hissing with fire. His scales shimmered like gold tarnished by shadow, a living storm of arrogance and destruction.
Discord grinned widely. "You shall be called Zeroth, the Crown of Havoc. Three voices, one malice. A king of storms, a tyrant who delights in ruin. Wherever you fly, the heavens themselves will tremble."
The second Martian twisted next, her body glowing with radiant light. Her wings grew vast, feathered and scaled both, a paradox of majesty and menace. Her roar was not merely sound but a hymn, shaking the walls with divine fury. Her fire burned not red, but silver-blue, searing and pure.
"Ahhh," Discord breathed, bowing mockingly. "My Aurelion, the Radiant Maw. The noble among monsters, the holy terror, the one who devours in the name of righteous flame. Let mortals worship you as a god even as you consume them."
The third Martian writhed as her body condensed, more serpentine, sleek, her scales a gleaming crimson. Her wings snapped tight; his eyes glowed with avarice. She radiated cunning, greed, and an intellect sharpened into cruelty. She roared, shaking the ground like molten gold pouring from a cracked vault.
Discord chuckled knowingly. "My clever little fiend. You shall be Drakain, the Hoardfire. A schemer, a liar, a seducer of kings. Where you tread, worlds will fall not by fang and flames alone, but by whispered bargains."
The fourth Martian grew massive, bulkier than the rest, his scales jagged obsidian, his chest pulsing with volcanic light. When he roared, it was like the detonation of a thousand suns. He towered, a walking apocalypse, his fire more akin to nuclear fury than flame.
Discord threw up his arms as if presenting a god-beast to an invisible crowd. "Behold! Tarras, the World-Breaker. The walking cataclysm, the juggernaut that no wall may stop, no army may stand against. You are the doom of civilizations, and their screams will be your lullaby."
The fifth Martian ignited with crimson flame. His wings sprouted jagged spines, his jaws dripping molten fire. His eyes blazed with primal hunger, his form scarred by the birth of his new power. Rage poured from him, hot and endless. His flames seemed to eat the very air, a furnace that consumed all.
Discord's smile turned wolfish. "And you, my beast of ruin, shall be Cindralok, the Flame Eater. Your wrath is endless, your appetite insatiable. You are fury made flesh. The more you destroy, the stronger you grow."
Finally, the sixth Martian trembled, his transformation slower, darker. His scales dulled into steel and shadow, his form coiled with venom. His wings were vast, but ragged, dripping with black ichor. His eyes glowed with greed not for gold, but for blood and soul. His fire was not fire at all, it was venomous miasma, a dragon's breath of plague and corruption.
Discord leaned close, whispering as if to a lover. "Ahh, you are my most precious terror. You will be Nythra, the Witherfang. The poison in the well, the shadow in the hoard, the hunger that rots nations from within. Your kind will whisper your name as a curse."
The storm subsided. Six beings, no longer Martian, no longer bound by weakness, stood before him. Their roars shook the fabric of Discordia itself, a chorus of apocalypse. They were dragons, kin yet rivals, each unique, each dreadful.
Discord clapped his hands together, laughter bubbling like champagne. "Yes! Yesss! Perfect!" He twirled, spreading his arms wide. "My Star-Drakes! My children of fire and nightmare! You are not a race, you are a storm, a plague, a saga that will never end. Go forth, and make of the cosmos a banquet of chaos."
The six bowed their heads, their eyes gleaming with both gratitude and hunger. They were his creations, but they were predators born anew, and the universe would one day learn to fear their names.