#based off that one comic panel where Kira'na looks like she's slashing Fang's neck

[shadowuserannie]

and he falls

By all means, having the body of a dragon should feel different.

But his shadows have sensed his lack of sight, and reconfigured his glasses despite his transformation. He can feel his tail, his claws, but the transformation feels more like a fusion or operating a golem rather than transforming.

(Maybe it’s because this isn’t a real power-up, achieved through hard work. It’s been shortcutted, a tier activated by an outside force rather than striven for from within.)

(Maybe he’s just too weak.)

Fang roars, and shadowfire bellows out of his mouth. It meets the lightning of his sis-no, no. No.

She is Empress Satriantar Kira’na, and she has murder in her eyes where there was once care.

(He is seven years old and still learning to erase nightly footage from the cameras in the training room. She says the nickname Kira will do just fine, and she is his first combat teacher.)

Her sword flashes as she moves, fast as lightning and twice as deadly.

Fang is just slightly faster to dodge.

He pivots, moving what he feels to be his mouth wide open to crush-

(“Don’t tell Kai I’m teaching you, mm?” Kira corrects his shoddy fist.)

Fang hesitates for a split second, and Kira’na dodges.

“It’s no use, Pang. The bigger the enemy, the harder they fall.”

Listen to yourself, then.

“I will still protect my friends, Kira’na.”

Fang has given up everything for them.

He had given up his brother when his friends were hurt.

He had given up retaining any connection to Kira’na when his friends were hurt.

He has given his blood and power and everything for his friends.

(Fang is thirteen years old, and he is in a ship all alone in the dark depths of space. He wishes he’d never left that beautiful planet revolving around a golden sun.)

“Sadly, your protection can only last for so long!”

And-look, he knows, okay?

He knows that they still dance around the year or two he’d been absent from them.

He knows that they still don’t listen when he urges them not to rush in.

He knows that no matter what he does nothing ever works because he’s Fang K’tenna and so of course it doesn’t.

But he can try, he damn well tries because they are his friends and Fang will rip apart the universe if they asked him to.

(“I’ll rip apart the universe if you ask me to,” Fang is nine and his declaration is made through sobs as he hugs Kira one last time.)

(“I will never ask you to.”)

He doesn’t fold in, doesn’t shy away in fear.

The spear of Voltra crackles in the sky but Fang feels no fear.

Dying for his friends isn’t a half-bad end. His younger self might disagree, because Fang is ambitious to his core and despises the idea of leaving life having not done anything important.

But protecting his friends? That’s an importance his life is worth.

Or-

Or maybe, Fang realises as he watches Rimba club Kira’na-literally-there is some part of him that knows his friends will never let him die.

He strikes Kira’na down when Rimba orders him to, and this time he doesn’t hesitate.

When Rimba lands on his nose, Fang doesn’t quite feel it. He just pleads for Kira’na to stop.

“You have to realise, Kira’na. That power is eating you from the inside!”

Please, Kira.

“Nonsense! The Voltra power belongs to the Gur’latan royalty!”

Her power builds, and Fang still isn’t afraid.

“Not Retak’ka, and not you Boboiboy!”

Fang twists his body upwards slightly-so Kira’na’s swing misses the Elemental on his nose.

Except she wasn’t aiming for Rimba.

VOLTRA MEGA SLICE

Fang falls.

(He is seven years old and using the training rooms at night.)

(He is ten years old and he is all alone with no support system on a different planet.)

(He is thirteen years old and he is going insane on a ship in deep space.)

(He is almost fifteen years old and he is telling his friends to go.)

(He is sixteen years old and he shatters because he has always been broken pieces ready to break again.)

Fang is sixteen years old, and he dies.

The last thing he hears is Rimba’s scream.

“FANG!”