An hour passed before Raika and her friends even considered moving out of their small camp, where they had regained a portion of their energy during their rest. She knew that they all would have liked to rest more than the hour they were given, but Raika knew that if they stayed there any longer they might be attacked by the Falmer. Better, she believed, for them to continue on their way and be long gone before anymore foes arrived to stand in their way, though the only place they could go at this point was across the bridge. So, once they were all ready to go, they marched across the bridge and stopped when they reached the other side, finding a golden statue of an elf holding what looking like a sun.
"So this is Auri-El," Serana commented, as they made their way around the statue, "I'll never understand why the Snow Elves worshiped him to begin with."
Raika moaned as they approached the iron doors that blocked their way, wondering how they were supposed to pass into the Inner Sanctum so they could kill Vyrthur. Sombra, on the other hand, approached a pedestal and began to pour the liquid from the ewer into the basin, watching it move through the groves in the floor. The water slowly began to gather in the indent of the sun that rested before the door, though the moment that the indent was filled up the sun symbol on the door began to spin. A few moments later the symbol stopped moving, cracking wide open and pushing the doors open before them all, though Raika was glad to be getting somewhere.
As they entered the Inner Sanctum Raika kept one of her swords at the ready, just in case there was anything else that could jump out at them and fight them. The only thing that they found when they entered the building was a bunch of frozen Falmer, frozen where they had been standing and left to die. There were dozens of them, though the only thought that ran through Raika's mind was what would happen if they actually weren't dead and were simply waiting for someone to come around so they could pounce on them. She approached one of the statues and thrust her sword right into its chest, allowing the flames of her anger to race through it and devour it whole, reducing it to a pool of water.
"Hmm, maybe I could do this," Raika commented, flames wrapping around her form as she began to tear each and every statue in the immediate area to pieces, "Burn baby burn."
Sombra and the others sighed and stepped back towards the opening, watching Raika hunt down and destroy every statue that Sombra was sure that the Snow Elves had built so many years ago. He couldn't fault her for suspecting something to jump out at them, if that was her reason for doing this, after they had traveled through a few dwarven ruins and the nordic barrows. So they waited a few minutes before all the statues were reduced to pools of water, telling them all that none of the statues had actually contained something that would have killed them.
"Well, I guess there wasn't anything anyway," Raika said, not sure what her friends were thinking so far, "Let's just move on and get this over with before something else happens."
"Or before you burn the entire place down," Serana commented, pulling her hood off and fanning her face just a bit, "Honestly, if you want to just torch the place be my guest, I won't stop you. Maybe we could just smoke out Vyrthur and ambush him when he comes to investigate what's happening."
Raika moaned, of course the vampire would think of ambushing someone and killing them before they had a chance to even fight back and defend themselves. No, she would be respectful and challenge Arch Curate Vyrthur to a fight instead of ambushing him, as most warriors preferred to do in Skyrim. Once they managed to clear up this whole Dawnguard issue Raika was going to leave Serana behind and find out whoever sent those Cultists after her. However, she knew that she needed to help Lord Ulfric finish the war before doing that, which made her wonder if the Stormcloaks were still going without her or had moved onto the next Hold.
They silently made their way through the rest of the Inner Sanctum, bypassing the iron doors that had been put in place so many years ago and searching for a way to wherever Vyrthur was waiting. Raika was surprised that there weren't any Falmer that were actually alive, but she figured that they had made one last smart decision before they all went blind; they had fled the Inner Sanctum and never returned. Oddly enough there weren't anymore statues in their way, which seemed odd considering that Gelebor said that a large number of them had overrun the area before he had fled. It made her wonder if they were all sitting in the same area that Vyrthur was waiting in and were merely waiting to be awakened.
They eventually found a collapsed section of the sanctum, blocking their path, but then Raika spotted an opening in a nearby wall and the group made their way through it instead. They dropped down into an area that opened up to an even larger chamber, though sitting at the back of it was an elf that happened to be sitting in a throne made of ice.
"So, there he is," Serana said, crossing her arms as she stared at the elf from afar, "We can either pin him to his throne with one of Cadence's arrows, pierce his heart with one of Sombra's crystal spires, or blast him to pieces with our combined magic."
"Or the Daughter of Coldharbour and the Dragonborn can fight me themselves," the elf shouted at them, staring right at them, "Honestly, if your going to discuss your battle strategy you should have done so before you got close to me. Come and get what you've traveled all this way for, I promise I won't bite you."
"Just play his game," Cadence said, beckoning for the two of them to get it over with, "We'll be right here in case either of you need our assistance, but considering that Raika's anger I'd say you likely won't need our help anyway."
Raika moaned and walked forward, keeping her eyes peeled for anything movements from the various statues that lined the chamber as Serana joined her. Neither of them really liked each other, but they needed to work together in this once instance so they could get Auriel's Bow and put a stop to her father's insane plan. If she hadn't unlocked some of her true potential of being the Dragonborn before coming here she would have felt terrified that they might not survive. She wasn't sure what their chances were without her friends to help them out, but Raika had known a day like this was coming and readied herself for the coming fight.
"I must thank you, Dragonborn, for bringing your fetching companion to me," Vyrthur said, staring down at Serana with a hunger in his eyes, "Unfortunately, this means that you are no longer of any use to me and therefore you need to be disposed of."
Several of the statues broke open and snow white Falmer dropped to the ground, though they looked around and crawled their way to where Raika and Serana were standing. Raika barely wasted a moment before cutting a pair of them down and then striking one more of them with the sharpened spike on her new tail. Serana pressed her hand to ones chest and blasted it into the wall, blowing a smoldering hole in its chest and killing it instantly, not to mention staining that section of the wall red. Within a few minutes the group of Falmer were dead, leaving both of them to return to the front of the throne and wait for Vyrthur to come down.
"A wasted effort," Vyrthur laughed, tapping the stone floor around his throne, "You delay nothing but your own deaths!"
The rest of the statues burst open and dropped more enemies for them to fight, but Raika, already feeling annoyed at Vyrthur's persistence at ignoring their fight, did something different. Her flames surged forward, wrapping around the Falmer it caught and destroying it in seconds before it moved around the room, searching for the next enemy. By the time Raika had consumed and destroyed every frozen Falmer she could tell that Vrythur was annoyed with her, but she really didn't care at that moment.
"Now that all of your toys are gone can we fight for real?" Raika asked, prepared for her swords to taste Vrythur's blood, "Or are you going to pull some move that's going to kill everyone?"
That was before Vyrthur threw an orb of ice at her chest, which exploded on impact and began to spread all over her body, almost as if the elf was freezing her solid. In a matter of seconds her entire body was covered in ice, her body temperature cooling down as Vyrthur tried to end her and keep Serana on the ground. Raika let her eyes close as she felt the ground shake, as if Vyrthur was trying to bring the entire ceiling down on top of her and kill her by shattering her body. Her anger ignited and she could hear Yolrahtoor roaring in her ears, pushing her to break out of her frozen state and burn her enemy to the ground.
As the ceiling came down Raika's anger raged out of her body, flames snapping up in an instant and melting the ice around her into a pool of water, giving her the opportunity to flare her wings and push herself through an opening in the ceiling.
"Damn you all," Vyrthur shouted, standing on a balcony with Serana standing near him, "You have ruined countless centuries of preparations. I had the ears of a god once, until one of my foolish Initiates infected me and Auri-El abandoned me to my condition. With your blood I shall taint his holy weapon and bring about Eternal Night to Tamriel."
"You should have practiced your skill in killing someone," Raika called down, floating near them and causing Vyrthur to look at her, "then again, there's now way you could have known how powerful I was before ever fighting me. I suggest that you just hand over Auriel's Bow and save us the trouble of killing you."
"I'll turn you into a block of ice!" Vyrthur shouted, ice forming around him and turning into what Raika assumed was just a suit of armor, before summoning his magic and channeling it towards her.
Raika, in turn, called upon the power of her anger and released a gout of flames that raced down to where Vyrthur was standing, colliding with his ice magic. The collision of their magic shook the balcony, tossing Serana to the side and forcing her to watch which one of them commanded a better control over their magic. Serana suspected that Vyrthur had more control over his magic and knew way more than Raika ever would, but Raika, on the other hand, had the power of her anger and the power from every dragon soul that she had absorbed over her journey.
Serana knew that it would be no contest, that Raika would destroy Vyrthur and they'd be walking out of this place with Auriel's Bow, which would please everyone there.
After about two minutes of their elements battling Raika decided that she had had enough and dug deep inside herself, calling upon the fire that she had acquired from her other side. Yolrahtoor was more than happy to give her its fire, flames ripping out of her throat and adding to the fire that was currently battling Vrythur's ice. Once the fire reached the ice Raika began to push Vyrthur back, so much that she could feel him struggling to hold his own against the power of her anger. Eventually the flames tore through the ice and collided with Vyrthur, casting him into an inferno and screaming his lungs off as he burned under her anger.
Once the deed was done Raika cut off her magic and landed beside Serana, falling to her knees and realizing that she might have gone overboard in her assault.
"Its...its done," Raika huffed, staring at where Vyrthur used to stand as a Wayshrine rose out of the floor in front of them, "Oh what is it this time?"
"The opening of this Wayshrine means that you were successful," a voice said, as Gelebor walked out of the Wayshrine and faced them, "I have to say that I wasn't sure if you would have survived long enough to actually fight my brother, but now that he is dead I can easily give you Auriel's Bow. There's something different about you, something that I can't place my finger on."
Raika, now annoyed with Gelebor at this point, grabbed Serana, made her way to the Wayshrine, grabbed the glowing bow that floated above the basin, and called for her friends to join them. Once they were all together again Sombra snapped open a Shadow Gate and they all disappeared, heading all the way back to Fort Dawnguard so they could plan the next stage of their assault.
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When they stepped out of the gateway they immediate found themselves being surrounded by the members of the Dawnguard, being asked about the trip to the Ancestor Glade. It wasn't long until the questions turned to Raika and her unusual form, as she had left them as a normal khajiit and had returned as a khajiit, but had dragon wings, a new tail, a clawed hand, and small horns. Apparently during her fight with Vyrthur she had channeled so much of Yolrahtoor's power that it had come with its own little cost, causing sharp horns to grow right out of her forehead. She hadn't noticed the change, but now she knew that calling on the power of her other side would come with a price that she wouldn't find out until later.
"So, what's our next move, Dragonborn?" Isran asked, standing before them as they produced Auriel's Bow, "Are we taking the fight to the vampires or was all of this just to show that we could do what they could not?"
"Oh, we're going to hit them hard," Raika grinned, yawning from exhaustion due to the fight with Vyrthur, "but give us some time to rest and then we'll hit them in the morning. They won't suspect an attack at that time and we'll catch them off guard."
Isran bowed his head and went to talk to the rest of the Dawnguard, telling them to get as much rest as they needed before they launched their assault in the morning, much to the joy of the vampire hunters. Raika knew that they wanted this to be over as much as she did, but she had someone who was good with a bow that could shoot Harkon while she fought him. All Raika needed to do was get Harkon into the open and then they'd put him down before he could destroy Tamriel with his Eternal Night.
Things were finally looking up for all of them, which made Raika smile as they eventually drifted off to sleep.