by Virlyce
Alora bounced the sheepman in her paw up and down. It bleated and struggled to stay upright, its limbs flailing in all directions. Alora hummed and brought her paw close to her mouth, enough for the sheepman to feel her hot breath on its body. She snapped her jaws shut, and the sheepman bleated even louder, barely able to keep its arm out of her teeth’s range. Alora chuckled and lowered her palm, still bouncing the sheepman.
A small voice came out of her claw. “I’m not sure I’m helping the right dragon anymore.” It flashed with a white light. “You’re quite evil yourself.”
“What?” Alora asked, stopping her movement. “I’m evil because I play with my food beforehand? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“When your food is alive and begging not to be eaten, then yes, that’s evil.”
“Is it evil to add peppers to your food?” Alora asked. “Things taste better when they’re frightened. I’m not allowed to eat good food or else I’ll be labeled as an evil dragon? I don’t think that’s very fair, and quite frankly, if eating good food makes me an evil dragon, then call me Alora, the evilest dragon in the world.”
“Alright, Alora, the evilest dragon in the world,” Zyocuh said. “How about you stop wasting time and catch the rest of the sheepmen?”
Alora sighed and threw the sheepman in her paw up into the air. As it fell, she positioned her mouth below it and snapped her jaws shut, its bleats disappearing. She swallowed and licked her lips before arching her back, stretching her front paws forward as her haunches rose into the air. Her eyes squeezed shut as she groaned, her wings fully extending. Then she exhaled and opened her eyes, straightening her back as she sat up. “So, how many of these do you think are left? I’m getting a little full.”
“I think you ate the majority of them,” Zyocuh said. “If I still had a body, I’d be able to check how much you absorbed based on your mana, but I can’t do that. After we get revenge on your uncle, you are helping me create a body, right? Just making sure.”
“Uh-huh, yep, of course,” Alora said as she looked around. She was in a small town that had empty streets and abandoned buildings. Doors were left open, and a few mice scurried to-and-fro. Alora lifted her head, pointing her nose at the sky, and sniffed. “Hmm. Are there any more sheep left in this town? I wonder. It certainly smells like sheep.”
There was a small sneezing sound, and a few rats scurried out of a nearby basement window. Alora grinned and lumbered over to the building that they came out of. She dug her claws into the ground and pulled, lifting the house up, revealing a group of huddling sheepmen. The house went flying as Alora threw it aside, and she stopped a fleeing sheepman by squishing him with her tail, using just enough strength to pin him down but not enough to seriously injure him. “Why, hello there,” Alora said. She grinned, showing her teeth. “Y’all should’ve said something when I asked. I almost missed you.”
“Yep, you’re evil,” Zyocuh said. “I’m starting to regret this.”
Alora ignored her sparkling claw and scooped up the sheepmen as if they were cookies on a tray. “I’m not a mean dragon,” she said to the trembling red creatures. “If you tell me where your friends are, I might let you go. What do you say?”
“Baaa, we won’t betray our—”
“I’ll tell! Baa, I’ll tell! Please don’t eat, baaaa, me.”
Four sheepmen turned to stare at their companion who was positioned behind them. Alora chuckled and plucked the lone sheepmen off her paw and placed him onto the ground. Then she opened her mouth and threw the rest inside her gaping maw. She chewed a few times and swallowed before grinning at the lone sheepman, her teeth stained red. “Well, where are they?”
“I-I don’t, baaa, know their exact locations, b-b-b-baaa, but I can help you find them!” The trembling sheepman bobbed his head up and down. His expression stiffened, his eyes widening. Alora frowned as a chill ran down her spine, and she turned her head to follow the sheepman’s gaze. The sheepman let out a joyful bleat followed by a cry. “Great leader! O mighty leader! Save me!”
An ocean-blue dragon came crashing down from the sky, driving Alora into the ground. She yelped and wriggled as she was pushed back dozens of meters, destroying the buildings and trees in her way, leaving behind a line of overturned dirt. The ocean-blue dragon smashed down with his tail, forcing Alora onto her stomach when she tried to climb to her feet. “Ow! What the heck!? Vur!?”
Vur froze, his tail inches away from slamming down on Alora again. “Alora?”
“If not Alora, then who the heck do you think I am?” Alora asked, pushing Vur off of herself. She rolled onto her feet and glared at him. She shook herself, knocking the dirt from her scales onto the ground. “Why the heck did you tackle me? Don’t tell me it was another one of Grimmy’s rules.”
Vur scratched his head. “Why are you purple?”
Alora’s eyes narrowed. “Is that really the first thing you’re going to say to me? You’re not even going to apologize for driving me into the ground? That’s really not cool.”
“Sorry.” Vur blinked. “Why are you purple?”
Alora sighed. “Why aren’t you purple?”
Vur looked down at his scales. Then he raised his head to meet Alora’s gaze. “Because I’m blue.”
“Then I’m purple because I’m purple,” Alora said. “Happy now?”
“No.” Vur shook his head. “You were blue before, and now you’re purple. I was blue before, but I’m still blue.”
Alora closed her eyes and rubbed the sides of her head with her paws. “I’m purple because purple looks nice, okay? There’s no real reason.”
Vur squinted at Alora before leaning back and relaxing. “You’re eating my people.”
“Your what?”
Vur pointed at the trembling sheepman that was near the start of the line of overturned earth. “My people.”
“Your people are red sheepmen?” Alora asked, tilting her head.
Vur nodded. “Yes, and you’re eating them.”
Alora scratched her snout. “Oh, uh, sorry. I didn’t know.”
Vur frowned, his brow wrinkling. “According to Grimmy’s code of honor, I have to show you your place for invading my territory. But I don’t know how to do that anymore.” He scratched his head and sighed. “Then I have to tell Grimmy since I can’t do it.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Alora said, raising her paws up in front of her. “You have to teach me my place, but since you don’t know how, you have to tell Grimmy? What, is this another one of his rules?”
“Codes,” Vur said. “This is one of his codes.”
Alora sighed. “Alright, sure, codes, rules, whatever.” She nodded. “I’d rather you teach me my place than tell Grimmy. Why don’t you know how to teach me my place for eating your people?”
Vur scratched his snout. “To teach you your place, I have to beat you up and make sure you never want to invade my territory again, but another one of Grimmy’s code said I shouldn’t hurt family without a good reason. So, I don’t know how to teach you your place since I can’t beat you up. Then the only option left is to tell Grimmy.”
“Can you … pretend to beat me up?” Alora asked. “I’ll pretend to get hurt, and that’ll be that. After you pretend to beat me, I’ll promise not to eat your people or invade your space, okay?”
“Would that work?” Vur tilted his head. He grunted. “No, I think I should tell Grimmy. It sounds like you don’t want me to tell Grimmy, so the best way for me to teach you your place is to do what you don’t want me to do the most, which is tell Grimmy.” He nodded and crouched, readying himself to leap into the air.
“Wait!” Alora said, rising onto her hind legs. She waddled forward and placed her front paws on Vur’s shoulders, preventing him from jumping. “Let’s think this through together and find a loophole in Grimmy’s code, okay? He said you shouldn’t hurt family without a good reason. Isn’t me eating your people a good enough reason? I think it is. I definitely deserve to be smacked for doing that
. Yep.”
“That’s not a good enough reason.”
Alora frowned. “If I were one of your people, I’d be pretty upset after hearing that,” she said. Her head turned to the side, and she pointed at the lone trembling sheepman with her tail. “Hey. Aren’t you upset your great leader isn’t taking revenge for you?”
The trembling sheepman stiffened. His eyes shifted from side to side, glancing at Alora, then Vur, then back to Alora. A small bleat escaped from his mouth as his eyes rolled up to the top of his head. Then he fainted, toppling to the ground like a wet noodle.
“Doesn’t seem like it,” Vur said and shrugged. He nodded and stared into Alora’s eyes. “Why don’t you want me to tell Grimmy? Are you scared of him?”
“S-scared of him?” Alora asked. “Of course not. Why would I be scared of him? Look, eating your people makes me a bad person who deserves to be punished. That’s why you want to tell Grimmy, right?”
Vur nodded. “Right.”
Alora took her paws off of Vur’s shoulders and took a step back, still standing on her hind legs. “Now, since bad people deserve to be punished, what do you think your people will think if you don’t punish me? They’ll lose all respect for you! You can’t let that happen.”
“But I’m punishing you by telling Grimmy,” Vur said and tilted his head.
“Yes, yes,” Alora said and nodded twice. “But that’s not punishing me yourself. Imagine if…, let’s say Bonnie stole your cookie. Then, normally, Grandma scolds her and makes her apologize to you, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s the kind of punishment she’ll receive if you tattle on her,” Alora said. “But is it enough? Of course it isn’t! She ate the cookie, and all she gets is a scolding? She didn’t even have to return the cookie! Instead of telling Grandma, you can flip her over onto her back and tickle her stomach until she returns the cookie to you. She gets punished, and you get your cookie back, and you didn’t have to waste Grandma’s time, see?”
Vur blinked before furrowing his brow. “You’re saying I should flip you over and tickle you until you vomit?”
“Exactly!” Alora said, raising one claw into the air. She paused. “Wait. No. That was just an analogy. You were supposed to realize that dishing out punishment yourself is much fairer for the cookies, no, sheepmen that were eaten instead of tattling to Grimmy.”
“That was a terrible analogy,” Stella said, her head appearing from the tip of Vur’s snout. “Cookies are meant to be eaten, sheepmen are not. You can’t compare the two.”
Alora stared at Stella. Then her gaze went up to meet Vur’s. “As I was saying, your people will only respect you if you punish me yourself, not by telling someone else to punish me. It’s not that I’m afraid of Grimmy, I just want you to be as respected as possible by your people.” She nodded. “I’m really sorry about eating them and want to make it up to you.”
Alora’s claw shone with a white light. “You really are the evil dragon here.”
Vur’s and Stella’s gazes shifted over to Alora’s claw. “Who was that?” Stella asked. “Who spoke just now and why is your claw glowing?”
Alora’s expression blanked. “You can, uh, see this?” she asked. “And you heard him too?”
Stella dragged her arm out of Vur’s snout and pointed. “It’s a really bright light. We’d have to be blind not to see that.”
“The voice was really loud too,” Vur said.
Alora blinked and looked at her claw. She whispered, “I thought people couldn’t see or hear you.”
Zyocuh whispered back, “I think that sheepman was lying to you to buy time for his brethren to escape.”
Alora lowered her claw and looked up at Vur. “Did you like my ventriloquism? I can make my claw speak.” She wet her lips with her tongue. “It’s a neat party trick, right? My lips don’t move, but my voice comes out anyway.”
Vur narrowed his eyes. “What does Grimmy’s code of honor say about lying?”
“Um. Don’t?” Alora nodded. She raised her paw, pointing her claw at Vur. Nothing happened. She glared and smacked the back of her paw.
“I wasn’t lying about practicing ventriloquism,” Zyocuh’s voice said as Alora’s claw lit up. “Don’t you think it’s neat that I can make my claw talk?”
Vur rubbed his chin and squinted. “How do you do that?”
“Vur!” Stella said, rotating her body which was still half-embedded in his snout. “That’s not ventriloquism, that’s Zyocuh’s voice! He’s Mary’s evil uncle! He must’ve possessed Alora!”
“Possessed? No, how could he possess me?” Alora shook her head back and forth. She wiggled her front claw. “But, okay, yeah, this is Zyocuh. He ended up living in my claw due to circumstances. I’m not possessed, promise.”
Stella turned back around and placed her hands on her hips, still half-embedded in Vur’s snout. “That’s exactly what a possessed person would say.”
Alora furrowed her brow and scratched her snout. How was she going to convince someone that she wasn’t possessed? Well, when in doubt, ask. “Um, what can I do or say to make you think I’m not?”
“You can recite Grimmy’s code of honor,” Vur said before Stella could say anything. “I told you it and not Zyocuh. Only you should know it.”
Alora’s face darkened. “Yeah, I totally know it…. Code number one…, uh, never bite Grimmy’s tail. Ever.”
Vur’s eyes crossed to stare at the fairy on the tip of his snout. “You’re right; she’s possessed.”
“I’m not! The code’s dumb and stupid and I forgot it, alright!?”
“His acting’s really good,” Stella said and nodded at Vur. “I almost thought he was actually Alora for a second. Why don’t you try hitting him with that purifying laser beam that Kondra used on you? It should cleanse her and fix her possession problem by removing Zyocuh.”
“That’s a good idea,” Vur said.
“Wait. Hold up,” Alora said. “Laser beam?”
Vur nodded. “It’s a skill that cleanses things until they have a pure heart.”
“Or die,” Stella added.
Alora took a step back as white light leaked out of the gaps between Vur’s teeth. “Wait a second, just hold—on!” She screamed and leapt to the side as a bright, white beam of light shot out of Vur’s mouth. It narrowly missed her head, hitting and incinerating the buildings inside of the empty town, leaving a line of destruction in its wake as if someone had taken an eraser to the earth. Alora turned her head behind herself. Her eyes bulged, and she whipped her neck back around to face Vur. “Hold up! What part of that is cleansing!?”
Vur tilted his head. “Why did you dodge? If you let it hit you, you’d know.”
“If I let that hit me, I’d die!”
Vur blinked. “Oh, right. You’re Zyocuh right now.” He nodded. “That’s why you dodged.” His throat shone, white light accumulating in the back of his mouth. His voice was low and throaty. “Don’t worry, Alora. I’ll free you soon.”
“You can’t hurt family members!” Alora shouted as she scrambled backwards and flapped her wings. “Remember Grimmy’s code! You can’t hurt family members!” She ducked, and a laser beam flew over her head, barely missing her temple. “You’re breaking the code!”
“Your aim is horrible,” Stella said. “You should’ve trained this instead of your lightning. Maybe you can’t shoot down a star with a laser, but at least you’d be able to cleanse a fleeing dragon. Look at how big she is, she can’t be that hard to hit.”
“Did you just take a jab at my weight!?”
“She really does sound like she isn’t possessed,” Stella said and clicked her tongue. “Zyocuh must’ve interrogated her beforehand, or he took a portion of her memories.”
“This laser is harder to aim than it looks,” Vur said and snorted. “Kondra was just really good at it.”
“Really?” Stella asked. “To me, it looks like you just point and shoot.”
“That’s why
I said it’s harder to aim than it looks,” Vur said, his mouth filling with white light. “It looks easy, but it’s not.”
“Stop shooting! Let’s talk this through,” Alora said. “I’m really, really not possessed! I asked Zyocuh to help me get stronger and”—she dove to the side and rolled a few times, dodging three consecutive but smaller laser shots—“he just ended up inside me! Alora is still the one in control here!”
“If that’s really the case, then let Vur cleanse you just to make sure,” Stella said. “If you’re pure-hearted and not possessed, then it shouldn’t hurt at all.”
“Why do you think I’m pure-hearted?” Alora asked, peeking her head out from the building that she rolled behind. “If I had a pure heart, do you think I’d ask Zyocuh to help me get stronger in the first place?”
Vur tilted his head. “Why did you ask Zyocuh to make you stronger?”
Alora puffed her chest out. “Because of Grimmy’s code of honor!”
Vur blinked. “I thought you said you forgot it.”
“I can’t remember the whole thing, but I remember this specific one because I want to use it to spite Grimmy,” Alora said and nodded. “It went along the lines of a dragon always gets revenge, right? Don’t let go of the slightest slight or something like that?” Without waiting for Vur’s response, she continued, “And Grimmy slighted me. I have to get revenge.”
Stella rubbed her chin. “I can almost believe your story,” she said with squinted eyes. “But what did Grimmy do to you that’d make you ask Zyocuh to help you get revenge?”
“Well, Zyocuh actually asked me to help him,” Alora said and snorted. “He tried to trick me, but little did he know, my brain is literally bigger than his body, so of course I came out on top. But I only agreed to help collaborate because Grimmy….” A shiver racked Alora’s body, and she lowered her head. “He … did things I don’t want to talk about.” Her eyes lit up, and she raised her head, her mouth contorted into a snarl. “But he did them! And I’ll have my revenge.”
Vur glanced at Alora’s claw. “Then should I cleanse your claw?”
Alora tucked her paw to her chest and covered it with her wing. “Don’t you dare. I’m still using him to get stronger. He’s already helped me get new secret powers that I’m not telling you what they are because if I do you’ll tell Grimmy and ruin it for me.” She stuck her tongue out at Vur. “I just have one more giant to absorb, and I’ll be able to follow Grimmy’s code of honor by getting my revenge. You shouldn’t stop me from following Grimmy’s code.”