by Ryan Johnson
His dark red scales grew over his human arms and warped over his shoulders. The scales from his legs grew from his hips and covered the sides of his body, and his red wing turned into the dark swirls of the corrupt purple; his body’s formation was morphing into his demonic possession he took after coming out of the Pool of Shadow, and it was his Demon Prince form.
The form of his demon persona took hold of his body, but Valverno retained control of himself. His mind and conscious remained unfazed by his sudden transformation, and his thoughts were crystal clear like the shine of the sun reflecting against a wave of the ocean.
However, he still felt no increase in his strength in his muscle; it was clear Lusìvar did drained Valverno of the black magic from his demonic form as well. And the only power Valverno still retained was the power to change his form, but no magic or divine power for him. He was weak as a human without magic.
Valverno stared anxiously into the eyes of the lion as the lion stared back at him. This lion apparently had the power to crumple rock. His ears heard pounding hard like a rock falling and trampling from a mountain wall. He had no magic power with him and no flight to get away from the lion; he saw it was impossible to fight the lion on his own. But he charged!
Valverno dashed in a moderate speed and the lion charged him. Valverno quickly halted and jumped before the lion pounced first. Valverno’s body tilted in the air and angled his legs toward the sky and widening his right wing. His fingers grabbed the lion’s hairy mane and pulled himself to the lion’s back like riding a wild horse.
Then the lion swing and waved as Valverno had his fingers hold tight on the lion’s mane. Valverno wrapped his wing around the lion’s back, and his kneecaps squeezing on the lion’s hide Then he plunged lifted his left hand while his right hand gripped the lion’s mane, and his fingers scratched into the lion’s hide.
However, he felt his fingers sliding on the fur instead of penetrating. He tried again with a harder snap but no effect. His fingers slid across the fur again, and he tried to dig his fingers into the lion’s flesh but to no effect.
Valverno gasped that the lion he was wildly riding like on a large bull had fur he wasn’t able to claw or scratch.
Then the lion growled loudly and shook its body back-and-forth. After a while, it jumped and swirled its body in circles in a wild manner, and Valverno could barely hang on to the lion’s back. So, Valverno quickly bent his legs on the spine of the lion and jumped off the lion.
Valverno jumped in the strongest push his legs could push and landed away from the galloping lion, and he only stared back at the lion after landing away from the beast. He was shocked to find out about the lion’s hide. It was like an armor he couldn’t penetrate like the skin he used to have.
He breathed as calm as he could be, but his blood broiled with some freight. He was going against a beast with hide he couldn’t penetrate. Valverno used to have that skin once; now he was having the feeling of fighting himself. He had the strength, the magic, and the armor-like skin but no longer does. He was to be fighting himself, in the form of a giant lion.
Now, he was alone in the fight with the lion, and he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He always found himself in a fight where the odds weren’t in his favor, but he crawled out the bottom and climbed his way to the top.
Then the lion leaped forward and Valverno growled with great anger; a red mist suddenly spewed in his eyes. He leaped with great speed. His fists grabbed hold of the lion’s two front paws and the claws of his right wing snapped closed the lion’s jaw. The two locked upon each other’s eyes with a great anger.
The lion stood on its back hind legs and moved itself forward. It moved Valverno backward with a massive force like two wrestlers moving. Its head struggled to move its mouth from Valverno snapping wing, but it still moved Valverno back with his feet trailing in the ground with its massive weight.
The lion’s weight leaned against Valverno’s arms like a holding a boulder from falling down a narrow hill. Valverno swung his tail into action and stung against the lion like a scorpion. But no sting was harming against the lion as it kept moving the hybrid backward.
Valverno released his wing from the lion’s chin and lowered his head. He rolled beneath the lion and used his wing to cover his body. He rolled through the lion’s stomping legs that crushed the earth like a heavy hammer pounding the ground. Valverno rolled his body around each earth-pounding leg and maneuvered behind the lion, as his tail grabbed one of the back legs of the lion.
After he rolled directly behind the lion, the hybrid positioned his body like a crocodile and jumped from his hind legs. His tail that’s tied around the lion’s leg pulled with Valverno’s jumping force flopped the lion to its belly.
Then Valverno released his tail and landed a short distance from the lion, but he saw the lion getting crawling back to its feet quickly, clawing the ground and making the earth move. The hybrid growled and saw the lion quickly charging to him after getting up.
He quickly jumped from the ground and blocked the lion’s attacking front paws with his right wing and left hand. With his right hand making a fist, his slammed against the lion’s cheek hard, hurdling the lion’s jaw away. Then spun around and whipped his tail against the lion’s ribcage and slamming the lion into the ground.
And one of the lions back legs stretched Valverno’s chest, which made Valverno growled loudly. Four straight lines of blood dripped from his chest.
Valverno again charged forward and pounded the lion with his bare fists, but the lion just got up and tried to claw again. His wing served as a shield to cover himself from the lion striking the hybrid’s right side. He dodged each attack, and he tried to counter attack with just his mere strength and many whips and swings of his tail.
But the lion still remained strong. The lion’s hide must be too strong for Valverno’s fists and tail, or he wasn’t strong enough to fight the lion.
In no time, Valverno felt his strength leaving him, and the lion was still up to its strength. Without his magic, Valverno went on the defense and try to le the beast lose its own strength. He kept his distance from the lion, but the lion kept running back to the hybrid in a massive speed he couldn’t keep up with.
The lion was fast and strong like fighting another Minotaur, but Valverno had no magic or flight at his side. He barely still had his former strength, and he was on his legs for the entire time. He kept his only wing to protect himself from the lion’s attack, and he was losing blood by the second. And much blood loss will make him faint and collapse or kill him. He felt he was facing death again and may be the end of him. What Lusìvar failed to do is what the lion may finish.
“Don’t worry, hybrid, we got your back,” shouted Okinawan. Okinawan and a few Tokagehebi slid down from the mountain they stood on.
But the lion launched his paws from Valverno’s direction to the mountainside the Tokagehebi slid. Points of triangular rocks rose from the mountainside and crumbled at the feet of the Tokagehebi.
While the lion was distracted by the Tokagehebi, Valverno seized his chance. He jumped on the lion again. “If I can’t beat you to death, then I will suffocate you with my own arms.” Valverno’s arms around the lion’s mane and slung his tail around the lion’s ribcage. His wing gripped around the lion’s right shoulder, and he squeezed tight.
In one daring move, Valverno clutched on the lion, and his arms warped around the lion’s neck, digging deep into the think mane; its mane was longer, and the neck was shorter than he expected. With a tight squeeze of his arms, Valverno tried a second attempt, but his arms choked on the lion’s neck.
The lion growled loudly its neck was being strangled by arms of a mortal meal. Its paws tried to aim at Valverno and used its weight to jump to get the hybrid off itself. But Valverno’s wing clutched against the lion’s right shoulder and moved the lion in a different direction.
And the
lion’s wild tossing and turning was making Valverno sling to a side, even with several of his body parts squeezing tightly to the lion in different sections. Even his arms were beginning to lose their grip.
Then Valverno limped forward on the mane of the lion and grabbed its large head with his wing. He quickly wrapped his tail around the neck of the lion. He pointed his right hand over the lion’s eyes, and his left arm beneath the lion’s jaw.
The lion jumped and suddenly rolled over many times, but Valverno covered his body with his wing, seeing how the membrane of his wing was an easy shield to cover his fragile skin from getting torn and bruise and injured. But it didn’t stop him feeling crushing weight of the lion’s head and rock jagging into his bone.
Then, when the lion came back to his feet after rolling the eleventh time, with a mighty swirling swing of his arms joined by his tail and a wing, twisted the lion’s head upside down in a full circle and jumped off.
The hybrid landed on his feet and the lion behind landed on its side, with its head in an angled in a different manner. He was gasping as he heard no breathing from the lion and no movement. Then he knelt down on his knees in a sigh of relieve. His red scales that grew over the sides of his body and up to his shoulders shrouded back to his arms, and his human skin began to show again. His dark purple wing faded into a faded red; he was back in his old form.
And he stood victorious!
Valverno was back at the tent with several others. Freyya, Halvdan, and a Tokagehebi stood along Alfhild running a wet cloth over scars and deep cuts Valverno received in his fight with the lion. The Elf chanted a few words he couldn’t tell what she was saying and a light glow erupted from a palm of one of her hands. He felt any broken bones healing up and the blood wounds zipping closed. His kimono hung on a nearby stand, which was torn during his battle with a monster.
“You are such an idiot!” said Alfhild. “Taking on the monstrous lion alone. You could have died so easily.”
“But I haven’t died, have I?”
“But still, you shouldn’t have done the fighting of your own.”
“I have more than enough experience in dealing monsters, Alfhild. And besides, Freyya’s kids were buried beneath a large rock that I alone carried with my own hands, and they were suffocating beneath the rock. If I hadn’t been there to lift the rock, Freyya’s kids would have died without having any air to breath. And the Amazons and the Tokagehebi were taking forever into gathering their forces and coming to the kids’ rescue.
“So, with all due respect to the few warriors you have, I have seen and experienced more action than all your warriors combined. What would any you have done, if the lion was attacking other people?” asked Valverno
The people in the tent remained silent.
“It seems I have forgotten what a true Pangaean is. I grew up with humanity of the Third Generation. I have their characteristics. It just seems I have only a single choice of action: violence. Everyone else would be the bait and draw the lion away from the kids knowing the bait’s life would come to an end but the kids, the next generation of life, would live on.”
“You did what was deemed necessary,” said Ganymede. “And for some reason as I hear it, it was drawn to you and not to anyone else.”
“I did notice, Ganymede,” replied Freyya, worryingly. “Do you know why the lion was drawn to you, hybrid.”
“I don’t know. It was a predator, and there was easy prey that beast could have preyed. Instead, it came after me, another beast. Maybe it was already dying and wanted to have a fight to the death. Or maybe it likes meat that’s been tenderized after a brutal fight where the muscles are worked-up and stiff. Or maybe it was hunting and fighting for sport. I don’t know the reason as to why the lion would want me. And what kind of beast was that? I’d never seen anything like it, but it did look like a lion.”
“It was a Nemean Lion,” answered the High Priest.
“A Nemean Lion? I never heard of such a beast.”
“It is a rare beast that dates back to the ancient land of Pangaea,” said Ganymede. “A very rare beast of unknown origins. The beast is so rare and never seen by a mere mortal it was thought to be a mere myth. It is known for its strength to change landscapes.”
“And apparently, it is seemed a real beast, or now it was a real beast,” said Valverno.
“Whatever the beast was I hope it was the last of its kind. I barely held my own against it, and its hide protected itself from any of my claws and attacks. I’d never known about a beast to have such a hide to protect it from harm. It reminds me of myself back in the day, when I had my own skin protecting me from harm.
“I wonder if that was also an ingredient Ralenskrit and Belverda used when they experimented on me. But of course, I think Minotaurs also have tough hides, but there is the one time I did manage to stab it with the claws on my wings.” Valverno took a sigh. “Evolution of life is quite mysterious. I can’t figure out if it is supposed to be spontaneous or scary. Maybe both.”
“Maybe both,” said Okinawan. Okinawan entered into the tent. “I see your doing well, despite fighting a beast alone.”
“I have experience fighting beasts alone and more than enough to fend for myself,” said Valverno. “Who would have known I still would have had brute strength. And I thought I would have been weak as a newborn infant when Lusìvar took all my power from me. I guess there are some things he didn’t take from me.”
“You do claim to be a hybrid that’s a human dragon hybrid,” said Alfhild, placing her hands away. “You’re healed now, but there are some other injuries I can’t heal. Your own body is going have to do its own healing. You’re going to have some scars.”
“Hmm,” hummed Valverno, standing up. He bent his legs and slivered his tail softly; he felt new like waking to a bright, good morning. “And my dragon senses may be healed up but not completely. And in my current form, I still won’t be able to fight a battle. I need some kind of practice to gear up my battle experience. Magic won’t help me, so I must find a way to gain more battle experience without the use of magic.”
“I think I can help,” said Okinawan.
“You can?”
“Just because this settlement is safe doesn’t mean it is completely safe. We always expect trouble to be brewing somewhere. So, we have training place here, but they’re mostly the Amazons and Tokagehebi. But if you are willing to join, it can turn you from a weak hybrid to the strongest of soldiers.”
“Well, if you have that sort of thing, then I’ll be glad to join. And no matter what comes my way, I’ll be sure to come out on top and show everyone in this settlement how much of a human dragon hybrid I am.”
“And besides the fact,” said Halvdan. “What about your other form?”
“What other form?” asked Valverno.
“Okinawan said he saw you in a much more monstrous form like a demon-processed person,” replied Halvdan.
“Oh, no,” argued Valverno. “I’m not changing into that form. I am not going to bring myself into that disgraceful form that almost killed me.”
“Yet you still manage to survive with it, did you not? You made me quite curious, hybrid, about your old, ancient form. I want to see what kind of mortal you once were.”
“No, Halvdan. I’ll not change into my Demon Prince personification.”
“But I’m not the only one you made curious,” warned Halvdan. “You made other people in this tent about your first form.”
Then everyone around Valverno leaned forward with great curiosity in their eyes; they wanted to see him in his demonic persona.
Valverno stared back at them. “You Pangaeans really want to see my evil form?” he asked, sternly.
They nodded.
Valverno sighed and shook his head. He closed his eyes and shifted his eyes into an angry look. He breathed a few times and gasped for through crunched teeth. Th
en his voice began to grow into mournful growls and his form changed.
Red scales grew from his legs and arms and all stretched upwards. His red wing swirled with the dark purple like a wave upon the sand. The redness of his skin turned a grey color like a raincloud. In matter of seconds, he went from being his old hybrid form to his demonic form.
Valverno opened his eyes and looked at everyone else staring in awe at him. “It looks evil, doesn’t it? A perfect fit for a Demon Prince. The form I was once. The form I used to take when I destroyed the Titans’ homeland and them.”
“And you are right and here you are,” said Halvdan. “The Demon Prince Vaeludar. The Destroyer of the First Generation. And I wonder how you survived your encounter with the Shadow King after being shot through your chest.”
“No idea,” said Valverno. He shook his head again and he quickly changed back into his hybrid form. “But you can count that persona of me out. I’m not going to be the Demon Prince I used to be, and I won’t go back to that Demon. I won’t be the Demon I used to be, and I will become a different person than I used to be. And that will begin with the training Okinawan mentioned and I will start tomorrow at dawn.”
THE BLEAKNESS OF TRAINING
Valverno got up as soon as a bird was heard chirping. His body felt light and not heavy when he suddenly got up in a cheerful manner. Now, since taking care of a single plant and a fight with a lion, he felt a change in the Shadow power still lurking inside his body, and it felt the Shadow power was being tainted under a new profound personality.
He quickly stretched his one wing and twisted his tail, if he was trying to crush a giant rock. Valverno rubbed his hands together and felt the red scales were as smooth as a steady river flowing softly. They shined bright as a ruby diamond. “Alright! I’m ready.”
Before he would go out, he looked at his kimono robe; it was still ripped from his battle with the lion beast. That battle felt him with four scars on his chest, but he managed to get out of it alive and live to tell the tale about it.