by M. Modak
Blazer said, “My name is Blazer. I’m operating undercover to complete the mission Queen Tuyena ordered me on.”
Yrrep turned his head without taking his eyes off Blazer. He said, “Moments ago your heart matched the blackness I saw inside you 500 years ago Blazer. You were one of the youngest among the Red Dragons. Sending you away, to be exiled with them, broke my heart.”
“Master, my story is a long one. When you met me…I hated myself. I wasn’t mad at you. I knew I was evil, that I had hurt innocence itself. I didn’t know how to change, I didn’t even know there was another choice I could make; a different way. All I’ve ever known was fear, hate and a desire to make others feel that way so that I was not alone. The brotherly love Lavar and you offered me hurt almost as bad as the abuse the Great Red Dragon and Sleven gave to me since birth.”
Yrrep’s heart sunk and he took a step closer, “How can that be. We would have protected you. All we wanted to do was save you and everyone else from the madness of those ideas inflicted upon you by the Red Dragons.”
“I know that now. But, you grew up loved and you had everything. I was born in the flames of sadness and hate. The hope you offered was a lie to me, life could not be as good as you proclaimed. My mind was filled with a vision of submission to new masters I didn’t know or understand. At least I knew the wild swings of insanity the other Red Dragons gave. They promised that one day we would rule TOL. They said Elohim wanted us to retake the Great Tree and use it to enforce our beliefs upon the multi-universe. I didn’t understand all he was talking about then but it was something I could grasp. The Red Dragon wanted to do what he had always done, control and dominate, but on a much larger scale.”
Yrrep placed his hands on his hips, “What changed?”
“Everything. Let me share with you the late Grand Master’s journeys and accomplishments. Allow me to inform you on how it led to this world’s involvement in the galactic struggle against Sleven’s army of demon exiles. My life is but a spark compared to the star that was the Drahca, the Grand Master of Energy, king of Serwin and protector of life and freedom.”
Yrrep didn’t need any more convincing, but he would learn the truth. He stepped forward and placed his right hand on Blazer’s heart. If there was deception involved, he would find out. Blazer’s life impressions poured out of his mind, moved through the channels of his bodies’ energy and out his heart’s chakra where Yrrep absorbed it. The information came as a collection of several perspectives Blazer had gathered over the years. It was drawn from others who had done this same sharing with him.” A voice inside Yrrep’s mind said, “This is the complete story of what happened to the beloved Grand Master. He shared this with me from his own mind.
Chapter 2 Grand Master Drahca
153 years ago.
Drahca opened his eyes and looked around. He was sitting on a barren rock. All around him were blood colored, sand dunes. The sea of red sand stretched into the horizon.
Long legs pulled him to his feet, as he instinctively tried to extend his large wings in a stretching ritual that always ended with his fingers and toes splayed out and his tail whipping wildly back and forth. But he no longer had wings or a tail. He glanced back over his shoulder, just to check, and shook his head in response.
He missed his powerful body. Before his mind had been switched with a human volunteer, he had lived as a blue dragon for 10,000 years on TOL. Now, there were only a few active dragons, back on his home world, that were his age and still willing to fly.
He looked down at his human arms and legs and chose to accept them as his, one more time. He was only able to abide the change if he promised himself to accept them for today, tomorrow was another story. He wasn’t sure which part he hated most, being so small and weak or not being able to fly. But, he was a little relieved not to have to worry about the fire or ice breath anymore. It was so easy to harm little creatures and plants if he didn’t pay strict attention.
He stood up feeling a little shaky but surprised that the process of teleporting here didn’t hurt so much. After seeing Lavar send many of his younger cousins as exiles to this world, and then watching his own blood and guts explode then shrink into a tiny spark due to the teleportation process, he was sure it would be painful. However, it wasn’t. Lavar had always done everything he could to cause no harm.
He looked around for a long time before choosing the tallest mountain on the horizon as his destination. Sleven, the leader of the rebel band of Red Dragon Exiles could be anywhere. He doubted he’d get lucky and find them over the next hill. He was prepared to search every square inch of this planet until he found them.
There were no clouds in the sky and his skin was already feeling dry from the heat. He sent his energy out in all directions, searching for any signs of life. Deep underground limbless reptiles and bacteria returned his call. Their collective energy felt primitive, even vicious, though they didn’t seem to be directing that negativity at him. Everywhere else he searched revealed nothing of interest.
This world was as different from his home as a rock is to water. Back home he never had to send his energy out to feel life. Life was always sending him constant messages from all around. The seals, whales, penguins and birds that lived near his cave at the South Pole never left him alone. Many of their children had slept under his warm wings as he slumbered for months at a time.
The memory brought tears and then anger. If he had been in his old body, he would be breathing blue fire right now. The Red Dragons had turned against life itself. They had killed thousands of dragons, elves, men, dwarves, plants and animals in attempts to transmute them into, “More perfect beings.”
They didn’t do this because they were hungry, and not because they needed the energy to live. They grew up on TOL, were well over 50 years old and needed nothing to eat. TOL sustained them. They did it to feel powerful. They needed to dominate, control or killed just to prove their superiority as Elohim’s highest created beings. To them, there way was the most free, lacking restraint and ignoring all cause and effect. They had sited historical precedent to him, acts of terror preformed in ancient stories, as if that was an acceptable reason for all the suffering they caused.
They did have grievance though. Neglected because of their grandparent’s evil against TOL, the dragon children were forced to grow up without education, love or supervision. He and Lavar had begged their forgiveness for the crimes committed against their parents. And, even though they had caused incalculable suffering, peace and acceptance was offered to them. However, a heart filled with hate will burn bridges, which no amount of positive energy can repair.
He always pointed out that, “The Law of Causality doesn’t care about your reasons. You will eventually get what you gave.” Their idea of power over others was a mindset he never could balance. For him, being bigger, older or even smarter didn’t make you better than anyone. Figuratively speaking, it was the size of your heart that made you great, balanced by the depth of wisdom you could draw upon.
He was bare foot, naked and all alone as he walked across the red sand. Loneliness for a dragon isn’t so hard to deal with as long as you know that eventually you will be with others again.
Once upon a time, he had spent a decade sleeping underground. When he awoke he found a sheet of ice had grown around him. Soon after he had taken his first flight, the word spread, “Master Drahca is awake again.” He had flown around the world and reconnected with old friends. He learned that all the little ones he had talked and played with had grown up. Some of the older ones had children of their own now. Within months, the sea people had hastily thrown together a global party in his honor. On that day, surrounded by friends, he vowed never to sleep so long again.
Now he was in another universe, in a human body and he would never see his world again… He took a deep breath and looked at the mountain he was heading toward. He kicked a few pebbles that were in his way and watched them slowly bounce under this world’s low gravity. Seeing them move
like that reminded him it was time to take inventory of his, now, limited abilities.
He held his breath and let a low hum originate from deep within his belly. He felt a tingling sensation. It added to the strange feeling he experienced due to the expanded phase of time and space in this universe.
Then his arms, legs and torso vanished. There wasn’t a shimmer, glow or sound coming from his body. Though it took a lot more concentration and energy to do it here, he had completely disappeared, the same as he could back home.
Only the blue dragons knew about it. Invisibility was secret knowledge they rarely used, if ever. It was a special state of mind, which allowed him to see individual rays of light then attract and move them around his body. He could also draw his radiant heat back into his body for a long time while countering gravity.
His clan had discovered the trick long ago. They had chosen not to teach it due to the trouble one could easily get into if not use by the wisest of souls. He wished he would have taught it to his young Elvin Swords Master before he left, but he was so use to keeping it a secret he had only just remembered how to do it. Being in another universe, on a different world caused him to think in many different ways. He let his energy drop, his mind relaxed and his body reappeared.
He wondered how Master Yrrep was. Becoming human was very difficult for him. The day Lavar had switched him with a noble young human, he had become like a child born in an adult’s body. He had to relearn how to walk, eat, control his bladder and then hold a sword and fight. Yrrep had spent years working with him so he could use this new form as fluently as he had his previous dragon form. Then the weapons and self-defense training had begun.
Yrrep had always said that he was his best student. It wasn’t because he was faster or stronger than the others were. It was due to his age, vast experience with manipulating energy and his spiritual perception. He could anticipate an opponent’s next move long before they acted. To many, he seemed to move extremely fast. He and Yrrep knew that it was the art of being where the other wanted to be before they realized it.
Taking a running leap, and fending off the urge to open his wings and fly, he climbed high into the air. A little anti-gravity boost held his position for a few more seconds before he started to descend. From high in the air, everything looked the same in all directions. The red sand dunes continued on, merging in places with distant mountains. He landed lightly in the sand almost a mile away from where he had jumped. This must be a small world indeed, he thought.
There was a few more tests he needed to try before he could gage the limit of his power. He reached out his hand, inhaled as he concentrated, and a surge of blue energy crystalized into a ball out of thin air. The dark crystal took in the light from the sun and scattered it into a rainbow across the sand below. Then he drew in another deep breath and a flood of light discharged out of his chest, into the crystal ball and then out the other side in a narrow beam of hot white light. He directed the light over the sand and it turned to glass. He moved the light over to a nearby rock and held it there until it exploded under the pressure. He exhaled and shook his head and said to himself, “At least the exiles are just as limited as me.”
This environment, and what he meant to do here, made him think of countless other ways he could manipulate the energy through his bodies’ heavily, TOL saturated cells. He would need to practice and discover every possible way to control energy through this body if he was going to defeat the exiles by himself.
The horizon looked so far away through human eyes, but he knew it could only be a little more than a dozen miles to the mountain. He started running and then jumped, held his anti-gravity field a little longer this time making him fly even further. He landed then jumped again. Within a few minutes, he was at the base of the mountain.
It was a respectably tall mountain. His cousin lived with a golden dragon in such places as this. Carefully, he climbed up then along a narrow rock ledge that led to a small clearing where he jumped to a higher ledge. When he arrived at the top, he heard a noise and quickly dropped to one knee and cloaked himself. He peered over the large bolder in front of him. There were twenty or so humans walking around the base of a large metal machine that looked like a huge, black dragon. As his mind grappled with the image he slowly realized it was a ship, like Grace, only sitting on land. A strange pattern on the ground caught is attention. A trail of small rocks and dust scattered away from the ship’s center most point. He also heard a high pitched-buzzing that came from center of the…vessel, and now he could see humans coming and going from a large opening on one side.
There were many here he had never seen before but he recognized several of the humans, it was the Dragon Exiles. All the humans wore clothing, a mostly pointless custom the elves and humans did not share back on TOL. However, in this sun’s light, filtered through this world’s thin atmosphere, he could feel the need for the added protection. The exiles wore ill-fitting jumpsuits made from a material that reflected the deep crimson color from the surrounding landscape. The smaller humans wore a grey uniform with a clear dome over their heads.
The exiles looked very different from his memory. After a moment of watching them, it struck him how calm and…polite they all seemed. These were the vilest creatures he had ever known. They were capable of throwing childlike tantrums filled with the most disgusting forms of communications he had ever heard. Now they were walking around as if the sun had just come out after a long steady rain and now they could all play. He couldn’t believe it.
Then he listened both with his ears and with is inner hearing. They were talking to each other in a language he didn’t understand, but his heart understood. It was as he suspected. Just beneath the surface of the warm smiles and calm demeanors was a volcano of barely controlled emotion on the brink of exploding. After locking onto that emotion he quickly identified another twenty or so of the exiles, more than half were inside the vessel. They looked like they were getting ready to leave.
This is why he was here. They were why he had come. He had to stop them from fulfilling a possible destiny that would end the lives of billions throughout this galaxy, potentially starting the end to all life everywhere. But that last part was uncertain, the cause of the Great Change was still unknown. Seeing them here, and with other humans on a great ship confirmed the elder’s visions. Someone has stumbled upon them and were about to pay with their lives.
He had volunteered for this duty for many reasons but most of all it was for the honor of the dragons. The Red Dragons had stripped the name, “Dragon” of its rightful place among the words “Wise,” and, “Patient.” These people were the abandoned children of the Dark Foe. He knew that he, and many others, was responsible for the misbehavior from these disrespectful children, if only because they had let them grow up without supervision…or love. Many had simply walked away from the trouble, thousands of years ago; as if these offspring had some inherent flaw inside them that only death could cure. However, Drahca knew this; those fears had attracted the prophecy.
He checked his cloak. He was still invisible and sound proof. Silently, he approached the opening to the big vessel along the path that kept the exiles up wind from his sent. These were once dragons that used sent as a type of second vision. They no longer had the olfactory glands needed for such keen sight, but the habit to sniff was still with them.
They were exiting the ship with large empty barrels that floated a few feet above the ground while others returned them filled with…He sniffed the air, and realized that it was pure spring water. On his way here, he had detected several large pools of water fed by a river deep underground. There must be an access point in the mountain somewhere, he thought.
He quietly followed a small group of the alien humans onto the ship. The craft was large, big enough to fit three full sized dragons inside but not as big as Lavar’s ship, Grace. The humming sound increased as he made his way through narrow passageways noticing, for the first time, how much smaller these humans were next
to him and the exiles.
They walked through several corridors, through four different doorways and arrived in a large, gray room. Illumination came from small, holographic images that hovered above a panel of blinking lights. Next to the panel was a large spinning chamber with tiny, glowing crystals inside. The small, blue crystals looked like the one he had created earlier but these were much smaller.
Then he tensed as he looked above the main pod. Ten Dragon Exiles looked down into smaller, separated pods behind the main pod. They were pouring the water they had brought into the pods as the exiles combined and projected waves of red and green energy, just as he had earlier, creating pillars of crystals as large as the small humans he had followed in here. He wondered, what are they going to do with all that potential power?
When the humans were finished and had put the containers away, they touched a small section on the collars of their suits. The fabric began to separate, starting at the hands and feet, and withdrew into the small collars. They were all wearing uniforms of blue under the suits, a color he greatly favored. The ringed collars then opened up at the front and they removed them and placed them on a shelf next to a door on the far side of the room.