บท 542: CHPT 542: Dragons and Destiny

So, to stay up to speed.

Alpha's Tower. Home to a Silver Cursed StoneApe slave master. Built with about as much architectural integrity as three planks of wood. Was powered and built over the back of an adolescent Fire Dragon.

Fire Dragons. The most well known of the Dragons— not the strongest by any margin. That would be the Void Wings. Or the Sky Serpents. But Fire Dragons weren't the weakest either. Couldn't be when he felt the beasts heat forty floors up.

"Sgt Bertrand's eccentric sadism no longer surprises me." Claude thought to himself as they all grouped up at the maze entrance.

"[There was a reason even Romulus only involved himself with a select few Vampires…]"

He scanned his metal working partners. Sweat lined their skin and cloths like a permanent outer layer. No fat clung to them at all. Sunken eyes watched him from hallow faces. So devoid of substance he almost didn't think a beast was beneath. They kept their eyes low. The Dragon scenting the air behind them called for all the dominance in the room to fall beneath its own.

Even as a child.

Claude's skin tingled to a point of numbness in its presence. As it moved, the thick scales clacked and chipped off eachother creating sparking flashes of light from the center of the maze. It felt…. Volcanic as the red tufts of flame and searing scale tip rose above the dark walls.

That's what it was. A volcanic and volatile core of chaos on a hair thin chain. And they had to venture inside to gather the building to blocks that fortified their cage above.

Cruelty of this level was maddening. His knuckles went white from how hard he clenched his fists. His gums bled from the pressure of his jaws.

Claude's escape plan cracked like glass from the new impact.

But it didn't break.

"I'm unbreakable…." The memory of his words echoed like a ghost of the past. As if his previous self was now the only thing to hold him to that ideal and anger.

[+2 Skill Points.]

Maybe not the only thing.

They were fighting. So should he.

Whatever Don was telling the others he missed as they all nodded and began walking towards a back corner of the room swallowed in deep shadows. Claude took a centering breath and followed.

Some of them limped on badly healed legs. Feet facing backwards or knee joints bursting outward like ill fitting gear beneath the skin.

"[The speed at which they heal is a gift and a curse. Sometimes too fast to set the bone. Or worse.]" Arne commented.

Others so wracked by grief and depression it had a physical stink he could almost see from behind in the steam rising from their toned backs.

Maybe due to the heat or trauma of it all his vision flashed for a moment. Back to the Phantom Wolves. Back when they were the Starved.

Maybe he understood them a little better in that moment…

They all stopped at a heaping steaming rusty pile of metal. Beams, ringlets, scaffolding, walling. Any and all metal.

Don stood beside him as everyone else began working.

"Grab what fits in your bucket. Try not to make too much noise— you'll startled Furnace. She doesn't like nois—"

CLANG!

One of the Shifters ahead took out a metal pole from the pile causing the heap to shift.

"RRREUGH!"

FWOOM!

A wall of flame rose like a wave. It splashed against the maze wall, sputtering out into superheated air before it could reach them. Even so, he could feel its heat.

"Sorry, Don." One of the Shifters whispered.

"That's fine. But we have to be more careful now."

"Fire Dragons are worst after battle…." Claude mumbled the old excerpt.

Don looked up at him, "What?"

"Fire Dragons get more deadly the more they use their heat. A snowball effect unique to them. It makes them one of the worst creatures to go into a battle of stamina with." Claude explained.

The other Shifters turned their heads to listen. The younger early teens openly watched him.

Don nodded, "Yes…. That makes sense. Furnace is the most dangerous when we startle her before smelting. The fires too hot— we can't work."

Claude looked down at Don. He reminded him of Dante. The boy from the first village he saved. That same innocence. Enough innocence to personify a Dragon.

"Furnace isn't scared. She just can't hunt you with her eyes so she listens. You're not startling her you know? You're giving her your location."

"That's what I tried to tell him." One of the women mumbled.

"Are you a Dragon Slayer?" Don suddenly asked out of the blue, "Is that why you're different?"

"No such thing. Now how do we liquify this metal?"

Claude began filling his bucket.

A few minutes and fire blasts later and they were venturing into the maze. They followed a tight line, hugging the wall closest to Furnace. If she tried to burn them being closer was better. Less risk of survival. But also when they were far enough away, the flames wouldn't spill into the walls closest.

Very dark subjects for a very dark place.

As he traveled the maze, he dug his claws into his forearm, mapping out the interior at Arne's suggestion. Another benefit to healing slower it seemed. If this was where he had to fight Alpha, it wouldn't hurt to know the area.

Along the way, the Dragons sparky movements sent flashing images of the scorched outlines of bodies blasted against the walls. Their ashes embedded into each one like a chalk outline in an alley. Alone. Past dead. Marked as a reminder and nothing more.

Claude's mind played tricks on him as they marched towards hellish heat embodied. Sometimes the ashen outlines weren't human. Sometimes it was a wolf walking beside him, rolling across the dark walls like magnetic black dust. Sparks fell like snowfall and hovered within the shape as ember eyes.

"SiTuATiOns grrRRoW aS rrrBaAd as yOu MaKe THeMmm…"

"The hell does that mean?" Claude thought as he looked at the wall.

"RRRrrrthaAAt mEANsss… yOU wIlL rEcIVe tHE SAmEee lEsSsonrrrrr—UnTIL yOu LeArN….aRe yOU nOT TiRed, CLAude?"

Claude could've laughed— or went into a berserk rampage on a more than likely heat mirage. "You?!— you're talking to me about being tired? Is that not entirely against what you've taught me through your hardass monologues and surprise beatings?"

They rounded a corner and rose up a two stair made perfectly smooth by heat.

"You misunderstand, idiot."

Fenrir rarely lost his personality. Or maybe he was just centering himself.

"Me and you aren't the same, boy. I am a symbol. A progenitor by my own volition— not a stumbling process of feats and fumbles. I did this— I became this because I must be. I want it. What do you want these days, boy?"

"Fenrir, don't fuck with me—"

"YOU fuck with me— with yourself!" Fenrir snarled as Dragons fire rose like a physical embodiment of an exclamation point. "Are your situations not dire?!"

"Of course they are!"

"THEN WHERE IS YOUR DESPERATION!? You show us a glimpse— a flash here and there, but still you are stubborn to embrace! Embrace your situation! Your stubbornness neuters your true progress and it's sickening, boy! You'd rather wallow in your nightmares than do what I say and wake up to reality. You still aren't awake, Claude."

"Fenrir, what are you talking about."

"If you don't know, then you aren't ready…." Fenrir replied dryly, "Do you still think I can see the future, boy? Your future?"

Claude didn't reply as they ventured closer to the Dragon. He continued to carve the map into his skin.

"The future isn't a finite thing. It's nebulous. It's formless…. As deceptive as my father. It folds in on itself and collapses at seemingly meaningless decisions and interactions. Let's say I can peer into that. Would I not leave you the moment I knew you failed to live up to your potential?"

Claude tripped.

Flames lit up the sweat marks on his back as he recovered.

"You forget why I chose you. If you can't escape a fucking Vampire playhouse— IF you find yourself thrown into one to begin with! how will you slaughter a god?"

The wolf shape of ash on the wall was suddenly the shape of a startled man in an instant. Twin embers no longer hovered in the space like eyes. And Claude was left to ponder.

"We're here." Don's face said it clearly as he looked back at them.

Claude scanned the area and found a gap in the walls. An entrance to where the Dragon resided. The wall on the other side illuminated the walkways from the series of perfectly cut holes in the walls.

Silently, Don tip toed past the entrance. One by one everyone did the same.

It would've been smarter to run across in bursts. All the able bodied shifters were fast enough. But every missed blast only made the next hotter.

So tip toe it was.

At first there was ten people ahead of him. Then six. Then four. Then two.

The last was an older woman. Too old. Strong all the same, but visibly aged. Her skin was dark and wrinkled in places— scaly almost. Her curly hair was streaked with white. Like most everyone else's it was short.

She didn't hesitate, tip toeing out into the expanse. For thirty feet across she was face to face with a Dragon trying its hardest to kill any one of them. Just to incinerate anything.

He could smell her fear. But most importantly, he could see the collection of metal pieces in her bucket. Overfilled and stuffed awkwardly. One of the pieces slid against its counterparts with each step she made, creating a lowly drawn out metal screech.

The air grew hot. Claude's skin stood on end as a euphoric inhalation gripped him like a vise, sending rejuvenating winds into every inch of his being. Expanding his lungs. Fortifying his sight. Calling to his hunger completely absent of guilt.

He didn't have time to understand it, he needed to express it.

FWOOSH!

In a blur he took off, running for the opening. As the flames unfurled from the beastly lizards razor tooth lined jaws, Claude grabbed the old shifter in a tackle.

He could feel the outer invisible layer of heat kiss his skin, just beginning to burn as he made it to the other side, sliding over the scorching metal on his bare feet.

The noise of it all had the Dragon in a rage, forcing them to venture away from the openings in the walls and further down the Maze.

It was a blur for a while until they stopped around a corner where the heat finally died down.

Claude's hair hung to his wet skin like worms, vibrating against his upturned frame. Filled with something familiar— yet different.

"Everyone ok? Who got hit? Did you see it? You?" Don seemed to be going through the motions of a trauma response.

"I'm ok. As a matter of fact I feel great." The older Shifter announced. "I'm fireproof anyway…. For the most part." The Older shifter looked at him, "But you didn't care did you?"

Claude shrugged, "I didn't know."

"D-Do you know what that is…?" Don pointed at him.

Claude found everyone looking at him.

He looked down at himself in response.

It wasn't anything compared to a Dragon. But it wasn't nothing at all.

Green sparkles. Like small stars fallen to earth. They circled him like hungry gnats.

A few even danced around the Shifters.

"What the hell is this?"

"Furnace magic." Don mumbled.

"What?"

"Sometimes Furnace gets power from the sky." Don pointed to the ceiling where the sparkles fell through the cracks. "That's where Dragons are strongest. Sometimes it clings to us…. But not like that." Don said while referring to Claude.

"[Brilliant.]"

"It's not Dragon Magic." Claude suddenly understood the familiar feeling.

And it made sense. The species that was essentially the peak of predator living— and able to blend in with the wild would be the most connected to such an energy source.

"It's Wild Magic. Furnace is a Wild Magic beacon."

His plans that once cracked like glass under impact healed like a WereWolf on a Full Moon…