Beginnings[Book 1 of the Outbreak series]

Chapter 22

Chapter 21

>Duo's POV<

He walked back into one of the abandoned cities. He found it amusing to how civilization could take such a fall so quickly. The smell of the undead was everywhere, it disgusted him. Like many things did, but the stench was one thing that he couldn’t handle.

He knew exactly what he was, a half-demon, his mother was human while his father was a demon, a duo, he was a Fire Demon and a Armosh. Maybe that was why his mother called him Duo. With being a duo half-demon, he of course had abilities that regular humans didn’t, along with certain physical traits that made him even more peculiar. Other people would call him a freak for how he looked, but Duo never did care for what they said.

He walked to an abandoned grocery store. He had to search through the shelves for food, sure he could hunt, easily really, but he enjoyed actual food.

Duo carefully walked through the store, careful not to aware anything of his presence. He hopped up onto a shelf so he had a better view of anything coming towards him. He searched through each aisle with no avail, the store had been picked cleaned already. He hopped down from the shelf, making more noise then intended. that’s when he heard the moaning from a horde.

He left the store slowly and saw the group. “I love you zombies! You give me the chance to kill people!” He yelled at the group, spreading his arms out wide.

He tapped into his Armosh side and allowed his power to flow freely with his thoughts. Resonating from his back, red plates started to form across his whole body. He had always loved dragons as a kid, maybe it was cause of his demon side, but so be it. When his whole body was covered in the red plates, he allowed some to form more. The plates across his head started to move out, making a sort of head that resembled a dragon’s head, it came back inward to stop just at his lips, ridged teeth like structures formed in the makeshift. Claw like projections came out from his hands and feet. While a tail formed behind him, ending in a sharp point and a quadruple sided, thin, razors along the four sides. His transformation was complete, of course he couldn’t make wings, but it didn’t matter all that much.

By the time Duo finished what he was doing he horde was upon him. He slashed out with his claws, slicing one’s face open, it fell like a sack of flour. He swung his tail, catching another in the side. While he was doing that, his makeshift jaw opened and clasped down on another’s skull, crushing it completely.

A ting hit him, but he ignored it, until he could hear the gun fire. He opened the jaws again and let it open fully, he opened his mouth and from deep within him unleashed a fireball, it sped its way through the plates and towards the men firing at him. He sank down his armour to make it surround himself, holding him in the warm embrace of the heated scales. He left his claws out but that was it. Through glass like plates he could see the rifle squad in front of him.

“Hello?! Is anyone inside that thing?!” One of the soldiers yelled. Duo furrowed his brows and started to walk towards him. Did they just call me a thing? He thought angrily. “Halt! Stay where you are and take the armour off!” Oh, they think its just armour, he thought with a smile. He grabbed his head and unconnected the plates from around his neck to the rest, and reconnecting them to his hand. He lifted it off and looked at the men before him. “Who are you?” The same guy asked.

“I am Duo,” he said, holding his head high, “and you just ruined my fun!”

“We just saved you,” another said, Duo rolled his red and gold eyes.

“No, you just got me annoyed,” one of them scoffed. “Now if you don’t mind leaving me be, I’ll be on my way.”

“We’ve been instructed to take anyone who seems suspicious.” Always the same.

“How about you tell that to the last squad who stopped me, oh wait! You can’t,” Dou smiled evilly and allowed the extra plates in his hands to go back into the rest. “Now please, get out of my way.”

“Put your hands up and stand still!” Duo sighed and shed all his armour, making it go back into the two permanent plates on his shoulder blades. He put his hands in the air and smiled. One of the soldiers walked up to him with handcuffs. Duo opened his mouth a sliver and shot a little fire bolt at the guy’s hands.

“OW!!” The guy yelped, dropping the cuffs.

“What?”

“I don’t know! But my hand is burning!!” The guy held his hand, and blew on it a bit.

“Go and cuff him,” the leader said to one of the others.

“This is really pointless,” Duo told them with a big smile.

“Shut up!” The leader said with malicious.

“Fine,” Duo opened his mouth up wide and shot a fire ball at the leader. A few shots rang off, duo quickly dropped to the ground, his armour spreading across his body quickly. With inhuman speed he was on the guy who tried to cuff him first. He sank his clawed hand deep into the guys back and held him in front of him, hit arm in the guy while his hand was holding on to the guy, his claws sinking into the guy’s skin.

“No!” A volley of shots tinged off of his scales. “Fall back!” He refused to allow these humans to disrespect him like they did and get away with it! He tossed the lifeless body to the ground and dashed after the others, bullets tinging off his armour. He caught up to another of the five remaining men and grabbed his face, sinking his claws into his skull, crushing it.

“All I wanted was to be left alone,” Duo said, tossing the dead soldier at the remaining group. He ran after the rest of them, who were now running as fast as they could. “Oh come on! Make it more difficult!” He sprang and caught another of them, extending his claws, making them go through the guys heart and lungs and out the other side. A roar sounded off from above, but he ignored it, he was hunting. Only three more guys remained, and they were scared.

Duo pounced onto the next guy, but missed by a few inches. He got up and surged a bunch of his scales towards the guy that he missed, effectively spearing the guy though the stomach. Quickly, he brought them back and ran after the two remaining members of the squad.

The roar sound came again, and before he knew it, Duo was on the ground, with a massive claw crushing him. “This is defiantly a weird human,” a new, deep, voice said.

“I’m not weird! Or a human!” Duo roared, creating spikes coming from his back. A pained roar came from directly above him. Before he could realize it, he could feel fangs sinking into his scales, crushing him. He yelled him pain, the plates failing him he got all of them and made them go to protect where the teeth were biting down. Duo looked up and saw the one thing that he’d always wanted to see, but not like this!

A massive green dragon had a hold of him. Piercing yellow eyes glared down at him while he dug his teeth further into my plates. He took a few calming breathes then retreated all the plates to his back, breathing fire at the same time. The dragon didn’t clamp down on him again as Duo fell, once he hit the ground he replaced my armour and ran. The dragon roared and took chase after him.

Duo ran into one of the buildings close by, hoping the dragon would give up. Once he heard the claw scraped, he knew he was wrong. He waited until he knew where the dragon was before running out the back door.

Dragons, their real, Duo thought with amazement, and fear. He ran all the way into the forest before stopping underneath a tree that could hide him from aerial view. He waited for a few hours before daring to venture out from under the tree. He placed some plates onto his legs and started to run through the underbrush, trying to get as much distance from him and the dragon as possible.

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Hope you enjoyed the new chapter, and I hoped you like Duo! He won't be a common character in the series, but when he shows up something is about to happen. I will have the next chapter up when I get the next few bits of info I need for a character.

I'd love to hear about any critism that anyone might have on Duo, so please leave a comment!