^^ Jerrod's Human Form ^^
— Jerrod —
The streets of the Human Capital on the North Continent were as always jam-packed with people running back and forth, always in a hurry.
I liked walking these streets, I was familiar with them. I had journeyed here with a caravan when I'd turned eleven, and my father had declared me fit to leave the Clan, because I was better than him at magic, by then. I'd even taught my younger friend, young Zoken, who was only three when we began, how to use basic magic, and in just two short years, he gained and subsequently Maxed the class Magician, all the day he turned Five.
His father had been overjoyed, that he evolved the day he turned into an adolescent, but he became a Weak Oni, instead of a Kijin Pureblood. A powerful Evolution Path, but his body wasn't able to handle the type of war that his father deemed appropriate. He couldn't move quickly, or for very long, or his lungs would give out. I took him to the Holy City, with my Father and his, and then split ways once we were sure he wasn't dying. It was a long caravan trek, almost nine months, but I arrived, and maintained my human form the entire time.
I looked like a human from the Eastern Continent, the Monster Lands, with honey-like golden-brown skin and hazy, gorgeous steel-blue eyes, just below my luxurious chocolate-brown hair. My skin was flawless, unmarked, and my clothes were always extravagant and colorful, like a wizard's should be, after all. My face was beautiful, and very feminine, by human standards; I had full lips, long lashes, and fastidiously plucked and shaped eyebrows, -amongst other things,- and long golden earrings dangling from my earlobes, with another golden ornament holding my thoughtfully braided beard in place.
I had always been, like all dragons, extremely vain.
But I took this form every time I was in the city, and I was even well-known for my many tricks I played for the children, such as making the neighborhood bullies' trousers two-sizes smaller, making their shoes come untied, dropping crickets and frogs down their shirts, and other little mischievous tricks. I loved the children of the city, though I knew they would fear me, and revile me, if they knew I was a Dark Dragon, a Dangerous and Demonized dragon in their church's tales of evil monsters and pagans.
This time, however, I had to carry three grown men, and make it look like I was struggling to do so; very few men could carry three others over one shoulder without so much as a puff or two of effort, after all. Luck be kind, I found an abandoned cart in an alley, with a broken wheel and axle, and threw them in the back, fixing it with a snap of a finger, stealthily. Magic that wasn't done by Priest's was very illegal here, after all, and though I had a license, I didn't have it with me today. Best to just not deal with that today.
I pulled the cart along, waving to a few people who recognized me, and winking at a few children who giggled at me, flipping a few some copper pieces I always carried with me for that purpose. I stopped in front of the main gates to get into the Vatican, and smiled at one of the guards flirtatiously. "Well hel-lo handsome! I've got a delivery for the Cardinal? Do you mind letting me in?" I recognized him, as we frequented the same male brothels often enough to have a knowledge of each other, though such information was never spoken of, least of all in this city.
He cleared his throat, rubbing his face to hide his blush. "Ah, well... we don't usually let people inside... and especially not with carts full of clearly drunken men... but that man- OI, that's the Hero!!! Is he ill?!?" He abandoned my flirtations like a dropped hat, which made my eye reflexively twitch in annoyance, rushing to the cart and shaking the man.
"What? Yip... Uhm a he-ro, yip!" The idiot hero tried to stand up, hiccuping comically, and then fell out of the cart, directly onto his face.
I sighed. "Well, I brought them to you intact, so please let the record show, he did not already have a broken nose when I arrived?" I announced to the other guard.
He nodded slowly. "Where'd you come by them, Mage?"
"Oh, 'Twas the damndest thing! I was walking along, and I find these three in a gutter near a tavern, with a jar of Lesser Demon Alcohol between them, mostly empty! And either they bathed in it, or they drank it, because I can't get a solid word out of any of them, so I just brought them to the gate, for the Cardinal to handle, you know?" I shrugged, leaning against the cart casually.
He hummed, narrowing his eyes at me, then looked at his partner. "You watch them for anything... weird, and this one as well. I don't trust mages." He sneered at me, and then walked into the gate, disappearing.
I smirked at the other guard, shrugging my outer robes off and laying them over my arm, then leaned back, fanning my face slowly. "It's rather hot today, isn't it? How do you manage in all that armor?"
He cleared his throat, using the vague shadows of his helmet, (which would've been opaque to a human eye,) to hide his sweeping gaze over my silk-clothed form, the luxurious purple fabric expressing every muscle I'd gained in the past year of training, as well as the natural advantage I'd always had, as a dragon. "You, uh... you get used to it, after a while, you know... it's the job." He gulped slowly, glancing at my waist and then looking forward swiftly, hearing what I'd heard for a few moments, the oncoming soldiers behind the gates.
I sighed and slung my robe back around my shoulders, nodding. "I'd hoped I'd have more time to tease you, but not the time or place... perhaps another time?" I smiled.
He cleared his throat, and nodded a little. "Perhaps."
The gates creaked open, and I frowned at the sight of the Cardinal, who was the de facto governor of this city, underneath the Pope, but beside him was the Grand Templar, Benjamin Waylon. Wyatt had told us stories of his little brother, many times, when we got him drunk and sentimental. Wyatt had raised him from birth, as they were both born bastards of the same house, of different mothers, and cast into the same orphanage, by some stroke of fate.
They had joined the church guard, as was expected, then fought in the early skirmishes of the later Holy War against the Maou, 330 years ago, as young men. There, he'd fought Ken to a standstill, and both of them were taught by an elf, Sword Saint Aihara. He returned to the Capital, evolved to his next form already, at 26 years old, and was Praised as a genius. Then he trained his little brother, and they rose through the ranks together, until the Actual Holy War, a few years after that.
Then, He'd lost his leg killing a Demon General, and mysteriously refused to continue fighting, even if healing was offered by the Saint of the time. So, he was excommunicated, while his brother publicly disowned him, and stayed behind, becoming his replacement as High Templar, the Grand Templar's undergraduate. About sixty years ago, he'd become Grand Templar, finally.
He glanced at the three men, completely ignoring my frozen form, and nodded. "These are the three... where's the Saint? You, Mage, was there a woman there, as well?"
I cleared my throat. "No, not at all, though I assumed that they wouldn't have brought her to that part of town... they were in the-"
"Tell the truth." He frowned, his aura overpowering the area, and then sampling mine, which had released reflexively to protect me. He blinked slowly, then frowned, recognizing what he tasted, no doubt. He bared his teeth in a savage grin, and pounced at me like a bolt of lightning before I could send myself away with teleportation.
I grinned and rolled with it, kicking him off of me and muttering the spell, until his knee slammed my mouth, sending my head back, as I rolled away ass over end. I pulled my Aura into my body, knowing magic would be useless. He wouldn't give me time for even my smallest spells, after all.
I blocked his next punch with my forearms, and punched him in the sternum as hard as I could in retaliation, sending him back a half-step. Once I had that room, my foot flashed upwards, cracking against his armored forearms, which bent his arms in a little, slapping himself in the face with the metal.
He growled, but before he could recover, the shin against his forearms pulled them down, breaking the block and providing me with upwards momentum, as he tugged strongly to regain his block, for my knee to crack his temple as I rolled over him.
As I went past, my knee hooked under his chin, and I grabbed that ankle, twisting my body to pull him off the ground. He flew a few meters away, unable to stop himself, and then as soon as he landed, he was back in my face, punching my across the cheek with a Mithril-gauntleted Fist.
I spat a tooth at him, surprising him, and then my foot followed as he closed his eyes, as I spun low and kicked upwards with one foot, while the other pushed me up from the ground. He spun away, crashing into the cart and laying there for a moment, apparently shocked, before standing up, mostly unharmed except for a bruise on his cheek, which healed slowly. He seemed surprised again by my own wounds healing even quicker, and nodded.
"You're a student of Waylan, then? Aihara?" He asked, grinning savagely.
"The Sage of the Mountain, actually, he who taught Aihara's Ancestors, and a True War Saint." I smirked.
He raised an eyebrow slowly. "That is impressive." He disappeared from my view, and I leapt straight up, kicking blindly below me on basic instinct. He blocked the stray kick casually, as it had almost no strength to it, (though he looked surprised I'd hit him at all,) and then he grabbed my ankle, slamming me into the cobbled stones.
'Damn my dragon instincts to always go up!' I growled, and kicked his face harshly, pulling away. "Why don't you just leave it alone, huh Templar? I brought you your racist little Hero, and your honorless little Priest and Assassin! The Saint is having a conversation with the Sage, and it isn't my place to interrupt my master, but you'll get her back!" I growled.
"You brought them back poisoned!" He snapped.
"Oh they're drunk, drama queen, big whoop!!! It's not like I fed them against their will, it was a peace offering you shriveled up old shitbeard!!!" I snorted, and ducked under his flashing kick, basically by instinct. Then I punched his supporting ankle savagely, and when he began to kneel, I rammed my Fist into his unguarded groin.
He grunted loudly, and reacted by punching me in the face with a Fist clad in Holy Aura.
I flew through... I don't know how many buildings. My jaw was broken, that was for sure. My back was broken, that was also clear. But my arms worked, and I could speak a little, so I muttered the spell to teleport, and groaned in annoyance when he reappeared just in time, tackling me and grabbing my hands to stop me from casting the spell.
Instead, we both rolled through the magic circle, and he began punching me with more of those hellish Aura Punches, which nearly killed me in just three more hits, before a Japanese plate-mail covered knee slammed his skull.
I groaned softly in relief. 'They're still here... thank the gods... I was so totally dead... and such a horribly brutal ending... not even elegant death by fire, or something poetic and beautiful... how droll, to be beaten to death... I suppose I can never return to Vatican City... such a pity... I rather liked their library... and the men weren't bad.' I chuckled weakly, and groaned when Mika set my bones with not a shred of delicacy. "Ah, good to be alive and in your ge-EEEN-tle hands!!!" I wheezed and screeched as she set my spine and a hip I hadn't known was broken.
She smiled and kissed my cheek. "Good to see you're still Quippy! Up you get!" She stood me up, and I flinched as the Grand Templar immediately rushed me with a spear.
Zoken arrived with a stunning display of elegant, perfectly controlled movement, and in a blink of an eye, the Grand Templar's left arm was on the ground in two parts, and his spear was bent out of whack.
'Huh... fuck that's impressive!' I grinned and when the Templar summoned another spear, I groaned. 'Fucking cheater...' I grumbled bitterly.
Hallox and Zoken charged him together, and I noticed Maze, so I cast a spell to help hide her presence entirely from the Grand Templar, so she could snipe properly. It worked perfectly, as he fell to the ground, having died instantly.
Wyatt Waylon arrived with a hoarse scream, making me flinch. He was a friend to everyone in the village, and seeing him so distraught wasn't pleasant at all.
He saw the dead man on the ground, finding himself too late, and flinched. "Oh... no... Benjamin..." He sighed, lowering his head.
"You know him, Lord Waylon? He attacked Jerrod, I don't really know what happened." Zoken asked, confused and not yet knowing who they'd fought.
"Yes, I knew him. His name was Benjamin Waylon." He stated bluntly, and knelt next to his little brother, bowing his head.
I limped over, kneeling next to him, and rolled him over calmly. "I tried to get away, but he came with me through the teleportation circle... I very nearly died..." I sighed, then made a decision. "I'm paying back all the things you've done for this village. All of them, understood?" In explanation, I showed him a red vial, then poured my only Spirit Elixir down his murderous dead brother's throat.
Wyatt saw the red vial, and gasped, as the man's arm grew back, then the back of his neck slowly regenerated. His hair gained color, from white to the same black as his older brothers hair was, between the grey. His arms bulked up, and his body regained a much more youthful appearance in its entirety, looking around twenty-five suns old, for a human, before the backwards progress halted. Before I could react, however, his Fist collided with my face, and I tumbled away, ass over end, again.
I healed myself this time, as I had the time to do so, with Wyatt beating his brother upside the skull with his cane repeatedly, rather savagely berating him. "-stupid jackass of a little brother who doesn't ever think before he does things and makes his older brother worry about him when he should be a grown-assed man who shouldn't need no mothering no more like a stupid God-damned toddler who still pisses the bed like he did 'til he was thirteen suns, and going and getting killed because of stupid reasons and then punching the person who done brought him back from the dead like a God-damned fucking Savage who doesn't know how to show some fucking humility and say his thanks to someone who helped him and whom he now literally owes his worthless, ungrateful, stupid little fuck-up of a life to!!!" He stopped, heaving for breath, and whacked his brother once more in the head, weakly, before hugging him to his chest tightly enough his armor cracked audibly. "Fucking moron..." He muttered.
"Can't!!! Breath!!!" The younger brother, (who, funnily enough, had just previously looked much older, with all white-silver hair,) wheezed breathily.
Waylon dropped him back into the ground, and whacked him solidly with his cane again. "Good! You don't deserve to breath you stupid fucking maggot borne off a shit-stain!!! Now fucking apologize!!!" He growled, shoving his cane against his brother's face threateningly.
His hands went up weakly, in surrender. "Alright, brother, I won't start no more trouble! Alright?"
"I SAID APOLOGIZE!!!" Wyatt roared, the ground around us shaking as his Aura, unrestrained by his broken physical form, released and swallowed his brother's instantly.
The man gulped slowly, his eyes wide and dilated. "Okay, Alright! Jesus, brother, you're acting like I'm the bad guy here?!? That guy poisoned the Hero and kidnapped the Saint!!!"
"YOU STUPID LITTLE-"
"I'd just like to point out that I am very much not kidnapped?" The golden-armored woman raised a hand at him, interrupting Wyatt. "And the Hero drank that alcohol of his own free will, Grand Master Waylon." She added.
Master stood, walking over to the bleeding arm on the ground, then hummed, and tapped them with his sword, removing it and cleaning up the blood, as well. "I require... an explanation." He spoke calmly, but his voice was laced in a verbal form of his Aura, and it felt ENRAGED.
Wyatt stood up fully, bracing his cane under himself, and cleared his throat. "This is my little brother, Benjamin, he's a Grand Templar for the-... the Vatican."
Master began levitating in a meditative pose, nodding slowly. "Continue."
"I... don't really know the details?" He glanced at me.
I stood up and cracked my newly healed back, hobbling over to kneel in front of the Sage. "I returned the Hero, the Priest, and the Assassin, as ordered, to the Vatican. Upon arrival, the Grand Templar noticed my Aura, and attacked me, as a Dragon in the Church's Capitol. I managed to defend myself, retaining my Seal, and teleported here, where he followed through the spell circle, and everything afterwards is as you saw."
He raised an eyebrow slowly. "You fought him physically, and survived without releasing the Chi-Blocking? Very impressive... and the rest of you, killing him was very well executed, I was most pleased with your teamwork and determination; Zoken, you proved a valuable leader and tactician. Hallox, your intimidation would have worked on a lesser man, I am sure. Maze, a perfect strike, second to none. Mika, the support role is the most important, and must always be held by the strongest party member, as Zoken said. If the front line is broken, the second line must be stronger, not weaker. All in all... well done indeed... as for you." He glared at Benjamin, and set his feet down, walking forward slowly.
Benjamin Waylon stood up, flexing his new arm, and frowned. "What do you want?" He asked calmly, unmoved and unfazed.
The Sage disappeared, twenty meters in front of him, and reappeared instantly in front of him, his Fist cocked. "Get the fuck out of my Temple." He snarled savagely, and his Fist buried itself in the armored gut of his target, shattering the metal like cheap glass and launching the man off the mountainside.
A few seconds of stunned silence later, the Voice of the World spoke.
<Update!
James Taaliyah, Level UP!
James Taaliyah, Ur UP! (18th Form, Maou-Class.)
James Taaliyah's Class (3): Maxed!
Evolution (3) to: Spirit Sphinx Noble (Legendary, 4th) will begin at Dawn!>
<Update!
Zoken Katachi's Level Increased!
Zoken Katachi's Ur Increased! (8th Form)
Zoken Katachi's Loyalty Increased!
Zoken Katachi's Class (1): Maxed!
Zoken Katachi Evolves (1) into: Onryō (Vengeful Spirit) (Ultra-Rare Evolution Path, 7th), at Dawn!>
<Update!
Mika Katachi's Level Increased!
Mika Katachi's Loyalty Increased!>
<Update!
Maze Lily's Level Increased!
Maze Lily's Loyalty Increased!>
<Update!
Hallox Mars' Level Increased!
Hallox Mars' Ur Increased! (6th Form)
Hallox Mars' Class (2): Maxed!
Hallox Mars Discovers (4) new Classes: Wrathful One, Ulfhednr, Tanker, & Demon Seed!
Hallox Mars Evolves (2) into: Grey Orc (Ultra-Rare Evolution Path, 5th), at Dawn!
Hallox Mars' Loyalty Increased!>
<Update!
Jerrod Kylan's Level Increased!
Jerrod Kylan's Ur Increased! (9th Form)
Jerrod Kylan's Loyalty Increased!
Jerrod Kylan's Class(1): Maxed!
Jerrod Kylan Evolves into: Purple Dragon (Ultra-Rare Evolution Path, 5th), at Dawn!>