Dragonslayer, Inc.

“What’s a kid like you doin’ walkin’ around these here alleys?”

“Um… trying to get somewhere?” I responded to the caped stranger who had jumped out at me from behind a trashcan. I was quaking inside, but I didn’t want him to see me sweat.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til ya’ give me your moneys.”

I went for my sword, but before I could grab it, the man pulled a gun on me. There was nothing I could do. He told me to put my hands on my head.

When I hesitated, he punched me in the face, and I collapsed to the ground. A few punches later, I was nearly unconscious. He stole not only my wallet, but the food in my pockets, my map, and my sword before kicking me in the back and telling me to ‘get outta town’.

I staggered out of the alley. Naïve and delirious, I thought someone would offer to help me. That’s how it worked in Natura. But no one came.

Big city life took a lot of getting used to. Natura was far from a little village at the edge of the world, but it was intimate and friendly. I had next to no friends, and I barely talked to the friends I had, but I was in the minority. Mom had lots of friends, and so did Acady. It wasn’t like people regularly invited strangers into their homes, but if you needed a hand, you typically got one.

I would have to grow to love Andes. My euphoric affection for the city gave way to cynical apathy. After getting myself fixed up, I went to the HQ. “No point in wasting time,” I said to myself. My honeymoon was over. It was time to take care of business.

My arms and legs hurt, but I figured the training to become a Dragonslayer would hurt a lot more. Nonetheless, I swallowed a handful of painkillers before I went in the front doors. In no times at all, my body was numb.

The HQ looked even more magnificent up close. The sight of it struck awe into my heart. My stomach twisted. My brain turned to mush.

The inside was somehow more spectacular. Even now, I can clearly remember how I felt the first time I saw it. There was a golden fountain shaped like a dragon in the middle of the marble floor. Models of dragons hung from the ceiling. There was a maroon garden that had a dragon topiary as its centerpiece.

For a second, I thought I had walked into a dragon sanctuary instead of the headquarters of the world’s largest dragon-hunting company. Then I saw, next to the blood-red waterfalls that obscured the walls to my left and right, I saw murals of dragon battles.

These were romanticized portrayals, with the Slayers only having been wounded in the most physically appealing ways possible and the dragons being grotesque, unnatural creatures, but they were enough to get my blood pumping. My head cleared. I jogged to the front desk, passing under a dragon-shaped chandelier in the process.

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked. She was only an inch shorter than me, but her head barely reached above the top of the desk. It was a monster of a desk, a chrome and steel monster with ‘Dragonslayers, Inc.’ embossed on its front. Above the name of the company was a solemn, professional-looking dragon with a straight body and a curvy tail that wrapped around the ‘D’.

As for the receptionist, she was unlike any receptionist I had ever seen. Her eyes were cold, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and there was a scar running from her left temple to her chin. Her name was Steph, and she was a Dragonslayer-in-training.

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to become a Dragonslayer.”

“We’re not hiring. Check again in a month.” Her voice did not fit her. It was warm and soft, like a cloud on a summer’s evening.

“Can’t you lend me a hand? I heard dragon attacks are growing more common. You need all the help you can get.”

“I don’t know where you heard that. Dragon attacks are in decline.”

“C’mon, girl. I walked all the way from Natura.”

“Yeah right.”

“I did. It took me a long time. I killed a huge salamander. Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“No, sir, I want you to leave the premises. There is an old lady behind you that looks like she needs some help. If you’re not lying to me, and you really did walk here from Natura, I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but please, come back another time.”

I looked behind me. The ‘old lady’ she was talking about was not that old. She was about the same age as I am now, funnily enough.

“One more thing,” I said to Steph.

“Nope,” she responded, glaring at me.

“Please.”

“Leave.”

I stormed off and sat on a nearby chair and watched as the woman asked Steph when the next HQ tour was. After being told it wasn’t for a week, she harrumphed and left. A couple seconds passed. I tapped my foot on the floor and snapped my fingers. Steph was getting annoyed, but she didn’t give in. She put on her headphones and tuned me out.

Eventually, I broke. I ran up to her, knelt down, and said, “I beg of you, let me try out. I’ll do anything for you.”

Her face turned red. She was about to drag me out of the building, but before she could, the front door opened and Machen entered.

“Hard at work, are we, darling?” he asked.

“Unlike you, I actually work,” she responded.

“I assume you two know each other well,” I said awkwardly, getting off my knees.

“That’s putting it lightly, vagrant. She’s my fiancée.”

“In your dreams, pal,” she shot back.

“I’m winning her over slowly,” he said to me.

“I can still hear you,” she shouted.

“Invite me to your wedding,” I said jokingly.

“You think I’m kidding?” he said. “One of these days, she’ll be mine.”

“Quit it,” she said, storming out from behind the desk. “You’re unbelievable, you know?”

“Unbelievably awesome, maybe.” He looked at me, then at her. “Steph, it looks as though you’ve met Coran here.”

“About him,” she said. “Machen, how do you know this desperate piece of trash?”

“Can you not insult me?” I said. “At least go behind my back. I’m standing right here.”

“I met him on my trip, sweetie,” said Machen.

“Call me one more stupid pet name,” she said, “and we’ll have it out right now. Start over, and this time, don’t be condescending.”

“If you insist, Steph: I saw him digging through a dumpster. We had a swordfight. I won, of course, but he wasn’t terrible.”

“You didn’t beat me,” I said drolly.

“Yes, I did,” he said. “But I guess we can face off again once you’re an official Dragonslayer.”

“You think I’ll make it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Why not? Half these people are losers. C’mon back. I’ll get you suited up.”

“Machen,” said Steph, “the kid is not joining us today. Try-outs aren’t…”

“Since when do you care about proper procedure?” he asked.

She slammed her head against the desk and said, “Fine. You win, Machen. Feel free to stroke your ego some more. Just know that if Ironwall comes complaining to me about him, I’m gonna point him straight to you.”

“What would I be complaining about?” asked Ironwall, glopping by.

On TV, he looked like a giant. In reality, he was not a tall man. He was slightly shorter than Steph, and he was significantly shorter than Machen.

However, it took me an eternity to notice this. He could have been four feet tall or forty feet tall. It didn’t matter. His presence was dominant, almost almighty. The HQ seemed to revolve around him.

He was the most muscled man I ever saw. If he had entered a bodybuilding competition, he would have won. He looked like a hero of myth, like the result of an experiment gone wonderfully right.

I never took the time to count, but if I had to guess, I’d say well over two hundred scars marked his body. Some of them were in places where I remembered him getting struck by dragons. Others left me befuddled.

He had a square jaw, bushy eyebrows, thin lips, and a big forehead, giving him one of the oddest faces in existence. The left side of his nose was gone. In its place was yet another scar. His one working nostril flared constantly, putting me on edge. I thought he was gonna lash out at me or storm off or do something utterly deranged.

Fortunately, none of that came to pass.

Calmly, he turned to me and said, “Why are you here?”

I gulped and replied, “I want to be a Dragonslayer. Machen said he’d give me a try-out.

He laughed- it was an icy, restrained laugh- and said, “Good. Come along.”

Steph slapped herself in the forehead and slumped down. Machen cracked a joke at her expense before coming with me and Ironwall into a dark room. The grainy sand crackled beneath our feet.

A rumbling shook the room. The sand rolled back and forth. A metal rafter squeaked. “What was that?” I asked, clinging to a wall. “Something I need to be worried about?”

“No,” said Ironwall. “Just a training session going on in another room. Nothing is wrong. Machen, tell our guest about this room.”

“Will do, chief.” He flipped on a panel of lights. “Never seen anything like this before, have you, vagrant?”

Indeed I hadn’t. It wasn’t a room. It was a coliseum. There weren’t any seats, except for a single row near the roof. But from the architecture to the sheer scale, it reminded me of the coliseums of Ancient Solania.

I had always wanted to visit those coliseums, but they were hundreds of miles away from civilization, so I never thought I’d get the chance. Yet there I was, standing in a recreation of Auxia Coliseum, the most famous coliseum in the world.

Dragonslayer, Inc. HQ didn’t feel like the home of the most famous and powerful organization in the world, not anymore. It felt bigger than that, like it was home to a race of deities that existed alongside mere human beings. The insanity of it all hit me. I fell to my knees.

“Get up,” said Ironwall. “You wanted a try-out. You’re getting one.”

“Who I am fighting?” I asked, my voice quivering. “You?”

Machen scoffed and said, “I’d like to see that. You’d get killed.”

“Lay off,” Ironwall said. Machen backstepped away from us, smirking.

I got up, brushed myself off, and said, “How does this work? Do I face other Dragonslayers? A gauntlet of challenges? What?”

“You’ll see,” said Ironwall.

“You don’t say much, do you?”

From the look he gave me immediately after I said that, I thought he was getting ready to chop my head off. Instead, his eyes flittered to the ceiling, and he responded, “I say what needs to be said.”

He led me into a labyrinthine dressing room and handed me a suit of mail and a metal helmet. I asked, “Isn’t this heavy?”

“Nope. It looks medieval, but it’s cutting-edge.”

I took the gear from him. Sure enough, it was as light as a feather. After changing into it, I stormed back into the coliseum. I pretended I was a full-fledged Dragonslayer heading out to face a snarling dragon. Then I realized I might not have to pretend much longer.