Gatekeepers Book 1: Darkness

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been alone.

Draycos thought this as his blood reached its boiling point. He was infuriated by the present circumstances for what they demanded of him. At this point, everything could be ash and he couldn’t care any less if it was.

For as long as I can remember, everyone has always hated me.

With a couple of rare exceptions, not one person had ever been openly nice and considerate to him upon first seeing his eyes. One was obviously Iris Jewelson, whose fate was still unclear ever since the terrorist bombing in Atlantis City. The second was the old lady who had run the orphanage Draycos grew up in until her death.

Her name had been Martha Stewart, but everyone had called her Sister Martha because she always wore a nun habit wherever she went. She ran and funded a small orphanage by herself, where Draycos had grown up. According to her, she heard crying one night and opened the door to find Draycos, about two years old, standing there and bawling his eyes out, with nothing but black pajamas on his body with his name stitched into the neckline. No matter what he suffered while out in public and at school, he could always come home and be comforted by the Sister. She was his only source of peace. He remained as the only orphan in the building the entire time he was there, and the rare family that dropped by were always quick to refuse adopting him. Draycos lived in the orphanage until he was seven.

He came home from school one day when he was in second grade and found the sister dead, sitting at her desk with her face on the table. Nearby evidence and the autopsy suggested she suffered a heart attack after seeing a bill with an outrageous sum on it. The orphanage, having lost its only source of funding, was immediately shut down and burned to the ground. At the age of seven, Draycos attended his first funeral. He was up at the cathedral altar railing when the priest running the memorial service pulled out a dagger that hung on a chain around his neck. Screaming about God’s justice and salvation, the priest had attempted to stab out Draycos’s eyes, but he failed when Draycos managed to dodge him, resulting in a small cut on the corner of Draycos’s right eyelid. Enraged by the priest’s actions, Draycos had pushed the priest away, who toppled backwards over the altar railing and fell, hitting his head on the altar in the process. A cross ornament with sharpened points was sitting on the altar, and the impact sent by the priest’s fall sent it toppling over the edge. The sharpened tip of the cross pierced the priest’s right eye and penetrated his brain, killing him.

It didn’t take long for the news to spread. Despite the adults’ best efforts, kids at Draycos’s school still managed to find out the Draycos had been involved in the death of a priest. Two days after the incident, Draycos was in recess when the other children began pelting him with stones, calling him names like ‘murderer’, ‘freak’, or ‘monster’. Teachers were able to quickly put a stop to the scene, but it left Draycos bloodied, scarred, and traumatized. He has not once ever forgotten about that incident, nor the unjust treatment he had received throughout his life. Even though things were finally starting to look up, everything had to go to the pot again, and now he was stuck in some unknown world, labelled as a felon and imprisoned.

I’m sick of this…

I’m sick of this!

As these memories flicked through Draycos’s mind, his wrath continued to grow ever so larger. Fury fueled his energy, and he managed to pull himself out of the rubble, standing up haphazardly. He looked around and spotted Brock on the ground a short distance away staring at him, an expression of horror clear on the orc’s face as his complexion went ghost white.

Something black flashed past his vision and he finally noticed the smoky black and blue aura wrapped around his entire body. He realized his entire body felt like it was either on fire or completely frozen, the heat and chills circulating throughout his bloodstream. It didn’t hurt, though. Draycos raised his right hand in front of his face and stared at the aura.

What is this? What’s going on? A white flash of wrath quickly dispelled the split second of clear-headedness, and he curled his fist into a tighter ball. The black and blue aura around his fist visibly intensified.

You know what? It doesn’t matter what this stuff is. Draycos lowered his hand and glared at Brock, not moving from the spot he stood at. All I need to know right now is that I’m about to beat the hell out of this bastard in front of me.

Back up in the top box, all the dragons watched the events below unfold with rapt attention as Draycos stood motionless, the black and blue aura still shrouding his body.

“Theravor....” Vinzgar growled in a voice so low it was almost undetectable. “Is that what I think it is...?”

Theravor ignored him and looked at Reothad, who now stood directly behind the left side of this throne. “Reothad, give Draycos a look through the Leyscope,” he ordered.

Reothad nodded and reached into his craggy scales around his chest with his right hand. He pulled a small object out from a niche in his scales. It was the same thing he had used on Draycos right after the trial ended two months ago. After a second or two, there was a soft tinkling sound as Reothad instinctively tightened his grip on the lens, cracking the glass. A grim expression appeared on his face as he slowly lowered his hand, beads of sweat forming on his face.

“Reothad?!” Theravor was shocked to see his oldest friend lose his composure in such a manner; Reothad was one of the most level-headed dragons in the kingdom. All eyes fell on Reothad as he continued to stand there in silence.

“It’s as everyone suspects,” Reothad announced hesitantly, his voice shaking slightly. “The boy’s magic has awakened. And it’s clear that his attribute is the Dark type, just as Damrabe predicted.”

Several dragons became uneasy upon hearing Reothad’s statement. Out of all the magical attributes an individual could possess, the Dark attribute was by far one of the most dangerous and unpredictable since Dark magic was heavily influenced by the user’s emotions. Events could unfold quite badly if the magic user didn’t possess any emotional control.

“Are we going to just sit here, and watch things happen?!” Vinzgar snarled, standing up from his throne. “We need to call off the match now and get Draycos to calm down before something happens that we can’t fix!” He stomped on over to the door, but Poseidon ended up stepping in his path, blocking him off from the doorway.

“Move,” Vinzgar hissed, glaring at Poseidon. Poseidon returned the glare and remained silent as he refused to budge from the spot.

“Vinzgar,” Theravor started, “I can understand what you are trying to do here. However, you know as well as I do that we need to let this match continue for the time being. If we interrupt it, we’ll never be able to see how Draycos handles himself if his emotions flare up after winning the games and starts investigating things on his own down below on the surface. This is the perfect test to see whether or not we can trust him to act properly on his own out in the world.”

Vinzgar growled dangerously but didn’t respond; he couldn’t refute what his king had just said. After glaring with Poseidon for a few more moments, he humped and turned back around, sitting back down on his throne as he resumed watching the match.

Brock was back on his feet, cautiously observing Draycos as he remained standing on the spot motionlessly, still glaring at Brock. Brock finally spoke after things continued like this for about a minute.

“What do you think you’re doing just standing there, looking at me?” he growled. “Is that aura of yours supposed to be for show or not?!” Brock held the handle of his morning star high above his head and began twirling it, sending the iron ball rotating at high speeds above him. Draycos still hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch.

“If you’re not going to do anything, then don’t complain if I make the first move now!” Brock flung the spiked iron ball in Draycos’s direction. The pale red aura flashed around the weapon once more, and the size of the iron ball grew to be twice what it was as its speed increased twofold as well.

Draycos finally moved upon Brock’s throw. Lifting his left hand up in the air, he waited for the morning star to be right on top of him before completely extending his left arm out in front of him, the smoky black and blue aura intensifying in size and density around his left hand. The morning star connected with his outstretched hand, and black sparks flew as it came to a complete halt in midair. Draycos was left completely unharmed from the impact.

“Wha...?” Brock muttered.

“Wha...?” Theravor mumbled.

“WHAT?!” the entire coliseum screamed at the sight of this, unable to register what had happened.

Black sparks started flying again, but this time, they coursed through the iron ball Draycos held in his left hand and traveled down the length of the chain attached to it. Before Brock could react, the black lightning had reached the handle of his weapon. A thunderclap rang out as Brock’s entire body became engulfed by a large black lightning bolt that rained down from the sky. Theravor could hear the orc screaming in pain from the strong electrocution he suffered. The lightning eventually stopped, and Brock stood there motionless, eyes white and mouth hanging open. Burn marks covering his body from head to toe.

Draycos still wasn’t done, though. Cocking his right arm back as much as he could, he punched the morning star he still held in his left hand. The iron weapon exploded into small fragments as Draycos’s fist smashed through the metal, destroying it entirely. Digging his heels into the ground, Draycos kicked off the ground and raced to Brock’s position, his right arm cocked back once more. He was directly in front of Brock in less than two seconds, and he threw his punch with everything he had, all the aura surrounding his body condensed into his right fist.

A large shockwave radiated from their location, creating a large gust of wind that blew dust into the air, concealing the entire arena. Personal items and other objects went flying as the audience ducked their heads against the wind. Black lightning periodically sparked out from the large dust cloud as people began to cautiously raise their heads and look around in shock. The dust finally began to settle and clear out.

Draycos had felt the blow connect. Utterly spent, he remained motionless as he stayed in the position of throwing his punch. He couldn’t even see his hands in front of his face, the dust was so thick. His head was now completely clear and refreshed, as if he was completely at peace with himself now.

Crap, I really hope I didn’t accidentally kill the guy with that! Worry crept into his heart as the dust began to thin. I don’t need to be dealing with another death on top of everything else…

The dust cleared enough so that he could finally see his fist, but what was beyond that shocked Draycos to the point that he was left speechless. A massive, red-scaled hand had caught his fist, apparently unharmed. The dust continued to clear, showing the arm that had reached down to intercept Draycos’s attack. Draycos’s eyes followed where the arm led up to and saw the face of the one in front of him.

It was none other than the current Dragon King, Theravor Stormfang.