Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

“It’s finally time for you to head down to the surface, Draycos,” Vertex said. “How are you feeling about that?”

“Kinda looking forward to it, to be honest,” Draycos answered, doing a few quick leg stretches. “I do wanna see what everything looks like in this world. Plenty of people from my world would kill for an opportunity to roam around in a fantasy world like this.”

It has been a week since the last round of the Prisoners’ Games came to an end. Draycos had spent the time rehabilitating his regrown arm and getting the basics down on how things worked on the surface. Galán had been visiting Draycos in the infirmary every day to help with the latter part; the dragons had no business being on the surface, and therefore were not in the know of events down there. Now, three months after Draycos woke up in this world, Draycos was waiting for Galán to show up to escort him down to the surface. He and Vertex stood on the edge of the island where Dragonspire Castle sat, outside the front gates of the massive stone walls surrounding the castle courtyard.

Despite Galán odd appearance, he was apparently well respected among the Dragon Council, and was one of the handful of people outside the dragon race that knew of their current existence. He was another half-breed like Draycos and Damrabe; his parents were a human and an elf. Galán was also a leader of some kind to the Gatekeepers organization that kept popping up in conversations every now and then. Draycos still had little idea as to the purpose of the group, but from the snippets of conversations he’s overheard, they were obviously a well-renowned and respected group.

Draycos tugged on the sleeve of his new shirt. After the end of the final match, his eyes and hair hadn’t gone back to their original appearance, leaving them brown in color. A few days after Draycos first met Galán, Galán came into the infirmary in the middle of one of Draycos’s rehabilitation sessions with a bundle of clothes in one hand.

“Those clothes you’ve been wearing won’t cut it down below,” he had said, plopping the bundle onto the end of Draycos’s bed. “You’ll attract too much attention to yourself, since those clothes are made of noticeably different materials than what we wear on the surface. You should be just fine if you were these. Also,” he added, pulling a pair of scissors out of his pocket, “let’s give you a haircut. Three months without that being done has left you with too much hair.”

Despite Draycos struggling against him, Galán successfully cut Draycos’s hair to a medium perm. Draycos wasn’t sure how he was to walk around like that in public, but he didn’t dare to try changing it himself since he’d only make things worse. Instead, he covered most of his hair with a black fedora Galán provided that had a white stripe around the base. Draycos wore a plain black T-shirt under an unbuttoned white dress shirt with the sleeves folded up halfway up his forearms, and the collar hung loosely around his neck. He also wore blue jeans, and bark brown work boots adored his feet. A brown leather shoulder bag hung over Draycos’s right shoulder, containing the mantle-jacket, among other things.

Draycos sighed, tugging on the sleeve of the white shirt again. It felt weird having the sleeve ending halfway down his forearm; he’d never worn clothing this style before. “Even so, is that idiot really sure I’ll blend in on the surface like this?” Draycos ran a hand through his hair, full of mixed emotions. “I mean, he cut my hair into a perm, of all things.” Draycos reflexively dodged Vertex’s tail smack. He’d gotten used to expecting them now.

“Watch who you’re calling an idiot, Draycos,” Vertex warned in a low growl. “He may act like a fool at times, but trust me when I say that act is no more than a ruse to throw others off guard. He’s much more diligent about his job than others.”

“You mean this Gatekeepers thing?” Draycos sighed. “I hope I at least learn about what they do at some point. Hell, I don’t even know what this Orb is that I’ve been imprisoned for during the last three months.”

Vertex raised an eyebrow. “I almost forgot that you haven’t been given any information regarding that. Don’t worry about either topic, though; you’ll be learning more than you’d want to before the day is done.”

Just then, Draycos suddenly heard a very unexpected noise. It sounded just like a helicopter, and it was obvious that it was drawing close.

“Sorry if I made you two wait. Are you doing alright this fine morning?”

Galán suddenly shot up past the edge of the island, hovering in the air above Draycos and Vertex’s heads. He held his cane up in the air above his head, which had split into four pieces halfway down the shaft and rotated at a high speed.

“No, we’re fine,” Vertex called up to him. “Come on down already; we’re wasting precious time every second that passes.”

Well, that explains the helicopter noise. Draycos shook his head as Galán descended slowly before landing softly on the ground before them. The cane joined itself with the other pieces and became whole again, without so much as a seam.

Galán tilted his top hat at Draycos and Vertex in greeting. “Is everything ready for Draycos’s departure?” he asked Vertex.

Vertex nodded in response. “Yes, everything has been handled. We’ve added a few additional spells to Draycos’s pendant as extra security, and we’ll be keeping an eye on his actions around the clock. He’s in your hands now.”

“Very well. Draycos, are you ready to go?” Both Vertex and Galán looked over to where Draycos had been standing only to find him no longer there. They glanced around and saw that he now stood on the very edge of the floating island.

“Why are we wasting time with idle talk like this?” Draycos asked, holding his right foot out over the open sky. “Like Vertex said, we’re wasting time, and I don’t feel like going back to prison any time soon. Let’s do this already.” With that, Draycos stepped over the edge and started free-falling through the sky.

Galán chuckled. “That kid doesn’t like wasting time, does he?” he commented as he rushed after Draycos.

“Make sure you don’t lose him, alright?!” Vertex called after him as Galán hopped off the island in pursuit of Draycos. Galán twisted in midair and gave Vertex a thumbs up sign before falling past the edge of the island. As the island quickly shrank to a tiny dot in the sky, Galán adjusted his body position so that he was falling head-first to the ground, accelerating the speed of his descent. He quickly caught up to Draycos.

“You’re pretty fearless, aren’t you?” Galán yelled over the roaring of the wind. “You jumped off the island without so much as a shred of hesitation!”

“Nah, it’s nothing like that!” Draycos yelled back. “It’s just that what’s the point of getting worked up over a fall like this when you can use magic to stop yourself whenever you feel like it?”

“Good point! Anyways, go ahead and use your magic to stop yourself! We may be a mile or two above ground right now, but our destination is quite a bit away from here!”

Draycos nodded and extended his right hand out to the side. After a brief flash of white-blue magic aura, a large, transparent bluish-white broadsword appeared in his hand. He threw it down and landed on the flat of the blade as the speed of his descent quickly fell. Galán had already turned his cane back into a helicopter and was flying off towards the northeast, where a large mountain range jutted out from the surface below. Draycos quickly went in pursuit of him.

Even though it was just past noon, the Dragon Council Chamber was filled to the brim with dragons. It was highly unusual for there to be a meeting taking place during this time of day; long-standing tradition stated that council meetings should take place after sunset.

The Dragon King and every member of the Dragon Council sat at the meeting table in complete silence with serious expressions on their faces. Around the table, members of the Royal Guard stood at attention, and Poseidon, Reothad, and Damrabe stood with their backs against the far wall.

A knock came from the door.

“Enter,” Theravor stated, barely moving his lips.

The door opened, and Vertex stepped into the room. All eyes were on him as he closed the door behind him and turned around, giving Theravor a slight bow.

“Sir, Draycos just left with Galán,” Vertex informed his king. There were quite a few sighs of relief after the dragons present heard Vertex’s words.

Theravor flicked his tail and narrowed his eyes, turning his gaze over to Reothad. “Alright, Reothad. Out with it,” he growled. Theravor isn’t normally one who wore his emotions on his sleeves, but it was obvious that he was quite irritated. “We’ve been on edge ever since you said you made a discovery regarding Draycos, but you’ve refused to speak a word about it the past week until the boy left.”

“Theravor’s right,” Vinzgar hissed. His tail thumped the floor loudly as he glared at the icy dragon. “There’s absolutely no need to bait us like this for so long. And I swear, if this information of you’re isn’t something important, I will make you regret it.”

Theravor glanced over at Vinzgar but took no action to reprimand the aggressive dragon. Everyone sitting at the table felt similar irate emotions at the fact that Reothad kept them all in the dark for the last week since the end of the games.

“Very well,” Reothad commented with a slight nod, walking up to stand beside Theravor’s throne. “I’ll skip the formal talk and just give it to you all straight.” He paused as he took a slight breath, then looked down the length of the table.

“During Draycos’s final match last week, his magic element changed mid-battle.”

Looks of shock came over nearly everyone’s faces after hearing this. After a moment of stunned silence, the Dragon Council broke out in an uproar.

“What do you mean, it changed?!” Daiken roared over the commotion. “How is something like that even possible.”

Theravor let out a low growl, not very loud in volume but powerful enough that everyone could feel it rattle their bones. The effect was instantaneous; the clamor died off in less than a second as everyone stared at the king.

“Are you all forgetting something?” Theravor growled. “Remember that Draycos is a half-breed. What do all half-breeds have in common, other than their average life expectancy?”

Several dragons looked like they had a moment of realization after that as they remembered another fact about half-breeds.

“The fact that half-breeds have the elemental magic of both their parents,” Boreta muttered.

“That’s right.” Theravor pointed his thumb over at Damrabe. “I’m sure you’re all aware of this already, but Damrabe is capable of using both Blood and Water-based magic; Blood from his father and Water from his mother. Parents’ magical elements don’t mix together when the offspring is a half-breed; they end up staying separate, allowing the child to wield both magical attributes. That’s also the reason why half-breeds generally don’t live past the age of three; their bodies are constantly being broken down by having two different magical attributes raging inside of them from the moment of their birth. They can only withstand such a raging storm inside of them for so long before they break.”

“We know this already,” Zero spoke up, rolling his eyes. “What I want to know is what Draycos’s other attribute is.”

“It’s Gale,” Reothad answered. Everyone turned to look at him as he went on. “I decided to look at Draycos through the Leyscope during his fight with Balara, just out of interest. However, after Draycos achieved Mana Overload, his magical attribute swapped over from Dark to Gale.”

“Gale, huh?” Theravor commented, leaning back in his throne as he tried to pick a piece of meat from lunch earlier out from between his teeth with a talon. “If I’m not mistaken, Gale is a by-product of the Light and Wind attributes, correct? That’s almost the exact opposite of Draycos’s normal Dark attribute.”

“It really makes you wonder what kind of people his parents were, huh?” Poseidon asked, half to himself. There was a moment of silence, which was soon broken by Theravor’s sigh as he stood up from his throne and walked over to the tall windows behind it, gazing out at the sky.

“It doesn’t really matter at this point, does it?” he commented, holding his hands behind his back. “We can worry about stuff like that later. Right now, all that matters is if Draycos can follow up on Galán’s new lead and recover the Orb of the First King. We’ll have all the time in the world to discuss his heritage after that.”