Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

The black and green human-sized dragonoid stared at the young man before him, who was barely standing on his feet. An expression of mixed rage and shock sat on its face from under its spiky lime-green hair.

“Seriously, what the hell are you?!” the dragon screamed at the young man. “Why do you have two hearts?!”

Still panting hard, Draycos placed his right hand on his chest where his heart was. Just moments ago, Madniga had stabbed him through the heart with a dagger. The skin on his chest was burning hot, sweat instantly turning into steam from the heat, but his hand did not get burned. Looking down at his hand, Draycos noticed it was covered in black scales, and his fingers had been replaced with finger-like black talons. Thick black lines traveled from his wrist up his arm and over his shoulder, growing thinner until they reached where his heart was. A black flame-like pattern surrounded a symbol like three boomerangs rotating out from a single point.

Draycos could feel his heart beating underneath his skin, but something felt off. Continuing to pat down his chest, he finally found the source of the discomfort. Right in the center of his sternum, he could feel another pulse beating in perfect sync with his heartbeat. The second one pulse was felt, another pulse was felt from the other source, going back and forth unendingly.

What is this?! Draycos began panicking slightly as he continued touching the source of the second beat. I’ve never felt something like this in my body before! Madniga said something about me having two hearts; is that actually true?! If it is, then why haven’t I known about it or even felt it beat before now?!

At the same time, on the far side of the cavern, two figures leapt out of a dust cloud floating close to the walls. It was Galán and Guerrino. The two traded blows in mid-air with their respective weapons; Galán’s cane sword and Guerrino’s massive greatsword.

Galán took an instant to glance over where Draycos and Madniga faced off. “Draycos!” he called out. “Are you doing okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Draycos yelled back. The wound inflicted on him from Madniga’s dagger had completely vanished, not even leaving a scar on his chest where the blade had stabbed into his heart. Draycos’s entire body felt like it was on fire now. Sweat was instantly vaporizing all over his body now, enveloping him in a constant cloud of steam.

“You sure?!” Galán questioned, worry evident in his voice. “You did just get stabbed in the heart, right?!”

“I did, yeah, but it seems to be fine now!” Draycos’s nose suddenly caught the scent of smoke, and he looked at his left shoulder to see the shredded remains of his mantle-jacket the Dragon King designed for him was on fire.

“Woah, what the hell?!” Draycos yelped. Thinking fast, he grabbed a fistful of fabric and pulled hard. There was a loud tearing sound as Draycos ripped off the jacket and the shirts he wore underneath. Throwing them to the ground, he watched as the pile of fabric burst into flames. The flames quickly died out, leaving nothing but a few scattering ashes.

“Aww, man!” Draycos whined. He checked his current attire, which only consisted of his blue jeans and brown work shoes. The lower half of the mantle-jacket still hung out around his waist where the brown belt was worn, where a silver buckle in the shape of a dragon head glittered in the flickering blue light. His upper body was completely naked, except for the blue crystal pendant he wore constantly hanging around his neck. Taking a look at his upper body, he flexed his left arm a few times. “Huh, I guess I bulked up a little bit over the last few months,” he commented. “Guess a solid month of training with Zero would do that to a guy.”

“This isn’t the time to be checking yourself out,” a voice suddenly said. Draycos looked up and saw Madniga had disappeared from where he was standing moments ago. A large black hand with white talons fell on his right shoulder. Madniga stood right behind him.

“If you got time to do that in the middle of a battle, then you should--!”

Madniga suddenly screamed and backed away, cradling his right hand. Confused, Draycos turned around and saw smoke rising from Madniga’s hand.

“T-that’s hot!” Madniga cried, blowing hard on his burnt hand. “It burned my scales! What the hell is going on with you, you little shit?!”

Meanwhile, high up in the clouds above the surface, the Dragon King and his council watched the series of events unfolding around Draycos through a projection of the scene. Minutes ago, the whole room was in a panic after the projection had gone dark when they witnessed Draycos getting stabbed in the heart, but the images were soon restored, and they saw Draycos on his feet once more. Black markings covered his chest and right arm as steam swirled around his body.

Theravor, watched in great interest as Madniga backed away from Draycos after his hand was burned. Each gold-edged crimson scale glittered in the weak moonlight as he twisted his neck to look at Damrabe, who stood nearby.

“Damrabe, what do you make of this?” Theravor asked. “I may have lived for over a hundred years, but I’ve never seen something like this.”

Damrabe pulled out another device similar to the one sitting on the table and pushed a button on the side. A small screen full of detailed information was projected out of the item. It was full of information pertaining to Draycos’s physiology. Scrolling through the information, Damrabe’s eyebrows shot up.

“As the top healer in the dragon kingdom, I must say that I’ve never seen anything like this, either,” he admitted. “According to my information, Draycos’s body temperature has shot up over one hundred twenty degrees and is still rising rapidly. Not only that, but his blood is circulating several times its normal rate through his blood system.”

There were some surprised murmurs as Council members exchanged looks with one another. Vinzgar gave Damrabe a hard look.

“How is that even possible for a human to survive such conditions?” he demanded with a growl. His tail thumped on the floor, threatening to knock off the gold bangle he wore near the tip. “And what’s causing this?”

Damrabe peered closely at the screen. He suddenly let out a soft gasp and nearly dropped the item he held.

“What’s the matter, Damrabe?” Theravor questioned.

Damrabe shook his head back and forth as he continued to stare at the screen. He couldn’t comprehend what the data was showing him. “I-I’m not sure how else to explain this,” he stammered. “But it looks like...another heart has appeared in his circulatory system. This appears to be the cause of the accelerated blood flow.”

A stunned silence fell across the room at Damrabe’s words. It was broken by a certain dragon’s sputtering. “W-w-what was that?” Zero stammered

“Forgive me for my coarse language, but how the hell can a heart just appear in his body like that?” Boreta inquired.

Theravor’s tail flicked dismissively at Boreta’s remark. “There’s no need to worry about that now,” he told her. “What should be concerning us right now is how Draycos got back on his feet when he was on death’s door mere moments ago.” He looked up at the large projection orb floating above. “Although we may trust him wholeheartedly, it is concerning to see a situation like this.” He sighed. “I hope Vertex arrives there shortly. This is starting to get more out of hand than I would’ve ever suspected.”

There was a sudden loud beeping as an alarm sounded, and the large projection orb started flashing red. Several dragons flinched in surprise at the unexpected sound as a warning notice appeared in the projection.

“Damrabe, what is this?!” Zero yelped. “What’s going on?!”

Glancing down at the screen in front of him, Damrabe’s eyes narrowed as a serious expression crossed his face.

“Among the spells we placed on Draycos’s pendant, a few warding spells were added at the last second as additional precautions. Looks like one of them kicked in, because we’re now getting a signal of a massive amount of magic swelling up somewhere in his direct vicinity!” he announced. “Whatever it is, it’s already gotten strong enough to match Boreta’s magic, and it’s still growing larger!”

“What the hell is going on?!” Vinzgar roared, standing up and slamming his hands on the table top. Theravor mirrored Vinzgar’s movements and stared up at the projection.

“Draycos! Get out of there!” he ordered as loud as he could.

“Draycos! Get out of there!”

Draycos flinched at the sudden loud voice coming through his pendant as he stared down Madniga. Madniga, also hearing the voice, looked around for the source, confused.

“What was that?” he wondered out loud. He looked back at Draycos. His head was tilted to the side in confusion “I heard another voice telling you to get out of here. What’s that about?”

Draycos shook his head to signify he didn’t understand either. But a sudden tremor shook the entire cavern violently, throwing Draycos and Madniga to the floor.

“What’s going on?!” Madniga cried as the tremors continued without stopping. Galán and Guerrino also paused their fighting as they looked around in surprise.

Draycos noticed that the sand under his hands and feet were shifting. Looking around, he saw a large hole appear in the sandy floor, quickly growing deeper as the sand was pulled towards it.

“It’s a sand pit!” Draycos called out. He jumped to his feet and grabbed a nearby stalagmite. Madniga unfurled his wings and hopped into the air and out of danger. Holding onto the stalagmite for dear life, Draycos watched in unease. as the sand disappeared into the darkness below.

The tremors grew stronger as a loud, unearthly roar filled the air, loud enough to rattle Draycos’s bones as cracks appeared in the cavern walls.