Chương 56: Book 2; Chapter 55; Awakening

After King finished his speech, he waited for a little while, but no one moved an inch. There was no way anyone would miss such an opportunity to see the legendary dragon of the Rainbow General. No one really understood much of what King said about connections and restraining, but it was obvious that something interesting and unseen was going to happen, so everyone stayed. Some mothers tried to call their children back from the front to a safer place, but to no success.

There was no way any of them would leave the front row and go to hide now. King moved his head slightly, and every new recruit marched out of the arena to stand together with King's troops behind the auditorium. They marched in such unison that one would think that they had already been trained for many years. Not everyone marched away. There were many people left behind, and it was obvious that it must be those who didn't want to join. They walked quickly to the auditorium to take empty seats.

In no time, this large golden square was left completely empty once more. King moved his hand, and a small, simple, empty table appeared in the middle of an empty square. Without a question or hesitation, Rainee left King's side and walked to this table. She placed her hands over her heart as if covering something, and then slowly but steadily pulled it out. Loud whispers spread across the audience, seeing blood spreading across her chest and hands. But Rainee herself wasn't bothered about it.

She lowered her hands down to the table, leaving an open bleeding gash in her chest that was closing rapidly by itself, soon leaving no trace of damage, and the bloody stain was fading too until it was gone without a trace. Anniet knew what was in Rainee's hands even before she revealed it. Not many would know about it, but there was a little painting of a dragon on Rainee's chest. Neither tattoo nor painting was a correct description for it, as it was three-dimensional with lots of detail.

But these details weren't painted; it looked like a growth of the skin, or more like skin covering something under it. Anniet asked once if that was a tattoo of Rainee's dragon. Everyone knew that members of King's Army would keep their dragons on their bodies in a so-called tattoo form, and they would come out only when called out and would return after. She had never seen such a tattoo. Truth be told, she had never seen anyone from the King's Army either. So she didn't know what it looked like.

"It is my dragon, but it is not a tattoo," was Rainee's answer. Anniet never asked anything about it again as she could feel that Rainee was not keen to speak about it. Now, seeing Rainee gently placing a little, hardly a palm-sized, dragon-shaped item covered in her blood, she knew that it was an actual item that she was carrying under her skin in her flesh. But she didn't have time to ponder over it any longer. That small item started to grow rapidly, increasing in size drastically with each second.

Soon it was the size of the table, then bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Rainee was watching it with immense concentration on her face and stepping back only as much as there was room needed to allow it to grow. A growing thing now was resembling a huge dragon, but just a shape of it. If anything, it looked more like a mummy of the dragon… No, more like a dragon wrapped tightly into some sort of skin or leather. Even the ties that were binding it up could now be seen.

It was difficult to say if it was elastic or rigid, but it was somehow stretching, so it shouldn't be hard, but by the look, it seemed as hard as a stone or iron. By now, it had exceeded any reasonable size of a dragon and already filled half of the square, and was still stretching. Rainee looked like a little midget next to it, and Anniet thought, just what size was her dragon?!!

It could be seen that all this stretching was starting to have a toll on this outer layer, as it probably had reached its normal size, and now stretching was making it thinner with each stretch, making it even see-through in places. In addition to that, there was some extra force stirring inside as if trying to break loose.

Now, all this strange black thing was taking two-thirds of the arena, towering over people, and was still stretching further, giving an expression that it would not hold much longer and would explode, as the power within it was gaining more and more strength. And it did explode. Anniet was sitting in the first row and was already shielding her eyes with her hand even before the explosion. She was prepared as she didn't want to miss anything. Her primary concern was about Rainee.

Never before had she seen her with so much concentration. She was like a tiger watching its prey, prepared to jump at any moment. When that outer shell exploded, instead of shielding herself, Rainee sprinted right into the middle of it and leaped forward and high in the air, missing a slender black spiky beast that erupted from this shell, just by a few inches. The explosion was so strong that people around started to scream, but mainly in fear, as not even a single gust had reached them.

The very moment it exploded, a pink substance covered them all, shielding them perfectly from any danger or even discomfort and withdrawing quickly when there was no hazard left. Anniet looked in the direction it came from and saw a pink dragon whose wings were shrinking rapidly, approaching Rainee.

The black beast, that she was trying to catch, was rising to the sky, threatening to disappear from sight and escape, but it was met by another black creature, much smaller than the beast, but it must be much stronger as it knocked it down easily. The beast wasn't happy about such treatment.

It turned in the air, looked towards the town and the people gathered below, opened its big mouth and fired an enormous, never-ending amount of fire, circling around, with the intent to burn away everything and everyone that it could see. By now, Rainee was already close by, standing on a pink dragon that was bravely carrying her towards this monster.

Seeing this beast opening its mouth, Rainee bent her knees and leaped again towards it at the same time pushing the pink dragon down, who obeyed her perfectly, gliding down and spreading her wings in all directions again, creating a perfect umbrella across the town, and not a single ember of this fire deluge managed to get through it. This time Rainee almost succeeded. Her aim was accurate, her leap was precise, she ignored the fire in her way and emerged untouched on the other side.

However, the beast noticed her approaching, closed its wings and dived down with a spin, avoiding Rainee's hands again. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. It dived right towards the protecting wings of the pink dragon, but surprisingly, these wings didn't have any effect on the beast itself. It did stop its fire, but the beast dived through it as if there was nothing in its way.

It crashed back to the ground in the middle of the square and shattered into pieces. Shattered to pieces was the most accurate description, as it did break into six or seven four-legged creatures, resembling more reptiles without tails than dogs or any other known animal, and dashed in different directions towards the audience. Anniet could see one of them aiming towards the place she was sitting. Its white, enormously large fangs could be seen very clearly against its black and sleek body.

Its powerful front legs with large claws were pushing the creature's body closer with every pull. A loud ferocious growl sounded at Anniet's side, and she nearly died of fright at the sight of a massive black hound rising from the ground. The approaching creature saw this hound too and turned its direction instantly. Anniet looked to her side and saw General Blake's Deamon lowering his head and slightly wagging his tail as an apology for scaring her before guiltily moving away." No! That will not do!"

she thought, sliding from her seat and getting a firm grip on Deamon's neck. He didn't do anything bad! He just protected her! She is tired of being afraid when others are nice! Gosh, how soft his fur was! Deamon sat down immediately, staying close to her. Anniet didn't forget that King forbade walking during the event, and truth to be told, just a second ago, she wouldn't be able to make a move, no matter how much she would try, as if some stronger force would keep her in the seat.

But this force didn't restrain her from going after Deamon. Meanwhile, the events were unfolding very fast. These charging creatures were stopped by a strong field of white energy force. Anniet looked to see that it was created by King's Army members dressed in white uniforms resembling the one that Rainee was putting on this morning.

After smashing into these force shields, these creatures just shook their heads, blasted some fire, which wasn't able to penetrate through these shields either, and seeing that there was no success, reassembled themselves back into that scary black monstrous dragon, getting ready to take off back to the sky. Then a loud, ear-piercing screech sounded.

Penetrating all around, sending through everyone a blast of vibrations and locking them to the ground, making everyone feel that they will shatter into a thousand shreds if it does not stop soon. Anniet clung to Deamon for her dear life after experiencing it. She could feel that this sound had a much stronger effect on Deamon, but he completely ignored it as if nothing was happening. The black creature must have felt it much stronger too, as it got dizzy and shook its head violently before shooting back up.

But Rainee was already waiting for it there on a pink dragon, and this time that dazed black creature wasn't able to avoid her grip. Anniet didn't know what she expected Rainee to do when she will catch this monster, but definitely not what had happened. Rainee just pressed herself to this creature's back, hugging its neck strongly as if she were hugging the best friend in the world, and closed her eyes with the biggest smile that could come across a human's face.

With that, they both were out of sight, disappearing into the depths of the sky, and no one had stopped them this time. Happy… Rainee was again happy beyond what Anniet could understand. She must be really brave to be able to love such a scary beast… So it really was her dragon… If that's how dragons look like, then Anniet wasn't sure any more if she would ever like to have one.

While thinking she was still pressing hardly this soft and cuddly hound while looking at another blue yellowish beast who had caused this unbearable sensation just by making a noise. It was standing next to Prince Ragnar, and both of them looked pretty pleased with their efforts. Then this blue scaled dragon with yellow ornaments swirled in the air, turning into nothingness, and Anniet could swear that he somehow, despite being a few meters tall, got under Prince Ragnar's armour.

With that, the short break was finished, and the King invited those who wanted to receive the King's gift back to the square. Anniet didn't want to return back to her seat, as by now her bum and legs were already very stiff and sore from all this sitting, and it seemed that no one objected to her sitting down on the ground. Also, it was so nice to hold this beautiful, cuddly animal in her arms. She completely forgot who it even belonged to.

Well, she didn't forget about the person himself, as after Rainee left, he casually landed back in the square, bringing up a lot of uproar from public. It was he who had knocked that scary beast back down from the sky, proving once more that the sky was his domain. After that, nothing that Anniet saw surprised her any more.

This place was full of the weirdest possible creatures, with the strangest powers, and all laws of the physics she knew until now were defied, and any normality was not normal here, and any abnormality was taken for granted in this place where people could fly, speak silently but be heard everywhere, love most terrible beasts, make themselves bleed and heal again as if nothing had happened, keep the creatures larger than horses under their shirts, be happy to the moon after receiving as a gift some scary creature and calling it a friend, being visibly upset if the gift they received wouldn't be as frightening as they wanted it to be.

All this didn't make any sense, but that was what was happening right now. King was pulling out from somewhere, these strange-looking dragons, and presenting them as soul friends to everyone who asked for a gift from him. How did he know who was supposed to receive what, was a mystery, as the owners definitely didn't know what they would receive in advance.

People around were shouting and cheering about all the large and scary dragons, and would keep silent and clap just out of politeness after a nice and friendly creature would be presented. All this scene unfolding in front of her was making Anniet dizzy, and she would happily go for a snooze right now. No one would probably even notice it, as around here, there were no people left.

Everyone moved forward, a bit closer to the King's stage, and would look at her time after time, probably wondering why she didn't want to get a better seat. But she could see everything well from the place she was right now, and sitting on the ground was much more comfortable than on these hard seats. If she moved any closer, she might get stomped over for sitting on the ground. So she didn't go and was very content where she was. Just tired and a little bit hungry.

She even thought that after all this is finished, maybe Anthony will make her something nice to eat, before remembering that, for some reason, it is not going to happen. Right now, she couldn't even remember these reasons. Maybe because he was busy involved with this ceremony going ahead. This cape suits him nicely. He looked so handsome… Maybe when she goes to the Capital, they will still be able to stay friends. What a strange thought! Why wouldn't they be friends just because moving to a different place?

Of course, he will be much busier there and will not have much time for her, but still, it doesn't matter. She will be happy with as much as he can spare. Even right now, he was looking at her with a little bit of a concerned look.

"He probably already knows that I am hungry and is worried about it," Anniet giggled to herself while indicating to him that she is alright. His smile is so nice and warm, she never could do anything else but smile back. She sighed for the one millionth time to herself, thinking that it was a pity that they could only be friends. But it is probably for the best, as Dark General was very unforgiving for those who fell into a different relationship with him. But why does he have to be a Dark General?

He must be a general, as he was wearing a general's cape and was standing next to the King and advising everyone who wanted to hear something from him. But she was sure that he had a different name than Dark General. General Anthony? No, that didn't sound right. Oh well, never mind, all is just simply too much, too confusing, and she felt completely exhausted to think any harder about it. Lucky that he allowed her to keep his dog with her. She always knew that dog was much bigger than he looked. What is his name?

Oh yes, Deamon, after Dark General's dog. No, he was a Dark General's dog… No, he was Anthony's dog. In any way, she was glad Deamon stayed with her. He had his head on her knees and was snoozing peacefully. Lucky he… She would like to go for a snooze too… Why are dogs allowed to do what they want all the time, but not people? Didn't sound fair. But Deamon's coat was so silky! She would never ever think that way just by looking at him. He seemed so shaggy. But when touched, it was so smooth!

Another wonder out of many. Anniet just couldn't stop stroking and cuddling him, and Deamon liked it a lot. How much longer will this ceremony last? It wasn't even halfway through yet… Out of many thousands who walked through the gates, only a small portion were offered to join the King's Army, and even less actually joined. And only about one hundred asked for the King's gift. But even with such a relatively low number, it was taking a long time for King to gift them all.

No wonder he didn't take all these thousands who wanted to join to his army. If he had, he would probably have stayed here for a week or more, only making gifts. Of course, everyone deserved to have some attention on such an important day, and all these dragons they received were really beautiful. But it doesn't make it any easier to wait. Others didn't look so tired, so why was she? Luckily, everyone has probably forgotten about her, as no one has looked back for a long time now.

So maybe no one will get offended if she would have a little snooze. This thought was so appealing that Anniet could not resist it and quietly lowered her body to put her head down on Deamon's shoulder. He was so soft. And he smelled good, and he felt like a very good friend. To stay like this was way more comfortable than to keep sitting. She tried to watch this ceremony for a little bit longer, but it wasn't easy. Out of all people, only Anthony would look at her time after time.

He didn't look too concerned any more and smiled at her as if encouraging her to take a rest. Deamon moved slightly, snuggling around to make her even more comfortable and to shield her from unwanted looks. And that was the last thing she could remember from an inauguration ceremony.