by Ryan Johnson
The raging Minotaur hammered through three trees, toppling them as if they were just twigs. Then he began to run after the twin boys.
Vaeludar’s felt his muscles tightening up as if he did a thousand pushups. His scapulae were being crunched by the roots of his wings, which showed blue veins popping out. His chest was stretching with a mass structure. His pointed tail turned three-bladed tail.
Vaeludar felt his body changing form. He felt his wings making him fly forward at a thundering speed. While he was flying, his dragon-human eyes enlarged his vision that showed Nerio tripping over a rock, with the Minotaurs eyes set for him.
Nerio stumbled to the ground, letting lose the cloth he was carrying. He landed with both hands on his chest. On the ground, he looked back at the piece of cloth he was carrying, but not at the rampaging Minotaur. Nerio’s eyes were gazing with lust. He wanted to have it. He needed to have it. So, he crawled towards the cloth and grabbed it, but the Minotaur’s thundering, pounding bull-hoof stomped on Nerio’s hand.
The Minotaur’s eyes were staring down at its prey. The Minotaur lifted up his spear-axe while Nerio closed his eyes, hoping something would stop the Minotaur.
As the Minotaur was about to swing his axe, Vaeludar flew and landed in between the Minotaur’s falling weapon and the grounded Nerio. Vaeludar grabbed the weapon, holding his hand on the handle next to the big hands of the Minotaur. Vaeludar’s strong, fierce, mighty grip on the spear-axe matched the Minotaur’s strong grip.
For their strength, Vaeludar and the Minotaur were evenly matched. Vaeludar pushed hard against the Minotaur’s strength, making the Minotaur’s hoof go off while Vaeludar used his bladed-tail to whip the cloth yards away from Nerio’s hand.
“Go, Nerio, run,” yelled Vaeludar, in a dragon voice. “Go! Get away from here!”
Nerio was only looking at the cloth. He so desperately wanted it and wanted it now. Instead of running away, Nerio took off after the clothed item.
Vaeludar grunted, used his tail to whip the cloth away and whipped Nerio to the ground. Vaeludar then flung then Minotaur to the ground using his tail again. Vaeludar quickly got up and grabbed Nerio and pushed him towards the village. Vaeludar turned back to see the Minotaur. He saw the creature changing its target from Nerio to Arron and dashed forward, facing no fear against this dark, hairy creature.
The Minotaur caught up with Arron and grabbed him with a free hand, tossing him in the air. Then the Minotaur stopped and was about to choke a horrified Arron. The Minotaur lifted up his spear-axe, ready to cut his prey in half.
Not before Vaeludar could stop the Minotaur first. Vaeludar flew from the Minotaur’s left side and landed a hard punch to its left check.
The monster flung Arron into the air and he was soon caught in Vaeludar’s spiky tail.
Vaeludar placed Arron on his feet and shouted, “Run!”
Unlike Nerio, Arron ran towards the village instead of going for the clothed item. Vaeludar saw Nerio returning for the clothed item.
Not seeing the Minotaur preparing to punch back, Vaeludar flew from his feet and crashed into a peasant house. Straw and stones crumbled from Vaeludar’s impact. Most of the house came crumbling down on the fierce hybrid.
Vaeludar’s wings covered his entire upper body, protecting him from any crumbling stones. Unfolding his wings, Vaeludar jumped back into action and kicked the Minotaur back one hundred yards. Vaeludar skipped every ten yards towards the backwards, trampling the Minotaur.
Fifty yards away, Vaeludar jumped into the air and landed a hard blow on the bull’s head, impacting a steep hole in the process.
But the Minotaur pounced up and caught Vaeludar with the butt-end of its axe. Then the Minotaur raised its axe to finish its downed opponent.
Vaeludar did not falter; the three claws of his wings caught the flying-down weapon, by grabbing the hands of the Minotaur. But the Minotaur was still lowering his weapon so that the spear blade could pierce Vaeludar’s skin.
Vaeludar was struggling to get up with his hands free but with the mighty, awesome strength of a Minotaur, it was near impossible. Vaeludar was only getting up by a half inch.
“It pays off to be a half dragon, when I have my moments,” grunted Vaeludar.
Vaeludar raised his left dragon leg to kick the Minotaur, but the beast saw it coming and stomped on Vaeludar’s rising leg. For some reason, Vaeludar didn’t feeling any pain at all, only the pounding of the beast’s hoof but no severe bone injury. Vaeludar dispatched one of his arms from the ground and aided his wings to push the monster away; it was barely helping.
Sounds of running horse hooves ran towards the struggling duo.
“Aaarrrgggghhh,” Alaric’s voice roared, on a speedy horse while holding a long-bladed spear.
“Alaric, don’t get involved with this!” Vaeludar’s dragon voice yelled at Alaric.
But it was too late; the Minotaur withdrew his weapon and stabbed the horse with one blow to the throat.
Alaric was flung from the horse, into the air, and landed on his back, almost paralyzing his spine.
The Minotaur rushed towards a heavily injured Alaric.
“NO!” snarled Vaeludar, who jumped back up and ran faster than the Minotaur’s burst of speed. He leaped on the Minotaur’s furry back and began to strangle it with his bare arms and stabbing with his three-clawed wings.
The monster was feeling the stabbings, feeling like a thousand bees were stinging one place at once. Then it dropped onto its back on the ground. That time, Vaeludar felt an impact like rocks being crushed by the biggest boulders. His grip was loosened.
The Minotaur got back up, turned to face his fallen opponent, raised the spear pointed-end, and stabbed Vaeludar in the heart with the sharp, triangular, pointed spear.
But Vaeludar did not growl; he did not grunt. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all. He looked at the blade that was supposed to pierce him but did not go through the skin. The blade was actually bent when it touched Vaeludar’s skin.
Confused, the Minotaur lifted the weapon back up and saw the bent blade at a perfect ninety degree angle.
Vaeludar looked at his skin and didn’t see a scar or any bleeding coming from his chest. Smiling vilely, Vaeludar blew on the beast, blowing it all the way towards the forest edge. Vaeludar got up and charged towards the flying bull.
The Minotaur landed against the bark and fell to the ground. Now angrier that it had ever been in its entire life, the Minotaur growled like a regular bull. It tossed the weapon away and charged forward.
Both enemies were charging forward with great fugacity.
Suddenly, a lightning bolt sparked in Vaeludar’s brain; an idea hit him. Vaeludar stopped and stood like a white statue.
The Minotaur had his head bent; his horns pointing at Vaeludar. The beast hammering the ground, with his flat hooves. An earthquake struck after every pounding hoof step. Then the Minotaur rammed his horn into Vaeludar’s center chest only to have the horn bend from trying to ram it into Vaeludar’s central chest. The Minotaur gambled in a great amount of pain like a crybaby.
Vaeludar never knew he had indestructible skin; skin that was a thousand times stronger than steel armor.
Vaeludar marched over the grumbling Minotaur, placing his dragon legs over one of the Minotaur’s legs and stomach, dragon wings on the left leg and the right arm, leaving the monster’s right arm free, and human hands ferociously grabbing its horns and pulling the head closer to Vaeludar’s mouth.
The Minotaur used his free arm to push Vaeludar away, only to have Vaeludar’s tail crunch the arm to the ground.
Now the Minotaur was defenseless. It was struggling to break free.
“You.” Vaeludar pulled the Minotaur’s head even closer to his own head. “Will!” Vaeludar’s spikes on his spine, tail, and arms began to glow a light blue solar energy. “DIE!” finished Vaeludar, unleashing a fiery, electronic, magnetic, solar beam from his mouth into the Minotaur’
s mouth.
The power cramped into the Minotaur’s throat and straight out the back of its neck, causing the energy to create a hole as well as rip through the neck, decapitating the Minotaur’s head from its body.
Vaeludar closed his mouth and the solar energy died down. Vaeludar saw his decapitated enemy’s leaning body fall on the ground while he held the Minotaur’s head by the horn.
Vaeludar roared across the village in a victory; he had killed a monstrous Minotaur. He tossed aside the head and released his grip from the dead carcass. After winning, he looked closer at his new appearance, which soon after changed back into a humanlike appearance. His skin was redder but went back into a lighter red-brown skin color. His spikes remained, and he could feel small horns still attached behind his ears. It seemed when he got into a battle mode, his body appearance would change.
He turned away from the dead carcass, but he decided to pick up the head by the bent horn, to keep it as a trophy of his victory over a Minotaur. Then Vaeludar walked towards the cloth. When Vaeludar was two steps away from it, he saw Nerio running towards it.
Nerio soon stopped and looked at Vaeludar and the bull head he was holding. Blinking, Nerio moved his eyes back and looked at the cloth and Vaeludar. He couldn’t help it anymore; he needed to have it, running for it.
Nerio was about to make it when Vaeludar was in front of him; they both were two inches away from the cloth.
“What was this?” asked Vaeludar.
“I need it,” argued Nerio. “It is mine! I found it! I need it now! It’s mine!”
“It is not yours!” yelled Vaeludar.
Nerio crawled beneath Vaeludar’s legs and grabbed the cloth.
Vaeludar turned and pounded the cloth from Nerio’s hands with his mighty dragon feet. His tail grabbed Nerio around his waist and carried him away from the cloth Vaeludar’s dragon foot felt something thin like a stick. Vaeludar picked it up while he held Nerio tightly in his scaly tail.
“Don’t touch that! That is mine!”
Vaeludar dropped the bull’s head down and held the cloth with his two hands. He unfolded the brown cloth flat, but there wasn’t anything; it just seemed like an ordinary washcloth. Vaeludar gazed at Nerio who was looking very nervous. “You went into the Greenwood Forest to grab a hand-me-down piece of cloth?” asked Vaeludar, releasing his tail from Nerio who was no longer fighting back.
Nerio tried to go blank but his face was covered in guilt.
“This was something that could have killed this entire village! Now because of the damage that happened and me slaying a Minotaur, the guardian of this whatever this was. This day had been chaotic because of you, Nerio. You could have gotten this whole village killed! You went into the Greenwood Forest just to get a piece of cloth? When will you ever learn?”
Nerio was almost in tears.
Angrily, Vaeludar was about to throw the cloth back into the forest from where it came. Before he was about to throw it, he saw a dozen Dragons, Unicorns, Centaurs, Faeries, Griffins, and a few Sea Serpents with two Mermaids and Mermen in waterholes staring at him in amazement.
Vaeludar’s anger turned into amazement. Then he remembered Alaric. Vaeludar grabbed the bull’s head and dashed towards Alaric who was surrounded by three Unicorns; he seemed to be doing fine. He looked closely at the eldest son of Alaric, and there seemed to be no broken bones or facial scars.
“Alaric,” said Vaeludar.
The Unicorns and Alaric turned towards Vaeludar.
Vaeludar grabbed the head again and walked to hug Alaric tightly, and Alaric hugged back.
“That was one crazy, reckless stunt you pulled back there,” said Vaeludar. “You could have gotten yourself killed by the Minotaur. You were lucky to have survived its attack.”
“And you’ve crashed into a horse,” laughed Alaric.
They both released each other.
“You should have seen yourself,” said Alaric. “You were fighting hard against the Minotaur.”
“I was the eye of this village, wasn’t I?” asked Vaeludar.
“The entire village saw you battling against the beast. How you managed to save my brothers while you risked your life for theirs. You have a tremendous amount of strength. I’d say you have the strength of a thousand men.”
“Or the might of a hundred thousand men. And did you see how the beast tried to stab me with his weapon and his horn? None of them pierced my skin.”
“I saw with my own eyes,” answered Alaric, excited. “No skin could have been that strong against any sharp weapon. Its weapon was considered to be one of the sharpest weapons on this island. Sharp enough to cut a thousand trees in one slash.”
Vaeludar turned and saw the Dragon King staring at the Minotaur’s severed head. The Dragon King turned his head towards Vaeludar. “Never before have I seen such raw power,” exclaimed the Dragon King. “Nor have I seen such a young individual use such power without proper training.”
As he saw the Dragon King looking at the beaten enemy, Vaeludar looked at the cloth. Vaeludar picked it up and shook it twice. He saw it was a map of the island he lived on: Shimabellia.
In different sections, there were three X’s; one was on the north-western corner, symbolizing a castle symbol called Lost Castle, a second on the central part near the sea, with a name of Secret Laboratory, and the last on the southeastern corner called Siren’s Cover.
“A map of Shimabellia?” said Vaeludar. “This doesn’t look like anything important.” In one hard swipe of his hand, Vaeludar tossed the cloth back into the Greenwood Forest, hoping that was the last he would see of the worthless thing.
“Your name is Vaeludar, wasn’t it?” said the Dragon King, while looking at the head of the Minotaur on the ground.
Vaeludar walked closer to have his feet close to the head of the Minotaur that he blown from the large beast’s body.
“It is not a common thing for someone to fight a full grown monster and live to tell the tale. Your dragon strength and your unbreakable skin was what saved your life.”
“It does seem being a hybrid had its advantages. It seems my dragon side had kicked in when I first laid my eyes on the Minotaur. In fact, I’m going to keep its head as a souvenir, my first battle in my hybrid life. After all, I managed to beat it with great brute force and speed.” Vaeludar lifted up his hand and sent out a gush of wind into his hand. The weapon of the Minotaur flew into Vaeludar’s whirl winding hand. Vaeludar lowered the spear-axe to see the bent end. “I also wonder what else my skin is capable of.”
The spear of the Minotaur’s weapon was bent very easily like a piece of paper. He placed his arm and tried to cut off the skin with the axe. Instead, the axe bent as easily as did the spear-end when the Minotaur tried to stab Vaeludar. Eventually, Vaeludar used his bare hands to tear every sharp edge of the spear-axe, and he didn’t receive a bloody cut from dulling the blade, although he did feel his skin bending against the sharp blades.
After dulling and bending every square inch of the Minotaur’s long weapon, Vaeludar held the spear with his two hands. “Apparently, my skin is stronger than manmade armor and firm as dragon scales. I guess being a cross-specimen of human and dragon wasn’t half as bad as I thought it was.” Vaeludar smiled as he held the spear from his dead opponent in his own hands. He had two souvenirs to keep: the head and the spear.
“This is the first time a hybrid had held his own against a large, strong brute and dulled one of the sharpest blades that wasn’t able to penetrate through the skin of a human-dragon hybrid. This should call for a celebration.”
“What are we waiting for?” asked a man’s voice. Geraldus was walking to Vaeludar holding the spear and the head. “Let’s have a feast for this wonderful being, the one who killed one of the most ruthless beasts on this island.”
A CELIBRATION FOR A HYBRID
E
veryone almost immediately started to prep for a feast. The peasants started to move woode
n round tables to the field where Vaeludar and the Minotaur fought. The knights moved their horses and removed their armor then went to help the peasants with the preparations. The Griffins placed tall sticks in the ground while the Dragons lit the tops with their dragon fire. The Unicorns raised a flag on a single pole, featuring Vaeludar killing the Minotaur, on some buildings. Geraldus supervised to make sure everything was properly set for the feast happening in the evening.
The prepping was taking all day to set up. The tables were heavy, and the silverware was small enough to carry but if slipped, they would disappear beneath the feet of walking people. While people were setting up for a great feast being held for the hybrid that saved them, there was some reconstruction happening. The one house Vaeludar smashed into was being rebuilt by the family who lived in it, along with a dozen or more people helping out with the repairs.
From the morning of the attack to the late afternoon, the people living in the village had been working hard and working together to have their feast set in the early evening. It was the first day of autumn and the weather was perfect enough not to sweat. And doing so the people will have completed the tasks given to them by Geraldus.
For the hybrid himself, Vaeludar stayed at the watchtower, to make sure he stayed away until he knew he was needed. During his fight, he damaged several yards of the wheat field and destroyed one house. He needed to stay away from the attention until everything was ready for him to reveal himself to the people Vaeludar risked his life to save or keep himself from doing any more damage.
From the tower, Vaeludar saw a Dragon placing the disembodied Minotaur head on a golden altar, surrounded by people, four emerald torches, and a stack of axes around the head. For the first time in his life, Vaeludar was now feeling like an important figure for the village. He gave a small sigh of relief; he was now being accepted into the village’s society.
