With a groan, Groza opened his eyes. His whole body was stiff, probably as a result of the way he laid on the grassy ground. For a moment he was confused before his brain caught up with his purple-black scaly body.
Immediately after he realised what happened before his blackout, Groza quickly scanned his surroundings. He was sprawled on top of a grassy hill overlooking a forest. There was a sliver of blue on the horizon, and by the way it reflected the moonlight, it had to be the ocean. He recognised this place. It was the island he experienced his first death on.
A sudden pressure grew in his chest and his breathing deepened. It didn't hurt as much as coming to terms with what he had done in his younger years as a human, or as the deaths of his squad. That was good. Groza doubted his mind could handle another blow like that. He shook his head and stood up, thinking about what happened and how it could have gone differently wouldn't help anyone.
Groza noticed something quietly jingle somewhere down on his neck. With some slight difficulties he managed to take a look at what it was. He had to grin when he saw the dogtags he almost never took off. Guess he had another thing he had to thank Dayaxa for.
It was then, when he remembered his new god, that he realized how quiet the world around him was. Above was a sea of stars with few scattered clouds sailing through and a bright moon that made the lightning bolts around his eyes and edges of his wings glow. A slight breeze made waves in the grass around him.
He spread his still stiff wings and in the blink of an eye, he was gaining altitude. There was enough space in Dayaxa's cathedral to fly, but as Groza quickly found out, flying through open air was much better. He tried to do whatever stunts his mind could come up with, and sometimes they made him so dizzy he nearly dropped out of the sky. His flight capabilities weren't the only thing he tried out. Unfortunately for Groza, there weren't any storm clouds around. He really wanted to try that lightning jump Dayaxa told him about, but at least he still could make sure how exactly destructive his lightning blasts were.
Storms weren't crucial for his lightning to recharge, but they made the process a lot faster. The moonlight accelerated the recharge a little and increased his shot limit, not by much, but it did. There weren't any targets other than trees or rocks, but they were good enough proof that his blasts were devastating if he put enough power in them. Not only was this a good way to properly test himself, but it was also a good head clearer. When Groza finally set down on the ground again the sun was already slowly rising on the horizon.
The next night he was in the air again after a good day's sleep. Groza had to decide what his next course of action would be. He was on an island maybe a nights flight away from Japan and there were three targets for him to choose. He could travel from Japan further in-land and eventually find Li Jun, the leader of Riv's ground forces in Asia. By flying westwards and following the coast he should find one of the hunter fleets, or fly north to Siberia and cross the Bering sea into North America and eventually bump into Temnota. Groza decided to confront the ground forces first and then move to and along the coast to catch up with the hunter fleet. It was a difficult decision but there were probably more dragons in the mainland than along the coasts where there were undoubtedly many human cities. He knew that no matter what choice he made someone would die sooner or later, but saving everyone was impossible.
The night air felt amazing on his new scales as he flew through the skies filled with scattered clouds. Flying was not something anyone could enjoy back in his human time, not even the Russians with their rebuilt oil rigs could support a functioning air force. Planes were nonexistent and helicopters expensive. Groza flew only once in his human life in a transport chopper, but that didn't even come close to flying on his own power.
Only two things dampened his joy from flight, and that were the memories that refused to go away and the realization that he was a little lonely. The latter problem was a bit more pressing. Before he met Dayaxa back in his destroyed hometown he didn't have a conversation longer than two sentences with anyone alive for years. His only source of human contact were firefights, brothels and the merchants he occasionally traded with or his clients. Groza couldn't get close to anyone again after the mission where his five strong squad was reduced to one by various painful means. People close to him had a bad habit of dying horrifically it seemed.
Dayaxa kind of broke him out of his little shell of solitude he willingly built around himself, and now he was torn. On one hand… or paw, or wing, Groza didn't really know anymore, getting close to new people was dangerous, especially now that he was basically at war with an army aided by god powers. On the other this was his second chance and he could use some allies in this. It wasn't like he could just be alone for the rest of his long draconic life.
Whatever happens, happens. He could cross that bridge when he had to. Right now it was better to focus on the tasks at hand. The island of Japan was slowly coming into view, so instead of his internal problems, he focused on his battle plan.
Even though Groza was now basically an enchanted lightning and moon powered scaly killing machine, facing an army head on was stupid. Especially if that army was specialized in taking down creatures like him and had several members with similar powers to him.
He knew how big their army was, how many of them had powers and what they were armed with. Crossbows, net launchers, ballistae and some other typical weaponry and armor. Groza was grateful that he was in the age he was currently in. Taking on anti-air auto canons was a bitch no matter the body or equipment.
By the time he made it to Japan, the sun was slowly rising over the horizon. The color of the sky shifted in such a way that his purple-black scales allowed him to blend perfectly with it. It was unlikely that anyone would be awake at this hour, but Groza was constantly on the lookout. Human villages and cities were all over the coast, trying to find a resting place there was out of question, so he flew further inland into the forest covered mountains.
More and more light filled the world. As he flew over one valley, he noticed this one was starkly different. A large patch of forest was reduced to ash there, and even though it was risky, Groza folded his wings and dove down to investigate.
The fire happened some weeks ago, it was nearly impossible to make out any scents besides that of the ashes and smoke. Groza noticed a gaping hole in the side of a mountain, with an enormous pile of ash, probably somewhat reduced in size by the wind, in front of it. White cylindrical shapes of various sizes were scattered around it. Bones. Dragon bones. Beneath the ash there were still some scales to be found, deformed by the intense heat. It was not the first time he saw something like this, he even helped in such an atrocity once. Every time he saw something like this it reminded him of the crimes he himself committed a long time ago. During his time as a mercenary he often prevented things like this from happening, even though it cost their payment sometimes, but he had to repay his debt somehow and didn't dare to complain about it in any way.
He shook his head in a vain attempt to not recall any of those traumatizing experiences and continued his investigation. The huge cave was utterly silent, only disturbed by the clicks of his claws and jingles of his dogtags. Marks of battle could be seen everywhere. Patches of scorched rock, claw marks and patches of dried blood were all over the place. The deeper he got into the cave the more intensified the marks were, they were desperate. Desperation could do wonders to one's fighting capabilities, but often it didn't matter how well one fought. It was already too late at that point.
It was obvious that there was no hope for the dragons that defended this place. It was saddening to see but Groza continued on, every time he found a place like this his morbid curiosity took over. He didn't want to but kept walking. He needed to see just how bad this got. In a way he knew what he was going to find in the deepest part of the cave, but his emotions still descended into a whirlwind when he reached that part.
"Fuck this…" He whispered. Dried blood covered the floor and walls, no longer in patches, the combatants litterally painted the cave red. Groza couldn't make out how much of it was dragon and how much human, but it didn't really matter. It was obvious that the most vicious fighting occurred here because of the objects that lay shattered in hundreds of pieces on the cave floor. Eggshells. Broken and scattered on the blood covered ground, it was impossible to tellvhow many eggs there originally were.
Groza turned around and came back the way he came. Immediately after he stepped into the light of day again he leapt into the sky. He was capable of flying a bit longer and so he left Japan behind. The faster he would find the land army, the faster he could prevent more of this from happening again. His wings ached noticeably by the time Japan was long behind him.
Fortunately he didn't find a mass grave by the time he landed again in the afternoon of that same day. Tens of kilometers away from the chinese coast he found himself in a dense forest with something resembling oak growing in it. It was something to get used for Groza, even though his twelve years of life as a dragon found these to be normal, his thirty five human years told him trees were much bigger than this.
It was so strange. Logic following Dayaxa's explanation dictated that he was a dragon, and now even physically. Thinking about it made his head hurt. At least his personality and preferences didn't change too much, except for species. At least he had help from his new freind in realizing that.
And with those thoughts he found just the right resting place in a rock formation not far from his landing spot and fell into a light sleep. He knew what sleeping meant, but over the years he got used to it. Nightmares filled with people he failed to save. Mostly his dead friends, Alex, Emil, Linda and Filip with their terrific open wounds for him to see. Groza never screamed when he slept through his nightmares, only twitched and groaned silently, his survival instinct overriding his sorrow, anger and fear.
People often said that you remembered the faces of your kills. Groza never did. He remembered that he did it, the weapons and tactics he used, but never the face of his victims. But his very name made him often remember. His parents gave him a different one, but that faded with time. Groza didn't really care about his name at the time, and instead adopted the nickname the bandits gave him after the Russian carbine he found and carried around with him wherever he went.
OTs-14-4A Groza, bullpup carbine chambered in the Russian nine by thirty-nine millimeter round. He liked it at the time and didn't think too much about it, later in life someone translated it for him. Thunderstorm. He liked the name even then and decided not to change it. Ultimately he lost his namesake, and a lot of weapons went through his hands before he settled on what he had by the time of his death.
Something woke him from his uneasy sleep and it was not a nightmare this time, but a presence. Something was watching him sleep. He didn't give any indication he was awake. A loud crack sounded from somewhere behind him but he still faked his sleep. He could hear it… No. Them. There were at least two somewhere behind him, he could hear them move and breath now. One was close now, without a sound, Groza suddenly whirled around at lightning speed and pinned something under one of his wing-claws. Lightning sparked across his scales and three terrified shrieks filled the air, one from under his wing two from the forest followed by the sounds of all stealth being abandoned. mayyes widened at what he saw. Under his metallic black claw with a hint of silver here or there was a…fledgling. By scent it was a male, maybe two or three years old. A strange thing with a long neck, blue and purple scales and spots that looked like stars all over his body. His claw could see a small trickle of blood from underneath his claw, it must have pierced the hatchlings soft scales.
Groza immediately let go of some of the pressure. The fledgling whimpered and Groza could smell the fear off of him and see it in his eyes. "PLEASE DON'T EAT ME!" The fledgling shrieked from underneath him and he winced as his sensitive ears sent a jolt through his head.
Since he could see he was not a threat, Groza let the small whimpering dragon go. He probably had parents somewhere and it would be hard to explain why he was holding their child by the neck with one of his razor sharp claws.
A loud roar reverberated from above and Groza immediately rolled to the side before a Monstrous Nightmare slammed through the tree canopy and into the spot where he was standing. The Nightmare turned her head to him and viciously snarled but before she could do anything else, Groza acted on instinct and stood on his two legs, hooked his wing-claws by her horns and slammed the side of her head into a rock. Her eyes widened briefly before they rolled into the back of her head.
Hopefully he didn't crack her skull open. Wingbeats could be heard above and moonlight streaked through the leaves. The glowing marks could be concealed with a simple spell, but concealing his whole body for a long enough time would be energy consuming and he didn't want to run anyway.
Something slammed into him from behind. He could feel two paws armed with sharp claws dig between his shoulders, driving him into the ground. Groza probably could have thrown his attacker off, he could feel his metallic spines, each ready to deliver an unhealthy dose of electricity, pressing into the dragon's stomach. But this was a good opportunity to defuse the situation assuming they wouldn't try to slit his throat.
A new dragon flew in, this one was a lot bigger than the Nightmare he knocked out before. It was obvious that fitting in between these rocks was an awkward ordeal for the dragon. Groza saw a Timberjack only once before, and that was in one of Dayaxa's lessons. Even moving around whenever he wasn't flying had to be awkward. By his light green scales and even broader wings he was a titan wing.
He looked down at Groza pinned by an unseen dragon with narrowed eyes. "You can let him up." The Timberjack rumbled. "If he came here looking for a fight, you'd be dead at twice now." The weight pinning him down left. Groza stood up and flexed his spines, letting a small amount of lightning dance over them. A groan sounded from behind him and he glanced over his wing to see who pinned him. The only thing that could be seen was a slightly blurred patch of forest. Either a Changewing or a Light Fury.
"What are you doing here, trespassing on my territory?" The Timberjack's deep voice made him turn around again. So far it seemed that this was the alpha of whatever group of dragons was living in this patch of the forest.
"I was just looking for a place to rest and planning to continue on again once I woke up." Groza's answer seemed to satisfy the Timberjack, but he could see he was still tense, his sharp wings ready to slice him apart in the blink of an eye. He didn't expect anything less from him.
"You can stay here for the night, Mrak will keep an eye on you and make sure you leave just as you said."
Groza nodded, glad he wasn't chased off by the first living dragons he encountered. "Are there any other nests in this part of the world?"
The Timberjack narrowed his eyes a little. "Why do you want to know?" His deep voice was laced with suspicion.
"There should be a dragon hunter group somewhere further west. If there's a nest somewhere there, it should help me find them." Groza was flying partially blind. Dayaxa showed him approximately where the hunters would be, but armies tended to move a lot.
"What can a single dragon do to a group of that scum?"
"I have my methods." Groza grinned at him.
The Timberjack gave him an odd look but told him exactly what he needed to know. There were two more nests westwards that they knew of, the furthest some three full days of flight away. Groza thanked him and watched as the Timberjack called for help with moving the unconscious Nightmare.
He turned around, the blurry patch of forest slowly cleared to reveal snow white scales. A Light Fury then. Groza struggled to identify the Fury's gender, Light Furies camouflaged themselves by heating up their scales and that also worked as a reliable way of erasing one's scent for a short period of time. The camouflage didn't fully clear yet, and it would probably still be a while before he got a good look at this guard for the night. Besides the few patches of white scales, the only thing he could clearly see were their tired blue eyes.
Groza decided to talk to the stranger when he woke up, sleeping was not as overrated as he once thought. He curled into a pile of purple-black scales but didn't immediately fall asleep. He could hear quiet murmuring behind him, too quiet for him to hear. He didn't mind sleeping with a stranger watching over him, he was confident in his abilities that were burned into his mind after years of fighting and surviving in the irradiated world.
It happened to him several times that he needed to start unloading his magazines seconds after he woke up. Whenever he slept he had at least one of his bayonets clutched in his hand, hidden under the pillow. Groza didn't have weapons on him now, but his whole body basically was one now. The ability to envelop his whole body in electricity was also a very useful ability that helped him relax a little.
And so, like on many other nights, he fell asleep wary and expecting a fight at any second. However a fight didn't find him that night, and The only thing disrupting his sleep were the usual nightmares.
Writing dialogue is so fucking awkward.