The Dragon Emperor

Time and time again, stories of old and new, you've all heard of the myths—the legends of a land of magic, a world similar—or exactly like—the one we come to call our home. A world where magic streams through the veins of humanity, a tale as old as time. All this is familiar, of course, it's the world we call our home. A world where strange creatures sore the skies above, and even stranger walk the worn dirt trails of the words between capitals and kingdoms alike. A world where humanoid creatures roam with humans, where species mix in a blur, interacting, trading, thriving, surviving, like a well-oiled machine working in perfect perpetual motion.

This is a story of such a world, where islands float in the sky, crystals sprout from the surface of the world as large as cities, spewing strange magic, a world where all laws of physics and all understandings of science are defined in a strange realm of crystalline beauty, magic and perhaps… a bit of insanity. A world where Dragons, Wyverns and all other supernatural creatures roam, some with passiveness, some war hungry and torn by the powers of the Ancients that had been lost to time. Some striving for only peace and solstice. And some… sought only freedom. Some looked to the skies for a savior…

But… once, in this world's times of strife at the turning of the age, a savior came from below. From the depths of darkness, far strewn from the brink of society and far from anything that he knew and in a planet he couldn't call his home. This is the story of The Dragon Emperor, a story told by me, yours truly, to you faithfully. A story told through time and passed from generations, the story of our savior, The Red Dragon Emperor!

So with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, skinny and stout, pull up a chair and sit on the floor, let's start from the beginning, at the point you haven't heard before…

Chapter 1: Crystal Isles

It was a normal autumn day, the sun was bright and beaming down in the city of Kyoto, Japan. But things weren't as normal as they seemed for Issei Hyoudou. In fact, it was a celebration day for an American holiday that had been nationalized in Japan called Halloween, made popular here by Disney that had quickly caught attention and enjoyment by leaps and bounds.

And he was currently in a shop in his small country side town. Of course, he knew the owner of the store, which was why he was here for Halloween.

Most people would imagine Japan like being an anime everyday. And while Japan had whole heartedly embraced their own tradition of their shows by fliers, advertisements and stores, the people dressed often times very conservatively. So today was one of those rare occasions Issei could get away from his final year of studies and act silly and get a little wild in public with everyone else joining in on the fun!

Of course, there weren't any candies to be passed out at the doors of peoples houses and apartments like in America, but the festivities brought about by restaurants with nicely wrapped sweets in orange and black made the holiday nice. And, also, the fact that the town they lived in was near to an American Military base, the holiday was even more localized and even more American-esque. Especially on the base as well.

The base was like a giant testament, but it was always amusing, and often times annoying. It was annoying to hear the loud, multi-tone air siren being tested every week on Friday at noon, but regardless, the interactions often received from them were quite interesting and often times hilarious.

"Aunt Emma? I'm here for my costume." He called out as he unlocked the door to the antiques store owned by his aunt.

The light in the parlor flicked to life at his movement, and a suit of armor loomed by the entrance. He hadn't seen the suit of armor before, so out of habit, he inspected it, checking for any dust, dings, scratches and blemishes in the unique metal that seemed to actually be worn at some point.

"Back here, Issei!" she hollered back to him. "I hope you didn't leave that door unlocked; I'm getting ready to close for the night and don't need any more customers!"

"What does that make me then?" he asked, closing the door behind him and locking it.

"An annoyance is what you are," his aunt teased with unrelenting force. He followed her voice past the countless curios and into one of the back rooms where the smell of clove lingered.

"I'll make it up to you someday, I promise." He promised the older woman.

The family resemblance between the two of them always startled anyone who was introduced to her. If his mother were still alive, they would have thought they were sibling if her and his aunt were side-by-side. Aunt Emma never looked her age, with long brown hair that lacked even a single strand of gray and her unwavering amber eyes that were just as bright as ever. Instead of his aunt, she usually passed as his older sister.

"I have something show you." Aunt Emma laughed, picking up the silver engraved pipe full of Indonesian clove and tobacco that rested on a stone ashtray with foreign markings along its edges.

"No questions about school? Or how the last few weeks have been? I've missed you too." He sarcastically rolled his eyes and pretended to pout.

She rolled her eyes back at him and exhaled a puff of smoke. "How has everything been, kiddo?"

"Not so bad," Issei replied with a grin.

She scrunched her nose at him, and Issei knew exactly what was going to be said next. "I've missed you."

"Aww, that's so nice of you to say first thing. You know, instead of pushing one of your random antiques onto me." He said back. If he were to explain the relationship with his aunt, he could do it in a short word: comedic. Since he lost his parents and learned to fend for himself, he had also learned to be more open with his last piece of family.

Unfortunately, finding for oneself often meant being lonely in the end.

A gleam leapt up into her eyes. "Speaking of antiques…"

Issei sighed and looked up at the ceiling of the building. "Oh, boy, here we go."

"Look at this! Isn't it beautiful?" his aunt ignored his comment and moved an open box towards him.

At first, his eyes were caught by the beauty of the box. Pears covered the lacquered wood in the design of phoenixes and dragons in flight. He could imagine it being used as a prop in a TV drama, in the bedroom of some grand and ancient royal. The he looked inside and let out a low whistle.

In a bed of crushed velvet was an exquisitely crafted golden mask unlike anything he had ever seen before. It had sharp angles and edges like something straight from a fantasy book. In fact, the masked resembled that of ancient dragons in myths and old texts. And, in the box, was a hairpin crafted in the same exquisite way. A delicate flower of pure white jade was set into intricate gold filigree and hung from the end of what looked like six inches of pure gold. At the center of the flower, surrounded by more gold filigree, was a stone of blue jade. An inverted triangle of gold suspended from the filigree back of the flower, and from that, hung three golden bells on golden chains.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" his aunt blew out a puff of smoke that wrapped around her gentle feminine features.

Save us.

He paused, just as his hand was about to reach the mask. For a moment, he thought he heard a voice, but his mind had probably wandered and dreamt up the woman who possibly wore this mask with the hairpin. He shook his head but frowned with the uneasy feeling in his gut refused to leave.

"Is someone here?" he asked, looking over his shoulder and then turning back to his aunt.

She cocked her head at him with amusement and something else he didn't understand. "Hearing ghosts, are we?"

"Nah." He rolled his eyes. "Just super busy with school and work."

"See, you say that," she said as she pointed at him with her silver pipe, "but I'm pretty sure you've been able to see ghosts and magical activity all your life. You've just ignored it."

His Aunt was always blabbing such nonsense to him, he should have expected that this time too. Ghosts and spiritual nonsense, but he didn't believe any of it. He just needed more sleep.

"You know I don't believe in that stuff," he grumbled before he looked back at the mask and hairpin. "What is this anyways?"

"Well… apparently the mask was worn by a priest who was in a cult that worshipped dragons and phoenixes. And the hairpin belonged to a princess." Aunt Emma took another long drag from her pipe. "She was supposed to have been buried alive, at least, that how the story goes according to the seller."

"Well, that fucking sucks," he snickered. "Poor little thing."

"What did you think you heard when you looked at the two?" his Aunt asked as she fixed her eyes on his face intently.

"Nothing." He lied. "Why did this princess get buried alive? Was she a tyrant?"

His Aunt shook her head, and a contemplative expression crossed her face. "Quite the opposite, actually. She was supposedly a princess of purity within a place full of corruption."

"So, I'm guessing this isn't a part of my costume," he said with a smirk. "This looks like it belongs in a museum."

"Yep, that's far out of your price range, young man." She reached out and closed the box with a definitive click.

"So… costume?" he chuckled again as he shoved his hands into his pocket. "I need it for the video game convention, and you said you had one?"

She winked at him and nodded at the door that led to a storage room full of boxes. "The opera masks and costumes are in there, oddly enough from the same seller of the mask and pin you just saw. Go ahead and pick one as an early birthday gift."

"Thank, Aunt Emma," he said as he turned towards the back room.

"It's a shame," she sighed. "I always said you would have made a fine historian."

"You're the best!" he ignored her last comment as he walked into the storage room. "Besides, saving people's lives is more exciting than digging around in people's basements."

"You cheeky brat!" she yelled without any real heat in her tone.

That's right. Issei was a certified emergency medical technician. Or EMT for short. He decided to take six months of classes to become certified before he decided to further his career by going to school. His decision to become and EMT before going to college was a decision that brought pride to his Aunt, even if she wasn't good and expressing it. That also gave him the confidence that his parents would also be proud of the path he ended up taking his life instead of the path of a shut-in pervert he had originally taken. And thanks to social media, he had managed to resuscitate new friendships with most every girl he had peeped on in school, and had become a bit of an icon for their small town of Kuoh, already saving the lives of multiple people with his quick thinking and careful, precise skills.

To him, it had certainly been worth the hundreds of hours he had spent in EMT classes and the punishing schedules of pre-med courses and shifts. All of the life-and-death situations he'd worked and would continue to work in provided an immense amount of experience and familiarity with the real world of medicine and saving lives that no amount of medical lab courses could truly define.

The only downside was that he had less and less time for, well, anything else. If he wasn't taking classes, doing so slowly and at his won steady pace before he goes into college, he was usually in the ambulance with his nose in a textbook in-between call. The reason he was even at the shop today was because his weekend had suddenly opened up due to some misfiled paperwork and cancelled classes for Halloween. Thanks to that series of fortunate events, he was able to get his hands on a ticket to a nearby video game convention. And since it was all last minute, he didn't have a costume.

That was where his Aunt came to the rescue. She'd just came back from Sichuan province in China after a lengthy business/buying trip that included a former opera house. He'd been given permission to have first pick of all the costumes.

The first shipment of boxes had arrived, and it was a daunting sight. While the storage room was periodically emptied and only used for new merchandise, well, as new as antiques could get, it was still filled to the literal brim.

He would definitely be spending the rest of his day, and maybe his entire night here unpacking.

"Better start unboxing," he muttered to himself before tackling the first of the wooden brates and coughed when a cloud of dust rose up.

And six crates later, he had only found dressed for women, beautiful and intricate in design, and probably worth a small fortune, but nothing that he could or would wear.

And finally, at the bottom of the seventh crate was what he was looking for. In a flat, black box was an outfit of black silk shot through with red thread. The fabric shimmered in the light as he pulled it out of the crate, and when he looked closer, he noticed that sections of the fabric had been decorated in the pattern of scales. He traced the snarling red dragon with green eyes that had been embroidered on the dark black sash, and goosebumps rose on his arms.

He had to put it on. It was a burning sensation that he couldn't fight, and when he did… it fit perfectly. As if it had been made for him in some past life. The wise sleeved shirts slipped on like a second and third skin, and the trouser fit snugly. Even the black fur-lined boots were a perfect fit.

The outfit was nearly complete now. What he needed now, was the mask.

He walked back to the crate and dug deeper though the straw until his fingers found what he had been searching for. Another box. He pulled the box out. It was black, just like the other box, but the outside had some strange marking on it that made his head hurt slightly. He opened it, and a chill ran down his spine as he looked at the missing piece of his costume.

A red dragon mask.

It snarled up at him from a bed of white tissue paper, and the material of it was odd. It wasn't papier-mâché or even leather. He picked the mask up, and it felt cool and heavy in his hands. It almost felt like bone. As he studied it closely, the hairs on the back of his neck rose, but he shook his head thinking it was probably made of some sort of ceramic.

With the mask in his hand, he walked over to the mirror in the corner of the room. It'd always been there, a large thing with a frame of oiled bronze that reached the ceiling.

He smirked to himself as he studied his reflection in the old mirror. "I look so fucking cool."

Hurry.

"Huh?" He turned and looked towards the door he entered the room from. He thought he had heard a voice again, the same voice from earlier. He chuckled nervously as he convinced himself once more, he was just tired. There was no one in the storage room with him. It was just him and the costumes. He shook his head and tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. He needed to calm down, it was probably the onset of a cold. This was all just a coincidence. He wasn't really hearing voices. He would put on the mask and everything would be okay.

He just needed to put the mask on.

And so, he did.

Like the robe, the mask fit perfectly to the features to his face as if it had been molded and crafted solely for his usage. It melded onto his cheeks, and he could feel his skin ripple as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up once more. Something was wrong… he couldn't pass it off as mere coincidence anymore.

A breeze formed inside the room, impossibly, but not bothering or seeming to touch any of the hanging costumes. And the dust swirled up in the air before it formed a circle around him.

"What the fuck?" he gasped as golden light emanated from the mirror in front of him, and the dust in the air began to glow.

Then the world was engulfed in a blinding light and he could hear the far-off sounds of flowing water.

Somehow, his heart slowed down to a gentle beat. He could breathe again, and a strange calm settled inside of him. He knew the feeling, the golden light reassured him. The mirror's surface before him shimmered and beckoned, and somehow, he wasn't afraid at all. He took a step forward and placed his hand on the mirror's surface. The cool glass moved under his touch just like water, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

It felt like home.

Come.

Again, the desperate voice called. He realized that it came from inside the mirror. His pulse started to thrum through him like a war drum. He opened his eyes, and suddenly there was darkness all around him, but he could still faintly see somehow. Maybe his eyes had perhaps adjusted to the lack of light?

All he could see in the mirror, however, was the dragon mask. The scales seemed so lifelike, and he hadn't noticed how well they had been carved before. It was such an awesome mask, and now that he had it on, he realized how three dimensional it was. The mask actually covered a bit of his throat and he turned his head slightly so he could see that the pattern of the scales seemed to blend into the robe he wore and disappear behind the cloth flawlessly. It really did look like he had scales all over his body now, and he felt little thrill run through his stomach at the thought of how many people would be impressed at the convention.

When he first put the mask on, he hadn't noticed the exact shape of the eye lenses, but now that he was studying it himself, his eyes seemed much larger and a much brighter shade of green.

…Green? He had brown eyes. But instead of making haste upon the revelation, he instead looked past it and thought of it as only a mind trick.

"So, fucking cool." He leaned closer to the mirror so he could see the finer details of the mask.

The he realized his nose was much longer when it touched the pool of steady water that he had mistake to bee the mirror.

"What the fuck?" he reached up to pull the mask off with his hands, but instead of hands, he was met with claws.

His heart began to pound wildly in his chest, but he couldn't help but laugh. This was all too incredible to be real. It was so vivid and strange, like he was tripping out almost. He had to have passed out in the storage room, and this was all just a wonderful dream, triggered by his aunt's ghost stories and strange beliefs—and of course, a result of whatever it was that she put in that pipe of hers.

Strangest of all, though, he could feel wings that stretched out from his back. Heavy, leathery appendages that were curled tightly into his sides. He unfurled them, carefully, and twisted his now long neck to look back at them. He blinked once. And then again. He really did have wings. And his body… it was covered in crimson colored scales that shimmered just as the mask for the costume did. A crimson as the color of blood, yet brighter with glints of emerald that now matched his eyes. Exactly like the costume.

His gaze traveled further back, and shock then began to settle over him.

Holy shit. A tail. He had a tail.

He shook his head. He needed to focus. He couldn't lose focus. That was how you were supposed to wake up from a dream, right? By focusing on crazy details, and it tricked your brain into realizing you were dreaming and needed to wake up.

The first order of business was to count how many limbs-turned appendages he had. He took stock quickly. Two wings, with leathery and torn surfaces that seemed to shine brilliantly in his vision almost like it was chromatic, two forelegs, and two hind legs, and one rather wicked looking tail like something out of an alien's movie. Aside from that… nothing was out of the ordinary.

For a dragon, that was.

He couldn't even begin to explain what had happened. One second, he was still himself in the storage room. And the next, he was an overgrown lizard with a tail that looked like it could pierce metal and even the thickest of skin. Perfectly normal. Nothing to worry about at all about that scenario.

Man, maybe he had passed out in the storage room and hit his head on a sharp edge. Or something. Surely.

But as he stood there… and flexed his claws on the stone floor beneath him, he realized that… this all felt too real. The stone scraped against his incredibly sharp bone-like claws that were as hard as metal and left his mark in the stone with ease.

Could this really be happening? Was this not some dream he could escape?

He looked around the space he was in, trying to find some clue as to where he was and what had happened. It was a cavernous space with a dark lake and clear crystals embedded in the walls that glittered and shone with a strange inner light. Within them, his appearance was reflected hundreds of times in each one as clear as day, and each crystal shifted multiple colors, almost like mood lamps.

He was a red dragon. Easily more than 20 feet tall, and beautiful.

No. There was no way this could be real. He laughed, but what came out of his maw was a warm puff of air like a car's exhaust when it started in the morning.

This all had to be a dream.

He had to have passed out in the storage unit when he put the mask on. And Aunt Emma was about wake him at any moment. That was the only logical explanation to this situation.

He shook his head vigorously, but then he realized his neck had lengthened, and he caught himself as he started to lean off balance. He looked down and saw nothing but red scales and white claws.

He looked closely at his claws, and the same color shifting scheme as the crystals loomed around them, and as he moved closer, he could see his reflection. One giant, emerald eye stared back up at him, pupil slit and thin.

A dragon. He was really a dragon. He wasn't human anymore.

Shit.

This wasn't a dream.

Panic settled itself in his stomach, and he could feel the way his chest tightened. His heart raced, a thunderous sound that echoed inside of his head, and the world felt like it tilted around him.

He forced himself to focus on the way the ground shifted beneath his claws and the distant sounds of trickling water. Then he drew in a large breath and filled his lungs with air in an attempt to alleviate the stress on his mind. He held that breath for a total of four seconds and then exhaled. This was a method called four-square breathing, and it was used by athletes, in yoga, and even by the American military. Needless to say, as an EMT, he used it a lot. He used it a few times himself, but he often used it to calm down trauma victims as his team and he worked to stabilize them and get them to a hospital. If they were able to, he would often have them follow his breathing pattern.

And the times they'd failed to save a life. He'd used it on themselves.

Once he was able to calm himself down, he leaned backward and attempted to sit on his haunches and think about what to do next. But as soon as he sat, however, his body started to lean to the right, and he flapped his right wing in an attempt to keep himself steady. His extra limb stuttered as he tried to beat, and the movement made his torso spin the opposite direction. This caused his tail to spin the other direction, and then his head whipped around.

Suddenly, he was laying on his side and the crystals made a path in front of him that spun in his vision.

That didn't go quite as he had planned it.

He now pushed his front right claw into the stone ground of the cavern and pushed himself up, but almost as soon as he put any strength into the limb, he lifted off the ground as if someone had thrown him. he was spinning on the ground again, and for a good half minute, he couldn't tell what was an arm, leg, tail or wing.

"Holy shit, Issei," he hissed under his breath, and his voice came out as a deep sonorous rumble, "get a handle on this."

He made a third attempt to get up, but this time he moved very slowly, and used just the slightest amount of his strength. This time seemed to be the charm, and he was soon able to get his belly flat on the ground with his arms and legs spread out in the correct direction. He was sure he looked like a Bambi when he tried to get across the icy lake in the movie, but at least he wasn't tangled up into a dragon knot.

"Okay… so now what?" he asked aloud, earning no response as expected except a small rumble of the cave from some form of activity. It was pretty dark, and he realized that it was actually almost pitch black, but his large dragon eyes were able to see with the small amount of light from the gemstones that jutted from all around.

He thought for a moment. He had seen the exit to the cavern by accident, but in a fit of his discombobulation, he had lost it, and it was dark he couldn't see the way any longer. He was a dragon… perhaps he could smell his way out?

He breathed in deeply once more, this time taking a moment to focus on what he was smelling, rather than just breathing to calm himself. He immediately found a breeze that smelled fresher, less stale, stagnant, and not smelling of mold. It was like his sense of smell had been set to max in a video game. He turned his head a bit to follow the stream of air, and realized it was coming just a half-turn to his right. His two o'clock position.

Which meant that was probably the way out he saw earlier.

But… now he needed to figure out how to walk.

And suspiciously so, he moved his forelegs under him. He focused on using the least amount of strength possible and ever so slowly lifted himself off the ground until he was almost in perfect position to do pushups. His claws scraped through the ground beneath him and formed deep gouges, and the part of him that wasn't freaking out that he had turned into a dragon thought it was totally awesome that he had powerful claws.

"Okay, you can do this. Just keep moving slowly," he reminded himself as he moved his hindlegs the same way he had his forelegs. He swayed as he managed to stand without falling, and then took a deep breath.

As soon as he was standing, he stretched his right foreleg, but his right wing started to unfurl as well, and he started to lose his balance as well.

"Fuck!" he groaned, but right before he face-planted the ground, he managed to catch himself by unfurling the other wing. That managed to keep him upright for the moment, but he wouldn't be able to get far with his wings unfurled. It felt like he was balancing a table on his back with his wings open like they were.

He flapped a wing curiously and fanned up a ton of dirt and dust that ultimately ended up in his mouth. The bright side was that he knew he could taste dozens of different flavors. The downside was that all those flavors tasted like literal shit. Lovely guano.

"Okay…" he grumbled, "so, don't try that again in a cave."

Flapping his wings were out of the question, and he wondered how he could close them. He thought about the muscles in a human hand, the way they worked when they would clench and unclench. Maybe it would work the same if he thought of the appendages like his hand?

He focused on the tendons in his wings that he could feel, and they twitched slightly at his command. "Come on, just a little more," he growled.

Another flex, just like how he would flex his hands, and they folded onto his back, tightly compressed onto his form. He let out a sigh of relief. That was one disaster averted. There was so much of himself that he now had to be conscious of. He felt like a baby learning to walk, he needed to focus on every single movement he made and ho he made it.

"Baby steps," he said with one of his favorite children's movie in his mind as he focused on his right foreleg. He stretched it forward and planted it on the ground in front of him, and then did the same with his left hindleg. He repeated it with his left foreleg and right hindleg. He had to do alternating limbs at the same time, which was the trick of his new trade. Even so, he wobbled forward, like a newborn foal on legs too big for its body. Only, his new body was just too big for himself to handle. He stumbled a tripped with every other step, and his tail swayed behind him as it trailed along the floor and left more groves in the stone ground.

He knew he looked ridiculous for now, but at least he was mobile now.

And once he had gotten somewhat used to moving, he was able to move without focusing much on his footing, he followed the stream of fresh air. The crystals in the walls lit his way through the stone passage, each one glowing with a brighter fire as he passed them. He stumbled around stalagmites that rose up in the general direction his nose told him to go. Stalactites also hung down from the ceiling, and some of the glazed the spines that lined his back as he walked. It wasn't uncomfortable, the stalactites broke off easily and crumbled around him, but each time it happened, it still felt like a very blunt pencil was poking him.

The air continued to clear as he went further. It smelled less and less stagnant, for a lack of better words, and while he could feel that there was life in the cave, energy that pulsed within the earth and crystals, it smelled off somehow.

Decomposition was what it reminded him of. The smell of bodies that had already begun to rot away in a confined space. A disgusting, almost sweet and thick enough to linger in his nostrils.

He heard rather than felt the crunch underneath his claws. In a jerky movement, he leaned hi head down to look at what he had stepped on. His heart nearly stopped. Bones. Hundreds upon hundred and thousands of human bones, some fresh, some stained yellow with age, some from adults… and some clearly not.

What the hell had managed to do this? It was a mass grave of human skeletons and animal skeletons, and he didn't know where one began and the other ended.

"What the hell?" his heart rate slowed, and he could hear his blood pound in his veins with furious anger as his lips curled back into a horrifying snarl.

When it came to hate and anger, those negative emotions had always run hot within him as a child. But he had always managed to hide it away and jus bottle it up. He never had a way to direct it towards anything. He just read manga and played video games, and of course… watched AVs. Aunt Emma was the one that got him practicing Systema, a fighting style that is equal as deadly as it is demanding of the people who learn it.

His eyes narrowed on a skull. A child's skull.

He slammed his eyes closed, and then took in a breath to calm himself, to focus deep inside of himself and find a stillness. He listened past the sound of his heart and the blood that pounded in his ears, and instead focused on the natural sounds of the cave. The drip of water as it trailed down the stone walls, the flutter of bats and the insects that dwelled in the holes alone the walls. Of snakes that slithered across the ground.

And then he sounds that did not belong.

It was a sudden noise that echoed in the stillness. A yell. A clash of metal upon stone. A voice.

A scream that pierced the quiet world of the cave.

There were people here.

His eyes snapped open, and he lifted his nose in the air as he strained to smell where they were. To hear where they were. He didn't know what he was doing, though. There was too much to listen to at once, too many smells and sounds that suddenly assaulted him. he didn't know what to look for, what to focus on.

He took a deep breath once more. Metal. Focus on that. On the smell of warmth and living things and sunlight. They lingered, however, on the edges of his senses. He growled, a sound that echoed loudly throughout the cave and cause smaller stalactites and stalagmites to crumble into pebbles. Then He bounded through the tunnels of the cave.

Or at least, he tried to. He looked like a giant toddler, keeping low as he careened through the cave, but at least he was moving at a faster pace. But still, he did trample a number of stalagmites along the way.

He had to move quickly, though. There were people in danger, people that needed help from whatever dangerous creature that lurked inside this cave and lived among the damp, old stone and bones. He didn't even know what to do once he reached them. He was a dragon for fuck's sake, it wasn't like he could stitch someone's stitches back up with his claws like this! But he couldn't just sit around and let them die! He was an EMT! He had to do something. He had to try, even if it was just buying them time.

"Please be alive, just hang on." He hoped that by the time he reached them, they wouldn't have joined the angry ghosts that surely haunted this sorrowful place.

His claws dug into the compacted earth beneath him, and his scales scraped against the cave walls whenever the space became smaller. He forced his way through the discomfort, though, because it was on temporary, it was something he could deal with.

He came to an underground lake, and the sounds of and smells of the fight seemed to be closer. The lake spanned for a mile, maybe even two. Sadly, it wasn't a distance he could jump, even with the body of a dragon. He would only crash into the ceiling and even if he didn't give himself a concussion, he would still bring the ceiling down on top of him.

There were fewer of the glowing cave crystals in the area around the lake, but his dragon sight still allowed him to see through the darkness surrounding him. His only choice was to swim across the lake, so he drew in the deepest breath he could manage to fill his lungs. Then dove in, headfirst.

He thought the water would be freezing, and in all actuality, it probably was, but it seemed the range of temperature he could withstand had increased dramatically, and the water kind of felt nice along his scales. Before he had jumped in, he kind of wondered if he was a cold-blooded reptile, but it seemed that wasn't the case at all, since he could feel his body heat pulsating out into the inky liquid around him. It was also easier to swim in than it was to walk, and he shot through the lake as easily as Michael Phelps had when he won his gold medals.

Strange fish filled the lake. They had scales that glowed brightly in the dark waters. Their bodies reminded him of the crystals that had lined the cave ceilings, and he wondered what species they were. And almost like instinct, he opened his maw and ate one of the fish, swallowing without chewing, and almost gagging in the lake as the slimy creature moved and wiggled down his throat.

Why the fuck did he try that?

But… shortly after, it was like he was playing a video game. He had killed the fish, and suddenly, he knew what it was. Exactly what it was. It was a crystal fish, found deep in underground, they thrived in environments where life shouldn't be possible. They survived on a diet consisting mainly of primal crystals. As amazed as he was to discover this new development within himself, he didn't have much time to consider this new development. He'd already reached the other end of the lake and arrived at where he had heard the sounds of battle.

He peeked his head slowly out of the water so that nothing would see him and looked at the source of the battle.

Five people stood with their backs to the water, and because of that, their backs were to him.

And just as he looked at them, the same feeling in his head, like an axe had hit him in the head by the strongest man on earth, he had gained knowledge of the five people in front of him. At first he was sure he heard humans… but these people. They weren't humans.

In fact, they were a party of five demi-humans. Three dryads, and two cat people. They needed immediate healing, as they were all mortally wounded.

He could see the pair of tails on each of the cats… yes. Pair as in two. One had a white pair of tails, hair and matching colored ears with a torn white and gold kimono. And the other was jet black and also wore a torn black and gold kimono. If he didn't know any better, he would say the two were sisters with how they dressed and acted. The three dryads had green hair of different hues. One of the cat girls drew his gaze, specifically the black-haired one, and that was because he could see the strength in her back as she held up one of her fellow dryad comrades and gripped a broadsword in her free hand.

Exhaustion was evident in all of their frames. Blood dripped from wounds that littered their bodies, and he could see crimson puddles of it on the floor of the stone cave.

His eyes widened at the sight, but then he saw what they were fighting against.

Two giants made of stone approached them, slowly and menacingly. But it looked like a third had already fallen by their might and crumbled into a pile of rubble and stone. The two giants that remained were formed of boulders with smaller ones as joints, and they towered over the group of five adventurers. The rock giants were maybe twenty feet tall, just slightly smaller than himself.

Those people didn't stand a chance. So much blood spilled on their behalf, just to kill one and leave the rest undamaged.

As he watched, one of the dryads formed a wall of roots to slow the giants' approach while another dryad tied tourniquets and pressed rags against the wounds of her companions.

He had to do something. He had to. He couldn't just sit around hiding in the darkness of the lake and watch as these people were slaughtered, fighting until the very end. He was an EMT for the millionth time.

But he didn't know what he could do. He couldn't help treat those wounds, he would just make them worse. He was too big for that now.

Wait. He was too big for that now.

He couldn't do anything to fix the wounds, but he could do something to stop the giants. He was a dragon, after all, and if he knew one thing about all those video games he played, it was that dragons were the embodiment of power and death.

He grinned to himself, as a blood lust took over him. The giants wouldn't know what hit them.

He rose out of the water with a roar that echoed throughout the cave.

Everyone, including the pair of stone giants, flinched, swung their eyes around, and stared at him with shock and fear on their faces, but he didn't give them time to react. He just stepped protectively over the group and faced down the stone giants. He could smell the blood and decay that seeped out of the monsters from the bits of flesh that clung to their stone teeth, and he could almost see shards of white bone tumble from their maws as they stumbled forward. They were the cause of the mass grave he had found earlier. They had eaten those people and cast their remains aside as if they were nothing more than trash.

He wouldn't let them add more bones to that mountain.

He claws tore up the ground beneath them, and the earth began to groan as he felt power vibrate the air, and he then realized that was the energy that was inside of him.

It was rage, and it begged to be used.

His scales, unbeknownst to him, had begun their technicolor shifting and began to release slight emerald mist that almost immediately healed the small cuts on the group of five who was still under the stomach of him, and quickly the energy released from him began to work on their internal damage, shifting broken bones back into place and forcing them to heal without any pain.

And Issei, without knowing really what to do at all, opened his maw wide, and he could feel the energy and power swell in the back of his throat. And then, just as he roared. It was a beam of red energy with arcs of energy that slammed into the golems, and leapt between the two of them, and rather than blowing them to smithereens, it melted them down like the breath of fire that he imagined was going to come out would have done.

And when the energy was done, he closed his maw, just as smoke bellowed out of his mouth, like contaminants in his mouth that he had breathed in earlier were all but burned away into smoke. He felt light, powerful… and amazing. But just as he thought he was done, the golem from before, the one broken into millions of small pebbles began to form whole once more.

Without thinking, he jumped at the golem before it could fully form and closed his mouth around the joint of the golem and crushed it back into pebbles with a single, ferocious bite. He then clawed his way up his torso, his claws glowing a chromatic hue around the white base color as they slammed into the golem and latched on from the inside like barbs. He could hear the stone golem roar in pain as his claws entered and ripped out.

As a finally effort of attack, the golem began to frantically throw its one good arm around in a desperate attempt to hit him, and a few of its attacks did, but it almost felt like he was being smacked my a toddler and Issei felt no pain whatsoever. Once his face reached the neck of the golem, Issei reared his head, opened his maw as wide as he could, and clamped his unimaginably sharp fangs around the golems head, which seemed oddly in excellent shape. The golem thrashed under him, causing him to dig his claws in deeper.

And just as he was about to finish the golem, his eyes locked with the two cat-people. Their eyes were both a beautiful hazel-gold, a fierce firing burned in their eyes as they both watched in interest and fear, and they were cautious of him, rightfully.

He twisted back towards the water's edge as the giant struggled beneath his jaws. The giant and himself fell into the dark, ink-like lake, and he tightened around the golem even as they both sunk to the bottom of the lake. Through the rush of water, he could hear the telltale cracks the foretold the stone giant's death. He kept steady pressure on the stone giants head as it thrashed about in the water, but it seemed the stone giant didn't need air. The stone of the golem continued to crack under his fangs, however, and Issei tightened himself around the golem even further. And finally, the golem shattered in his mouth, like the time you bite a sucker and keep chewing it into a fine grate. And the golem continued to sink further and further down into the depth, even after Issei left him.

He stared down into the darkness and shook his head. He actually did it. He killed three giants and saved those people from a cruel fate. The feeling of triumph rose in his belly and heated his chest and he let his lips curl into a smile over his fangs. He swam to the surface of the lake and made his way back to the adventurers, who still seemed fearful of him and extremely cautious. His mind spun with questions that he was going to ask them, things about this world and why he was here.

And they were going to give him some fucking answers.

End of Chapter 1: Crystal Isle

the start of this story was inspired by Dragon Emperor by Eric Vall. The world is inspired by ARK: Survival Evolved. And I don't own either of them, or High School DxD.

Leave me a review please? I worked hard for this, its 12am. Thank you, stay awesome you guys. Next update, depending on how this goes, will be Can I Call You Mine? And if this it super successful, this one. Ja maata!