Welcome dear readers. I am the Evil Eye Beholder, your storyteller and host for this story.

The mystery of what comes after death has been a question many intelligent races asked themselves over the millennia. Some think that with death all comes to an end. Others believe in a life after death in either a heavenly paradise or a infernal hell, depending on one's actions in life. And others again think one is simply reborn after death in another body without any memories of one's past life.

A trope that has become rather popular over the years is the trope of reincarnation in another world with these past life memories being intact to varying degrees. Today's tale features such a reincarnated protagonist, who even got to decide what they wanted to become, though it turned out not what they thought to be. But more to that within the story.

Attention: This is a prototype story. I will keep on expanding and updating it until a satisfying conclusion is reached for me, but it mainly exist for the sake of testing different tropes and story elements for future story projects as well as practicing my writing skills. Please keep this in mind.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age or any other franchise used for this story. All rights belong to their respective owners and no one else.

So without further delay, let us begin this tale.

Drake to Dragon

Prologue

For about 40 years, the return of the dragons after centuries has marked the beginning of the current age on Thedas, the Dragon Age. The people of Thedas thought the giant fire breathing monsters to be extinct or simply legends and tales to scare children. But now the fairy tales and legends roamed the land once more and burned down whatever was in their path.

Deep inside the winding tunnels of a large cave system, a creature of great power rested within a chamber large enough to house its form. Four powerful legs ending in sharp talons were tugged towards its slender and curled up body as it took deep breaths. A pair of bat like wings sat on its back, which were currently folded together. Its scaly, teal-colored body terminated to the rear in a long reptilian tail. Its head was relatively small and sat on a long neck.

Anyone could look at this creature and say without doubt that this creature was a dragon. Surrounded by many eggs arranged its resting place, the winged reptile simply slept while numerous other creatures looking a bit similar to it, but much smaller scurried around, roaring, hissing and growling and sometimes even snapping and clawing at one another. These creatures were by no means intruders and they all served a very important purpose in the dragon's lair. Looking like large gray scaled lizards or crocodiles, these reptiles also walked on four legs with a pair of large spines coming out of the back of their shoulders, while on their snouts sat two small horns reminiscent to those of a rhinoceros if it wasn't for their in comparison pathetic size. These were called drakes and they shared a close relationship to dragons.

There was one major misconception, that existed among the uneducated people when they spoke about dragons. There was no such thing as a male dragon. Of course, there was male individuals of the species, but these were the drakes. Unlike the larger females who could become as large as a small hut or house once they reached maturity, drakes didn't grow wings and only were about as large as a grizzly bear at best.

Outside the cave laid a dense temperate forest. The forest consisted of both conifers and deciduous trees, while at places where holes in the canopy allowed more light to reach the ground, larger bushes grew while ferns made up the majority of the larger vegetation closer to the ground level. Meanwhile moss and lichen grew on pretty much any surface available, whether it was stone, soil or the bark of trees. Here and there patches of mushrooms also poked out of the ground. Fallen twigs and branches laid on the ground occasionally while fallen leaves from prior years also littered the floor. Overall, the forest seemed serene and idyllic, untouched by the intelligent races of Thedas.

Far away from the cave, a single drake was gorging itself on a deer carcass in the middle of the forest. Sharp teeth and powerful jaws tore through skin and muscles, broke bones and tore chunks of meat and internal organs out. What seemed to be normal for any predatory animal, actually was quite strange for a drake. Drakes normally didn't eat their kills immediately, unless very hungry, but instead would drag their prey back to the lair of the dragon they lived with to feed the dragonlings, the offspring of a dragon first. But this one didn't bring the kill back to the nest though. It simply sated its own hunger.

Why? Because this one didn't belong to that nest or any nest for that matter.

'How did I end up like this?' The drake lamented in its head with an intelligence it shouldn't have. This was because this particular drake was not born as a simple minded, semi-sentient creature, but was the reincarnation of a human from a another world simply called Earth.

It all started when they had died. In their previous life they had been a young human man on a far more technologically advanced world where magic and dragons were the stuff of fantasies, myths, legends and fairy tales. Unfortunately, he was run over by a car when the driver had paid no mind to a red streetlight and instead played a mobile game. At very least, he died immediately from the crash instead of suffering a long, desperate and ultimately futile struggle to survive.

Upon dying he found himself in a void when an disembodied voice informed him of his death. Back then he was still in denial until the voice took upon the form of himself to prove its point that he truly had died. It took him some time to process all of this. There was a lot of shouting, begging and finally crying, until he had calmed himself down.
Then the voice, who had once more become disembodied, asked him what he wanted to reincarnate as. At first, he didn't understand at all what the being meant with that, so the being clarified.

The being he encountered was a subordinate of another one. And for a change of pace, this being decided to let the dead one decide what they wanted to be reborn as, opposing the normal wheel of fortune or rolling dice approach of that matter that usually let the coincidence decide as who, what and with what sort of skills a person was usually reincarnated as.

After thinking for a moment and inquiring if it could be anything (it really could be anything, except a god or something of that sort of power), he chose to be a dragon. Out of curiosity, the being inquired why he would choose to be a dragon, if he could have been anything. And so he gave his reasoning. Seemingly satisfied with the answer, the being then caused him to lose consciousness and the next thing he knew was that he was trapped inside an egg, which he broke out of.

In truth, the entity had kept its part of the deal and he was reborn as a dragon.

Except he reincarnated on the world of Thedas where male dragons or drakes were literally like worker ants to a female dragon, supplying it with and taking care of the offspring. They only lived for about 100 years, they had no wings, their breath was not exactly that powerful and in general they were constantly fighting one another for the right to mate with the female like the bunch of hardcore simps they were. And worst of all, this was their only reason to exist. As soon as a dragonling was old enough, the mother would drive them out of their lair so that they would find their own ones. Then these young drakes would venture out and look for the lair of a mature dragon to mate with and do anything she orders them to do. Oh, and drakes were monogamous, meaning that once they did decide to stay with a dragon, they'd do so for life. Even if the dragon was killed and the drake was only in his 30s, the drakes would simply roam the land, but not join another dragon's harem for either the purposes of mating or simply assisting with raising their offspring.
Over all, it was very different from what he had envisioned for himself.

'I didn't even ask for anything special. All I wanted was to be free and live a life as I saw fit. Where did I go wrong?' He thought to himself. Ironically, he had not wanted to be reincarnated as a dragon for the things most people wanted. He had no interest in razing everything around him to the ground with a fire breath akin to the flames of hell. He didn't want treasures to hoard and look at. He didn't even want damsels to guard them in some tower and satisfy his baser instincts on them... Seriously, he actually cringed at the thought of that, though he would not deny that his preferences in that field were still the same as they were during his human lifetime.

No, he wanted to be reborn as a dragon, because dragons had the most freedom in his opinion. Stories of them in fiction of his world did have a wide range from the devil himself to wise scholars. They could go anywhere. They could be whatever they wanted. They had enough power to make almost anything else look insignificant in comparison, meaning there was almost nothing that could be a threat to them. That is what he wanted in life. Longevity or even immortality for a long and fulfilled life, wisdom beyond the scope of humans, power to go wherever he pleased and to defend himself against anything.

With other words, the entity did reincarnate him as what he wished for, but all the reasons as to why he wished to be reborn as such were unfulfilled.

Since he had no interest in reproduction due to his living situation and no desire to basically be the caretaker of a female, that would only eat, sleep and mate occasionally and probably kill and eat him, he had been living on his own for the past few years ever since his own mother drove him out of her nest.

'This is such bullshit! Why did I turn out like this? I just wanted to live a long, carefree life with as much freedom as possible.' He thought to himself. Cursing his luck he left the place he was feeding to go and eat at his current resting place. Picking up the corpse of a boar he had hunted earlier, made his way through the dense vegetation of the forest. His claws dug into the soft and wet soil as he snaked his way around the trees until after a few minutes he reached his destination. A depression in the ground, that had been dug out by boars when they had been looking for food a while back. Sliding down the loose soil to the bottom, he sat his meal down and laid down beside it.

This depression was large enough to fit more than just one drake which he liked, but it wasn't like he'd be sharing it with anyone anyway. Hunters just screamed "Drake!" when they spotted him and then attacked him with whatever they had, which had so far always ended with him either running away or slaying them in self-defense. At this point, he even identified with Drake more as a name than just someone calling him what he was, but that was perhaps a remnant of his human psyche. The other animals of the forest ran away from him as expected. He was after all a large reptilian predator who could eat an ox and still be hungry. And most interactions with his conspecifics consisted of them hissing, growling or attacking him for not surrendering food to their dragon.

CRACK

"HSSSS..."

'Speak of the devil.' He thought as he lazily looked up to find another drake stare down onto him and hiss as he saw the dead boar in Drake's jaws. Now there was 3 things that Drake really had grown to hate ever since he was dropped into this world by that deity that really found it funny to mess with his reincarnation like this.
One, people, who hunted him for being a drake.
Two, female dragons who oppressed him.
And finally, these mindless worker drones of theirs, who would go out of their way to either attack him for no reason or steal his food.

The drake before him looked to him like any other. Four legs, long neck, horns, tail, scars over its body from previous battles and a look in its eyes that were not focusing on him, but the food he had hunted. Drake let out a growl akin to that of an alligator, basically telling the newcomer to turn tail. The newcomer didn't like that. Instead, he actually roared down at Drake, who now raised his head and neck off the ground. This guy meant business and Drake was not going to back off.

The other drake descended into the pit as Drake got up on his hind legs and let out a roar of his own. His opponent answered with a roar of his own. The line had been crossed. Now there was no going back. The fight was inevitable and one was going to lose here. Once the newcomer had come to the bottom, Drake and the other drake began to circle one another. When drakes fought one another they usually didn't make use of their flame breaths, because of being inside their dragon's lair. Plus, if they did so the carcass the dragon wanted could be damaged. So they instead usually relied on their claws and teeth. In the same manner as bears would get on their hind legs to appear larger and get an advantage over the other, drakes would try to overwhelm their opponents.

Therefore, the moment Drake got back up, his opponent mirrored his actions before lunging forward. Drake met him head on and both reptiles clashed with their upper bodies against one another. Clawing at one another to the point of inflicting bloody slashes onto each other, both tried snap at the other. Pain burned through Drake's body at this and hatred bubbled up inside him. Pushing the other drake off, before he could bite him, Drake laid into his enemy with a swipe of his tail against its face, causing it to screech out in pain as its blade like tip slashed it across the face. The drake laid on his side screeching and flaying around as Drake unleashed his breath upon the challenger, causing it to screech in pain even more.

That was the difference between the two of them. This drake just wanted food for his mate for a chance to breed with her and perhaps to feed their young. That was all that mattered to him and why he was holding back. But Drake was different. He didn't care if ate boar or drake. He hunted to survive for himself. If he gave his prey up, it would mean he'd not eat and that he'd not survive. Therefore, he could not lose to this other drake.

When he stopped, the creature was laying there in pain, but still alive. The gray scales had been scorched black around its flank where Drake had been roasting him. The stench of burned flesh permeated the air, but Drake didn't care. He brought down his claws onto the open flesh wound, inflicting more pain and causing the other to scream more. The moment its head was raised to screech and try to bite him, Drake's jaws clamped down on it at the base of the skull, pushing it back down. The iron-rich taste of blood filled his mouth as his teeth punched through his scales. One paw pinned the other drake down to the ground as it screeched, flayed around and struggled to break free. The other reached over the enemy's head, dug its claws into his eyes, causing it to screech in pain. Then he twisted it backwards, while keeping the neck in place. With a loud crack and a last pained whine, the neck snapped and the drake grew silent.

Once he no longer felt a pulse on the other's neck, Drake let go of his opponent, while still standing on the newly made corpse. Using his long neck, he looked at himself and the slash wounds his opponent had inflicted. They were not deep and would heal in a short period of time, but they hurt a lot. It was like he had burnt himself and him shifting his weight on his front legs hurt. Moving was going to be a pain for a while.

Still, the fight had been worth it. There was no way he'd just surrender his kill to someone else like that. Plus, while the boar had been burnt a bit, there was certainly more meat on the drake than the boar, so this was a win as well. So without wasting much thought on the issue, Drake began to devour the drake he just killed.

Ah yes, and this reminded him of his "cheat skill". While, he only found this out when he first ate another drake's flesh a couple of years ago and before he migrated to this place, Drake had apparently right from the start a skill called [Draconic Assimilation]. Basically, if he ate another dragon or draconic creature, he could gain their abilities and powers. The problem was the dragons of this place didn't have that many subspecies. In fact, Thedas was a world where only one kind of dragon existed and that was the one he was already part of. All known variations of it were just different stages in the life cycle of a dragon. So his skill was useless, because this place simply didn't have other kinds of dragons and all dragons more or less had the same abilities. The only ones with some semblance of individual diversity where the high dragons, mature female dragons that were centuries old. And he'd probably sooner be nothing more than a fossil before he could even think to compete with such a creature, let alone kill and eat it. He had tried to use it on other reptilian creatures like lizards and snakes, but to no avail.

[Draconic Assimilation - Allows the user to absorb the powers of other draconic beings through predation. Does not work on other reptilian creatures.]

So yeah, he was average in every way for a drake of this world, minus his abnormal behavior. And even then he was little more than a foot soldier and a breeding tool to an actual dragon.

After eating both the other drake and the boar, Drake carried the corpse of his conspecific away from his resting place, not wanting to attract scavengers and predators. While he was certainly more powerful than wolves and bears, he was also still wounded and out here in the wild that could make the difference between life and death. It was survival of the fittest. You either were strong enough to survive or you died and became someone else's meal. He was no exception from that rule. After dragging the corpse to a ditch near a river, Drake went to drink from it. The cold and fresh water certainly helped a little to refresh after a fight like that. Still, he couldn't help but look at his reflection for a moment with sadness.

'I guess it all was just really wishful thinking back then. This is my life now. Not too different from back then, right? Just as hopeless.' He thought to himself. His future was not looking well at all. Even if a drake's lifespan was roughly that of a humans during his time period on Earth, life expectancy was much lower as drakes were the protectors of dragon nests. Since dozens of drakes could live with a female, this also meant that they had the advantage of numbers, yet they still died. This meant that his chances as a lone drake out in the wild were already not better than those of the drakes guarding a female's nest. Plus, people didn't like having dragons around. When spotted people would try to drive them away and dragonlings in the wild often were either killed by people or other animals. He himself had to fend for himself back then and he could understand why the young dragons only rarely made it to adulthood.

Afterwards, he left the riverside, came back to his resting place and laid down mentally exhausted. One of the upsides of a reptilian body was that a large meal would satisfy his hunger for a long time. Probably he wouldn't need to eat anything for the next month or two. Probably he should get out of this area as soon as he was done with his nap anyway. The dragons were loveless to their drakes, but they certainly didn't like their livelihood be endangered or their worker force be decimated. The more drakes would disappear the more she would have to hunt herself and that was something she didn't want. Dealing with the problem directly was therefore the best course of action for a dragon who faced such an issue.

Meaning he had to leave. And that as fast as possible unless he preferred facing off against the dragon herself.

But not right now. Right now, he'd be lying down, sleep a little and when he would wake up he'd get the hell out of this place and try to find another hunting ground. Hopefully one where there were no other dragons like this around. With that in mind he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

-Dream-

Black and dark blue. That was how this void looked like in his dream. He knew this place for it was where he had ended up when he first died. A black ground with a bluish light at the horizon at all directions. The place had no sun, no clouds and no moon or stars, yet it was always illuminated. And there was only one other occupant than the drake here...

"Hello there."

'General Kenobi.' He wanted to say that so badly, but unfortunately the one who had appeared made nothing but disdain rise up inside the reincarnator. "Oh great... it's you..." Drake groaned as he recognized the voice of the one who reincarnated him in the first place. Turning around he saw the owner of the voice having taken upon yet another form other than his former human self. Now it was little more than black cloak, not showing a bit of the being underneath it, but Drake could somewhat think that there was nothing beneath it.

"Woah. You sound quite ungrateful given that it was I, who reincarnated you. And letting you choose on top of that. Oh and let's not forget filling you in on what you can expect from your new life since none of the humans, elves and other guys would talk to you to fill you in. Wow. Lots of people would literally murder and do worse for an opportunity and service like that." The entity said. "The young generation nowadays."

"Do those people also realize afterwards that you pulled a fast one on them and get a chance to speak to you after you drop them off after the whole ordeal is revealed?" Drake asked. The being didn't react to the underlying message at all and just waved their hands around dismissively.

"Details, details. Aaaaaaanyway~, I'm here to inform you that you managed to survive now for 1 years as an adult. Congratulations!" It said, holding up a party popper and aiming it into the air above the drake. With a loud banging sound, confetti flew into the air only to land on Drake's snout, who gave the being the most deadpan look he could muster.

"Yay... Can I leave now?" He asked with no enthusiasm whatsoever. The being simply swayed back and forth lazily.

"Well... there's one more thing. I miiiiight~ have omitted to tell you that you still got a little extra for reincarnating at the start, but since you wanted to leave immediately~" Drake cut them off at that, giving a snort.

"You sent me away and that's what happened." Drake said as the being tried to twist the truth once more. "This is probably another way of you screwing with me... but I'll bite. What's this extra you mentioned?" He asked. He knew it was probably a trap, but he was curious all the same. After all, this thing had already taken the aspects from his second lease on life, which made him want to take it in the first place. Probably just to mess with him. So in all honesty, he didn't really have anything to lose at this point as he was already at rock bottom.

"Glad you asked! Behold!" The being said with a dramatic flair, before pulling out a deck of cards. There was a moment of silence as Drake honestly expected the being to actually say something about those cards, but as the cloak kept quiet, he spoke up.

"Cards? Really?" He asked not quite sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.

"Yeah, the wheel of fortune broke after some guy took a spin after downing a whole case of energy drinks right before it. So, you got to choose one card and receive a power corresponding to it." The being said flashing Drake a handful of cards. Each depicted either some sort of reptile, dinosaur or dragon. "Look pretty good, don't they?" The entity said, shaking its hand a bit, but Drake remained unfazed.

"Are those cards from a children's trading card game?"

"Maybe~" The entity answered in a teasing tone, causing the drake to facepalm.

"Ugh fine. I'll bite." He groaned. 'This is definitely going to bite me in the butt later. This is SO going to bite me later on, but I really don't have anything to lose, now do I?' He thought to himself.

"Wonderful!" The cloaked being then shuffled the deck and held all cards out with their backside turned to the drake. "You may choose one card. One and no more. Can't have you go around with all sort of stuff at once, now can we?" The entity teased. Drake rolled his eyes at the being's antics and looked at the cards. For a while, the large reptile just stared, reached out with one paw, only to withdraw it immediately afterwards and set it back down. It was only a minute or so, but felt like an eternity as he really wasn't sure which one to pick...

"Hey, would you mind hurrying up and picking one already? I got better things to do, you know?" The entity said in a bored tone.

'You are the one making me pull one in the first place!' He thought flustered. Finally having enough, Drake grabbed one card and pulled it out from the being's grasp. But before he could look at it, it vanished and so did the other cards. "Wha-"

"Oh finally. Well that concludes this ordeal. Have fun with your life, it's time to wake up. Bye bye~." The being said. And with that Drake vanished, disintegrating from the dream in a cloud of blue motes of light and leaving the cloaked figure alone. For a moment, the being said nothing, simply standing there. But then, it began to shake and tremble. Its shoulders rose and fell as it finally emitted a chuckle. The chuckle grew louder and more intense up to the point the being was straight up laughing.

"Hahahaha! Little does he know that I removed all the good cards beforehand." The being said to themselves as they remembered sorting through the whole thing. "There was no cards from certain places in the deck anymore. And any monster with significant power in offense or defense was also taken out. So no Blue-Eyes or Stardust Dragon. Not even a Black Tyranno. Oh this is going to be good. I wonder if he's going to cry again like he did back then. 'Oh no! The mean being tricked me and my life is not so great!' Hahaha! I wonder what they got. Perhaps that lizard that explodes when attacking? Or maybe a baby dragon, trapping him forever in the body of a dragonling? Oh I can't wait! I must check right now!" The entity said as it summoned the deck again to check on the cards once more, chuckling to themselves as all sorts of misfortunes befell Drake in their mind in various scenarios.

But then the chuckling ceased as it went through all cards. Tilting their head to the side, they repeated the process. And then again. And again. Over and over they shuffled through the cards, but something was amiss. They couldn't tell which card Drake had taken. The deck was full of useless junk cards with the creatures in it being weak and without much combat ability, yet the entity knew that the cards he knew were in were still there.

"Wait, which card did he get now?" The being thought loud as it sorted through the deck once more and still couldn't find the missing card. So, they summoned a piece of paper, which contained a list with all cards contained in the deck after they had sorted through them all to remove the powerful ones. It took the being some time, until they eventually found the missing card, only to freeze at the name it read and the associated ability.

They then said one sentence to summarize their whole situation in one go.

"The boss is going to kill me."

-Late Afternoon-

Drake woke up to the aching feeling of his wounds. Groaning and growling, he got off the ground. Shifting his weight, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his legs up his shoulder and all the way down his spine, making him lay back down for now. Hissing he felt his paws tighten around the soft soil beneath them.

'Damn, that worker drone actually landed a good hit on me. Though it doesn't matter. The longer I stay in this dragon's territory, the more likely it is for to run into others of her group or even herself if she feels particularly hungry or enraged. The sooner I'm gone, the less likely her goons will be after me. I guess, I'll just lay down until my legs feel better.' He thought to himself. Then he remembered his encounter with the entity. 'That's right! I did pull a card didn't I? I didn't get to check it out yet.' He felt a spark of hope rise up as perhaps the ability he obtained would help him out of this situation.

Over the time he had stayed in this world he had only rarely ever used this sort of system as it was more or less just useless to him. After all, he knew his abilities by heart and there was no way for him to gain any more through his supposed cheat ability. But now it was a bit different as he simply didn't even get a chance to see what card he had pulled or what it contained. Drake tried to mentally reach out to the system and specifically the card he had taken. After a moment, a window appeared akin to that in a video game before his mind's eye.

[Ability Card registered: Different Dimension Dragon]

'Different Dimension Dragon? That sounds... interesting?' He thought to himself puzzled a bit as this was definitely not something he had expected.'

The window widened and lengthened when the card appeared on it. The card showed a strange creature, but Drake could see the draconic part in it. It was bluish-green serpentine being with four wings looking like the fins of a ray. It had either hair or a hair like crest on its head and a beak like mouth without teeth. Overall, the creature looked rather bizarre, alien even and yet elegant in its own way.

'Well it doesn't look bad, but what can this card do?' Upon this question, Drake received an answer from the system.

[Ability unlocked! Different Dimension Travel]

[Different Dimension Travel - Enables the user to travel to another dimension once per week.]

Drake froze at this. This... was actually a lot better than what he had expected from that thing. The time limit sure was a bummer, but traveling to another dimension surely sounded interesting. But also fishy because every fictional franchise from his homeworld interpreted dimensional travel differently. In the worst case, he could end up stuck in a place that was just a massive sea of molten rock. In the best, he might be able to go to another world at will! Still since the system didn't specify what exactly was going on, it perhaps would be best to keep the claws away from that thing. At least until he was completely sure whether he wanted to use it or not... Though first he'd leave this place.

Once more the drake pushed himself off the ground, though this time he did so despite the pain shooting through his body. Slowly, he crawled out of the depression and through the forest. He didn't need to eat after he had gorged himself earlier. The sun was already hanging low, dying the sky above the forest orange with its waning rays. The forest was slowly getting more active as deer and boars became fully awake as did foxes and wolves. Drake paid them no mind as he kept creeping through the forest. One of the upsides to being a drake was that most animals actively avoided you, which included most predators like bears and wolves.

And yet, Drake found himself in a situation he had not been since he had graduated from being a dragonling. Behind him the vegetation rustled and from the corner of his eyes he could make out yellow eyes looking straight at him. He was tailed by predators, presumably by wolves given their behavior.

'Just my luck.' He groaned inside his head. He had experience as to how to deal with them, but that was not applicable to this situation for the same reason as to why they were currently targeting him as their prey. The wounds on his body from fighting the other drake had not yet fully healed and some of them reopened, causing blood to ooze from them. A weakened animal was an easier target for predators and a drake had quite a lot of meat on it.

Immediately, Drake ran as fast as he could through the undergrowth of the forest, but the wolves gave chase. Trying to not run into something wasn't easy, but the adrenalin in his system spurred Drake on more and more. He needed to get out of the trees. Ahead he saw a bright light where the treeline was interrupted. Without much options, he made a dash for it, hearing the wolves pant and bark behind him. He could almost feel their breath on his backside and imagine their fangs just millimeters away from sinking into his body. With a last jump, Drake breached the treeline and found himself on a small clearing, coming to a halt a bit further away from the trees.

Turning around he gazed into the forest and the wolves looked back. He could hear their growling and barking, but they didn't come out. Drake let out a roar, trying to scare the wolves off, but they only flinched back a little. Once he was done roaring they crept closer again.

'So intimidation doesn't work. Then how about this?' He thought as he reared his head back and let out his flame breath. The breath only had a short range, but the bushes near the treeline were well in range. The flames ignited them and the wolves yipped and whined in pain as they fled from the flames. Drake kept looking around though. He doubted the wolves would give up this easily.

"ARF!"

"GRR!"

Suddenly claws dug into his back side and something tried to bite him from behind, yet the fangs didn't penetrate his scales. Letting out a growl, he looked back to see the wolves having already come to the clearing from the other side. One in particular had jumped on his back to attack. In response, Drake threw his weight to the side, causing him to fall onto the wolf and crushing it in the process. The momentum wasn't enough to roll over completely, so he had to scramble back onto his feet. A wolf bit his front leg, making him screech in pain, before grabbing the canine, slamming him to the ground and then stepping onto him as he pushed himself off the ground again, crushing the wolf under his weight.

Now there was 3 wolves left, growling and barking at Drake from a distance. Drake on the other hand was alone, in pain and absolutely done with these nuisances, so he roared at them again. Neither side broke the stalemate. Both held their ground, glaring at the other hatefully. The sun set lower and lower, turning the orange light to red as it was approaching the horizon.

BOOM!

Suddenly a strong gust washed over the forest accompanied by a loud roar. Trees snapped like matches, branches and twigs fell to the ground and nearby animals fled immediately. The wolves immediately turned towards the noise and ran away with their tails between their legs. Drake was not so lucky as he couldn't quite run so fast as they could, so he had to stay and simply turned around to face the opposite direction to the one which the wind came from. There was a loud stomping noise and soon enough a rumbling growl, that he knew all too well.

Turning around Drake saw it. The dragon of this territory was standing there on all fours with its head turned towards him. The female dragon was easily twice as long as he was and more than twice as large.

'Ah, I'm going to die.' Was the first thought that came into Drake's mind, before he noticed the dragon was cocking its head sideways as it looked at him. 'Perhaps if I don't do anything aggressive, she'll leave me alone.' That plan however quickly fell apart as the dragon sniffed at him and immediately let out a roar at him. She could tell that Drake did not belong to her nest. With that he was an intruder in her hunting grounds. Making one step forward, caused Drake to step back, trying to create more distance between him and her as she was now openly hostile. Rearing back a little first, the dragon lunged forward to devour him.

'Okay new plan: Get me the hell out of here! {Different Dimension Travel}!' With that a hole in space opened underneath the drake, showing a myriad of colors not dissimilar to a rainbow or the colors of a layer of gasoline when swimming on water. Before he had any chance to do something else and before the dragon's maw reached him, he fell through and the portal closed, causing the dragon to snap at empty air. Enraged the dragon reared up to look for its prey only to see it was gone for good. At this it let out a hateful roar before burning the scenery around it in a fit of rage and taking off.

As for Drake, his journey had just begun.

And with that, we are at the end of this prologue. Ah yes, it is as the saying of you people goes. Be careful what you wish for. Especially when dealing with a being that controls your reincarnation cycle. They will most likely pull you over the barrel without a second thought simply because they can and it amuses them to see you suffer.

Thank you very much reading.

Now where will Drake end up? And what will await him there? These questions shall be answered in the next chapter, but feel free to leave your thoughts, opinions, suggestions and assumptions in the reviews.

That shall be all for today. Take care and I'll see you again in the future.