Dragon Legacy Book 1: Dragon of Water
Earth has more secrets and more history than anyone ever realized.
Before me stood four of the greatest warriors the Protectorate had ever known and not one of them was aware of how much they had changed. I always loved visiting Scarlet’s planet.
Earth.
Where the tide began to turn against the enemy of the dragons, humans, and all other races across the universe. Scarlet had been my friend from the moment I had met her. As had everyone here. And I couldn’t be more grateful or happy.
They had opened my eyes to what was really going on in the Dragon Protectorate and most importantly, how much us dragons were to blame and could help put it right.
“Here, Penthia,” Scarlet said, handing me back one of the artifacts I had brought here with me. My job was to protect another sector of this galaxy. Another version of Earth included.
In fact, our sectors were almost identical. If anyone knew how that was possible when they existed in the same universe, no one was sharing the information. So much of the history of dragons, the Protectorate, and why there were possibly hundreds of variations of the same sector set up across the universe was lost to our past and a massive wipe out of history and minds a few hundred years earlier. On top of that, some sectors were entirely unique, groups of planets designated a sector only because of proximity to each other in the universe.
Since then, each sector had been protected by an opal dragon like me. And each planet had at least one or two dragons from the Protectorate assigned to it to further keep it safe from our enemy. I’d been looking after my sector for as long as I could remember, but given that my mind had also been wiped, I had no idea how long that actually was. Eventually I had grown dissatisfied with simply guarding my sector. To shut me up I had been assigned Scarlet and Artemisia’s sector as well when their opal dragon, Ranoctil had been injured in battle and could no longer fly.
Since then, I’d been working with Scarlet and Arty and visiting with them regularly to see how we could combine the best of both sectors. Our planets were very similar, but, almost as if they had been tweaked as part of some massive universal experiment, all the versions of Earth scattered across the universe seemed to have subtle differences.
The difference between our two versions of Earth was that mine had known and remembered that dragons and magic existed. Scarlet’s had been wiped of that knowledge as well and made to think of dragons and magic as nothing but myths and fairytales.
Until the last few years, Scarlet’s Earth had been in the dark. The humans on the planet had fought with each other, divided into countries far different, and lived as if they were the dominant species on the planet. All while an enemy lay trapped beneath a magical gate, kept guarded by the dragons of the world.
Of course, the Protectorate had wiped the memories of all of the dragons as well. All apart from one silver dragon who had been stationed alone, to guard the only portal that could link this planet to the other planets and all the other humans and dragons across the galaxy. Arty had guarded that portal with no one but her sphynx, Matraphiel, for company for over a century.
It was despicable. But Arty, Scarlet, Ranoctil and Sienna, Scarlet’s mother, had taken discovering all this in their stride and beaten the enemy. First from Earth with help from the humans, especially the military soldiers they’d trained, and then Arty and Ranoctil had led some of those forces out into the rest of the sector to take back the whole sector of planets.
They had done what no other dragons in the Protectorate had managed—taken territory back from the corrupted.
No one knew exactly what the corrupted was other than it took over all living creatures if they came into contact with it and didn’t have any level of protection. It turned everyone into part of a mindless horde. They could be fought with the magic that dragons generated, each of the base dragon colors generating a subtly different form of magic, but it took several of them, and preferably all of them combined.
Fighting the corrupted was no easy task. The creatures could decay and suck the living energy out of everything they touched, or take over a living creature to add it to their army. More than once, Scarlet, Arty, and Sienna had needed to fight and face their friends who had been lost to the corrupted.
Ranoctil had also been taken over and still bore the scars.
Thanks to scientists on Earth, there was now a drug that could help fight the corruption inside the body. And a vaccine of sorts. But it almost always required magic as well. That was where dragons came in.
Dragons like myself.
Now I could help these dragons take what they knew even further.
I powered up the artifact I had brought here to show Scarlet, Arty, Ranoctil and Sienna. They had seen many of the artifacts I thought would be useful already, but this was used to power vehicles and other electrical devices on my version of Earth. All artifacts used a combination of science and magic to achieve a goal. If magic wasn’t involved, it wasn’t an artifact.
Electricity sparked from it and into some kind of device that measured it. I didn’t fully understand what they were trying to test, but several human scientists were also present, and they grasped it.
Each time I came here to hone my fighting skills and learn some of their techniques against the corrupted, I brought another artifact with me. It wasn’t easy for me to get too many at once, so I took orders and did my best, but I had challenges of my own in my sector.
“That’s amazing,” one of the scientists exclaimed. “It’s so efficient and clean. And no transference loss.”
I shrugged as they looked at me to see if I could explain why. Although this had come from my sector, I had no idea how it worked or why. No matter how much I had tried, I couldn’t make artifacts. Arty was already beginning to get the hang of it. As long as she had an example like this. Of course, she was now an opal dragon, and the kind that could use magic to manipulate the physical. Four of the basic magic types were generated in her body now and she could harness them all.
Whatever I brought, they would have to figure them out for themselves. While my version of Earth knew about dragons the whole time, they were still cut off and had their memories replaced so they didn’t know anything else existed but their planet of people.
An opal dragon just like me, who had the other four types of magical energy, had altered their memories. For the most part, an act like that was outlawed pretty much everywhere. The Protectorate had made an exception for themselves in this case so they could hide planets and sectors as effectively as possible from the enemy.
Not that I’d been alive for very long when they’d done it. I had been in the academy still and had no idea what they’d been planning, nor how many memories they had taken from me. I had considered telling my people, but I knew it would cause chaos and require me to be in my sector to sort it out and support my people. Right now I needed to be able to fight.
Now I had been given two sectors to look after, I planned to go through the portals between planets and find out where the corrupted were still attacking from and make them regret it. This galaxy was ours to take back and I intended to try my best.
After letting the teams play with the artifacts for a little longer and coaching them through how to use them, the meeting sort of came to an end and the scientists hurried away, taking the artifact with them.
Arty also got up as if she was going to follow the rest out, but she paused and I got a good look at her for the first time in several months. She was heavily pregnant, looking as if she was due any day now.
“You know I’m not planning on coming with you, don’t you?” Arty said. “I really do want to just focus on my own family.”
“I understand,” I replied, smiling anyway. It made sense that she was done. Now that the magic in this sector was freer to be used for testing and she wasn’t fighting so many battles, she had some energy and time to make artifacts and work out what made them helpful.
“How are you so happy all the time?” she asked a few seconds later. “You almost seem excited just to be alive.”
Although I considered the question, I had only my own life to go on and I had always been happy and positive. At least until the extent of the destruction in the rest of the galaxy was revealed to me. The Protectorate had been deliberately misleading about that as well.
For ages I had defended my sector and kept the planets safe thinking that it was normal to be able to do it so easily and see my planets flourish. I had been very happy and pleased with myself. I’d thought the Dragon Protectorate was wise, and had the safety of the universe perfectly understood. That the organization that had promised to keep all life in the universe safe knew what it was doing to fight the corrupted.
While I still knew I was doing a good job and this situation was improving thanks to Arty, I also knew there was a lot more out there and I wanted to be a part of the solution.
The corrupted was spreading. Its goal to take over everything was relentless and used our own lives against us. We encountered three sorts of corrupted. The minion types, often so decayed and consumed that there was little left of their original body, and their handlers. Handlers tended to be created from the more intelligent races that the corrupted took over. Lives that could put up a more sophisticated fight, but also lives that had the mental capacity to control far more of the hive mind. Finally, the leaders of sectors or planets. There was almost always a corrupted being that had control over the entire planet and gave the orders.
I was in a unique position. My sector was at peace and always had been. The corrupted tried to use the portal system the Protectorate had set up to get to my sector, just like many others. But the dragons that answered to me on each planet protected them from any corrupted that tried to come through the portals, and had done so successfully the whole time I had been responsible for the sector. Just thinking about bringing that level of peace and safety to the rest of the galaxy made me happy.
“I just am,” I replied, shrugging. “I’m getting to make a difference and the people I care about are doing well. I have a good track record. This is a great opportunity and we might be able to make a huge difference. It’s even better that I could take what is wonderful here and spread it to other planets. If we do all of this correctly we can free a lot of people.”
This had Arty nodding as if it all made sense. I grinned even more. With the promise and the hope that we could save more of the sector, I knew I was in the right place. I just had to get a plan together and figure out what was most useful from my planet.
“Want to come get some food while we have a chance?” Arty asked, already heading toward the door again. I nodded. I could eat something and I wanted to get some idea of what the rest of them thought.
There were also a lot of questions in my head about the situation here on Earth and I looked for Scarlet to see where she was heading next.
“Did someone say food?” she asked as she came closer as well. “I had plenty of supplies brought in. We should have a lot of options in the cafeteria. It’ll be great.”
As I followed and more people joined us, I couldn’t help but feel grateful that I had been accepted into this world. I hadn’t realized how lonely I had become until I came here and spent more time with other dragons and humans. Opal dragons normally ruled alone with only the dragons guarding each planet’s portal to check in on.
The canteen was a large room on the second floor almost directly above the portal room. A mix of people were already there including most of the ones from the meeting we had just had. Some of them had brought the artifacts with them and I hoped that it would help.
I didn’t entirely fit in, even here. I knew I dressed differently and acted differently when I was in my human form, but no one seemed to mind. People still smiled, waved and talked to me as if I was another one of them. While I’d been in the academy I had been reasonably popular, but I was powerful and magic came to me easily.
When every task seemed easy, you could smile and look pretty, like it wasn’t ever going to be difficult. Until I’d come here, I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t so much that I was good as I had been given easy tasks.
Taking another sector wasn’t going to be so easy, but it was what needed to happen next. If there was ever going to be any chance the entire universe was free, we couldn’t pause here.
While they ate, everyone choosing whatever they fancied, I listened to the conversations around me. Most of them had fought together and they swapped war stories and moments they had been called to fight while in interesting situations, starting with meals they had missed out on, or even worse, being called to fight while in the bathroom.
I smiled, laughed, and enjoyed the stories, but internally I worried that I had none of my own to share. Hopefully that would also change. As soon as we’d finished eating I asked Arty to tell me about all the different enemies she had encountered on all the planets so I could get an idea of what we would be fighting.
Although I had fought in her army a few times toward the end of her battles to free this sector, I hadn’t been on the front line and had often been up against the same enemy as another fighter. I hadn’t had to hold my own in a battle in the same way Arty had. But I’d been training to do so.
“There’s lots of types,” Arty replied. “Some are simple and more like ants and swarms. Shadow catchers and the Havians are common. We don’t know where the first ones come from, but we’ve encountered them on every planet and they were the first example of corrupted that Scarlet had to fight. Havians, or shadow bugs are like giant ants, but we haven’t encountered them anywhere but Havilah.”
“Yeah, shadow catchers scared me half to death the first time they came after me,” Scarlet added, shuddering. “They are so corrupted that they aren’t really alive anymore. This strange body of a large serpent, or lizard, but their head is more like a bird’s. No arms, no legs.”
“I remember those,” I replied, having fought against those more than anything else too.
“And then there are the handlers. They can be pretty much any race. Intelligent, and when they’re first corrupted you can’t necessarily tell. They have been anything from great big rhino-like creatures to those morphling things that can heal and change shape.” Arty grimaced, and Penthia understood the last part.
She had fought a morphling only once and only briefly. It morphed. Quickly. They could turn body parts into weapons and heal until they ran out of body mass to heal with. You had to cut them into pieces bit by bit. It took a very skilled fighter or several working together to fight them.
“Those are the ones that look like Roswell grays in their natural form, right?” Scarlet asked.
“I think so,” Arty replied as her husband Douglas nodded enthusiastically.
“There’s also a bunch that look like walking trees and even a dragon has been turned into one before.”
“I thought dragons became something else when corrupted?” I asked, confused.
Arty frowned. “It’s complicated. Basically the strongest corrupted on a planet seems to be in charge. But it isn’t always strongest in terms of whatever was alive first, rather strongest in terms of the amount of corruption in it. We think. It’s not exactly easy to figure it all out. And you know the Protectorate on all this. They wiped out almost all the information we had on them.”
“Have they explained why they did that?” Scarlet asked.
“To give each sector a chance to flourish and grow, adapt, discover new technologies and basically, have a lot more babies,” Arty replied. “And it has sort of worked, even if it was a dumb way of going about it. We don’t know enough about the corrupted, but we’ve got a lot more tools to try to defeat them. And we’re learning again. We’re making sure everyone knows as much as possible about the corrupted now.”
Despite still having some questions, I nodded. We all knew there appeared to be a hierarchy among the corrupted creatures. But their only goal seemed to be a hive-minded relentless desire to take over everything. Whatever they touched seemed to have the energy and life force sapped out of it, including us. Unless they infected our people.
They had infected a good number of humans on Earth before the scientists with Dr. Alice Hargreaves had come up with their partial cure. It only worked in the early stages, before the body was too broken down to survive, but it was better than nothing.
Over the next few minutes they started talking about some of the more obscure creatures they had encountered, but I knew of many of them from the planets in my sector.
If we went through the portal from the planet Ashaire in either of our sectors, we would be going to an unknown sector. I had no doubt that we would find at least the planet we went to corrupted, but so far no one wanted to continue on with our fight and I had been giving them time to get the last of the corrupted in this sector dealt with and under control.
They had done so well, and gained so much ground that each planet was recovering day by day without much more effort. The corrupted were cut off from reinforcements and hunted down. It was freeing up more and more fighters, and they were all coming back here. To Earth, where Arty had begun her fight through portal after portal.
I found myself drawn to them, needing to learn and absorb and process the universe I had only just begun to scrape the surface of. Every trip I made had me wishing I was doing more. And if I was going to take this war on, I wanted these fighters at my side. I was also training. I’d gone through the Protectorate academy, like any dragon who knew about the corrupted, but this training was different. Scarlet and Arty had developed their own styles of fighting to take on the corrupted. And it worked.
Could I be like Arty and go to planet after planet? I didn’t know for sure. But the Protectorate must have had some faith in me when they assigned me to a sector and as Arty’s mentor. They must have known it would lead to us working together in some capacity to take back more planets.
Bit by bit, we would defeat the corrupted and make every person safe, and free every race that filled this universe alongside us.
Penthia might regret taking on more than her “boring” guard duty. Find out what is in store for her on July 28th when Dragon of Water: Dragon Legacy Book 1 is released. Until then head over to Amazon and pre-order it today.
