Getting Started

(present day)

I toss the broken short sword to the side, angry that he held back and that I broke the little one. Not much I can do about either now. Why did he decide to hold back in the end? Wasn’t he enjoying the fight? Wait did he choose to hold back? Was it really his choice?

Thinking back to the moment just before he stumbled his eyes darted off to the side. He got distracted. I turned, facing the same direction as him just before it happened. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing there. I keep looking, there had to be something that changed his mind last second. Lifting my gaze I spot a balcony, which had its door open.

Fucking SunSlut, I know she was watching, trying to gauge how much of a danger I was, but to interrupt a fight like that. If I hadn’t caught myself I could have easily crushed his wind-pipe with that last blow.

What is her god damn problem? I mean I get humans did some fucked up shit but in that moment it was like she wanted me to kill… no, that can’t be right I mean she…

“FUCK!!! YOU FUCKING CUNT, COME OUT AND KILL ME YOURSELF YOU STUPID BITCH!! IF YOU WANT MY HEAD ON A PIKE THAT BADLY COME DO IT YOUR SELF, YOU COWARD!!!” Everyone turns, staring at me because of my outburst.

I grab a rock from the ground and hurl it at the balcony. “Walker! What are you doing?” Foe Hammer asks, concern lacing her voice.

*BLOOD*

Deep breathes man, nice big deep breathes.

*SHE DESERVES IT*

*No she does not you sick fuck.*

*YOU KNOW SHE DOES*

*Just fuck off and go back to sleep you psycho.*

After taking a serious breather, I walk back to the rack and pick up one of the long swords and begin to run through the several sets that old goat showed me.

(5yrs 5mths)

“He will be waiting for you on the docks when we arrive. He is 7ft tall, light-gray upper body and dark gray below the waist. His body is pock-marked due to working as a blacksmith all his life. Just holler out Koodak Ironvigor. That’s his name in case you were wondering.” The dragon that ferried us to Minos tells us.

It had been a grueling, agonizing four months spent with the dragons. True they gave me two gifts that I could never really repay, but I could have done without the three months spent in and out of pain. It was horrible. My body felt like it was trying to rip itself apart every time I was awake. Luckily enough for me I only spent maybe about a total of a week awake during that time, but those times I was awake…it was not pleasant by ANY stretch of means.

I clench my fist a few times. What they did to me, left with an amazing gift. I don’t know how they did it, I was to drunk at the time to pay attention, but somehow I am now part dragon. A dragoon, if the tidbits my mind recalled are anything to go on. Going based solely on my memories though they had the ability to partially turn into dragons at will, sadly I can’t. It is just a basic boost to all my physical attributes, or so I thought.

Though while this is cool it’s just another piece that makes me question the way this world works. This just reinforces the theory that I am stuck in some sort of storybook universe.

I mean seriously, first I am left alone to try to survive in the wilderness but once loneliness begins to set in an intelligent BEAR wanders into my camp to keep me company. Later I am faced with one of the oldest tropes in the world, a female being chased and accused of being evil. It’s an age old moral dilemma, which do you side with.

Later I find another woman in distress…jesus I didn’t even realize that until now. They are both female, and I just had to ‘white knight’ the shit. I did it without even thinking about it. She was about to be raped and I stopped it. Upon returning her home I was rewarded with money, food, a new cloak, a weapon and a new power.

I am stronger, faster; all of my senses are much more effective. Hell I used to be near sighted as fuck, now though I can see for what feels like forever. They told me there would be other advantages but were going to let me discover those on my own. After I had gotten through my physical retraining I was told that they were sending me to someone who could train me to fight in my new body.

Sighing I look up to the coast we are currently closing in on. “Mira.”

“Yes Walker?” Mira walks up and stands by my side.

“You ready to start our next adventure in this crazy world?” I ask as a grin spreads across my face.

She rolls her eyes. “Walker, we are not here to have fun. We are here to train you to fight, so that next time you decide to do something stupid you have a better chance at surviving.”

“I know but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy myself. I mean come on I just spent the last month having to get used to this body so that I could do this without hurting you.” I instantly wrap her up in tight hug, gently lifting her off the ground by a couple of inches. Seriously, it took me a whole day to learn how to grab a cup without accidently crushing it.

“Yes, yes you are a lot stronger and you can use it safely. But you can only use it safely while you are calm. What happens if you end up in a fight because you got drunk? Let me tell you. You will kill whoever it is because you don’t have enough control right now.” She counters, still wrapped in my arms. The look on her face says she is not amused and really wants me to take this seriously.

Sighing, I set her back down. “I know I don’t have real world level of control yet, but I mean come on. The guy teaching me is not only a minotaur but also a blacksmith and even a pit fighter. He may not be a ‘champion’ pit fighter but I think the author thought that would be to cliché.”

“One of these days Walker I am going to destroy that stupid theory of yours. I mean come on, we’re all character in some story written by some being somewhere? Doesn’t that sound a little farfetched?”

“Yeah, but I mean-“ I start.

“You two should get ready we are going to be docking in a couple of minutes.” The dragon tells us.

“Okay.” Replies Mira, upon hearing this she uses her shape-shifting ability to disguise herself.

I pull the hood on the cloak they gave me up with a grin. I get to learn how to fight!

Docking was rather simple the minotaurs didn’t even bother with me. All they did was ask my name and business in Minos. I gave them the truth to which they laughed and slapped me on the back, they were glad to hear that I wanted to learn to fight from real warriors and not those, and I quote, ‘stupid bird brains up north’. God the level of speciesism in this world is insane. At least it’s more reasonable than humans.

God forbid your skin is the wrong color if you go to certain places. Don’t even get me started in religious belief.

Anyway, Mira and I stepped off the boat looking around in awe at the sites. Before I could even take a step I felt an arm snake around and lock up tight.

“Don’t even think that you are going anywhere after what happened in the last town we stopped in.” Mira looks at me, her disguise this time is at least female. Thank god for that, I don’t know if I could have handled her being a ‘him’ and acting like this.

I grin salaciously at her, patting one of her hands. “Don’t worry love, just stay by my side.” Looking around I don’t see the minotaur we are looking for, I decide to go with option two. Taking a deep breath I shout with all my might. “KOODAK IRONVIGOR!!”

“Boy if you keep shouting like that I will kill you myself.” A grizzled old minotaur walks up to us. He is exactly as they described him. This minotaur looks like he could be a mountain if he chose. Seriously this fucker is huge.

“Oh fuck my life. Training with you is gonna suck, huh?” I say just before my ass is sprawled across the ground. “Oww.”

“Good, that didn’t kill you. There may just be some hope for you then. You will refer to me as Instructor from now on.”

Standing up is a damn near impossible task but I manage. I can feel a fire roaring in my stomach.

*BLOOD! KILL!*

Shaking my head I quell those damn dark thoughts. I know that in every story the main characters mentor is usually extremely harsh on their apprentice, but it always turns out for the best in the end. I mean the results are always worth the pain.

A quick deep breath before I say. “Yes Instructor.” I stare him in the eyes, stupid but I want him to know that even though I will abide his will, I will NOT back down.

With a grunt he grins. “It looks like they gave you some of their fire also. Good because you are going to need it if you want to survive.” He leans down till he is right in my face. “Make no mistake boy, if you think this is going to be simple because you are part dragon now you are dead wrong. All it means is I can be that much harder on you.”

I resist the urge to lick his snout, because fuck bitches who get in my face. “Yes Instructor I understand, also I appreciate you agreeing to train me to better use my new body.”

He laughs deep and loud. “You say that now boy, but just wait until tomorrow morning you will come to regret it. Now come I’ll show you were you will be living for the next two years.” He walks away, heading back into town.

God, this is going to take two years? This is going to feel like forever, I bet. This will most likely be just as hard as the transformation, just in an entirely different way. But I can’t stay this pathetic. Not while I have Mira with me. Someone slips a null-ring on her horn and she’s done. I need to get stronger, a lot stronger.

Mira and I look to the other, with a quick nod we are off after him.

The dragons live mostly in huge caverns, adorned with all that glitters and is gold. That port town we stopped was small and very uninteresting. Mostly the town was made up of commercial buildings, very few actual homes.

Here though, damn, I mean this was an actual CITY. Following Ironvigor was absolutely amazing, the architecture was stunning. I figured, for what were supposed to be mostly warriors who leaned more towards the physical side of things, the place would be more along the lines of a Viking style. Instead there were towering skyscrapers, little mom and pop restaurants and everything in between.

A chuckle snaps me out of my stupor. Expecting to be Koo- Instructor, got to remember that, I look to him but nothing. I look down to Mira.

“I thought the same thing when I first came to Minos. It would be all wood huts and blacksmiths on every corner.” She looks around at all the buildings, a faint smile gracing her lips. “It was such a pleasant surprise to finding out I was wrong. I really do love the architecture here. It shows a side of minotaurs most others don’t consider.”

“We still have blacksmiths on every corner.” Instructor says, pointing to a store pouring smoke out the top. “We have just learned to make them look better. What better way to draw in customers than to show you are capable of building your own place of business. Not that there aren’t those of us who follow different paths. One you may know of is Iron Will. Motivational speaker, not very good but he ‘is’ trying to get ponies to be more assertive. Well the more naïve ponies anyway.”

Following his finger, I can see that the store is ‘covered’ in different pieces of metal work. Swords, axes, maces, mauls, wrought iron fencing, and tons over other different things, all made out of different types of metal. At least the owner was smart enough to wield the pieces to a frame work the wrapped around the building.

After traveling the town for a little while we end up at what I can only assume is where we will be staying for the next. God. Damn. Two. Years. Fuck my life this is gonna hurt a lot

(5yrs 3mths)

Two months. Two horrible, back, body and soul breaking months before that damn old goat taught me anything other than how to be his gopher. ‘Walker, tongs.’ ‘Walker hand me that crucible.’ ‘Walker, bring that raw iron down from the top shelf, the one I just told you to put up there an hour ago.’

I knew this was going to be difficult going in, but I never expected actually how difficult. I figured he was just trying to build my control over the new muscle in my body but fuck if I wasn’t getting bored. Also every time I fuck something up he hits me, hard. No, I am not bitching like a little bitch. The first week there he hit me hard enough to crack a rib, found out another little trick from that. I heal in like half the time. Seriously, two weeks later and it was like it never happened.

Damn why couldn’t it have been instantly? I feel like I should know a couple of people like that. Not real ones, like movie people or something. Whatever.

Once he found out I could heal that fast though, he stepped up his assaults. When I say he stepped them up I mean it, he stabbed me with a dagger he had just finished. I did drop one of his commissions. The really expensive kind, like he had to special order the materials kind of expensive.

It wasn’t very deep, also he said there was nothing important where he stabbed, but it still hurt like fuck. The wound finished closing in a week. Lucky me.

Mira and I honestly he was trying to fucking kill me, that was until he started to hand me what I needed to bandage it. Told me I had to learn and I couldn’t have my ‘sister’ doing it.

Yeah that was weird, just one day out of the blue he started to say we were brother and sister. He said shit like ‘Walker go get your sister’ or ‘Mira, stop babying your brother.’ It was confusing at first, but now? I am starting to like the idea. Maybe I might actual give it real thought, until then I am going to show that fucking goat why stabbing me was a bad idea.

When he wasn’t looking I hid one of the cheap knives he keeps stocked in the back under my shirt. In store I only wore a basic flax shirt and cotton pants. The amount of heat from the forge in the back was intense.

We were a little nervous at first, but he told us that I would be staying in the back, and that Mira could handle the customers that came into the store. I was never allowed to go up front. I don’t really mind though, I was there to train and work on getting used to my new found strength. I definitely was not there to socialize.

Mira on the other hand excelled at customer service. Mostly because she could use a calming spell to settle anyone who got to rowdy, not that some of them appreciated that. Koodak had to actual intervene at one point some dick got pissed and he started yelling and screaming at Mira. He was saying something about how he placed an order last week and was told that it would be ready by then.

Mira checked everywhere for the invoice, but we just didn’t have it. Come to find out the guy was at the wrong store, but anyway the old goat stepped out once the yelling reached a fever pitch and just choke slammed the idiot into the ground.

The two of them talked and resolved the issue. Damn that was awesome.

Back to my plan on stabbing the fucker in return. Now the way I figure it, even though something tells me this is stupid, if I can sneak up behind him while he is working I can stab him somewhere that will hurt but not somewhere that will inhibit his ability to continue working. Might just decide to slash him on the ass. That would make him remember, especially when he tried to sit down.

So I walk up very calmly, trying to be as silent as possible, letting the sounds of the forge mask my approach. A grin works its way on to my face. I can see it now, the crimson tears weeping from the wound. Oh it will be glorious. If I am lucky enough I may get the chance to kill him. I mean why not. He started this all I am doing is finishing it.

I see him standing over the anvil hammering another piece of metal to shape. Slowly, carefully I draw the knife from my waist band. Thanks to the dragons the knife is light in my hand. It feels as light as paper with the way it swings through the air.

That old bastard shouldn’t have taught me how to sharpen weapons. I made sure thing was sharp enough to cut paper without any extra weight behind it. Just running the edge along the paper was enough to cut it. I am going to get to see if he splits as easily as paper today.

I hold the knife in front of my face, grinning in delight. Oh he will pay for hurting me. I am going to make sure he suffers. He shouldn’t have been giving me such useless jobs around the store. He should have trained me to fight. Maybe if he did he wouldn’t have to die. Too bad, so sad.

My effort pays off. I am right behind him and he doesn’t even know it. The grin on my face turns from dark to straight out sadistic. I am going to enjoy listening to you scream, you fucking cow!

I drive the blade towards his back. At the last second he swings an arm around hitting my wrist and causing me to drop the knife. He grabs me by the throat and choke slams my ass. I struggle hard to break free, but I don’t know what I am really doing so all I end up doing is flailing around like a moron.

“Your bloodlust was clear as day the moment you entered the room.” Koodak lifts me again before throwing me through the door to the backyard.

Thank god I am made of tougher stuff now, otherwise that would hurt a fucking lot. I stand up wiping some spittle from my mouth. “I will have your blood, beast.”

“Hmm, looks like you have lost yourself to your bloodlust, going to have to beat that out of you. At least this should be more interesting than what you have done thus far. I was expecting you to attack much sooner. It would seem you have a very high tolerance for abuse. Tell me boy, what happened in your old life to make you so tolerant?” Ironvigor slowly circles me as he speaks, taking his measure of my new state.

Mira comes running out back after hearing the noises. When she spots me her hands cover her mouth, her disguise drops. The mere sight of me breaking her ability to maintain the spell.

Later I found out that my bloodlust draws out a more draconic appearance. My eyes become reptilian slits, my canines slightly elongate. Scales form over my both my forearms, granting me claws. On my right arm the scales travel all the way up to the shoulder, ending in a trio of spike that I could use to impale someone. Amidst the scales are faint points of light, pulsing in time to my heart beat. The light is a light blue, almost bordering on white. The scales themselves are a burnt orange, which is odd considering neither Amy nor her grandfather were even remotely close to orange. My muscles became noticeably more defined. Those were the only changes that happened at the time. Later I became more beast than man.

“W-Walker is” she swallows afraid to ask, fearing the answer she will get. “Is that you?”

“AHAHAHAHAHA!!! What would ever make you think I am that weakling?”

Sinking to her knees, tears slowly fall picking up speed the longer she cries. She can’t pick up my usual range of emotions. It’s all a swirl of malice and derangement. “Walker, what happened to you?”

Growling I lunge at her, claws first. “I told I am not your pathetic little loser anymore! Oh I am going to enjoy rending you flesh. I can’t wait to feel my claws shred that hard exterior. Then maybe you won’t confuse the two of-“

Pain explodes from the back of my skull. “Did you forget about me boy?” Before I even get a chance to respond or even move Koodak grabs me by the legs and throws me into the brick and mortar wall that encloses the backyard. “You have some good speed, surprising resiliency and I bet you strength is even higher in this state.” He comments unfazed by the current proceedings.

Peeling myself from the back wall I sneer at the old goat. “Guess you want to die first, old timer.”

“Haha. IF you could even do that we wouldn’t be here. Now quit your barking and show me your bite.” Koodak says, voice full of mirth.

“Can you get Walker back Instructor?” Mira desperately pleas tears still running down her face.

“Dry your eyes child. He is not gone, merely lost. I pushed him to the point where he broke. His rage is in control of him. I simply need to show him that it is impotent.” Ironvigor states, his eyes never leaving me. “So fret not, you shall have your brother back in time for dinner.”

Mira wipes the tears from her eyes and slowly staggers back to her hooves. “I’ll g-go get dinner r-ready then.” Her voice shakes as she contains the fear inside.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.” He says. Grinning he cracks his knuckles. “Now that she has gone back inside I do believe it’s time I show you why you were sent here.”