Over the course of the time we knew Rebekah, we found out a lot about the Draglorians. She told us how long they had a civilization, when the current regime came to power and why we could do what we could do.

The Draglorian race had been around for many eons. Despite their fighting prowess, they were a very advanced race. When humans were first coming out of their caves, the Draglorians had already been traveling in space for a few centuries. The one thing that made them the dominant species in their neck of the galaxy was because of what they could do. They had the ability to turn into these fearsome beasts called dragons. It was because of that ability that let them conquer so many worlds.

The first Draglorians could only do one transformation and that was into the basic form of a dragon. Still powerful, but not all powerful. It wasn’t until millennia later that the first Draglorian made the leap to the next transformation. It was the royal family’s ancestors that discovered the later forms which was why that family had been in power for hundreds of generations.

Rebekah’s family had served the royal family for years and so had Sora’s. Her family was quite powerful; not just politically, but physically as well. Sora’s family had significant political influence, but not a lot of physical strength; that was the case until Sora’s father came around.

The Draglorian royal family was descendants of great and powerful rulers. King Edward Winters and Queen Patricia Winters have ruled justly and fairly for the last fifty years. Draglorians could live for over 300 years, so their reign had really only just begun. The king and queen had two sons. The eldest, Trektor Winters, was still by their side, but the youngest, Drake Winters, had been missing for the last 23 years; since shortly after his birth. The family had been searching for him since he went missing, which was right after their planet was destroyed, but to no avail. They even set up base on a planet after theirs blew up, to coordinate their efforts. Actually, they conquered the planet and forced the citizens to aid in their search.

Only a few hundred Draglorians survived the planet’s destruction and they were all on that new planet; Planet Writanl. King Edward sent scouts to a remote planet that was slated for sale to increase their reach and have another outpost to search from. That planet was Earth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Five years after we all parted ways to start our respective lives, I got a call from Master Chow asking if we could show up for a reunion of sorts in a few days. It was to be held at his palace. It was mostly an excuse to meet everyone’s kids I thought. It would have been nice to see everybody again, but Jason and I had to work, so we couldn’t go. Sora, however, was able to go and he brought his 4 year old son; Yukon brought his twin boys and Rebekah went to see them all.

I got a call from the group at the master’s palace later on that day. They were asking why I wasn’t there and I told them that just as soon as I finished I would head over if I could.

Ever since I got my angel powers back, I noticed that I still couldn’t use all of them. I had my basic magic and I could teleport, but my psychic abilities seemed to be gone. Like the psychic scream I used back at the beginning, not there any longer. I still had telekinesis and telepathy, but they were not as strong as they should have been. Also, my telepathy was going out of whack to where I finally had to completely shut the door on that power. I could hear people that were close to me, but that was pretty much it. I could no longer hear the whole universe. Not exactly a loss there, but it lowered my overall mental power. I did have my healing powers though. And I got my instant regeneration ability back, which was nice. It most likely had to do with the body I was in. It wasn’t attuned to angels like my last one was. I wasn’t too bothered by it since I was still gaining tremendous strength, but they would have been nice to have; for an edge in battle at least.

It was a couple of hours after I had hung up with Sora and the gang that I suddenly got a bad feeling. I could hear Sora and Rebekah’s thoughts and they were chaotic. I could also sense the kids fear. Yukon wasn’t thinking anything and I could barely feel his energy. That’s when I felt it. Two extremely powerful life forms were near my friends. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew I needed to help my friends as soon as possible. I pushed back from my work desk and immediately teleported to Master Chow’s palace.

I arrived in the courtyard a few hundred yards from the house and I gazed fearfully at the scene in front of me. A tall well-built guy with unkempt black hair was holding Sora in the air by his throat. Rebekah was screaming at the guy to let him go. She charged him, but the guy backhanded her and she flew into a tree, breaking it in half. For someone like Rebekah to be so easily overpowered meant he was a strong one.

There was a girl off to the side that was about my height and was as equally well-built as the guy. She was standing over Yukon with her foot on his chest. She held him down and had a smile on her face. I did a double take when I noticed her face. And it wasn’t just her. They both looked really familiar. It was so eerie how familiar they looked that I didn’t make the connection until a second later. She looked just like Sora and the buff guy looked like Rebekah. They could have been the family members Rebekah had once spoken of.

I didn’t have the time to ponder such things when my brother and my friends were hurting, so I stepped in.

I teleported in between Sora and the tall beefy guy and knocked him away. I ran over to the girl before she could react and punched her, which made her fly into the wall that surrounded the house; half a mile away.

I looked around for the kids and then I heard some muttering coming from behind me. It was Master Chow. The kids were standing behind the master and seemed unharmed, but he was whispering something over someone I couldn’t see.

As I got closer, I noticed that the master was saying a spell over…Jason. He was unconscious and covered in blood. He wasn’t supposed to be there. We were supposed to go to the reunion together when our work was done. I didn’t even know that he had left work.

I flew over to him in a panic, but the master reassured me that he would be fine.

Sora limped to where we were, as did Rebekah, though she didn’t have to limp. She was however holding her bloody arm but still seemed just fine. It was a little perplexing that two strangers could do this to four of the most powerful beings on the planet. It just proved that there was always someone better.

As Master Chow continued with his healing spell on Jason and I healed Rebekah and Sora, the guy and the girl came back, and they were pissed. They were walking towards us and Sora stepped forward, but I grabbed his shoulder. He turned around and I shook my head. “I’ll take care of it brother. Just keep everyone else safe.”

Sora nodded and walked back to stand next to Rebekah.

I walked up to the two strangers and stopped only a few feet from them. I looked up at the guy and said in a stern voice, “Who are you and why did you come here?”

The girl said in anger with a flush of color on her cheeks, “We don’t have to answer to the likes of you, you whelp!”

The tall guy held up his hand to silence her, and she backed off. “Though Felicia is right, I will answer your question, if you answer mine.”

I cocked my head to the side and gave him my best cocky look. “I think I can manage that. Begin,” I said. I gave a nod and he began his little tale.

“My name is Haegar and Rebekah is my little sister. This is Felicia and she is Traylor’s older sister.”

“Who the hell is Traylor?!”

Rebekah came up from behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “He’s talking about Sora. They are who they say they are, though I haven’t seen Haegar since I was a child.”

I realized that I was right in my assumption earlier. “If that’s the case and these are your siblings, why did they attack you?”

Haegar spoke. “My little sister was supposed to conquer this planet. We needed this world as an outpost to help in our search for the long lost prince. Since she has failed us, it is left to the two of us to conquer this backwater planet. It is going to severely set us back.”

“And your king wants you to destroy a planet just to find his son; that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“We aren’t going to destroy it, but we will subjugate its people. We have to find the heir to the Draglorian throne. It’s our duty.”

I got up in Haegar’s face and yelled, “You don’t need to subjugate an entire race just to find someone! The people of Earth could easily aid in your search, or at the very least provide support.”

By my confronting Haegar, Felicia got really angry and made a run to attack me. She threw a punch but I saw it coming. I disappeared and then reappeared behind her, and then pushed her, hard. She flew and crashed into the side of the house.

Haegar barely reacted save for his eyes getting a little wider. “You’re pretty good kid. What’s your name?”

I took a step back and said, “My name is James Patel and I will not let you take over this planet!” I assumed a fighting position and made my energy explode out of me to show that I was serious.

When I flared up, Haegar started to look frightened. The device he was wearing around his wrist started to beep frantically at my display of power. He looked down at it and then back up at me, terrified. “But, that’s impossible!”

Felicia had recovered and floated back to Haegar’s side. She looked at me as if I had sprouted three heads or something. She asked Haegar, “What is his reading?”

“It’s at 315,000 rajoules and still climbing! That’s 200,000 more than the king! 100,000 rajoules is enough to run a city!”

Felicia’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “There are no humans that powerful! We scanned this planet!”

I turned off the light show and then smiled. I was totally getting off on their discomfort.

The device was still squeaking and squawking. It looked very familiar to me. It was similar to a device those two guys were holding when I first arrived in this dimension.

“His energy is still rising! It’s now at 400,000 rajoules! What kind of human are you?” hissed Haegar.

Rebekah shook her head and then said, “He’s not human; he’s one of us.”

“She’s telling you the truth. I’m from your planet. Sora and I have been here since we were babies.”

Felicia said, “But, that can’t be. All of the Draglorians that survived our planet’s destruction are accounted for except---.”

“No…it couldn’t be true. How old are you kid?!” Haegar questioned with a hint of fear still in his voice.

“Stop calling me a kid for crying out loud! And to answer your question, I’m 23 years old.”

Both of them looked shocked. Haegar called Rebekah over and they had a little pow-wow. I could have eavesdropped, but I was trying to get out of that bad habit.

Rebekah came back over, but her face had gone ashen gray. It was like she had received some bad news; like she heard that her father died or something. “James, we need you to come with us.”

“Umm, why would I do that?”

“We would like you to meet our king. I think that his majesty and her majesty would be very happy to see you.”

I was confused. “Why would they be happy to see me? I’m a total stranger.”

“You aren’t a stranger to them. Based on the story you told me and all the info my brother has on the prince, certain things have been brought to light.” Rebekah walked in front of me and then bowed low. “You are our prince, your highness.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next day, I was in the modest spacecraft of Haegar and Felicia headed toward the planet Writanl. That was where the remaining Draglorians had made their home. In front were the two I just mentioned with Felicia as the pilot. Jason was seated next me and was holding my hand. Sora was sitting across from me and Rebekah was standing behind Haegar’s seat and conversing.

What happened to get the four of us on an unfamiliar vessel to meet my supposed royal family? Well, I first made Rebekah get up from her kneeling position. It kind of made sense that I could have been their long last prince, I think. But if you considered the timing, it came across as a little too convenient. It all seemed so much like a plot on a TV show that had run out of ideas, and I guess technically I was in said show. And another thing, it felt like they were trying to tie up loose ends. There were too many comic books and anime that started out like this. I guess the only real difference with my story was that my parents were still alive.

I decided to find out if the newcomers were right about me, but the only way to test it would be to go back to their planet. So, that’s exactly what we did. Us Earthlings had to put our affairs in order before we left, so we couldn’t leave until the next day. So there we were; we were headed to Planet Writanl to meet the rest of the Draglorians and the Writanls.

The planet was still in the Milky Way Galaxy, but in another star system. It was located on the outer most part of the same cluster of stars as Earth’s system was. Just using their normal flight, we were there in 27 hours.

Writanl was an arid type of planet. There wasn’t a lot of present vegetation. It didn’t possess many large bodies of water either. The air was far denser than Earth’s but still breathable. And, from what I learned later, the core of the planet was smaller, so the gravity was twice that of Earth’s. It didn’t really bother my group since we’d been wearing several tons of weight on our person for many years, but it was still an adjustment.

After we arrived, Haegar and Felicia took us through the capitol city of Rhagae to the palace. It was the middle of the day so lots of people were out and about. They all stared at us, and rightly so. The people of Writanl didn’t look even remotely human. They were still bipedal beings, but they looked like lizards. They had scales and elongated faces; they had tails and slanted eyes like that of a snake. From what we could tell, there were different breeds of the people like us, but still all the same race. That wasn’t the strange part of our trip through the city however. They all shied away from us as we walked by. Admittedly there was one human in our group, but the rest of us resembled him. One would think that after 23 years of occupation they wouldn’t shy away from people like us, unless something were wrong. It also seemed like people recognized Felicia and Haegar. I wondered just how badly the Draglorians had treated the people of Writanl.

Haegar led us to the towering palace gates. Once inside, we noticed a major change to the landscape. It was lush and full of life. There were trees lining the path with beautiful flowers, unlike which I had ever seen, planted between each. The grounds had a blue grass with the most dazzling plant life. I was captivated by all of it.

We went through the palace doors and headed for the throne room. As we walked, we saw both races being represented. Some were working with one other and other times we saw the Writanls being subjugated. A few times we caught a Writanl being beaten for not doing some task properly. It was cruel and unbearable to watch. Rebekah hung her head in shame, but Jason was about to go over and do something. I held him back and shook my head. It wasn’t the time to deal with it and he understood. He grabbed my hand and squeezed then he lifted my head to him and planted a kiss. He could be so sweet, especially in his care for others.

We had finally arrived at our destination; the entrance to the throne room and my parents. Big brass doors, along with two armed guards, barred our path forward. The guards had long halberds in their hands and on their wastes they had short swords. As soon as we made for the doors, they blocked our path with the halberds. Haegar stepped forward and the guards muttered some apologies and stepped out of the way and opened the doors as soon as they were clear.

I looked around as I entered the room. It was just as ornate and ostentatious as I would have expected of royalty. There were huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A lush purple carpet led up to four thrones on the dais. The walls were lined with a few past monarchs, but below them were what looked like the portraits of the kings of Writanl. They were cast aside to make room for the Draglorian monarch portraits.

The king, well I assumed it was the king since he was wearing a crown, was talking to the queen who was seated on the second throne from the right. Next to her in the last seat was a guy in his mid-thirties who kind of looked like an older version of my brother Justin back in my world. He seemed incredibly bored sitting there listening to the king and queen talking amongst themselves. The king was standing to the queen’s right side and making weird gestures which seemed to make her laugh. She was drinking from a silver goblet, and when she saw me, she dropped the cup and put a hand to her mouth, spilling the red liquid all over the dais. The king held the queen and asked what was wrong. With a shaking hand, the queen gestured in my direction. He turned his head and looked at me.

The king, my father, walked down the dais in jerking steps as if caught in a trance. He looked at me and then at the last portrait on the wall, and then back at me. Jason and I looked at the painting as well and he gasped. The last king in the portrait looked almost exactly like me save for his mouth and nose. Rebekah looked at it and just shook her head, but Sora covered his mouth in disbelief. There seemed to have been some proof to Haegar and Felicia’s claim about who I was.

Speaking of Felicia, she quickly and unexpectedly ran up to me and scratched me with something. She then ran away before I could react. My skin healed itself immediately. I’ve said it before, but most of my powers had returned when I opened that door in my mental training ground. I was back to being a quasi-immortal. I could still die if all of my energy was exhausted, or no trace of my life force remained, but that was truly the only way. Though there probably was someone of greater power in this universe that I haven’t met, it still didn’t seem likely that I would die. But, stranger things had happened.

After Felicia left, the king and queen walked up to me and started asking me all sorts of questions. The first and most obvious question was, “Son, is it really you?”

“I honestly don’t know how to answer that. I guess I could be your son, but I have no idea who you lovely folks are,” I told the both of them.

Haegar stepped in to answer the rest of the questions. “Your majesty’s, this is James Patel. He is a Draglorian that was sent to Earth along with this one, Sora Knoll. He is the brother of Felicia who just left. My younger sister here, Rebekah has had many dealing with these two so she might have a better understanding of who he is, but I feel based on some details he told us, that he is the long lost Prince Drake.”

The queen didn’t seem to need more convincing about my identity, but the king wasn’t so easily swayed. I didn’t have any real proof save for my age and appearance. I told them about what happened to me from waking up in the incubation pod to landing on Earth with Sora.

“I do remember one of my scientists telling me about that incident, but it was all lost in the shuffle of us escaping our dying planet,” the king told us.

Just then, Felicia came back with an older man who looked extremely familiar to me, and then it clicked. He was one of the guys that was there when I first arrived in this dimension. He was the engineer who took my initial energy readings. He was also Rebekah’s father, and he was the one that got into trouble for sending me away. The other engineer didn’t survive the planet exploding.

At any rate, Rebekah’s father had taken an analysis of my DNA and concluded that I was indeed Prince Drake Winters. The queen was overjoyed and the king picked me up and spun me around. I broke free from his powerful grip and jumped back to the floor. Everyone was surprised, especially the king. I didn’t want this man to be my father. I already had three great men, whom I considered my father, and though two of them were dead, it didn’t change how I felt about them. I couldn’t get behind what this man before me had done in my name. No matter how much my other fathers loved me, they would never destroy an entire race just to get me back. At least, I hoped they wouldn’t do that. Though, I knew that parents did all sorts of crazy things for their kids. I let the king know just how I felt.

“I can accept the fact that you are my biological father, but I don’t think you will ever be my dad. You’ve killed too many people in your pursuit to find me. How do you expect me to be okay with that?” I said.

The king was not happy. “That’s how it’s always been,” he said. “Plus, I didn’t just do it for you. Our people needed a new home world and the Writanls weren’t willing to share, so we took it.”

“And you actually negotiated with them to truly share this giant of a planet? I’m sure there’s plenty of room and open land that they would have been willing to give up if it meant no war.”

King Edward smiled. “Well, they did actually offer a small piece of land for us, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. I have a few thousand Draglorians to keep safe. A whole planet is better than some small country.” A few thousand, I thought. I was told there were only a few hundred, but, it had been over 20 years. Reproduction and all…

Jason and Sora both flew into a rage and were about to attack the king for what he said. If they had, they would have been killed; just like that. I quickly flew over to Sora, punched him in the shoulder and then I backhanded Jason across his cheek.

“Fuck! Baby, why did you do that?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Sora walked over and grabbed my shoulder to turn me around but I shrugged it off. “James, we can’t just let him get away with that!”

“You both need to calm down!” I said. “First off, you can’t just attack a king. Secondly, based on their energy reader, you Jason are at 10,000 rajoules and Sora is at 12,000. Haegar and Felicia both roughed you guys up and they are at 50,000 apiece. None of you were using your full power, but it’s obvious they could wipe the floor with you both. I can also tell that King Edward is at around 100,000 rajoules. What chance would you have had against someone ten times stronger than you? Even if you transformed Sora, the highest form you’ve reached is that of shadow dragon. That would put you at about 288,000 rajoules. If the king was only able to reach the basic dragon form, which I’m sure isn’t the case, he would still be at 600,000 rajoules based on the norm of each form being six times more powerful than the form before.”

Jason was still rubbing the spot on his cheek where I hit him. He looked at me and then gave me a light shove. “We get it James; he’s stronger than us, but would you have us do nothing? He’s willing to kill just because he can. That’s not right!”

“Who are you to say what’s right human? Those that have the power are the ones that make the rules. It’s been done like that for centuries. And it’s clear you don’t have the power, so my rule is law!” King Edward was really full of himself. It must come from being a king.

I looked at my new mother and noticed all of her reactions. It was clear she didn’t like all that King Edward had said. Perhaps there was still a chance…. “By that logic, your majesty, anyone with more power could change the law.”

“Well, there isn’t anyone like that ‘Son’, now is there?”

Rebekah’s father, the engineer, came over. “Um, your majesty, do you remember when I said that your son was born with an incredibly high level of energy? Well, at that time, he had more power than you did.”

“That was then and this is now,” the king said unimpressed.

I began to glow and energy started to shoot out of me. My energy was pushing everyone back; all except for the king, but even he took notice of my power. “You’re right ‘Father’, this is now. Here, take this.” I threw one of the energy readers at him and he caught it. “Why don’t you read it? What does it say?”

He nearly dropped the reader in shock just like others before him. “It’s not right. It’s broken; has to be. It’s at 125,000 and still rising!”

I sent out a bigger torrent of energy and the walls cracked and the floor disintegrated around my feet.

The reader let out a final squeak before it exploded in the king’s hands. “How… what are…600,000 rajoules?!” he squawked before he sank to the floor. “There hasn’t been someone this powerful in their normal form since our ancestors a few centuries ago. Only one of them was able to reach the Celestial Dragon form and I am the second. How can you have this kind of power and not transform?” he shouted.

It was my turn to smile. “I guess it still runs in the family.” I stopped the light show. “I have a proposition for you King Edward. I would like us to fight. The winner of this fight gets to determine the fate of the Draglorian race. The loser’s fate is up to that of the winner as well. What do you say ‘Dad’? Do you accept my terms?”

Queen Patricia first looked concerned and then she gave me a little smirk. She must have liked the proposal. In all of the excitement, I had forgotten about my brother still seated on the dais, but he hadn’t forgotten about me. He let out a bark of laughter that angered my father. Jason and Sora patted me on the back and Rebekah was laughing. Haegar and Felicia were yelling out threats to my friends and wouldn’t meet my gaze. Rebekah’s father hung his head, but I could still detect the hint of a smile. King Edward stood up and then looked at me. He said, “I accept your terms son. I will show you what it means to be a true Draglorian!”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“If you go east of the city, you should find plenty of room for your father-son reunion match,” Queen Patricia said to us.

There was a lot of open land just outside of the capitol city. Mostly it was desert that stretched for miles in every direction.

I teleported the whole group to the area my mother mentioned. I figured that I could finely cut loose since there was no one around to get hurt. Jason agreed with me.

Everyone stepped back leaving me to face my father King Edward Winters. Haegar, Felicia and Rebekah’s father were standing near the queen and the prince. Jason, Sora and Rebekah were behind me. I could feel all of the tension rising off them. My friend’s thoughts were racing. I thought to them, Calm down guys. I’ll be fine.

Jason thought, But you said it yourself; each dragon form takes you six times higher in power than the previous one.

That means he can be 36 times more powerful than he is now! He’s reached the final form! You’re in danger! Rebekah thought.

Sora was the only one who wasn’t freaking out. James can handle this you guys. He has a knack for going against the tougher enemies. Relax.

Thank you Sora; I couldn’t have said it better myself. Plus, you all are forgetting something important.

There was silence.

All right, I’ll remind you. With most of my angel powers back, I am essentially immortal again. I can regenerate from anything.

Jason said out loud, “If he overpowers you, you will die! You told me that if your energy gets wiped out, you will cease to exist. I think 3.6 million is significantly more power than 600,000!”

I walked back towards Jason and grabbed both of his hands in mine and then leaned in and gave him a big kiss on the lips. “I’m also a dragon. I can also transform, or have you forgotten? Don’t worry; I’ll be fine.” I held his hands a little while longer, or rather, he wouldn’t let go of my hands. That was one of the reasons I loved him as much as I did.

Jason finally let go and I walked back to face my long lost father.

“Have you said goodbye to your friends Drake?”

“It’s not goodbye when I will be the one walking away from this. And my name isn’t Drake, its James.”

The king shrugged his shoulders. “Not that it makes much of a difference now, but we named you Drakon Charleson Winters when you were born. Patricia said Drake sounded better, but I wanted something more formal. Even when you die after this battle you’ve concocted, you will always be Drake to me.”

Despite his arrogance, what he said was actually great. Maybe he wasn’t such a terrible guy after all, but he needed to see that too. “Whatever dad, let’s fight and if you win, you can call me ‘precious’ if it will make you feel better,” I said.   I had to giggle a little bit.   It didn’t sit well with my dad though.

He was livid.   He launched a fireball at me that was roughly the size of a Winnebago.  It approached me at an incredible speed; however, I didn’t even flinch. I held up my hand and shot out a bigger ball of water to counteract it. They collided and exploded into a great big jet of steam and hot water. King Edward barreled through the steam and threw a punch. His hand had a glow of a brilliant white. I dodged the punch with ease, but I felt an intense heat pass my face and then I caught fire. I put it out, but I was burned. Of course, it healed immediately. Though, it struck me as a little odd that I would get burned when I was supposed to be immune to fire. Maybe that only applied to outside of the family. Perhaps your own family could hurt you.

I turned around to face my father. He was holding his hand out and pointing a finger at me while smiling. The air shimmered from the heat coming off his finger. Fire must have been his most powerful element. It made since that I had the same intensity with fire. It obviously ran in the family.

I covered my body with a thin, but tough, shield of ice. In order for it to be effective, I had to make it colder than his fire was hot; in other words, the exact opposite.

King Edward attacked again. He threw a punch and I blocked it. There was steam where he struck, but my body was safe. I closed my hand over his fist and squeezed tightly. I also intensified the cold. Some of his fingers broke and he grimaced. He pulled his hand away and backed off. He massaged his fingers and gave me such a look.

The fight was taking too long, so I took things up a notch. I held both of my hands above my head and uttered an incantation. “Heavens above, winds of the land, raise your head and strike.” The sky suddenly darkened and thunder could be heard in the distance. A funnel cloud appeared overhead and then touched down right in front of me. I directed it toward my father. He jumped out of the way and flew off to the right. I made the tornado follow him. He was outrunning it, so I made another one. He destroyed the first by sending a big fireball into it. He tried to flood the second one with a massive deluge of water, but that just turned it into a water spout. He tried to run from it, but I just pummeled him with a bunch of lightning to keep him where he was.

My father tried countering with light energy attacks of his own, but I increased the lightning strikes. And while he was distracted with that, I produced more tornadoes to surround him.

His attacks increased in desperation. My tornadoes were closing in on him and were about to tear him to pieces, but then there was a sudden and blinding bright purple light from the center of the storm and the tornadoes were blown away.

When I could see again, gone were the tornadoes; gone was the storm and gone was my father’s normal form. What was in his place was the most stunning and fearsome dragon I had ever seen. He had to have been at least 500 feet tall and more than twice as long with his wings unfurled. He was a brilliant violet color from the tip of his horns to the edge of his tail. The energy I felt from him was ferocious. He let out a roar that shook the ground and actually put a bit of fear in me that I felt in my bones, but I was still confident.

The Celestial Dragon looked at me and I sensed he was smiling. He rose into the air on his giant wings and flew towards me at a frightening speed. It was so fast that I didn’t have time to put up a defense. He skewered me with one of his horns and then flicked me away with a gentle shake of his head. I was thrown a few thousand feet away and crash landed into the ground.

I sat up clutching the hole in my stomach and coughed up a ton of blood. I waited for the hole to close up and then stood up a few seconds later.

The dragon spit out energy attack after energy attack. I couldn’t defend myself from any of it. His speed and power was so much greater than mine. I wasn’t going to win as I was. I had to transform if I was going to stand a chance, however, that was easier said than done. He wasn’t going to give me the time I needed to change.

It was all I could do just to avoid his attacks. I was getting tired and making mistakes I wouldn’t ordinarily make. I stepped to my left just as he was charging me and he bit off my arm. I screamed. It was definitely a painful experience, but still nothing beat becoming an angel again.

My arm started to grow back; first with the bone forming and then the muscles and veins and then finally all the layers of skin. I flexed it and massaged it a little to get the feeling back.

I was losing ground fast. I need to create an opening, but how? He’s so much faster than I am, but….is he smarter than I am? I thought. I decided to test the theory.

I knelt and slammed my hands on the ground. The ground shook a little and then sand hills rose up to block my father’s path. He blew them apart with his wings, but that wasn’t my actual attack. It was to be a threefold assault. The sand hills were a minor distraction from the sand arrows I created over his head. They rained down on him and he had to send out energy breath attacks to stop them. And the last part of my plan was about to manifest.

The ground around us got really hot and the sand fused together to become glass. Suddenly, lava spewed out of the ground and shot high into the air. Another lava burst came up under the feet of the Celestial Dragon. More and more spouts appeared in the ground and he had to jump to avoid them all. That was all I needed.

I stood up and planted my feet. I screamed and then the scream was replaced with a roar. Golden black energy escaped my body and I was engulfed in it. When the energy dissipated, I was in my dragon form. I was one step below the Celestial Dragon and I called it the Dragon of the Lit Void. It was a combination of light and shadow. The form itself wasn’t much larger than my original dragon form. Though I had gained size as I got older, I wasn’t that big, at least not in comparison to my father’s form. However, what I lacked in size I more than made up for in power. It was time I showed him just how much of difference there was.

I slammed my clawed foot into the ground and ended my diversionary attack. Some of his scales had been singed in that attack, but he was already healing. In our dragon forms we healed really fast. It’s what kept us young for so long. It wasn’t as fast in our human form, but still three times as fast as a human.

I was about to attack when my father lowered his neck and arched his back. He shot out a gargantuan energy blast from his mouth. I countered with a breath blast of my own. They collided and a shockwave eschewed forth knocking away big portions of the ground. The two attacks were locked together for a good five minutes, but since I had more power I was able to overpower him and push my beam through his. When it hit, there was a monumental explosion and it engulfed his entire body.

The blast was so brilliant and dazzling that I lost sight of him. When I could see again, my father was lying in a newly formed crater and he had returned to his normal form. I transformed back to my normal form with a small burst of energy.

I floated down into the crater and checked his body. His breath was shallow, but steady. Since he was unconscious, that meant that I had won. Everyone was cheering for me, but I didn’t feel much like celebrating. It felt like a hollow victory. He was never a real challenge for me. I know you can’t always predict the outcome of a battle, but I was so much more powerful than he was. Unless I had acted like a complete idiot, that win was already in the bag. I honestly hadn’t had a good challenge in years. The last person that gave me a run for my money was Sauza. It was what it was. The whole point was for me to get strong enough to save the universe. Janus never said it would be easy or even satisfying.

Despite my misgivings of the battle, it served a purpose. I was able to free the Writanl people and move the Draglorians to a country of their own. It goes without saying that father wasn’t too happy about that, but he was a man of his word and totally honored our deal. It took a couple of months to get everything situated however. Jason and I would fly back and forth from Earth. Rebekah stayed on Writanl to be with her family, but Sora went back to Earth, though his family did visit from time to time.

Over the years, my parents and I got closer. King Edward and I started seeing things from one another’s perspectives more often than not. I was growing really found of my new family. It was also weird having an older brother. It was especially weird since he already had a family of his own and I was Uncle James. He was a good guy though and we got along very well.

Later on during our course of getting to know one another, the king and queen asked when I would produce an heir. They wanted me to marry a Draglorian female so she could bare my child. Jason was outraged, but I quelled his anger and their questions with an answer. I said, “Well, I’m an immortal so your legacy will be here for all time. There is no need for an heir when you have me.”

I let them think it over for a time while I made my escape with Jason. We laughed our way out of the palace.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That’s how things went for several years. There were no real threats from anyone or anything. Okay, that’s not entirely true. We had a few run-ins with certain alien races that either tried to harm Writanl or Earth, but because my group was in constant training, no one was a problem. There were some close calls, but we had the Wizard’s Stones to get us out of anything terrible.

A race of aliens, a few centuries before, had tried to destroy the Draglorians but failed. This time, they had joined with another race that had superior technology. With their new allies, they had found a way to finally combat the awesome strength of the dragon race. Through cybernetic enhancements they had augmented their power. Combined, the two races had become a threat to the entire galaxy.

The fighters of Earth and Writanl joined forces to stop the threat. It took us a few years and many precious lives. We used the Wizard’s Stones often. I was used by the wizard almost every time as the source of his power. If it wasn’t for my regenerative abilities, I most definitely would have died. Every once in a while, my allies would be used to, but he preferred to use me over everyone else.

And though, with the wizard’s help, we won the war, I questioned everything I had learned about the wizard. Every time he appeared, he was more powerful than the last, yet he always required more energy to fulfill a wish. And another thing, the evil presence I first felt had intensified. If this is the wizard of legend, why did he feel so evil? I thought. The craziest thing wasn’t any of that, but that I knew I had felt that very same presence before, but I couldn’t place where. In this body, my angelic memories were fuzzy. It wasn’t that way in my dimension, but this one clearly had different rules. I couldn’t even remember any of my past lives before being James Taylor. It was all a blur.

After the cyborg/alien incident, we vowed, by my urging, to never use the Wizard’s stones again if at all possible. I no longer trusted Magus Foseel.

Next Chapter: Aliens and Cyborgs and Wizards, oh my!