Chapter 23

Hearing what Fafnir said, Rex’s palms got a little sweaty. He knew he was in for a big night and hoped he was up for the challenge.

‘We don’t have a lot of time, so we will learn the basics to attacking and defending yourself.’ Fafnir said the moment Rex approached. ‘Last I knew, Balrog’s weakness was fire, so I will show you how to give her some.’ Fafnir put his hand onto the ground, brought it up and dragged a mound of dirt to use a target.

“Do you mean shoot fire out my mouth?” Rex asked curiously.

‘How you use fire depends on the situation. I would have thought you would want to throw it at her, but you want to get close and personal I see, I like that.’ Fafnir said grinning.

“Well no, I don’t really want to get that close.” Rex added, a little shocked. He did not want to be anywhere near an ancient demon, let alone one that was a giant spider!!

‘Hmmmrpf, fine! We will practice creating fire first.’ Fafnir said he seemed a little let down at Rex’s comment at not wanting to get up close to fight. ’To create fire, you need one of two things. Either rage or clarity. You know how to feel rage, maintaining clarity is a lot harder. You need to clear your mind for anything except fire, which sounds easy, but the situation changing around you can be distracting, either a fight, loud noise or so on. So, for now, let us try rage. Find something that makes you incredibly angry, hold that emotion and picture setting fire to your hand. You share a soul bond with me, so for small amounts of fire, you won’t need to protect yourself.’

That is easy. Rex remembered the day that Dean that said terrible things about his family on the banks of the river, it was certainly making him angry! While using that Rex looked down at his hand and pictured it on fire. He could feel heat on his palm, but nothing was happening.

‘Rage is intense anger, not something that irritates you’ Fafnir said shaking his head. ‘You need to find something that will make you burn up inside.’

There was something Rex thought to himself. The night he had lost his grandmother to Reeva Umbra, Nessa’s mother. Once he started picturing the scene of the arrow coming and striking her, he could feel the change in himself, like an intense heat spreading across his whole entire body.

‘That is more like it, now, hold onto that and light your hand!’ Fafnir said.

Looking down at his hand, Rex’s vision started to blur a little. ‘Control the emotion Rex, don’t let it control you’ Fafnir said, he knew what was happening to Rex. Not long after Rex no longer understood anything Fafnir was trying to tell him, all he could hear was his own heartbeat in his ears and it drowned out any further advice Fafnir was trying to give him. Looking back up at the mound of dirt, he pictured that as Reeva and in one mighty yell, hurled all his hate at that image of her!!

Not only did he hurl fire, but he had sent a massive shockwave out with it!! All that was left was scorched ground inside of a crater, that was not a fireball, more like a meteor of fire. Shortly after, he felt a wave of calm, his anger was receding. Walking up to the crater to inspect his work, he said smiling, “Well that was a success” as he looked up to Fafnir.

Once Rex looked up a giant claw tip poked him on the forehead which made him fall backwards onto his butt. “What was that for!!??” he cried out.

‘I told you to control it, not let it control you. Use the anger, do not let is use you.’ Fafnir scolded.

‘If you cannot learn to control your emotions, you will hurt yourself and others around you. Let us try clearing your mind, that is the most effective way for defensive abilities.’ He added as Rex stood up again. ‘It will be easy here for there are no distractions.’

Right, clear mind. Sounds kind of easy Rex thought to himself.

‘Covering your skin in my scales where the attack will hit is a perfect way to prevent damage from arrows, swords and some spells. Other larger spells require a shield, but we will get to that later. I will hit you with my tail and you will attempt to dampen the blow. This is done simply by letting me cover you in scales.’ He said grinning at Rex.

“Letting you cover me in scales? Why does it sound like there is more to it?” Rex eyed him suspiciously.

‘Because there IS more to it, you are allowing to have partial control over your body.’ He replied.

To Rex, the thought of someone, or something in this case having control over him did not sound like a good idea. “How much control would you have?” he asked looking at him.

‘That part is up to you, I cannot do anything in your body without your permission, even if I tried to force it nothing would happen except pain for me, it is magical law.’ Fafnir said, ‘Plus we are working towards a common goal, I want to free my home from tyranny and evil, and I no doubt suspect you would want a safe place to live?’

“Well yes I do want my home safe, so how do I ‘allow’ for you to help me?” Rex asked. He wanted to be extremely cautious about how much control he wanted someone else to have.

‘You simply have to tell me, it is that easy, for example, if you used protection, give me permission to cover you in scales to dampen blows, and I can do it. But you will need to word it correctly. Here is one way, “Fafnir, I grant you permission to use your scales to prevent blunt damage to my body.” And I can do it. Or “Fafnir I grant you permission over my body to give me flight to take me to wherever I want to go” and I can do it, I cannot give you flight for you and a passenger, your body is too frail and it will pull apart your joints, so forget about that. To revoke permission is the same way, “Fafnir I revoke all permission for you to possess any control over me” and it is taken away. Take note of the wording, you need to say it is I, Fafnir, who is granted control or taken away.’ He added, to Rex he seemed to a little too excited about controlling him he thought.

“Right. How is it I can use your abilities like vision?” Rex questioned, he wanted to make sure if he needed Fafnir’s control for that too.

‘You can learn to use my gifts over time and practice, but for me to bring myself into this realm, I need permission from my soul bound, which is you.’

Well that is a relief Rex thought. He could learn to use his abilities over time and would only let Fafnir have control in an outright emergency.

‘Yes, that was the plan Rex’ Fafnir said smiling looking at him, Rex forgot he could read what Rex was thinking if he was not careful. ‘So are you ready?’

“I give you, Fafnir, permission to cover myself in scales during this fight.” Rex said closing his eyes, for some reason he tensed up, well it might hurt he thought to himself. Shortly after saying the words he felt an odd sensation, almost like a wiggling feeling under his skin. It was not painful, more strange.

‘Now watch what a dragons scale are capable of!’ Fafnir boomed suddenly swinging his tail in a long arch and bringing it straight towards Rex’s chest.

“Holy s**t!!” Rex cried out as the tail stuck him square across his chest with a loud *THUMP* The force sent him flying backwards coming crashing into the ground.

‘That blow would have smashed your ribcage inwards and broken 70% of the rest of your bones, yet look at you, not even a scratch.’ Fafnir said with a huge smile, ‘I am an incredible creature I must say.’

“Yep, there’s that vanity that I was told dragons had” Rex exclaimed groaning as he got back to his feet. Scanning his body, he was sure he would have had a scratch somewhere, but it seemed he was completely unharmed.

‘I think it is a fair assumption seeing how hard I hit you’ Fafnir chuckled, ‘Remember, that is mostly effective for physical harm, and small spells, I will teach you shielding yourself when you learn to control your emotions.’

Nodding to Fafnir in acknowledgement, Rex said, “I revoke all permission for you, Fafnir, for all control.” The sensation seemed to be like draining a bath, the warm feeling he had drained away after saying that.

Shuddering a little Rex said, “That is a feeling I’ll have to get used to. I have a question for you. If you want me to defeat Balrog for you, why do you have a grudge with her?”

‘She communed with demons to gain power because we denied it to her. She was greedy and selfish and wished to use gifts from us to do harm and suppress others.’ Fafnir growled, ‘She traded half of her soul with the demon Aranis for some of his gifts. That is why she is part spider. He is the demon spider lord of the shadow lands. Once she received her gifts from that filth, she destroyed the town that she had grown up in to show off her new power. Once we heard of the destruction, myself and one of my human generals went to meet her, she killed him and escaped. We searched for years and were not able to find her until I saw the magic being drawn away from your companion, I figure it would draw in any scrying spell we tried to use to search for her, effectively hiding her and her cronies. With your help, this is my chance to remind her who is at the top.’

“That’s fair enough, an eye for an eye sort of thing?” Rex asked.

“Well yes, and no, removing her, removes the corruption of Aranis on this realm as well. We have run out of time, daybreak is upon us.’ Fafnir said looking up. Rex also looked up and couldn’t see anything except the same usual dark sky with stars this place always had, I wonder how he knows that? Rex thought to himself, a question for another day.

‘Time to wake’ Fafnir called.

As Rex opened his eyes the first thing he noticed once his eyes had focused was that his companions were no longer beside him and he seemed to be at the centre of a scorched section of the ground and his blanket was not on him anymore!! His other two companions were sleeping a few feet away, why had they moved? He thought, that is odd. Once he saw Charr and Lizz stirring, Rex jumped up packed up his things and sat on a log and waited for them to wake, he wanted to know what happened to the ground and why they had moved. Shortly after Charr and Lizz stood up, looked at each other, then at Rex before he asked.

“What is with the ground and why did you move?” said Rex a little hurt.

“We moved because you caught fire, odd thing was your skin was not burnt and then it disappeared, we couldn’t wake you and sat watching you for hours. We did not wish to be burnt like your blanket, so we moved over here” Lizz said a little worried, “Is there something you need to tell us? Even with the magic I have seen, I have never heard of or seen anything like that before.”

“Charr not seen either” He said, also clearly worried.

“It is complicated” Rex said sighing a little, he did not know what had happened with Fafnir could have seeped through to the real world. He was a little embarrassed and understood what Fafnir meant, without control he might hurt his friends.

“You seem to be dealing with a lot, I guess in time you will tell us.” Lizz sighed.

Looking towards the trees in front of them, Rex nodded forwards and said, “Let’s get this over with, no magic in here Lizz, it will only drain you”

Lizz nodded at Rex in agreement and all three companions packed up their camp and travelled into the woods. After an hour of traversing the woods they all heard,

*I sense great power entering my domain* came an eerie voice echoing through the trees.