The Legendary Gavin Stormblade

The Legendary Gavin Stormblade

Chapter Zero: “A Fragment of Forever”

“Daddy look! A human! Awww he’s so cute, can we keep him!? PLEASE?!”

Zero was plucked from the crowd by beefy red arms the size of tree trunks and hoisted off the ground. His captor? A girl nine feet tall with a carapace of spiky red skin stretched across her barrel chested frame. Though she only had one eye neatly framed with lavender pigtails, she used it to peek at every inch of him as she lifted his clothes and spun him about in her palm.

The cyclops next to her was twice as large, even in the crowd of giants around them, but didn’t share her fanged grin. He simply snatched him from her grasp.

“Amala, you don’t know where he’s been! He probably has lice and who knows what else!” The man shoved Zero’s chest up into his massive nostril and gagged. “And he SMELLS! Besides, he might belong to someone and you didn’t even take care of the last two humans we found!”

Amala’s giant eye welled with tears. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to step on her! ”

Zero’s silver eyes glowed with power as black lightning surged around his fist. The sparks cracked through the air; a warning shot. One that the girl’s father scoffed at.

“Look at this one. Feral. See, this is why you’re not old enough for a human. They learn magic ONE TIME and you can’t control them!” The cyclops let Zero drop into the dirt.

“He belongs in the wild with the others.” The man gently pulled his daughter to the side. “If you’re a good girl then we can go to the petting plane and feed the humans there.”

As Zero pulled himself up he was joined by two more shadows. These also loomed a good foot over him with skin and scale both dark shades of blue and fanged grins shining even under their polished helms. His jaw set against the rise and fall of their gills. Zero didn’t need to see their webbed eyes to feel the disgust burning through.

“Hello friend.” The first one wheezed and drew a frozen spear from his back. “This is a civilized town. We can’t just let cattle roam free, you know. You have your papers?”

The second one leaned in to whisper. “I don’t see a collar on him either.”

Zero’s brow twitched, but he slowly raised a hand up to his trenchcoat and exposed his neck. The two guards sighed with relief at the scarlet tattoo burned around his throat.

“My humblest apologies Prince.” The first one smirked, “But you look human, as you well know. It’s...dangerous, for you to walk around in mixed company such as this. Allow us to escort you to your father.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Zero snapped back and tried to pull away, only to feel a claw dig into his shoulder. The second guard held him tight.

“We insist.”

And so with a quiet rage, Zero was led through the busy streets with many a fanged smile and beastly eyes drowning him in their passing stares. The crowd parted before him as every horned head, winged back, and scaled body pointed and whispered as this “stray pet” walked through the bazaar.

Short as he was in a sea of monsters, Zero couldn’t help but take in the sights and sounds around him. Lamia women in giant floating mirrors gently caressing bottles of “All Natural FREE RANGE grass-fed human essence; Now 60% CRUELTY FREE!” to any who’d swivel their head.

To his right were walls of pixies in birdcages with that signs that beckoned “BUY ONE GET ONE, 2 FOR 800KEN (wings NOT sold separately)”

Zero could remember nothing else; so why did these sights always churn his stomach?

Then finally, the petting planes. A huge domed area where ogres, demons, and anything that smelled with its tongue pressed their eager faces to the glass. There they watched those who looked just like Zero push giant toys around so that children like Amala could clap and coo. Some pounded on the glass with puffy eyes and hoarse voices, drowned out by giggles of “mommy I want THAT one she’s funny!”

Zero pulled his collar up and his plain bandanna down lower. His face would only stir the pot.

The man reached the end of his pilgrimage. The stalls and stores trickled to a promenade, yet one lined on both sides with bones.

Some looked like humans with wings and were christened “THE LAST ANGELS.”

Some were burned and withered trees with delicate faces frozen in agony labeled “THE FALL OF THE FAE.”

At the end however was the most impressive display; an archway connected to the ceiling by countless dragon bones frozen in time and locked together in mock combat, each with beautifully patterned scales that reflected the waning moonlight above. Zero arrived near the front of it all where the crowd gathered at the foot of The Embassy. Whatever name that building held before had long since been discarded.

Now it was a museum and a graveyard, a seat of power and a stage both, for their Eternal King who ruled the far edge of fate.

The man was a vision of alabaster skin and twisted horns, with tips dipped in gold neatly set above his pointed ears. His hair was flame on his head, ever dancing between brilliant colors and shifting with the whim of the breeze. All four arms folded neatly behind his back except the one that held his prize: a sword carved from frozen moonlight. Even from this far Zero had to crane his head just to look the King in his empty grey eyes. The same eyes on his own face.

To the left was his opposite.

She held dark skin like Zero himself and thick coiled hair that fell down her shoulders as ropes of midnight. She too bore the same brand around her neck, only hers webbed around her entire body, all barely concealed by a simple golden sheer. On her head was a headpiece of carefully constructed horns to match her husband’s; whether it was in earnest or in mockery Zero still didn’t have the courage to ask.

Their eyes met. She only clutched her chest and looked down at their feet.

And there was the star.

A white dragon with gleaming scales, lifeless emerald eyes, and no less than a hundred burning swords slammed into an inferno on its back. The King gestured widely to the audience.

“Good evening my friends and on behalf of all demonkind, welcome to our First Annual celebration: A FRAGMENT OF FOREVER!”

The monsters around him exploded into cheers. Their king laughed, even without magic his voice boomed through the sky.

“First, your eyes do not deceive you. Here at my feet...is the last of dragonkind. A man who’s been a bane in our fight for equality since the last Ragnarok. A man known as The “LEGENDARY” GAVIN STORMBLADE!”

Zero’s heart jumped into his chest. The tears wouldn’t fall now. They couldn’t.

“Now a history lesson for any children here.” The king gestured to the bones around them. “Once upon a time, many of us were human too. Yet as bloodlines mixed, soon we found ourselves blessed with the power of the many beautiful races we see around us today! Angels, fairies, ogres, elves, dryads, demons, and yes…” He cast a gaze down at the corpse. “...Even dragons.”

The king’s opposite hand shone with a red light that captured the dragon. In a flash it's hunkering form was gone and there lay a battered man in its place. He was eight feet tall and covered in equal parts scars and muscles, with only a spiky white tail to betray his true heritage as he lay in rags. His spiky black hair stood up in defiance and drew attention to what Zero prayed would be long gone.

The golden heart-shaped locket around his neck.

Zero shot the Queen a panicked stare, one she refused to meet.

“This...gifted us with the magic we use everyday, and allowed us all to prosper in harmony. Yet this world was stranger than we dared to hope. All power stems from the heavens above. And in the heavens above was a sacred tree known as Yggdrasil: The World Tree. At the end of every age, the gods determine a new world order with a final battle called Ragnarok. From the ashes of this battle, the Seeds of Yggdrasil scatter across every realm so that life is born anew.”

Zero pushed his way past the crowd, even past the escorts who were too lost in the story to hold him back.

The king frowned. “Humans, upon discovering these seeds, harnessed their power to oppress what they deemed “lesser” races. Their savagery knew no bounds. It was thanks to the compassion of my beautiful Queen here, a human herself, that we changed the world.”

The King waved, his bride’s tattoo’s swelled to life and she flew to his feet like a brick on a bungee cord, trembling in place for breath.

“Your Queen Cosette...saw the abuse I suffered. She earned me a seat on the magic council, the first demon ever, and together we fought for the rights of everyone here. But I knew words alone would not be enough...and so in secret I sought out the seeds of Yggdrasil until I had the power to expunge the old council and civilize mankind! Now, this realm belongs to ALL of us and humans serve as stewards and livestock. Now each lives according to his own capacity.”

Zero couldn’t think. He looked down at Gavin’s battered form as his father hoisted the corpse high.

“This man...and his band of followers, almost ruined this great work with the very seeds of Yggdrasil that made it all possible. This man…”

Was Zero’s first friend. The one who taught him to wield a blade and didn’t care who he was or what he looked like. Who’s warm smiles and warmer hugs lingered in his mind long after they’d said goodbye. Who left him awed, speechless, sometimes crying and sometimes angry, but never lonely. Until now.

“...Was a poison to them. His radiance made them forget themselves. And so it is with his death, and this…” His father plucked the locket from Gavin’s neck.

“--Final seed of Yggdrasill. That the last threat to our reign and to your children, is laid to rest.”

Faster than Zero could even shout, their king pried the locket apart to a thunder of gasps. Yet what was inside was not A Seed of The World Tree steepled in the power of a dragon.

It was a photograph, but a seed of something all the same. One that’d been nurtured for five years in hushed whispers and stolen glances in plain sight. One watered with kisses that yeared for more and united under a common banner. The same banner every enemy of demonkind once flew, before Zero’s father morphed into a God that struck Gavin down and humans like his mother lost their will to fight.

Zero stared into his own face, locked in a kiss with the man lying dead at the throne.

The crowd around him scattered. His father’s gaze turned ravenous even as a chuckle escaped the King’s lips. Zero wanted to scream but also laugh. Wherever that last seed was; Gavin hid it. The resistance still lived on somewhere, in some forgotten corner of the world; that vainglorious idiot made sure the fight didn’t die with him.

Even if Zero would.

“I am so sorry everyone...we will have to resume this after a brief recess.”

The king’s body swelled with power. A thrashing violet aura engulfed his form while he knelt at the foot of the stage to peer into Zero’s watering eyes.

“I’d like to have a word with my son.”