Axel strode towards the underground where he would meet his old friends. Danu dragged Abigor's lifeless body on his shoulder as Fuliko and Ash stepped in his trail. Harley was dumbstruck, sitting in his seat and burning holes in the meeting wall. After so long, he met his father, Abigor Kek, and thanks to Axel, the greeting became a gruesome memory.
"Your majesty!" Olivia dashed to the king as she slumped down and earned questioning looks from dragons.
"Say it, Olivia," Axel ordered as his patience, as well as self-restraint, was thinning.
"We can't find our queen."
Axel's eyes transformed into golden as his nostrils fumed and fists clenched to the point that his injured hand oozed more blood. Rebel was missing?
"Axel!" Ash ran to his master as they exchanged alarming gazes nobody, but they could decipher. In mere seconds Axel's eyes widened as he fathomed his awful father's vicious plan.
Axel raced to Danu and Abigor's body as he shouted, "Nullify!"
Soon the body on Danu's shoulder started soaring above him. Danu's eyebrows knotted together as his body slipped in a combat stance without him noticing. Green-haired dragon scrutinized the direful scene as Ash roared, "Get away from the body!"
Fuliko jumped in horror as he started stumbling on his feet. In a flash, Axel shoved Danu and Fuliko on his shoulders and out of the area where the huge explosion took place. Olivia let out a shriek as she covered her face from the flooding blood.
"Shield!" Ash called out, and a green circular barrier blanketed over the three of his friends. Danu felt as he was gently placed and he snapped his head to Axel. "Axel," he murmured, grateful. The room burst in bustling as Fuliko's panic dripped from his fur. As usual, his animatic skills emerged.
"You are okay," Fuliko heard as Harley squatted before him and tenderly petted his head.
Axel raised to his feet before Ash negated his shelter and allowed his king to charge for Abigor. The ground was colored with a red mess.
Danu trailed his gaze to Axel with a glint of hurt in his red eyes. He admired his king, as Axel was worthy of his throne and worship.
Danu remembered pulling apart his powers as a young green dragon from the Zhao clan.
"More!" The wicked woman lashed out at him as her horse galloped around Danu, who aimed an arrow at the soldier and simultaneously knocked down the other.
Danu managed to kill fifteen of his sentries this morning and felt empty, stripped of any emotion. Because if he gave in his feelings, he would break down into a river of tears. The green-haired male thought he adjusted to his mother's, Emma's remorseless attitude towards her subjects, but he couldn't!
"Hey, weakling!" Her mother mounted on her white Snow screamed at her son as she whipped him.
Danu let out a groan and involuntarily staggered forward.
"Snow? Isn't it a male horse?" He dared to question Emma.
"I heard the crown prince's bride is called Snow. And if I command, even you will change your gender."
"I won't!" Danu's neck hurt from following her mother's advances around him. Emma scorned him with her face twisted in loathe. Emma wasn't exactly the epitome of beauty, as rough features marred her ancestors' remarkable looks. Danu always assumed her ugly soul drifted through her skin.
"Are you defying me, Danu Zhao?" Danu's skin ran pale as white-haired woman's eyes shone red and prone his long torment in the torturing room.
"Mother!"
"To the room, Danu! Now!"
After three days of unbearable pain, Danu's body fell limp on the ground.
"That's what happens to unmannered brats like you, Danu!"
Emma again circled his son's bloody body, shaking on the ground.
"I love you," Emma crouched and cupped Danu's face with one hand, "I really do, Danu."
The boy had no room for fear anymore. At this point, he was numb inside and outside. Nothing touched his soul anymore. So he blinked at his mother slothfully.
"You will fight Axel on his way here. I know that bastard intends to conquer the Zhao family, and you will be my beloved son who will slaughter his army, won't you?"
She let out a mellifluous laugh and straightened as Danu dropped to the ground. "Of course you will, my king. Oh, the memories of your father crossed my mind, baby. You resemble him so much it breaks my heart. Visit me tonight. You know I can't sleep without you watching over me, yeah, son?"
Time passed by as the last ounce of morality dried in Danu's soul. He became all known as general Zhao, who was unbeatable in his field. That was until the green-haired dragon came across with the strongest opponent he had ever gone against. That man was the only one in Danu's experience who fought without the armor. That arrogant moran would taste the worst end by the general Zhao.
Danu swung an obliterating hook at the raven-haired man and roared out his predicted victory, but the straight punch crashed into his fist and crushed his whole arm. Danu howled into the night as the anguish clouded his vision. He threw another punch without aim, and shortly after, the cracking sound echoed in his head. Danu roared as he fell on his knees.
"General Zhao, we don't have to fight." A low baritone in the man's voice made shivers slither up Danu's spine.
"Shut up, you bastard!"
"I am a bastard," He raised his head as the clamor around them fell deaf on Danu's blood-dried ears. "Your mother, lady Emma schemed twisted plans against our kingdom. Let me free you and your people."
"Lier!" First, in so many years, Danu's eyes watered as he desperately hoped in the past that someone stronger than him would appear to take down Emma. "Lier!"
Danu jolted up, mastered all his energy, and unleashed a punch at the man whose identity dawned on him. Axel.
Axel didn't dodge it as his face was shoved to the side. Danu's eyes widened unconsciously. Did he have a death wish? Danu punched him again, again and again. Axel took every single one of them but never fell.
"Dodge, fuck it!" Danu roared, frustrated, "I will kill you!"
As he swung another hook at Axel in a bat of an eye, Axel clutched Danu's fist in the air. His blood-stained face saddned but nothing more. Danu stood there dumbstruck. Who was this man anyway? Was he even a half-human? Was it his dragon form already?
"I'm sorry you and your people had to go through this," Axel murmured to the young general.
"W-wha-" without his order, Danu's dried cheeks dampened again as he yelled into the sky and fell on his knees. His bottled-up emotions were erupting from him like blazing lava.
Axel's face contorted in heartbreak as he stared at the broken young man on his knees. Axel never wanted anyone to bend a knee for him, and this sight just demolished his heart. He fisted his hands, or else they were trembling from sorrow and regret of not rescuing kind-hearted people like Danu sooner. Axel's mind fathomed all of Danu's memories and thoughts. Danu was a…broken child.
"She held me as she slept! She cut me and then cried onto my chest! She cried! She was the one crying!" Danu screamed as hot tears made their way to the bloodshed ground.
Danu couldn't even flinch as a warm, and heavy hand came down on his disarmed shoulder.
"You are a good man, Danu. I'm Axel. Be my friend, huh?" Danu gazed up at the delusional man towering him. Axel was smiling at him with a charming smize. How could Danu miss out on this stunning face of his?
Axel extended his arm for the green-haired dragon. Was it Danu's chance to escape his damned traumatic past and, unfortunately, present?
His tears stopped rivering, and his mind from chaotic shrieks.
Yes, Axel's aura was so pure Danu even considered him being a wicked witch.
"What a lovely sight!" Emma's high-pitched voice snapped Danu out of his hopes as he looked at his mother mounted on a Snow. "Don't tell me you prefer this mutt over the future mother queen!"
"Want me to do it?" Axel asked Danu as a hint of his dazzling smile faded on his lips.
"Danu!" Emma wasn't giving up as a glint of desperation slipped in her voice.
"You can kill me, Danu. I deserve that," Axel breathed out with regret choking him. Every war he carried out broke some part of him. They were his people! Why did he have to fight them when all he wanted to do was protecting them?! What was wrong with this world?
Danu gasped, and his red eyes filled with something like… shock? Who was this man?
"Shut up!" Emma raced to Axel with her sword pointed at him as the tall man penetrated her eyes with his ruthless ones. His expression drastically changed in mere seconds as his gaze landed on Emma.
"No!" That was the first time Danu felt like a man. He hoisted someone's dagger in his hand and shot it at his biological mother. Emma wasn't his mother. Mothers didn't twist and bent their children like that.
Danu cried but never grieved his decision nor HER. This time he was the one sobbing on someone's chest, on someone who would always hold his back. Axel was Danu's hero.