Vanagloria woke up to rustling coming from in front of her.
Although, she could barely even comprehend what was actually happening this early into waking up.
Wiping her eyes she found tears that had run down and stained her cheeks.
"Ugh, last night was rough wasn't it?" Vanagloria thought.
She didn't even think that she had cried last night. It must've happened during her sleep or something.
It definitely felt like she had just cried. Her heart felt like some weight had been taken off it which was nice.
Creaking up from her position on the tree, she popped a million different bones in her body just by leaning up and moving her legs around.
Somebody says something to her but she couldn't understand it so she just ignores it.
She'll figure it out eventually. She just needs her time to get up.
Honestly she should just go back to bed. Fuck whatever is happening, where even is she? Oh the rainforest…
That means she had to get up and do something today.
All of a sudden a little shadow crosses over her view of the Draconic. Rainforest.
It's not a very big frame like Martyr and rather a female one, so it must be Vega. She was saying something but Vanagloria really couldn't understand, her hearing felt as blurry as her vision.
In that blurriness she noticed her hand reaching out to her, followed by it very gently touching her face, scaring the hell out of her.
"What?" Vanagloria said as she jumped up.
Her vision cleared up a little bit as she did this, letting her fully see the girl in front of her.
This definitely was not Vega.
She had messy greenish-grey hair along with an almost blue-grey complex to skin. She had tattered brown robes on, revealing way too much skin.
Her ears were pointy and she was just a little taller than Vanagloria. She looked like she was in her late teens, maybe just a year younger than Vanagloria.
An elf.
An abandoned one at that.
Vanagloria didn't even think that elves lived in the wildlands of Alfheim, they should all be in the cold ice land that is the wildlands of Niflheim.
The elf very slowly reached out her hand again. Despite looking homeless, her arm actually looked very fit. Maybe this was just typical for elves, they are supposed to be slightly more powerful than humans.
She was very pretty.
The elf girl had the bright horizon of the midday dragon valley behind her.
The light must've been really complimenting her looks because Vanagloria felt really attracted to her right now.
She knew she preferred guys, but there was always that little bit of gayness that was showing itself in full effect right now.
The elf girl's hand brushed up against her cheek, gently holding it as she started to close the gap between them.
She had a curious and almost scared look to her face as she got closer.
She was getting way too close. The elf girls eyes started to close as she got close enough for Vanagloria to smell her extremely perfumy breath.
"Is she trying to kiss me?"
Vanagloria started to panic realizing she was about to get kissed.
She would've never thought she would actually kiss a girl, much less a very pretty…
elf girl…
she randomly found…
'BOOM'
Vanagloria immediately bolted out of the way, heart still racing as the realization hit her.
This was no innocent elf girl.
The nymph stood completely still, staring at the tree tag Vanagloria used to stand in front of.
Vanagloria had bolted a few feet behind her, not able to see her face.
Where was Martyr?
Where was that stupid forest champion?
Vanagloria was still against that same tree she had slept in, but the two were missing from the places they fell asleep in.
"Did they leave without me?"
They really were nowhere to be seen.
Maybe that champion was also a nymph this whole time, seducing Martyr so she could kill him and Vanagloria was supposed to save him and be his knight in shining armor.
But there was no hero for her.
It looked like she was gonna have to battle this beast herself.
Vanagloria watched as the nymph's head slowly turned around, revealing its new ugly, distorted face that had been covered through its seduction magic ability.
Now that Vanagloria wasn't attracted to it anymore, she could see it in its true colors.
The elf… the nymph almost looked like a zombie, tattered brown clothes revealing too much of its grey loose skin. It's face was all distorted and grimy.
Vanagloria wanted to throw up, there was no way this thing had just gotten that close to kissing her.
Nymph's actually did kiss, it was supposed to be pleasant at first to trick the victim from noticing the nymph eating their entire head whole.
It gave her goosebumps.
In anger Vanagloria started picking up rocks around her, as much as she could before the nymph started attacking her.
Then without warning the nymph charged at Vanagloria full speed with a loud "gggggraauuwwwwr."
Vanagloria sidestepped the monster and grabbed its mushy arm with her free hand.
Using all her strength she pulled on it, skin peeling off the monster. She spun around in a circle and chucked it down the valley mountain, to send it tumbling down.
Vanagloria wiped zombie skin off her hands as she watched the nymph cartoonishly fall down the cliff, landing on a flat edge.
Still alive, the nymph slowly got back up and started sluggishly marching towards Vanagloria again.
Then Vanagloria heard more rustling coming from behind her.
Out of the greenery of the forest, more zombie-like elves came from the forest. A whole pack of them.
The female seduction zombies were groaning as they started slowly walking towards Vanagloria.
All with the intent of killing her.
This is it.
This is her first true battle to the death.
Vanagloria could feel the lightning coursing around her, as adrenaline rushed through her body, looking down on her inferior opponent.
It was picking up speed, tripping and stumbling as it broke out into a run.
She was getting corned by the nymphs.
She had to do this quickly.
Vanagloria then let out a handful of stones at the group approaching her from the forest, blowing up in electricity as they hit the ground in front of them.
Winding up her last stone, she jumped down into the fast decline of the mountain.
As Vanagloria skidded down the cliff, she whipped the sharp rock right into the nymphs ugly face, exploding in bloody gore.
These rocks were gonna end up being extremely useful.
Vanagloria started to panic as her skidding started picking up speed.
She had no control in her descent.
She couldn't go back up to the cliffside crowded by nymphs. Despite the weakness of the monsters, Vanagloria didn't want to risk going up against a group of the soul snatching gremlins.
She had no choice but to accept her descent into the Draconic Rainforest.
Her hand got scratched and picked at by the hard limestone cliff. She was holding onto her balance with a thread.
If she hit one wrong stone or edge Vanagloria was done for.
She was absolutely terrified right now.
As the angle of the cliff started to lessen, Vanagloria broke out into a run, trying to control that momentum about to kill her.
Her run turned into an all out sprint, her strides bigger than ever.
The satchel was pulling her back, helping her from falling completely on her face.
Then she hit one.
Her shoe caught on a stone, a relentless stone wall slammed her face not long after.
In seconds she was in a full tumble down the hill, pain flaming up in every part of her body she could think of.
The hard stone quickly turned to soft grass, followed by her stop being halted by the hard wood of a tree.
"Everything hurts."
Dirt was clinging to her hair, stone chips lodged in her skin and new bruises were making their presence be known.
Vanagloria laid on the ground in her pain for minutes, not wanting to move.
She had been in some pretty serious battles for school, but nobody's punches and kicks compared to the great unforgiving mountain.
"Get off the ground." Vanagloria told herself, pushing through the pain to shove herself off the ground.
Something she told herself whenever she felt like giving up in a fight. Whenever she was at her lowest.
Using the lightning still sparking around her she poked off shards of stone out of her skin.
She was really getting used to her lightning, it felt like she had almost full control over it. In a moment like this where she was dead tired, she could almost use it as a third arm that didn't get tired.
It was wildly helpful and was definitely gonna be her key to survival.
"Can't help my hunger though." Vanagloria's stomach let out a big growl, yelling at her to eat something.
The ground was rumbling too, shaking with each massive step.
Vanagloria looked around the tree to see a big red dragon who came over to investigate what was going on.
Four legs, two wings, a true dragon.
It looked young, maybe only a few years old. Probably not much more intelligent than the average pre-teen.
It didn't stop it from being absolutely massive though. It's head had to be lowered down so it could see under the leaves in the trees.
Vanagloria backed up against the tree again before she could be seen.
There was noooo way she was beating this. Getting through that thick scarlet armor was gonna be tough, even with her lightning.
It just was a matter of time before the dragon saw her.
"No. I can do this."
"I just gotta think of a way out of this."
Vanagloria frantically searched her mind for a solution.
Any peice of knowledge she could use to her benefit. Anything from studying dragons all these years. Any sort of weak spot…
"I got it!"
'BOOM'
Vanagloria bolted out into the clearing of the forest where the dragon roamed.
He had cleared out a little clearing by knocking over trees, surrounding the field with logs like they represented the outskirts of the battlefield.
The dragon got scared by the sudden noise, his wings shooting out as his head whipped around.
The wings hit nearby trees, clearly not used to its insane size.
Vanagloria felt bad, but she had to do something about him so he wouldn't start chasing her through the forest.
As soon as he caught a glance of Vanagloria he jumped up, landing in a forward facing position towards her.
His wings spread out, clearly trying to look bigger than he actually was. He got into a pouncing position like he was a giant cat, his black claws digging into the soft dirt ground. His red devil's tail flicked around behind him, showing off its black point.
Smoke blowed out of its noise, hitting the ground a few feet in front of Vanagloria, clouding her vision of him a bit.
It looked like something he had practiced, like it had been waiting for this moment to finally prove itself.
It's a good thing he was up against somebody who felt the same.
The red dragon's mouth opened, lighting up with bright orange in the back of his throat.
Not wasting a second of her chance, Vanagloria instantly shot up a giant bolt of lightning into the beast's gaping mouth.
It exploded in a bright show of sparks, crackling through the roof of his mouth.
The dragon whelped and spat out the sparks, clearly in a lot of pain. He was trying to use its paw to wipe it out but just ended up scratching its own face.
After a moment of trying to get rid of the pain, he ran up to Vanagloria in a fit of rage, swiping at her with his paw.
She dodged by weaving through his legs, nearly getting stepped on as the dragon ran over her.
Vanagloria turned her head around to see the dragon already powering up a flame in its mouth.
Vanagloria jumped over, barely dodging the wave of flames coming right at her.
A bit of it hit her leg, but surprisingly didn't hurt as much as she remembered getting blasted by fire feeling. Although, It didn't stop it from stinging.
She scrambled to get back up, only to be hit by his tail, sending her flying back in the dirt.
Shaking dirt off her face, Vanagloria looked back up to see the dragon's mouth lighting up again, keeping its distance.
Vanagloria grabbed a rock the size of her hand and…
'BOOM'
As fire flew by her, Vanagloria used a wild underhand throw to hurl the electric rock right into its gullet she had teleported below, cutting through the fire and the flames he was spewing out.
Clunking on the roof of his mouth, it blows up once more, sending shards of stone into all over its mouth.
With one giant scream-roar, the dragon's wings spread out and start beating hard, hitting Vanagloria with a mouthful of dusty air.
Frantically the dragon ascends into the air and flies away, whining like the loser it is.
"I should call him Charles. No! I should call him Clifford. Charles is his last name." Vanagloria thought as he flew away.
Vanagloria laughed. "I wonder if normal people think of dumb stuff like that in a fight."
She kind of felt bad for Clifford.
The adrenaline of the fight faded away once she saw the shards of stone go all over his mouth.
Vanagloria didn't want that to happen to her, that would suck.
Plus this guy looked like he was only 2 or 3 years old.
Nonetheless…
"I just beat a dragon!" Vanagloria celebrated all by herself.
Her first real fight as a soon to be hero.
"Er… I guess my first was the creepy nymphs. Hmm… Nah! Nobody has to know that."
Vanagloria then noticed the big dinosaur footprints Clifford left behind.
They led all the way over to a small hill, with a cave carved out of the side.
Jogging over as sneakily and quietly as she could, Vanagloria took a peek into the cave.
From as far as she could see into the cave it looked empty, Clifford hadn't flown back to this cave, so hopefully the rest of his family shouldn't be in it.
Creeping inside, Vanagloria noticed a small red spark coming from a corner of the cave.
Not a creature, but a single scale from Clifford.
Vanagloria picked it up and instantly compared it to her forearm.
It wasn't nearly big enough to be a shield, small enough to fit in her palm.
"Must be a pretty big dragon." She thought, trying to remember the size of the gold shield she wore in her vision.
The things she saw had been living rent free in her mind ever since it happened.
Flugel, Blair, Martyr, the misty people. They all looked way too familiar.
Everything about that was giving her a painful amount of deja vu.
Like it had happened before.
But they all looked older, and everything happening in there definitely hadn't happened, yet.
Maybe it was a vision of the future.
If so then why did she get it?
Why not anyone else?
Even Blair didn't see it, and she was the one who triggered the dream.
And she couldn't really talk about it much because she didn't want to scare everyone with Flugel.
If they knew that Flugel was involved in all of this, who knew how much of a panic that would set off.
Vanagloria herself couldn't help but panic, thinking about it.
She hated lying. Vanagloria prided herself in how truthful she was, but this was too big of a truth to tell.
Thankfully Martyr didn't really push her on the vision.
The guy seemed to understand a lot about ADHD. On their long two day walk Vanagloria had spent hours pondering on this and Martyr just let her think to herself in silence.
Sure, they talked most of the time. Vanagloria liked talking to him a lot so of course she was going too. She learned that he was turning 21 in a few days and that he had like a billion younger siblings.
But it was nice that he let her zone out every once and a while.
Vanagloria liked when somebody could just enjoy her company and not have to make dumb small talk to fill in the silence.
But she wanted to tell him about her vision.
She felt like he was mature enough to help her handle the situation.
But then she heard him mention to Vega how his dad died…
She didn't want to bring up that painful thought. She didn't want to make him sad.
But now he had left her.
"Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it's because I'm too weak."
Martyr had already told her she couldn't fight in the forest. Him and Vega probably came to an agreement to leave her in the safer wildlands so the two of them could train together.
"If only Blair we're here."
She needed to talk to Blair about this.
Blair had literally been the Oracle to the prophecy, she had to be thinking about it nonstop like her.
They were all probably thinking about it.
But of course the forest champion had to go and dump Blair off miles away from where Vanagloria was.
And now Vega had taken Martyr and run off with him somewhere, leaving Vanagloria alone in this damp empty cave, shoving the scale of a monster she just beat into her satchel.
Vanagloria decided this was gonna be where she stayed for right now to heal herself, leaning up against the back most wall of the cave and putting her satchel down.
Maybe she could find out how to use her light powers so she could self heal.
Or maybe she would just accidentally blast the ground again and probably alarm some sleeping beast in the general area.
It wasn't a deep or dark enough cave to scare her, but enough that she could stay without getting bothered by the outside.
Vanagloria was just tired anyways from using up so much lightning. Plus she was still hungry and in pain.
Maybe she just needed another nap…
Which is exactly what Vanagloria did.
…
She woke up to almost complete darkness.
The light of midday had stopped creeping into the tunnel and the only light she could see was coming from in her satchel.
No…
There was something on her satchel…
Vanagloria tried her best not to jump and scream as she looked down to see a tiny glowing yellow lizard at her side.
But of course, this was no lizard.
This was a wyvern.
More specifically…
a lightning wyvern.