Bellona found herself in a deep rest, experiencing a dream of walking around in a dark expanse as she slept. There was no way to truly understand how much time had passed, but Bellona knew that it couldn't be too long.
"I mean, I didn't use that much energy, right?"
She spoke aloud into the darkness, attempting to justify reasons for why she couldn't be asleep for long.
"I got a good amount of sleep and a good amount of healthy food. So it really can't be too long."
Feeling slightly satisfied, she decided to explore the black abyss she was wandering in. Taking a single step, Bellona felt her foot touching cold concrete, or some other hard and cold material.
Bellona then realized that she had no shoes on.
"It's cold..."
Bellona decided to look at her attire, seeing it important that she knew what she was wearing. Looking down, she found herself in a long white silk dress, and in her hand was a pair of sandals.
The sandals were certainly archaic in design, the sandals had several strips of leather to keep the feed bound to them. The leather strips also extended upward and held a band of gold, it was at this moment that Bellona realized that she wasn't wearing a dress, rather, a toga.
There was a dim light surrounding Bellona in a halo, thus allowing her sight.
Bellona stopped in her tracks, leaning down to put her sandals on each foot. As she leaned down, she felt dull aches around her body, slowly becoming aware of her situation.
"Oh yeah, I was helping the others out."
Her eyes widened somewhat in true realization.
"Oh yeah! Hilia put me to sleep or something!"
She then felt slightly bitter at the help she received, her face growing slightly somber.
"I would've been fine, y'know?"
The void did not answer her statement.
"Anyways, where the hell am I?"
Once again, the void did not answer her statement. Bellona didn't find anything of the lack of answer and began walking. As she walked, she thought.
'What a weird dream. What kind of future is this?'
Bellona had always had dreams related to her future in some capacity. However, the truthfulness of the events that transpired in those dreams wasn't very trustworthy.
Just as she dreamt of her own death in the morning, she didn't know of its validity.
'Am I going to be trapped in some sort of void dimension or something?'
Bellona didn't entertain any more questions regarding her future that was well off into the future, finding her aching and dull pulses of pain slowly fading as she walked.
'Huh, Hilia knows her stuff.'
As she had done earlier, she decided to ignore the pain, finding solace in her empty mind.
"It's a shame that there's nothing around!"
Bellona spoke aloud in a sarcastic tone as if attempting to lure out a surprise of sorts. In reply, the voice of a middle-aged woman echoed from the darkness.
[That it is.]
Startled, Bellona yelped and took three quick steps backward.
"Who are you!?"
[You don't need to worry, brat, I'm not dangerous.]
Bellona overcame her shock and realized that she was just insulted, with an angry expression, she replied.
"Who the hell are you calling brat?!"
The disembodied voice chuckled and answered with a tone of confidence.
[You, brat! Now calm down, we have something to do.]
Bellona scoffed at the voice and folded her arms in protest, not even entertaining conversation.
'My ego is completely fine.'
The voice then changed its tune and song.
[Oh please, Bellona, I'll stop calling you 'brat,' okay?]
Bellona then voiced her mind.
"Alrighty, hag, who the hell are you?"
The voice coughed violently as if caught off-guard.
[I-I'm nobody, don't worry about me. I need you to do something.]
Bellona nodded cautiously before continuing the two's conversation.
"Alrighty, what do you need me to do?"
The voice recovered from its momentary distraction before replying.
[You have a dagger somewhere on you, I need you to draw blood. Your blood.]
Bellona looked beside her, as if looking at an invisible camera and rotated her finger around her ear. Her expression was humorous and screamed the words "You hear this lady? She's nuts!" to the world. Even if that world was full of nothingness.
The voice continued.
[You're in a coma, and your friends are currently fighting a dragon, if you want to help, then draw.]
Bellona's expression turned from humor to confusion, to anger.
"Hey! They're fine! What the hell do you mean they're in danger?!"
The voice let Bellona continue a stream of profanities before interrupting the young and brash girl.
[Right after you passed out, you were carried to the edge, and the dragon perched onto the car. Your friends are barely hanging on, draw your blood, and shake my hand.]
A smooth hand with ivory skin appeared from the veil of darkness surrounding Bellona, bringing her shock.
[Draw.]
Bellona was slowly getting convinced by the woman's words and found a small, bronze dagger somewhere in the folds of her toga.
Bellona's mind was wondering one thing.
'Is she trustworthy?'
The voice no longer said anything, just the hand expecting to be shaken.
She felt sweat growing on her brow despite the cold, and goosebumps formed, but from nervousness.
Bellona grasped the dagger in her left hand and put her right palm to it, slicing her flesh and drawing blood.
The only sounds in the void were the sound of flesh being severed and the sound of dripping blood echoing.
Bellona thought to herself once more.
'Are they my friends? I just met them an hour ago!'
She shook her head.
'Of course they are, I was fighting with them. That's good enough.'
Bellona took a deep breath and clasped her bleeding palm with her outstretched arm.
A white flame erupted in a circle around the two, and dancing flames of various colors started emerging at the tips of the whipping whirlwind of fire.
Bellona looked into the eyes of a woman clad in armor, except for the right arm she shook. The woman had long, scarlet hair, piercing emerald eyes, and a set of freckles resting on her face.
An aquamarine cape contrasted the long, luscious, and curly scarlet hair cascading down the woman's armored back.
Her skin was smooth and her concealed figure was formed from the heavens themselves. This knight's beauty was unmatched in the world, and Bellona would argue that the knight's beauty was unmatched in the universe.
Bellona finally heard her voice echo around, slightly different now that the two were next to each other.
With a smile that would charm even the most pious of men, the woman spoke with a voice that would bring those pious men to their knees.
"Thank you for making a contract with yourself, Sinner."
***
The New York Supermetropolis was bathing in the warm, golden sunlight, bolstering the physical and mental forms of the inhabitants of the city. Atop the hundred-meter-tall reinforced concrete wall was a railway, and on that railway was a bullet train with cars the size of houses.
On the rooftop of one of these house-sized train cars, a dragon roared. The dragon was at least twenty feet tall, with four wings on its blue-scaled back and a set of legs and arms.
Despite its horror, the majestic creature of myth seemed to be missing its tail. Speaking of its tail, the dragon just got whipped with it, causing another roar in rage.
Teacher Brutus had hauled the tail of the monstrous creature standing before it and whipped the damnable thing with its own limb. After attacking the dragon with its own tail, he exclaimed to himself, the students behind him, and the dragon.
"This is awesome!"
Teacher Brutus had left the bastard champion of the pale moon to the other four teachers on the bullet train, choosing to fight the dragon on his own. For the record, Teacher Brutus was having the time of his life.
But all good things must come to an end, and the fun he was having would have to be one such good thing coming to an end.
With a sigh, Teacher Brutus launched himself forward, dodging to the side of a ferocious beam of pure heat. He ducked under the wild swings of an uneducated animal and launched an uppercut that connected with the dragon's jaw.
A few meters back, Torm was in shock, he turned to his brother Jude and exclaimed:
"He's fighting a dragon! With its tail!"
Jude was in a similar state of shock, and a large remainder of the group of students were sitting on the edge of the train car's roof.
But there were three students who weren't resting and watching the fight.
Hilia was using her Shard to heal others while maintaining consciousness from the sheer fatigue that she was feeling. Strella was aiding those who Hilia healed, strapping proper bandages after peeling away the patchwork solutions meant to keep them alive for a minute or two more.
Finally, there was a boy with shoulder-length brown hair split down the middle putting the injured to sleep.
The three worked diligently and without pause, there were at least twenty students with severe burns from being near the dragon's attacks. Luckily, and by luckily, Hilia would mean miraculously, not a single soul was lost in the invasion of the Pale Moon's Champion or the flames of the dragon.
All Hilia could thank was the fact that Bellona was still asleep. A hunch deep down in her bones said that Bellona would instantly charge toward the dragon while bleeding from every orifice.
Hilia heard the roar of the dragon once more and thanked Teacher Brutus for coming when he did. Hilia finally finished tending to the wounded while Strella started bandaging the rest and the other guy was putting them to sleep.
Hilia stood up and walked to the boy.
"By the way, what's your name?"
The boy spoke up, his face somewhat charming, and his smile quite dazzling.
"I'm Gabriel, call me Gabe."
He extended his hand after putting another student to sleep.
"I'm Hilia."
In the distance, the three students heard some sounds come from both the crowd watching Teacher Brutus fight the dragon as well as the dragon itself.
The three looked towards the commotion and saw Bellona Finley properly mounted on the dragon's head with a spear skewering the thing's mouth shut.
Hilia whipped her head to where Bellona was supposed to be resting to not find her at all.
***
Bellona found consciousness entered her mind quickly and without fail. Groggily, she opened her eyes and had to close them just as quickly, because the golden sun was shining directly into them.
"Sinner..."
The last word coming from the armored, older, and much more beautiful version of herself repeated in Bellona's mind.
'What the hell does that even mean?'
She didn't bother to come up with any questions regarding the strange dream she had just gone through.
'Did I actually just sign a contract or was that part of the dream? How close am I to signing a contract with myself?'
Bellona chose to ignore her questions and get up, however wearily she did.
But there was one amazing thing that happened, she wasn't weary!
A small, insignificant dull ache plagued the gash on her shin from earlier, but otherwise, she was in tip-top shape!
Bellona jumped twice as if she were using a jump rope and thought to herself with the giddiness of a child.
'This is so awesome.'
Bellona reminded herself to thank Hilia after all of this and looked around. Hilia, Strella, and some guy were hunched over some students on the other side of the rooftop, the rest of the students were on the other edge fighting a dragon...
'Wait, what?!'
Bellona's seemingly older incarnation wasn't lying to her from her dream.
With her heartbeat already on the rise, Bellona started walking towards the group fighting the dragon with a smile on her face.
After a minute of walking, all the while hyping herself up for a fight against a creature of myth, Bellona finally reached the Eriksons, Mona, and the twin brothers.
"How are you all holding up?"
Bellona spoke above the winds, catching the attention of half of her friends.
Mona turned around and with a strained smile greeted Bellona.
"Hi, Bellona! We're doing good over here!"
Pyralis greeted Bellona as well but with a slightly exasperated tone.
"We're doing awesome, but we'd be doing even more awesome with your help!"
Bellona looked up at the dragon and found it to be quite restrained as it fought Teacher Brutus. Its movements were slow, sluggish, and restrained by several strings of different lights.
'Hmm, alright.'
Bellona wordlessly activated Creation and summoned a sword before deactivating her ability.
'It'd be better if I didn't have them activated, at least not until I'm properly trained.'
She looked for a weak spot before giving up and asking the others.
"Any weak points or anything? Or am I just going to have to go for the eyes?"
Michael looked towards Bellona with a toothy smile.
"I like the way you think, but no, its underbelly has no scales."
Bellona slightly flushed at her silliness before shaking her head in agreement.
"Yeah, I knew that."
Michael chuckled before he said.
"Now's our chance!"
The dragon had looked up in the air to release its flames for some reason, and Michael turned teal before appearing and disappearing several times.
It looked like it was time to hunt a dragon.