The Odd Dragon Out: Reckoning of the Cinder-Born

Suffocating fear couldn't have possessed Ginger to stand still as the bloated blanket of blaze galloped his way, its intent to drown him and the other Blighted on full display. The heat was immense, and to Ginger, giving that kind of praise to fire before it even so much as singed him was not a good sign.

Thinking quickly, Ginger turned his back to the fierce conflagration, knelt down, and plunged his head to the ground with the sleeves of his Light Gear covering it.

The moment he felt his forehead knock on the floor, the fire devoured him. He felt its fury heat him up as though he was in a microwave.

While such an analogy would have been foreign to the plump dragonling, that was exactly how he felt. He wasn't burned to a crisp – just as he had hoped – but the stifling heat was unbearable. Ginger's already sweaty body sweated some more and dried off, and then his skin started feeling as though thousands of ants with red-hot feet were walking all over him, slowly cooking him to perfection.

Ginger grit his teeth and took short, rapid breaths.

The air seemed to grow thin. A tug of war for it began between his lungs and the torrent of flame which had a sickening, coal-like smell to it. Somehow, a dancing purple smoke was mixed in with the fire, or perhaps it was the flame's inherent trait. Whichever it was, Ginger didn't and couldn't afford to care.

The blast of fire began to let up.

'The Light Gear held!' Ginger thought joyfully.

He noticed this because the hoarse noise that accompanied the jet of fire was dying, and the agitating sensation on his skin lessened.

In the next moment, Ginger shot forward, creating more distance between himself and where he assumed the large Blighted had been.

He only turned after striding for four hot seconds and then came to a stop.

The largest green Blighted looked at him with even more hatred than before. The dying tongues of flame in its mouth not only signaled its disappointment in its failure to get rid of Ginger in one blast of fire breath… but also its devotion to default means of carnage.

The creature lunged after its target, its steps booming across the floor.

'Why me?! What did I ever do to you?' Ginger thought, thoroughly confused and shaken. This was bizarre.

Why was he being singled out?

Surely Alcaeus was a worse person than he was.

The Blighted Ginger had stabbed in the eye was, much like him, mostly unharmed after being included in the blast. It pushed against the wall and dropped as its elder passed, charging menacingly.

Ginger gnashed his teeth.

'I need to finish that one off, but with this big one in the way…' he grumbled.

His approaching enemy seemed to fill the entire path through the chamber. Ginger was almost disallowed from seeing the other injured Blighted. Well, almost.

There was space enough, at least in the next three seconds, for Ginger to view a harrowing scene.

Alcaeus lunged at the one-eyed Blighted and sank his saber into its other eye!

"No!" Ginger screamed, and so did his former prey.

The Blighted convulsed horrifically as Alcaeus' saber sank to the hilt in its eye. While showing signs of fright and thrill, the Doukas boy turned to Ginger and gave him a mocking grin just before the larger Blighted blocked their view of each other.

Ginger was enraged.

His hands quivered.

His kill had just been stolen!

That bastard! What about the Blighted he had been fighting? Had he already finished it off or did he just decide to ride off the coattails of his work?!

This was uncalled for!

Unfortunately, Ginger didn't have the luxury of throwing a tantrum. His enemy arrived in an unstoppable charge and swung its claws down at him.

Ginger turned a little pale, but he managed to dive out of the way and roll over to the wall. As soon as he found some semblance of stability, he saw a dark maw with double rows of sharp, yellowish fangs soaked in organic grime push towards him!

Quickly – and rather carelessly – Ginger mobilized his Kardia and had it pool in one of his legs, which he then used to jump out of the way right before the wall that had been behind him exploded and caved in. The force of the large Blighted's ram-bite was incredibly fierce.

Unfortunately for Ginger, since the larger Blighted was so large and wide, he hadn't exactly escaped. Now, he was trapped between the edge of its scaled belly and its snout, embedded into the wall!

Ginger's hearts beat like a drum.

He had made a mistake.

He should have jumped the other way!

'Shunting Shamans!' Ginger cried inward, sweat drowning the details of his face. What was he going to do now? 'Think, think! There's a way out of this!'

The large eye of the great Blighted faintly illuminated Ginger's body. Its dark, slit-like pupil the size of Ginger's palm, constricted… and its maw, which slowly withdrew from the wall, lit up again.

Another jet of fire breath was coming!

Ginger's breaths hastened.

This was too close!

Would his Light Gear be able to withstand it?

And speaking of the Light Gear, Ginger caught his first glance of it since it endured the last flaming ordeal, and… it didn't look good. It was torn, burnt, and leaking small puffs of smoke. The uniform beneath it was already showing.

Even if his gear was able to persist again this time, Ginger didn't know if his face would survive.

The great Blighted turned its head, and its maw opened. There seemed to be hints of a smile on it. What predator wouldn't like to see cornered prey?

Ginger gritted his teeth. His first thought was to wonder what Ancor would do in this situation, which was valid. Ancor was able to live for so long because he knew how to think on his feet.

However, an answer only came to Ginger when he asked himself a different question.

'What else have I learned?' he thought as calmly as he could.

What had he learned in the last two Strides?

What had he learned since coming to Draggard-Phoenix Institute till today, here at the Beginner's Den?

'That's right!'

The plump dragonling felt not only his spirits rise, but his adrenaline as well.

What came to him was not the best answer, but it was a possible one.

He was just going to have to try, after all, this answer was what had made him smile when he looked at the globes Professor Lyall had summoned for light in the cavern using the ambient Mana Essence.

Ginger had felt that his Prime Instructor was reminding him and the others that there was enough Mana Essence here; that Kardia wasn't the only available resource – as obvious as that could have been.

Better yet, perhaps she was encouraging them to go crazy with it, rather than using it conventionally.

Perhaps that applied more to Ginger than anyone else!

A sweltering heat came like a gust from Ginger's right. There was little time!

The plump dragonling closed his eyes.

He brought his hands together.

His first lesson with Professor Hennigar – the Mana Essence Mechanisms and Manipulation instructor – flowed through his mind.

What had the Dujka been trying to teach them that day again?

Oh, that's right!

Right when flames gushed from the Blighted's maw, Ginger felt the Mana Essence around him rush to him at his beckoning.

He held his finger out against the Blighted's maw right as the flames flooded towards him…and a piercing glow emerged at its tip.

Rather than just a glow, perhaps it was more apt to say the light was jarring and intense. When it appeared, the darkness within the chamber was discarded, and the brightness of the flames was overshadowed!

The golden flare on Ginger's finger was just too radiant, so radiant that the great Blighted he was faced against turned its head, its eye closing shut. It grumbled, its maw closing!

Yes! It had worked!

Ginger was surprised that he had remembered this, but that day, when Professor Hennigar demonstrated this trick, he was the only one in class – excluding the Professor, who wasn't a Cinder-Born – to not be affected by the light entirely!

The plump dragonling credited this to his normal human eyes. Who knew this would come in handy?

Ginger wore a strange smile, born out of a mixture of joy and pain.

He had successfully warded off the Blighted's attack, but his hand had been burnt quite badly. It was discolored to a dark brown and black, sizzling quite a bit. As a result, his sharp, summoned light was short-lived.

"Urghh!" Ginger groaned, but he didn't remain in place.

Much like the smaller Blighted, this one had trouble moving laterally in the chamber because of its size.

It attempted to turn away while temporarily blinded, but it bumped against the walls instead.

'Now's my chance!' Ginger thought and he used the opening in its confusion-sponsored motion to slip between the wall and its wide side. He dodged its viciously wagging tail and ran past it.

As he raced forward, Ginger saw the corpse of the Blighted he had stabbed in the eye. As he thought, Alcaeus had killed it.

Ginger clicked his tongue and bit his upper lip, frustrated.

What about the other one?

He couldn't see very far after the exposure to the light but…

BAAAM!

Suddenly, the plump dragonling felt something strike him hard in the ribs.

Before he knew it, he flew in a weird spin and slammed hard against the wall!

The webs and pulses of pain from the right side of Ginger's chest undulated rhythmically, not to mention painfully.

For several moments, Ginger found it hard to breathe and he rolled on the floor with his eyes turning bloodshot.

What had hit him?

Why did it hurt so badly?

Was it the large Blighted's tail?

No, that couldn't be. It was still a distance away, trying to turn back.

So then…

Ginger heard hurried footsteps from the side moving towards him.

"Not so fast!" Alcaeus emerged from the darkness, an insufferable look of triumph on his face.

Ginger's eyes popped in shock.

What?

"You…" he began, but stopped. There was a lot he wanted to say to this pompous dragonling, but it was all drowned by how his presence had suddenly changed.

Alcaeus had an odd pressure about him, one which hadn't been there four minutes ago. Somehow, he was stronger. He felt so. Something oppressive freely wafted from his body like a harsh odor, pressing on Ginger.

The plump dragonling was stunned.

"I thought you would distract that thing for longer, but oh well…" Alcaeus said as he twirled his saber.