Dragon Conjurer, page 6
“Yeah, it’s kind of hard not to notice when people call attention to it wherever you go.” I rubbed my tattoo and felt the dragon squirm under my touch just a little.
“Of course, our goal wasn’t to single you out when we gave you the Red ranking,” Burkhard said while his brow came up and his smile faded. “However, we feel you are deserving of that rank because you are the only male Dragon Conjurer we have ever seen.”
“You mean in AIMM?” I asked.
“I mean in the whole world.” Burkhard stood up from his desk, and I realized he had to be almost six and a half feet tall. “After the rediscovery of magic, five world powers founded Academies of Magic, schools and training facilities meant to locate, train, and contain all known magic users in the world. You know of AIMM, the Americas sector of the Academies of Magic. The other four are in France, Japan, Egypt, and Russia. France’s school represents the European Union, Japan takes any magic users from Korea, China, Thailand, and the island nations in Polynesia, Egypt is the African sector, and Russia… well, they take what they can get. Those Eastern Europeans are a scrappy bunch.”
“I guess those students don’t have a choice on which Academy they attend?” I pulled one side of my mouth into a flat line and cocked one eyebrow. “It’s based on where they’re born?”
“Or who discovers them first,” Burkhard said, “although most of the magic users are easy to locate, and the news doesn’t travel to the other Academies until it’s too late. There have been cases of students being recruited by Academies outside of their home nation, but those cases are rare.”
“What did you mean by ‘contain magic users?’” I furrowed my brow and turned the other side of my lip down. “Are we prisoners?”
“Anything but, Mr. Cooper.” Burkhard came around to the other side of his desk and leaned against it. “You aren’t prisoners here, but this is more of your sanctuary from the outside world. You’ve seen how awful things can be when people encounter something out of the ordinary. Imagine if someone knew you could summon dragons, and they didn’t think it was fair you had said ability and they did not. Would they treat you fairly?”
“Probably not,” I said and looked down at my lap. “People can be cruel.”
“Yes, they can,” Burkhard sighed. “So, it’s our goal to protect you from the outside world, but in return, you will protect the outside world from discovering the truth about magic and monsters. I know it sounds strange to want to protect those who would just as soon hurt or even kill you for being different, but--”
“Well, it’s kind of like the X-Men, right?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Protect the ones who hate and fear you? That sort of thing?”
“I suppose.” The bulky man in front of me gave a wry chuckle and dropped his shoulders a little bit. “There is an advantage to protecting this secret from the world, though. By stopping the monsters, we keep the world from learning about what it is we do.”
“Protecting the people means protecting us,” I said. “Right?”
“Exactly right, Mr. Cooper,” Burkhard replied with a snap of his fingers and a grin.
“How do we stop the monsters from being seen, though?” I sat up straighter in my seat and looked down at the dragon on my arm. “Do we just have to patrol every alleyway of the world?”
“What you saw was only one aspect of protecting this secret,” Burkhard said as he walked away from the desk and toward the other side of the room.
I turned and watched as he stepped up to a blank wall and pressed a panel until a display popped out. On the lit screen was a graph of different monsters, with percentages next to each of them and tiny words I couldn’t read from this distance.
“Whoa…” I breathed.
“As you can see,” Burkhard continued, “there are a lot of different monsters out there, but those that exist are usually isolated to their own regions. There are some that cross oceans and borders, but they usually follow the people whose cultures once had superstitions of them. For example, vampires are usually isolated to old Transylvania, where the legends first started. You as an anthropology student already knew that, yes?”
“Yeah, I kind of did.” I nodded.
“Well, when the people of Transylvania migrated further into Western Europe, and eventually into New England, the vampires came with them.”
“That’s kind of neat, but I don’t remember there being a troll legend that made it all the way to America.” I frowned and crossed my arms. “I saw the men in the alleyway fighting with a fire imp and a troll.”
“As I said, there are exceptions to every rule.” Burkhard turned away from the display and faced me again. “Think about the disasters we have endured over the years. All of them are perpetrated by monsters.”
“Wait,” I said and shook my head. “Are you telling me every natural disaster has been caused by monsters?”
“Correct.” The headmaster nodded.
“So, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami?” I stood up from my seat and started to walk closer to see the display better.
“Two kinds of monsters, yes.” Burkhard nodded again. “Trolls and sea snakes were the cause of that disaster.”
“Wildfires?” My eyes grew wide.
“Started by imps or fire sprites.” The other man pointed to a picture of the fires that had destroyed parts of California.
“Hurricanes?” I murmured and tried to come to terms with what I was hearing.
“Monsters, yes.” Burkhard motioned back toward the chair. “Let’s go sit down and continue our discussion. You seem like you might need a seat.”
“Yeah, I think I do,” I muttered as we walked back to the desk and chair. “Are you going to tell me gremlins had a part in the last election? They fucked up the voting machines or something?”
“No, gremlins don’t do that,” he chuckled and sat back down behind his desk. “Monsters are usually confined to messing with nature and individuals. They have more power there.”
“I guess that makes sense.” I sat down in the chair and stared at the floor for a moment. “Sorry, I just need to take a second to catch my breath.”
“I know, it’s a lot of information to throw at you,” Burkhard said, “but we’ve found it’s the best way to break in our new recruits. It helps us see if you’ve got what it takes, though it takes a lot to be the only male Dragon Conjurer in the world.”
“You keep saying ‘male’ Dragon Conjurer,” I said after staying silent for a moment, and then I looked back up at the headmaster. “Is there a female Conjurer out there somewhere?”
“Yes, but we don’t have her,” he growled and pursed his lips. “She’s a member of Russia’s Academy, and she has a couple years of experience at this point. According to rumors, she is the most powerful magic user in the world.”
“Rumors?” I cocked my head. “Don’t the Academies get along?”
“No, and we never have.” Burkhard shook his head and placed his hands on the top of his desk again. “Think of the Academies as the world powers during the Cold War. We don’t actively fight against them, but we fear the others gaining too much power and overthrowing the rest of us.”
“But won’t having me around make them think we’re getting too powerful?” I looked down at the dragon tattoo and tried not to wonder too much about what the future would have in store for me. I was still trying to figure all of this out, after all.
“Don’t concern yourself with the Academies’ politics,” Burkhard said as he cleared his throat. “Your main concern right now should be to get settled in, get comfortable with your team, and train. You’ll be starting from scratch, but if my guards are to be believed, you are already proficient with some fighting techniques.”
“That was all adrenaline, sir,” I admitted with a slight grin.
“Don’t be so modest, Mr. Cooper,” the headmaster replied, and I looked up again to see Burkhard steeple his fingers as he fixed me with a steely gaze. “Do you have any more questions?”
“Just one.” I sat up and flashed my tattoo at him. “Where do the dragons come from?”
“I wish I had an answer to that question, Mr. Cooper,” Burkhard sighed, “but no one knows. We knew of their existence before the female Conjurer arrived in Russia’s Academy, but we’ve never been able to study one up close.”
“Are you going to take him from me?” I dropped my sleeve and started to get up. “Because I don’t think that’ll go over too well.”
“Oh, Dr. Hastings already informed me your dragon has a defense mechanism.” He smiled and shook his head. “We will only be observing him from a distance, while you’re training with your team, perhaps.”
“Then I have no more questions.” I stood up and backed away from the chair. “May I go now?”
“Yes, you may,” he said as he got up from his desk. “The guards will escort you to your dorm. Once again, welcome to AIMM, Mr. Cooper.”
“Thank you, Headmaster,” I murmured as I walked to the door and pushed it open.
The guards escorted me back through the empty halls and toward my room, and as we strolled, I thought about how I hadn’t seen anyone in these halls since I was assigned my new dorm. Other than Carrottop and Point Break earlier, the only other cadets I’d seen inside were my teammates. This complex was huge, so where was everyone who needed to fill it?
Before I knew it, we were riding the elevator back to the dorm, and the guards left me outside the door before they spun around on their heels and left.
“Hey, I’m back,” I called out as I walked through my room and into the common area. “Everyone still here?”
Nick and Nala looked up from their game on the console and grinned at me. Steffi was sitting on the couch with a book in her hands, but she glanced up when I spoke, and she smiled that perfect smile that made my stomach tie itself into knots.
Damn. Both of these women were hot, but the pixie-girl was really doing a number on me.
“You’re still in one piece!” Nick said as he put down the controller and beckoned me over to one of the beanbags next to them. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my brain has been scraped clean,” I groaned, and I plopped down onto the beanbag and reached for the controller Nick held out to me. “Thanks. What’re we playing?”
“Mortal Kombat,” Nala said while she exited out of the pause menu and went back to the character selection screen. “Ever play?”
“I tried it a couple times with some of my old classmates.” I moved the joystick around to look at each unrealistically large breasted woman in the game, but it wasn’t like I intended to do it. I just got caught up in the jiggle physics and how amazing the graphics were.
“I mean, it’s pretty straightforward,” Nick said as he snickered under his breath, and I wondered if he noticed what I was doing. “Punch, punch, kick, use combo, then dominate your opponent.”
“Sounds easy enough.” I got ready for the match to start, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t be too smart to underestimate Nala. The stance she took in her beanbag made me think she was a hardcore player who wouldn’t tolerate getting beaten in a video game.
Which was kinda hot.
“So, what did you ask the headmaster?” Steffi asked as I heard her close her book and get off the couch.
“I didn’t ask him much,” I muttered as I started to go with my strategy for these kinds of games: button mash. “I mean, I guess I did, but I feel like I did very little talking.”
“That’s normal,” Nick said while he punched the air when Nala got a hit on my character. “Burkhard can be long winded, but he’s trying to help everyone understand why they’re here.”
“And what they can do for us once they get here,” Steffi added while she took a seat in the beanbag next to me. “Did he tell you how you’re the only Conjurer we’ve ever seen here at AIMM?”
“Yeah, he did, and he told me there’s only one other like me.” I pressed hard on the attack button and managed to charge up my combo so I could annihilate Nala’s character. “Yes!”
“Not bad, newbie,” Nala praised as she passed the controller over to Nick. “So, he told you about her? The other Conjurer?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t know much about her.” I shrugged. “Just that she was the first like me, and she’s gotten some experience with the dragon stuff since she was found a few years ago or something like that. He gave me a lot of information, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all.”
“How did you react to the ‘monsters are the center of all the natural disasters’ bit?” Nick asked while he selected his character--a girl who also had big titties--and started the next round. “I almost pissed myself when I found out the tornado that almost killed me and my family a few years back was caused by creatures that weren’t supposed to exist.”
“I guess I took it okay.” I shrugged. “It seems the least weird thing out of all of this, to be honest.”
“I think you have an advantage,” Nala said as I caught her crossing her supple legs out of the corner of my eye. “Being a folklore student and all. You have a basic understanding of what’s going on, which makes you pretty powerful around here.”
“Well, I don’t know much about dragons,” I said and breathed a sigh of relief when my character performed a fatality on Nick’s character. “There’s a lot of lore surrounding dragons, but each culture has their own version of them, so I don’t even know which side to believe.”
“Well, I don’t know if Burkhard told you,” Steffi spoke up while she laid a hand on my arm, and I had to fight the urge to shiver, “but we don’t know a lot about dragons, either. There’s a lot AIMM and the other Magic Academies still have to learn about the monsters and magic of the world.”
“Is that part of our job, too?” I looked at the television screen and sighed. “Field research and stuff like that?”
“Sort of,” Nick said while he flipped the TV off and plopped his beanbag down in front of mine. “Listen, Dylan, we’ve all been there before. We might not have dealt with it in the same way, but we’ve all had the same questions, the same fears, the same uncertainties.”
“You’re not alone in this,” Nala added with a grin and a cock of her head, and warmth bloomed in my chest. “Don’t feel like you are.”
“You don’t just have people who understand your fears about this new life,” Steffi said as she rose onto her knees and leaned closer to me. “We’re your team now. That means we’re your friends.”
“Wow,” I sighed and looked around the semicircle of new faces.
Steffi was right about us being friends, because I hadn’t even known these guys for very long, and I already felt a connection with them. I didn’t feel like I needed to know everything around them, since they already told me it was okay not to know everything about what was going on. It wasn’t like anyone else here knew what was going on when they came here. It was going to be a learning curve, just like it was when I left for UC Berkeley. I didn’t know anything about the school when I first got there, but I learned the ropes by the end of the first semester.
I could do the same thing here.
“What’s so ‘wow,’ man?” Nick asked as he frowned and furrowed his brow a little.
“It’s just… I’ve never been in a situation like this before,” I chuckled under my breath, “and I’ve never had friends like you. My one friend, and I wouldn’t have considered him a close friend, was a pot-smoking, lazy, weird dude who pretty much stayed in our dorm room unless someone asked him to sell some of his weed to them, or they invited him out to smoke and drink. I liked him because he was weird, but I never would’ve hung out with him if we hadn’t been forced to share a dorm room.”
“I hope you don’t think it’ll be like that for us,” Steffi said while her honey-golden eyes got wide and her pink lips turned into a pout.
“No! Of course, I don’t think that!” I shook my head and waved my hands around in front of me. “I can already tell you guys and I are going to be great friends. We already have a lot in common, more than Ethan and I had, so we’ll be able to get closer.”
“Hell, yeah!” Nick shouted as he got to his feet. “Our team is all here, and we’re about to take AIMM by storm!”
“Cool!” Nala grinned as she jumped up and stood next to Nick. “Hey, we need a kick-ass nickname for our team! Any suggestions?”
“How about Fight and Flight?” Steffi suggested while she stood up and held her hand out to me. “Come on, Dylan.”
“O-Okay,” I stuttered and took her hand so she could help me stand up.
“Nah, Fight and Flight is lame,” Nala pouted. “You’re the only one who can actually fly, so that’s kind of stealing the team’s thunder just for yourself.”
“I think it’s cool,” I said and smiled at Steffi. “It’s a play on words, and I love those.”
“It’s a two-on-two split, then,” Nick said and shrugged, “because I don’t like that name, either. Guess we have to think of something a majority can agree on.”
“How about--” I started to say just before my stomach let out its best impression of a humpback whale’s mating call.
“Oh, shit!” Nick laughed while he jumped over the beanbags and pointed at the door. “You probably haven’t eaten since lunch! We need to get you to the caf so you don’t starve!”
“Ignore him.” Nala rolled her dark eyes and eased around the beanbags to head toward Nick. “He’s a little dramatic about food.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a skinny guy like you would think about food like that,” I said and tilted my head. “No offense, of course.”
“None taken.” Nick smiled and gave me a thumbs up. “I have to eat a lot because my metabolism works as fast as a humming bird’s does.”
“Food does sound like a good plan,” Steffi said with a nod and headed to the door. “Let’s go, Dylan. After that, we’ll head to the training grounds.”
“Training?” I echoed and followed behind them. “Already?”
