The being was unbelievably quick, jumping around him at unfathomable speeds. Worse yet, his eyes couldn't see it, blending into the black background. He instinctively summoned a small flame, illuminating the mana beast.
It was a small monkey with fur as black as the darkest abyss. The impish limbs were long and spindly; long, curved claws protruding from its paws like sickles. Sharp teeth stuck out of its jaws, jutting out, looking like large razors. The creature's small eyes were sunken, the pupils almost taking up the whole iris.
The being was jumping around, swiping at Paryl. It sliced his arms open.
Shrieking in pain, the boy ran as fast as he could. Tears grew in his eyes, making him choke on bile as he ran. His legs throbbed, begging for rest.
The moonlight was too bright, the sounds too loud. The boy wished to clump into a ball and to not be seen. The child was ashamed of this existence, of his very state.
His skin felt like it was lit on fire. Every choked breath made his throat burn in agony.
The creature was fast. Too fast. A black and gray blur sliced his leg, making the boy scream in pain.
Falling into mud, his wound dirtied, making him shudder in misery. His chest burned, thousands of thoughts appeared in his head, then fled as if scared of existence. His hot skin started to prickle all over as if stabbed.
The boy felt sick, on the edge of vomiting. Bile gathered in his mouth, spilling out as his burning lungs forced him to cough.
Everything was chaos, he felt sensitive, exposed, vulnerable.
Endangered.
The flame in his hand wavered.
The creature was jumping around, waiting for Paryl to expose his Achilles tendons while lying down. It wanted to devour his mana core while he was still alive.
The light brightened. Everything was wrong, the chaos in his mind furthered as he craved to just sink into the ground itself and not exist.
From chaos came order.
Suddenly, Paryl was lucid. Too lucid.
The moonlight was still too bright, the squealing of mud too loud, but his mind was calm.
Thousands of thoughts, previously inaccessible, formed into a singular, coherent sentence.
'If I don't fight back, I'll die, and if I die, all those deaths will be in vain.'
Now calm, his heart stopped beating fast. His lungs were full, as if so much physical activity was normal for him
He stood up, running a muddy hand through his jet black hair.
Breathing in the cool night air, the fire rose.
It emboldened, rising in bursts, spreading around his arm.
He allowed the flames to separate from their creator. It flew, aiming to immolate its target alive.
The beast simply pushed itself off the ground, dodging as if it were no more than an inconvenience.
It landed a couple of feet back, ceasing its movements. The beast was wary of its prey. Its eyes shrunk, staring at the boy.
Paryl knew he couldn't sustain the flame around his hand for much longer. He never practiced with mana in the facility, as he wasn't allowed to, but it was an instinct.
He shot out more fireballs, the thing dodged them with ease. It started mocking him, letting its spiked white tongue loll out.
'I'm not enough. But I won't use the dragon. I'm not letting it consume me again. Never again.'
He felt his back warm up.
'I'm not letting you out! You're a part of me, not the other way around! You're my power! I won't let you control me!'
The warmth spread further.
'No! I won't! You're mine! Stop! Stop it!'
Paryl sent out a pillar of flame at the creature. It dodged easily, noticing the radiance was barely holding on. The human was out of mana.
Landing, it instantly jumped, deciding to slash at the boy's jugular, eating his core when unconsciousness took him.
'Give me your power, now!'
The vile beast went for his neck, airborne. The calculations were perfect; in just a few seconds the tiny human would be on the floor, bleeding out. However, all of that relied too much on what it had already seen out of Paryl.
That's why it couldn't dodge when a crimson, club-like tail slammed into its back.
The impact broke the imp's spine in twain like a twig. The beast slammed into the mud, alive but paralyzed.
The dragon had reacted to his base desire. It let him borrow its might, Paryl's locked power, at the command. Paryl panted, his small frame shaking. He was bleeding, too much. All the cuts had stacked up. He touched one of the wounds, which was now full of mud from his fall, wincing.
Every small movement made his whole body shudder in pain. The boy bit his lower lip as hard as he could, trying to distract himself from the rest of his body feeling as if lit on fire.
Paryl gathered what little mana he had and formed a large fire around his hand. After using mana so consciously, he gathered a basic understanding of the small heat bubble he instinctively created.
He couldn't explain how he was doing it, nor could he do it on command, but if nothing changed he could keep himself warm for at least 8 more minutes.
Paryl was sure of that.
He didn't care. The incandescent aura-like flames forming around his arm grew larger, and then, pointing his hand at the creature, he released them. It screeched deafeningly as it burned alive.
The nauseating smell of burning fur made him gag.
Paryl smiled, then grimaced. Everything hurt. He slowly started feeling the cold. His wet clothing was sticking to his skin, and the dried mud and dust created by the fire found its way onto his face. It had long spoiled his usually jet-black hair, making it seem light brown.
Worse yet, he had been completely preoccupied by the attacker and used mana at an unreasonable pace. While his core was so small the people searching for him couldn't feel it, they could see the light of the fire through the dark forest. That alerted his pursuers about his position, and they were rapidly closing in.
Images of Elizabeth shot through his mind, but he suppressed them. He had priorities.
His legs hurt. He had run more in the last half hour than ever before in his short life. The oxygen in the mountains was thin, too; he was feeling dizzy. That wasn't even mentioning the large bleeding cuts sullying his legs.
Paryl took a step, then fell onto a patch of grass. This was it. He was about to be taken back into the facility. The imprint warmed up at the thought, but he didn't allow it to spread. If he transformed, there was a large chance of dying afterward. He lay down, facing the sky.
Now that he looked at them again, the stars were stunning. He never saw them in the facility; however, he had a few months worth of memories before it. One of them was a night sky. He exhaled, taking in their beauty.
All four signatures were about to reach him. He had less than a minute left.
He sighed. Usually he'd be scared or mad, but now he was just disappointed. He just escaped and was already about to be taken back in.
He felt the mana sources approach. This was it.
He closed his eyes, giving up on controlling his fate.
Then, he heard something drop into the mud, along with a rustling of scales. Confused, he opened his eyes, seeing a stunning man with vertical pupils mere centimeters from him, their noses almost touching.
The lines of his face were almost as sharp as his teeth, which seemed like those of an apex predator. His irises and hair were the same scarlet as the thing his dragon form was made out of. The man had a very long head of hair, cascading past his shoulders and reaching to the middle of his back. He was dressed in weird clothing.
The boy had never seen fabrics such as those, nor was such a weirdly embroidered purple coat a familiar sight. Underneath it, he was dressed in a plain long-sleeved white shirt.
Paryl saw the man; however, he was unable to feel any barely any mana emanating from him. It was like the scarlet-eyed man had a core counting less than 500 megamana.
An average person would believe he was a weakling; however, every instinct Paryl had was screaming a singular sentence.
'Run. I need to run before this monster kills me.'
The man spoke, the sound was soothing and dignified, but carried an edge of mischievousness and relatability.
"Hey there, replica. Need a hand?"