Dragon Bound

Chapter 30

Damien had his head bowed as he was being chastised by his superior, he knew it would cone to this, his charge had been going wayward and uncontrollable, or so the whole team thinks.

In all honesty, he really does not know how to bring her back under his control, a feat that is no longer in the realm of possibility because of the new boy as well, Damien really thought hard about putting an end to the boy and his sick grins, he really wanted to wring his neck, especially for how he had just come in between himself and Ryoka, diverting all her efforts away from just survival but rather fighting back.

Now Damien was being chewed out for failing in his core responsibilities, those given to him by his superiors, the job entrusted to him by those who had promised him revenge on anyone and everyone involved in his mother’s death.

“You call this handling?” A gruff voice was saying to him, “What were you doing all these while you were with her? And how did it happen that way? How did she suddenly evolve right in your presence and you had nothing to do to it to curb it quickly before it got out of hand? Besides, last you reported was that she couldn’t even shift in full yet isn’t it?” the voice challenged.

“Yes, that was how it was” Damien answered without trembling even though that is the only thing he wanted to do, he wanted to shrink away, cower away from the intensity and ferocity of the one that spoke to him currently, but he dare not show any more sign of weakness, lest they deem him unworthy to continue the task he had been charged with.

“If that was really how it was, then how is it that she is now suddenly shifting and not just shifting but attacking the firm’s holdings, I heard she even freed a particularly treasured captive and burnt down the facility then later with the help of that captive, she attacked one of the biggest supply station in these parts, stole from there and burnt the place down, after getting the best of one of our current best as well, so now I ask, how did she develop so fast right under your nose even such that you weren’t able to control her advance?” the looming figure challenged some more.

Damien took a not so deep breath before answering, deep down his mind he prayed that his choice of words would be the right ones and not the ones that would make him lose his head in the most painful way.

“I am not looking for excuses great one, but here is a girl of great legacy, born to the great white phantom herself and the dark menace himself, I was right in my report that she hadn’t even known she was an Eldrian, not until that incident involving her father, but then her development is a totally unpredictable, one moment she was still trying to figure it out and the next she had totally gotten the hang of it” he said and swallowed there was more, he had to let them know that he really worked to make sure this (her being able to shift) came to be.

“I orchestrated a fierce battle where her life was to be supposedly in danger, she came through and overcame and from then on she got confident of the Eldrian part of her, it was at that point she saw no point in ordinary survival and chose to fight back, of course I was against it, but then she felt she needed no help from me anymore and so started her rebellion” Damien laid out and even though he had pretended as if he wasn’t going to really give excuses, he had laid it out thick.

“We’ve lost good people, good soldiers, thanks to this particular branch of Eldrians, why are they so troublesome? Her father took out five of our best before he went down and we could get him, now the daughter as well is going on that path all in a bid to destroy us” the man said and paused for a short moment as he pondered over some thoughts.

“I think at this point, you just gotta bring her in, first of all I don’t think the initial plan of making her see reason to join our cause would work anymore, secondly, if truly her powers are going to be as expected then there really is no more time to waste as she mustn’t discover that side of herself to use against us, it’ll be devastating, I still remember her mother’s own like it was yesterday” the man said and seemed to be rubbing on a scar as he reminisced.

Damien swallowed again before answering after making that his initial prayer to save his head once again, he cleared his throat and positioned himself a bit more uprightly, if they were going to take him seriously it won’t be when his back was bent and on his knees.

“Please great one, give me one more chance to bring her around, she will be made to see reason, I know for a fact that we can’t get the best of her if coerced, heck it’ll take a long time to break her if she really is anything like her mother of which I’m pretty sure she is, the easiest way would be for her to come along willingly, any other sort of action and we risk even losing her, just give me this one chance and if I fail, then I will personally be the one to bring her in in shackles, by then all would have been revealed after all” Damien said with conviction.

“That’s what I like to hear from someone seeking redemption” the booming voice of the looming man said, “Now mind you, this is your last chance at getting anything right, you fail and it’s off to the labs with you” he said to a gulping Damien.

“Go do you boy, I gotta go do me too, you’re lucky you’re reporting to me and not my father, else you’d have been dissected for spare parts by now, unfortunately I don’t have that luxury, I report to him, and we all know the White Man does not deal well with tardiness” the man said and left in the shadows leaving Damien who remained on his knees contemplating his next moves.

The threats from the White family aren’t just that, they always make good on their threats, this was indeed his final shot at getting it right.

He heaved a sign and headed back, first things first, Adrian has got to go before he can successfully reach Ryoka, he just hopes it’s not too late beyond a quick call back to reason and control, because then a fight would be unavoidable and well he won’t be sorry for killing Adrian, but he wouldn’t want to get messy with Ryoka, he was in love with her after all.

*

Damien paced along a dark corridor, the corridor was inside a very huge dome structure which was built as a holding cell for Eldrians, it has everything from enormous shackles for their dragon forms to smaller shackles for human form, it has different administering methods for when a sedative is to be given to any prisoner but the highlight of the prison was its manipulative and disorienting cells, they were made to move in such a way that from the inside the prisoner wouldn’t know which is up or down or left or right.

Damien paced in front of a particular human sized cell, at first he was muttering, but then he started to get clearer in his words.

“You all are driving me crazy, I’m going nuts you know, first it was you, now it is her, I can’t believe I’m malleable to the point of falling for you guys, my oppressors, my enemies, the ones I’ve made the vow to kill no matter what” he was saying as he still kept pacing back and forth.

“It’s just so unimaginable that despite my hatred for you all, I still find myself loving you hard, so I guess it’s true the saying that ‘it takes a lot of love to hate and a lot of hate to love’ because trust me, I do hate you, and her, I hate you so much that all I think of whenever I’m alone is how best to kill you, slowly and painfully, but whenever I lay my eyes on you, on her, all I want to do is be in your embrace, in her embrace, I want to feel your touch, and her touch as well” he said as he stopped pacing and stretched his hand into the cell, trying to touch the unconscious being inside of it, he failed as his hand couldn’t actually reach her no matter how hard he tried and of course he knew this but was just being adamant.

He signed and withdrew his hands “Tonight is going to ball down to two things, the first is either she comes with me willingly or I get to bring her here in shackles, the second is that I kill her and her allies if they would be too much trouble, I’m sorry but I have no choice, I’d really hate to have to kill your daughter after all, even though you killed mine” Damien said and left.

The prisoner inside the cell twitched, and her head fell forwards such that her chin touched her chest, and a few strands of white hair could be seen flowing about her face as they escaped the restricting helmet placed on her head.