The Gorgon and the Dragon Prologue AvengersXChzo

Warning: Swearing, gore and demons. This applies to all future chapters.

Running, the sole activity I seemed to be doing lately. If I had to be completely honest, I didn’t hate it. The feeling of adrenaline rushing through your veins and the freedom you felt of going wherever you wanted could only be compared to flying. Only flying was more awesome that running would ever be.
The sound of my chaser catching up with me was enough to get me focused to what was happening now. I looked back and the Engineer that I tried to shake off was still chasing me. I cursed my stupidity for the hundredth time today. Why on all nine circles of hell had I gone too far?
For starters, I’m a demon. I currently reside in the Ethereal Realm, home to more of my own species than any other that walked this ‘planet’ and is now ruled by the pain elemental Chzo. Well if you can call it ruling when his whole body made up the dimension. Life here was… difficult, to say the least. It works in a very loose and chaotic way, where you have to fight for survival every day. To put it in simple terms, everyone wanted to eat you or suck the soul out of your body and then eat your body. And that’s when they were feeling merciful.
Demons had many reasons for doing this, whether it was pleasure, hunger or some twisted view of the world, but every single one shared one main reason. Power and pain.
When a demon incarnated into a physical body, he/she immediately looked for souls to take and suffer. To be able to pass the initial phase, he or she had to torture and suck thirty souls. But the trick was that the soul had to be powerful enough to count.
I had foolishly wandered near an Engineer. An Engineer was an independent limb of Chzo, fully made of cartilage and having a body structure not unlike a spider. He was obviously more powerful, but my arrogance had led me to believe that I could pass discreetly by. Clearly I couldn’t.
As I ran through the rubbery woods that covered this area, the entity that I had pissed off seemed bent to get my soul and torture it in very creative ways. Unluckily, I was powerful enough to count, considering I had taken thirteen already.
I twisted and turned, avoiding trees and making sure not to trip on anything. My swift feet weren’t fast enough to outrun the depredator, but at least I ran fast enough to make sure I wasn’t caught. Just when I thought that I couldn’t take anymore, I saw a cliff on the distance. I smiled, it seemed that my luck was changing.
I felt a boost of speed and each step I took was one step closer to my escape. I was close to the edge when the beast behind me pounced as a last desperate attempt. He was bigger than me and even with its odd shape; it was able to eventually catch up with me. I turned my head but didn’t stop running. I duck from the attack and almost stumbled, but thankfully regained my footing before he could seize me.
I was beginning to think that I had imagined the cliff when my feet no longer touched ground but air. My back had been turned but that wasn’t a problem. Quickly, I unfolded my wings and started flapping furiously. I twisted so the air could benefit me during my flight and headed to the skies. I looked down and was glad to see the frustration from my previous chaser. I briefly turned and stuck my tongue. Freedom felt great.
The flesh above me was a dark pink and I smiled, thankful to be in the air once again. The air rushing aerodynamically through my feathers was a sensation that never got old. My wings were thrice my height, strong and long enough to sustain my body airborne. All the feathers were black as coal and sometimes showed obscure blue highlights under a very clear light. The landscape underneath me changed from the forest to a high mountain that looked more like a humongous nail than a mountain. I wasn’t high enough to fly over the tip, so I was forced to land in the more cavernous side of the mountain. The moment my feet touched the edge of one of this caves, I folded my wings so they could be hidden under my clothing.
I was currently wearing black leather boots, grey slacks made from a material sturdy enough to resist accidental tearing and a short sleeved shirt that its color had faded a long time ago. To protect my wings and arms, I had a brown aviator jacket on. My entire wardrobe was obtained from a campsite near the Hotel. The Hotel came from the World of Technology and inside the victims of the Beast was harvested for their suffering.
When I looked up to the entrance of the cave, light seemed to shine from the inside. I smiled when the smell of cooking flesh reached me, Titian had caught dinner again.
As I entered, I gazed to the ceiling above me. It was so high that I could fly freely without bumping into anything. Once I was close enough to the fire, I was able to see the hoard of bulls that were cooking above it. My dinner would consist of about three of those bulls, but my companion would take the lion’s share of the whole meal. Considering that my companion was a dragon, it was only fair.
Titian was still a demon, but he had chosen a dragon shape as his main form. He had collected many souls, enough to make him an established resident and secure his soul until his body wasted away or Chzo himself wanted to harvest his soul. While Titian may seem more like a threat than an ally, a comradeship had formed between us.
He had apparently started roasting the bulls a while ago, because it didn’t take too long for him to get them out of the fire. He laid in front of me three of them and I immediately started devouring them at a fast pace. I sank my fangs into the sweet flesh and let the juice trail down my chin, savoring it with passion. I tore pieces and barely chewed them before swallowing. The snakes that replaced my hair on top of my head also began eating with me. They were part of me and were the size of my arms, having no tail but instead growing from my scalp. They had emerald scales all over their bodies and were twelve in total.
We ate in silence, the light of the fire flickering in front of us, creating a division between us. I didn’t look up from my meal but focused on eating every single part of the animal in front of me. Finally, I finished all three of the bulls and left nothing but bones. I was licking the bones (since they still held much of the taste of the meat they had once been covered with) and looked up to Titian. He was still eating, but would soon be finished.
I admired his body built. Covering his whole body, dark red scales ran in different shades. A light red similar to the sky outside covered his underbelly, and from there they got darker until they reached the point where his gargantuan wings sprouted. In his back, they were the color of coagulated blood, a red so dark that could almost be mistaken for black. His claws and teeth were a bone yellow color, the tip of them surpassing the edge of most knives or swords. Two horns were placed on his head, slightly curled on the edge but not enough to be a proper spiral, more like a curve. They were approximately half the size of his snout. Similar pointed horns ran from his upper back to the tip of his tail, where it ended in a sharp tip. His wings were bat like, scaled with the same monochromatic red that covered his body and with bones sustaining the wings’ skin tissue from the upper edge. Put together, he looked majestic and a symbol of power (aside from the King himself).
When he finally ate the last bull he turned his slit yellow eyes to me. Even after all this time together, his gaze still managed to make me uneasy. I think he sometimes did it on purpose just to feel my awkwardness.
He relaxed and bent his rear limbs, resting his head on his front paws. I was in a comfortable position where my hands touched the back of my head when I heard shuffling outside. I straighten myself and was suddenly alert. Titian looked up and stood up, all of his muscles visibly tensing.
“Wait here.” His voice was gruff, more like rumbling.
He neared the entrance cautiously and looked outside. His stance transitioned to a fighting one and I was immediately on my feet. If whatever that worried Titian was out there, it was certainly dangerous.
I flew to stand near his shoulder and paled at what was outside. More Engineers than I could count were gathering at the base of the mountain and some were climbing it. Shit, they must have tracked me all the way here.
Titian turned to me and his irritation towards my lack of obedience showed. He gestured with his head to his back and I understood that I should take cover behind him. I flew to the midpoint in his back; with his large wings were each at my side. I grabbed a horn there and held on for dear life.
Titian flapped his wings and directed his flight as high as he could to get away from the lingering threat on the ground. But he wasn’t fast enough. The moment he was out in the open, the creatures jumped to cling to him. He tried to shake them off during his rising but few of them fell. I grabbed with all my strength, knowing I couldn’t hurt him since he had no sensibility in his horns. He turned and breathed fire to them but tried very hard to avoid the flesh that surrounded us. It would not do us any good if we angered Chzo.
The Engineers were making their way near me and I snarled at them to make them retreat. They didn’t even flinch. I tried not to panic since fear was a very noticeable smell, so I began making my way to the front to at least have a better view. Griping a different horn in each hand, I slowly advanced to the limit in which his wings sprouted. The air that slapped my face made my eyes shed tears was all the evidence I needed of the speed at which Titian was going so I was extremely careful to not let go. When I finally had a clear sight of where we were, I realized we were near a portal opening.
Portals often sprouted out of nowhere but I had the ability to sense when one was about to open. They could literally take you anywhere and were highly unpredictable.
Even as I tried to shout to Titian about the threat in front of us, I knew it was useless. At the speed we were going, there was no way to avoid it. Once we were at a mere flap of wings to pass through it, the Engineers let go and we were free of them. Bastards.