Chapter 2.4- The Seadragon's Roar

The Stepsons were pirate infested at their best, and so we weren’t caught my by surprise. “Position, Lord Leanor?” The true captain of this vehicle called out. I simply stared down the approaching ship. The Dragon Carrier was behind us, but not much so.

“Send a signal to the crew of the Dragon Carrier” I said and watched with a telescoping eye— a far eye in local parlance as the top half of the deck was removed. My bond with Igneel meant he could feel exactly what I wanted him to do, and his nature meant he wanted to do it as well . The Dragon Carrier lurched abruptly as Igneel shot into the air. I had a theory about dragons.

Sure, they were all roughly the same species, but I was beginning to doubt that they were all the same race. Some dragons were just much too different from others. For example, looking at Caraxes and Meleys next to each other made it clear that Caraxes was far more serpentine than the rest of his race. Most of his mass was concentrated around a long neck and an even longer tail. Why did this matter? Because of Igneel. Igneel was different from both Caraxes and Meleys. His body, while massive had a lot of mass in his midsection, legs, and wings. His tail and neck were shorter even than Meleys. That meant that when he pushed off it was with those powerful legs and he pushed himself so far into the air before his wigs cuaght a wind and began to rapidly flap, carrying him high into the air faster than any other dragon I’d seen could manage.

At present, his straight-line acceleration was better even than Meleys. She could turn with far more grace than my missile of muscle and fire could so she still won most of our races but they were close things now rather than being the farces they used to be. In no time at all, Ignoble made it to the ship approaching us. With my far eye, I could see the pirates begin to panic as they realised what was upon them.

“Dracarys” I whispered to myself, and just like he had heard my voice, Igneel’s mouth opened and from it came a torrent of blue flames that carved a trench in the ship in one blow. I smiled at the result of our training. Dragon flames were not just hot, but they were also explosive. That was the trait that Aegon the Dragon had used to deadly effect in many of his sieges, and it was the same one Igneel used to put an end to our enemies.

He did one more pass over the ship— or what remained of it— sending red flames all over her body, setting it on fire before flying back to his carrier. The crew who had gathered to watch suddenly began clapping and hooting. Even the skeleton crew of the Dragons Carrier were letting out their own cheers before Igneel landed I the hold a few seconds later, making the boat lurch again, and this time sending one man overboard.

“Man overboard” I cackled.

“That was so cool” Leana beamed from my side. How the hell had I forgotten about her?

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“Hell yes, it was. He went vroom, and then he went whoosh, and the ship just went crack, crack, boom. It was over in like seconds” She said with all the glee of an eleven year old witnessing wanton destruction. Could I have pursued less violent means with the pirates? Probably. They’d probably have turned away, giving up on trying to take us if I had shown Igneel as a threat rather than using him immediately. Even just telling them I was an actual son of the Sea Snake and not just a random cousin flying the Banner would probably have had them turning around not wanting the smoke, but those were probabilities. What was a certainty? Putting them in the ground for good and leaving them there.