Okay guys please don't stop reading in the middle of this chapter! Just read it all to the end. You'll see what I mean!

Hope you guys enjoy!

“____” is talking

‘____’ is thinking

is snake language

Special thanks:

Spoiler : Special thanks to Theseus1 for a beginning idea of the character Nikki’s family situation!

--------Naga village-------

In a small village a child of about 8 years of age can be seen walking impatiently, thoughts filled with nothing but a destination in mind: home. Resting nonchalantly on her shoulders is an Onyx Wing Serpent who also has only one thing on her mind, of course it’s her big brother Xaramax. After a couple minutes of fast paced striding the child, Nikki, finds her family’s small house crammed between the others.

*click* *creeeeak*

Slowly pushing open the door while her mind is working overtime guessing how her parents react, she finally goes inside to approach the inevitable doom. Her father, acting as if he didn’t hear the door open, continues to help his wife cook dinner waiting for Nikki explain. The mother, seeing that he won’t be of any help decides to break the ice,

“Where were you sweetheart you were gone for hours! Ah, is that a dead snake? Did you bring it to be made into a stew?”

Hearing this, Valexii who was zoned out imagining flying with Xaramax, shot her head up and replied with an intense

*HISS*. Nikki’s mom, now in a cold sweat, tries to defuse the situation,

“Ehehe, it was just a joke, anyways back to the question, where were you?”

Nikki is trying to figure out the best way to phrase casually ‘Oh I was in the forest, found by slavers, almost raped then saved by lizards!’ Unfortunately, or fortunately, she doesn’t get to voice her outlandish reasons because suddenly Valexii coils like a spring using Nikki’s back as a springboard.

Sailing through the air Valexii shoots out of the room and to the doorway right as it opens up. Standing right in front of her is a bandit with a greedy smile holding a dagger. Behind him are several more of his equally evil cohorts with wide grins and an assortment of pointy weapons. At the same time he opened the door screams can be heard in the distance.

‘How many times are we going to meet bandits?! That girl better be happy big brother told me to protect her or I would have already left before even entering this village. There are too many of them though. Well, I’m sure if I gave up while mom was here she would be cheering on the bandits to skin me alive.’

Now that her split-second inner monologue is over she immediately goes on the offensive, springing from the ground straight into the intruder’s neck. His frantic attempts at shaking off Valexii would be humorous if it weren’t for a life and death battle. After a few seconds he kneels over dead while Valexii releases and starts to attack the next one.

However once the initial shock has passed, the bandits barge into the house leaving a couple of men behind to attack the serpent. Valexii tries to get past the attackers to protect Nikki, but is either blocked or injured due to ignoring blind spot’s.

As a newborn she doesn’t have much combat experience, and earlier when she killed the bandits left behind by Xamarax they were already paralyzed with fear and at wits end. Now that she is surrounded by fighters who are well-rested and energized, adding to the fact that she needs to go to Nikki ASAP, her wounds are steadily increasing. As she was inching closer and closer passing out, a less than intelligent sounding voice yells out and stops her assailants from continuing,

“So! Guys stop for a moment, cuz I had me a flash of unsight! How about we make a deal? If you sell me the little missy, in return you, the parents, will be safe from the rest of the bandits here. Get safety while losing your daughter, pretty nice if I do say so myself kekeke. Don’t worry we’ll sell her to a nice noble so she’ll be treated right.”

After he finishes his proposition a couple seconds later Nikki turns to see why her parents haven’t immediately refused.

However the facial expressions of her parents show mixed emotions. Conflicted and changing between helplessness and a deeper meaning leaning towards self-preservation. Seeing this Nikki starts to cry,

“Mom! Dad!....you can’t be serious right?! How can you even believe what they are saying?!”

Despite her begging both mother and father know that even if they tried to protect their daughter it would be foolish to fight bare-handed against several men armed with swords. On top of that, both know deep inside that they would rather sacrifice someone else to stay alive. Her father replies,

“I’m sorry honey, but you need to go with them, you’ll be fine. I'll make sure and gather some people together afterwards and we will bring you back. Trust me, and just know we still love you.”

Her father faltered on the last part of the sentence as if he didn’t know for sure whether it was the truth or not. ‘Bullshit!’ is what Nikki was thinking. ‘My family has given up on me…I’m going to be some rich bastard’s play toy until I get discarded again. First my family, then it will happen again.’

Furthermore the next event is what brings her frail mind over the edge,

After taking her from her parents, the boss walks over with a sadistic grin and separates the father and mothers head from their shoulders. Both have a look of shock on their face while their head rolls to the ground. The boss speaks after cleaning his blade on the now decapitated father’s pants,

“kekeke stupid fuckers, did they think we’d leave ‘em alive? They even think that a group of people from a small village can do something against us! There won't be enough people left to form a fighting force after my comrades are finished. *spit*…Take any valuables they have and grab the girl. Make sure that shitty snake is dead too.”

In that moment it was as if a short circuit happened within Nikki’s mind and she fell unconscious. Sadly, when she wakes up she won’t be able to see. Incidentally this is one of the extremely rare cases when a traumatic event happens and you lose your sense of sight. Doctors call this psychological condition ‘Hysterical Blindness'. Unfortunately there is no sure-fire treatment for this illness on Earth. You can go to a psychologist, or try hypnosis, however it depends on the person inflicted. There could be a cure on [Polareuse] since it has magic artifacts, but it remains to be seen…

-------In the forest 5km away from Naga village-----

“mmh?”

‘I should probably head back and check on those two.’

After finishing the leftover snack, formerly bandits and animals, he lifts off into the sky and flies to the village. In the distance small clouds of smoke can be seen. As he reaches the outer rim of the forest the smell of blood wafts into his nose and the screams of villagers can be heard.

‘Shit, right when I leave there is trouble already. If those assholes dare touch Val….huhuhu I’ve been meaning to measure how many bodies I can chomp in one go.’

Gliding above the chaos it doesn’t take long to pick up the signal Valexii’s pheromones are emitting. Such a thing would be impossible if it were not for his dragon senses. Landing down in front of the small house he can sense many enemies inside but not fighting. Suddenly in the doorway a small black snake with multiple cut wounds slowly slithers towards him.

“Val?...Valexii! How?”

Valexii, seeing her big brother sighs in relief, happy to finally be with him explains,

“Big brother…there were *huff* too much and *huff* they got past me and….”

However mid-explanation she hunches over on the ground unconscious. In retrospect, the fact that she is able to move and talk while holding on is amazing for her small serpent body. The men fighting her already stopped and currently listening to their boss, giving her the chance to talk to Xaramax before passing out. Xaramax feels a little useless too and can’t help but blame himself for not going with them to the village in the first place.

Quickly he lifts Valexii with his wing like he is cradling her and confirms she is still alive. Even though he could hear her heartbeat without doing so, it's a part of humanity creeping in.

…….*Badump*…….*Badump*……*Badump*…..

Slowly her eyes open and relief washes over Xaramax like a summer breeze, however the sweet moment is short lived. The bandits who finished looting Nikki’s family’s meager household items have exited the house. When the bandit group sees Xaramax’s dragon body cradling the small Valexii, the few guys who attacked her turn deathly pale. Most of them are giving silent goodbyes to their own pitiful lives, regretting the moment they even drew their swords at the baby serpent in the first place. While they are standing there for a few moments in disbelief Xaramax put his sister on the nook of his back between his wings.

“Well, now that she is safe you filthy humans need to take responsibility, an 'eye for an eye’ and all that shit.”

He gives a toothy grin, which is more effective considering he is a dragon. And the few who were deathly pale are now pale as a ghost, waiting for the inevitable outcome.

ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

After the earth-shattering roar he expelled, the men held their ears giving Xaramax the opportunity to massacre them. Biting the arms, legs, and heads off of the bandits near him and swiping his tail, he then steps on them to make sure they died. Unfortunately he cannot let use his fire breath since Nikki is still behind all of them being held by the boss.

Some attacks do get through his defense however the wounds aren’t too serious as long as he finishes quickly. He rears on his back legs and uses his front to do a downwards slash on the last two lackeys, shattering their rib cage while entrails tumble out onto the ground before them. When they slump over dead, behind them the boss has Nikki (still knocked out) with a knife to her throat,

“Back up monster! I’ll fuckin kill her I swear!”

The bandit’s whole body is trembling and looks like the knife would cut even if Xaramax didn’t do anything anyways. Though he still thinks that the girl is just too pitiful and feels like he should at least try something, even the recent events might make her a lost cause. If she dies then no harm done...to him anyways. However he is in a tough position since his only long range attack isn’t precise and only wide-scale. Suddenly Valexii wakes up and speaks in snake language,

Hearing this makes Xaramax doubtful but it’s the best option he can think of.

While they are hissing the bandit gets increasingly nervous then,

“Hey are you two talking?! Just hurry up and leave or I’ll slic—“

*Hiss*…*crack*

Before he could finish his sentence Valexii sprang from Xaramax and attacked him, making him drop the knife and she followed up with breaking his neck. Xaramax then swooped over and caught Nikki before she fell over on the ground.

Now that the both Valexii and Nikki are safe Xaramax placed them both on his back and flew into the sky above the village

‘I’m still not done here though, there’s more bandits around and my revenge applies to them too huhuhu. A dragon's wrath is not to be underestimated.

Review notes!!:

Spoiler : notes are as follows:

-First question you may have is: 'Where the hell did the bit about Hades go?' *poof* I got rid of it! So unprofessional huh?Well you have to agree it's better than having it there in the first place right?

-I tried to make the parent's selling scene more realistic. It was too far-fetched before like the comments said. Just know that I'm not a pro at peoples feelings so mushy-mushy moments will not be a running theme here! Your reading an anti-social writer's story, people!

-Also, I changed a bit of his personality for those who think he should be more cold and ruthless. Honestly it does sound better than the whiny bitch I made him out to be in this chapter before the revision.

-Anything you see that still rubs you the wrong way then please PM me! IMO, when new people come in to read this story and see even more people constructively or non-constructively criticizing the writer after the revision it gives the feeling of 'Oh shit why did I waste the past 5 minutes reading these 3 chapters if the guy still can't get it right?' I know that sounds insensitive and like I'm an ass among asses, however that's my opinion. Now my rant is over.