Life Hunter

Layla and Karma fell next and Arima"s eyes widened. The two girls both landed on Arima"s belly and reopened some of his closing injuries "Hey!" He shouted and they both apologized immediately.

"{What is this place? It"s kinda hot}" Night remarked while Arima was holding his abdomen. The black dragon grunted and looked up to see the sun illuminating them with a strong light.

Arima squinted his eyes "There"s no planet between here and the sun so this must be Mercury. The lack of atmosphere is another proof" He said and stood up "At least we"re on the correct solar system" He uttered while glaring at Deva who was casually flying around. She turned her head away when Arima glared at her.

"What happened? It"s surprising that she made a mistake" Layla asked as she looked at Deva.

"That"s because the magic circuits in this world are still immature and not complete. She wasn"t used to it. That"s also why I failed to stop in time" Arima explained "But the reason she was inaccurate was that we were on her back so I"ll let that slide for now" He declared and sighed. The sunlight reflected on his scales and his silver mane and made them shine.

But it wasn"t only Arima who was reflecting that light. A few other reflections occurred around. The black dragon smirked and flapped his wings. He slowly ascended and went toward a slightly more hidden face of Mercury.

He halted there and looked around. At least ten s.p.a.cecraft were pointing their lights and weapons at Arima. Layla and Karma followed the latter afterward and exclaimed in surprise when they saw that.

The people inside those ships were also confused but particularly panicked and scared "Send those images to Aurorae and ask them to deploy vessels with Eion artillery! Now!" One of the captains shouted to his subordinates.

He looked at the smirking dragon through the gla.s.s and shuddered "What is happening these days?" He muttered with a dark expression "Monsters appearing everywhere on Earth and Mars, children awakening with supernatural abilities…and now a d.a.m.n dragon falling on Mercury!" He already had a headache.

"Mm?" A member of the crew raised his voice when he saw something on the monitor. He closed in and stared at the screen then gaped "Ah, Sir! Look at this!" He shouted after recovering his senses.

The captain came over to him with a tired face and looked at the screen. His eyes widened as he saw two stunning women standing on the dragon"s shoulders.

"What…how can there be such beautiful women in this world…" He muttered and his crew frowned at him "I mean," He coughed "How can they survive there?" He uttered with a grave tone "The planet is facing the sun right now. The temperature should be around 500 kelvins"

"523 K, Sir" Someone corrected him and the captain glared at him then rubbed the corner of his eyes.

"Let"s try to communicate with him. He didn"t attack us in any way until now. Maybe he has some way of responding back" The captain ordered and everyone nodded.

As they were about to send an optic message, a voice went through the walls of their ships and entered their ears "You all, have you forgotten me?"

Everyone trembled when they heard this. The first reason was that a dragon had just talked their language. The second reason was that his voice actually spread through s.p.a.ce and went through their hull.

The last reason only concerned certain people. The oldest members like the captain who tried to communicate just before. His face showed absolute fear, respect, and obvious incredulity. It was the same for the rest of the seniors in the other ships.

The voice they just heard resonated strongly in their heads. It was one they both feared and adulated when they were younger. Although it was a little lower, the tone and the words he had said were enough to convince them.

Arima smiled widened and they trembled "(Arimane Blade!)" They shouted in their mind.

"Type this on your console; XK85OPL8: B.A.N" Arima spoke again and everyone clearly heard his words. And they strangely couldn"t take them out of their head. Even if they had only listened once to that code, they perfectly remembered as if they studied it for hours.

"Do it! Quick!" All the captains rushed their crew to input that combination. When they did so, every screen on the ship showed the letters B, A, and N. Everyone stood up to look at it. The three letters were arranged vertically on the screen.

Beside each letter, new characters were displayed. The first letter, B, formed "Blade Arimane" with the others. At this point already, everyone wavered. The second one, A, formed "Agein Haze". One more time, everyone held their breath. Haze was well known as the second leader of Aurorae, the "Empire" Arimane Blade had built.

The last one was "Nivus Jin", the current leader. The captains fell back on their seat. The screen then showed a huge text to finally arrive at this;

Administrative code accepted; Bypa.s.s every command; Diffusion of the signal; Voice control engaged; Welcome back, Arimane Blade//

Back on earth, an old man was working on a small computer, which was powerful enough to connect all servers of the city, when a message suddenly appeared on his screen. The moment he saw B.A.N, his eyes dilated. He instantly looked up at the source.

He then arrived at the images of the giant dragon. The old man started laughing on his wheelchair and wryly smiled "I recognize that smile and those eyes. Seriously… it"s already quite something that you"re back under the world"s eyes but why the h.e.l.l are you a dragon now?" He laughed even louder until a nurse came in to check upon his state.

"I"m okay" The man waved his hand "Send a call to the garage. I want a capsule to be prepared in five minutes"

"Yes, Sir Nivus" The nurse bowed and left just after. Jin looked back at his screen and observed the dragon. He snickered once then pressed on the b.u.t.ton on his chair after ordering everyone to remain on standby. The chair lighted up with a blue light and he quickly went to the garage of the building.

********************************************

"B.A.N; Bring these ships back to M.B" Arima spoke up again and the administrative program recognized his voice. It immediately took control of all ships, even those who had not typed the code earlier, and forced them to go back to the Mother Base.

All of those ships were Eion propelled and arrived extremely fast to their base on Mars. They all landed along with Arima. Everyone inside instantly rushed out while the dragon kept watching them from above.

Only the higher graded, the ones who had met Arima once before, saw him on TV or even at a meeting, saluted the huge beast and greeted the two women who had already jumped off from his shoulder. The soldiers were extremely respectful in front of them, even more than Arima.

Meanwhile, Deva was left behind on Mercury because she had already fallen asleep. She seemed to like the heat of the sun.

Mars had become a planet for military storage. So Arima was completely surrounded by Eion weapons at the moment. But he wasn"t scared because, not only it wouldn"t do anything to him, the program, and AI, B.A.N was a hidden countermeasure for the leaders of Aurorae.

The Ai would stop any weapon connected to the network to fire against one of the leaders registered.

Arima sighed and sat down with great care in an open area. He didn"t want to use too much power and destroy the base accidentally. Layla and Karma followed him and started talking.

"{What are we waiting for?}" Night asked.

"Jin" Arima answered shortly and Layla was the only one who recognized the name "He"s a friend. I just checked. He"s now at the top of Aurorae, the organization I built. He should arrive soon"

"But why do we need to wait for him here? Can"t we just go see him?" Karma was next. She asked quite seriously but she was still looking around at the base curiously.

"I don"t really want to barge into the city while I"m still a dragon. I"m quite confident in controlling my strength. But in this body, even with my highest level of restraint, I could still destroy a district by just walking" Arima uttered and shrugged.

"That"s tough" Layla commented and Arima nodded "I can go fetch him for you if you want" She added and Arima"s eyes widened.

"True. You know who he is. Go ahead"

Layla smiled and nodded "I will be right back" She declared and disappeared. The soldiers in the base tensed when they saw her vanish like that. Then, they almost fainted when they saw her reappear with Jin on a wheelchair.

The latter was gawking at Layla. It happened so fast he still couldn"t believe it. He was inside a spatial capsule to go meet Arima on Mars when a heaven-shattering beauty abruptly greeted him out of nowhere and said she would take him to Arima.

Layla didn"t even wait for an answer and brought him with her immediately "What…?" Jin shook his head to clear it up then spotted Karma. He was captivated again for a little while but then redirected his gaze upward.

When he was finally able to see Arima"s face, his neck was already hurting. He was silent for a moment "…Are you serious, Arima?" He said and the dragon stopped himself from laughing. He could have brought some damage to this place if he had.

"Yes, I am" He answered calmly and Jin sighed.

"Where were you these last few years?"

"Few years? Was it that long?" Arima tilted his head and Jin nodded "Well, maybe there was little shift in time. Basically, I went to another world, raised my power, got into a little skirmish between Heaven and h.e.l.l, and ended up as what you"re seeing me right now. But it should only be temporary. I don"t want to stay as a dragon forever" Arima answered quite quickly and Jin stared at him with dead eyes.

"It"s so unbelievable I can"t even retort" Jin sighed "Letting the fact that you are accompanied by two beauties aside, ...which annoys me a lot since because of you I was single for my whole life... do you know anything about the strange creatures appearing on Earth and Mars?"

Arima ignored the rant in the middle and smiled "Yeah, I"m partly responsible for their apparition" He answered and Jin"s mind bugged "Well, let"s say that I couldn"t stop it in time"

Jin groaned and rubbed his temples "I"m old you know. I get headaches really quickly" He complained "Just to know, how strong are you right now?" He inquired.

"I"m strong enough to destroy the entire solar system even if you had access to Eion defenses" Arima responded plainly and Layla coughed unnaturally, but Jin just laughed at it.

"I didn"t expect less from you" He smiled "Anyway, I"m thankful that you chose to stay here rather than create even more panic down there. I"m sure you came here for a reason, right? What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to bring me the biggest "Eion System" you have"

"The biggest "System"?" Jin pondered "Do you mean the two biggest "Eion Poles" we have?"

"Yes" Arima smiled and affirmed.