"If you really are a Dragonslayer, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to flatter you. But I do have every intention of killing as many dragons here as I can. So, if you'll let me live, I can go do my mission."
The man behind him scoffed, before taking the gun off of his head and putting it away.
"Well, regardless of what you do or do not do, it doesn't matter to me."
"Hm? Why not?"
"You two look dumb, I can't imagine you will make that much of a difference."
Arthur scowled, and now that the gun was put away, he moved the plate away from his skull and it joined the rest of his body normally.
"Why's that?"
"One of you is a white haired boy with long hair that's tied up, the other is a bald, red-faced ogre. There's nothing you can do that's particularly threatening."
"I'm 22!" Yelled Raiden, who pointed a finger gun and shot out a bolt of lightning at the Dragonslayer. The Dragonslayer could not evade the bolt of lightning, instead opting to block and withstand the strike.
His body trembled as a result of the blow, yet he kicked off the ground and, within an instant, appeared behind Raiden, clenching his fist and bringing down a mighty strike to the back of his head.
Raiden crashed into the ground, before recovering quickly and throwing a roundhouse kick to the man's head. The man weaved, to which Raiden continued with a spinning back kick, using the momentum from the previous strike to kick the man in the gut.
He was sent backwards from the attack, but it was only enough to put around 15 feet of distance between them as the Dragonslayer dug his feet into the ground to keep him from going too far back.
"Grah, you guys are so annoying," Arthur groaned, raising the Dragon from his palm and into existence, taking up arms.
"Hey, tell that to your little friend. He's the one who's attacking me," said the Dragonslayer. Arthur took that advice and got mad at Raiden, yelling, "quit it! If we share enemies, it's best if we work together!"
"Hmph! But this is my first time fighting a Dragonslayer! I wanna see how I match up to the boogeymen of dragons!"
"We can do that after we massacre every dragon here."
"I guess that's true…" muttered Raiden, standing in a relaxed position with his hands in his pockets. "How about it, Slayer?"
The Dragonslayer held his hand up to his chin, before shrugging his shoulders.
"It seems like it's a good idea. But the problem is kinda obvious, don't you think?"
"What?" Arthur asked.
"You guys are weak."
This irked Raiden, who shimmied over to Arthur and whispered in his ear.
"This guy's a douche, let's kill 'em!"
"No, not right now at least. It does irritate me, since I literally shortened my life by maybe even decades just to obtain further strength, but apparently these dragons are strong, so he might be right."
"Ah, fair," Raiden said, backing away from Arthur's head. The Dragonslayer walked over to them casually, looking them down.
"Which family do you guys come from? Actually, no, the twink comes from the Zeus family, I know that much, but what about you, ogre?"
Raiden reeled from the lyrical assault that befell him. "I'm not a twink! Do you even know what that word means? Call me a pretty boy or something if you're gonna say that!"
Cutting down the banter, Arthur answered. "I'm from the Assas family. Though, that's only by blood. I was forced into betraying the family and joining the Graves family."
The Dragonslayer nodded his head, patting Arthur on the back roughly.
"I see, I see! Interesting."
"Could you tell we were coming due to the Scent of a Traitor?"
The Dragonslayer shook his head. "No, we just have the ability to tell if Dragons are near, and you seemed to be coming from America, so we arrived just in case."
"Oh, okay. So, how do you feel about the offer?"
"It's intriguing. But it falls flat on its face due to both of your current levels."
While in America, Raiden was definitely considered a strong dragon without question, in Africa that came into question.
"What makes them so powerful, again?" Arthur asked. "Powerful enough to make you call us weak?"
"This continent as a whole is a giant mess of dragons and conflict. Think of it like a giant prison. The weak die, and that's all that needs to be said."
The Dragonslayer turned towards Arthur and walked over to him, looking down on him.
"While you might have been a hotshot where you're from, the fact that someone at one point was able to force you into doing anything is all I need to hear in order to tell that you're not strong enough. Tell me, have you and the twink fought? If so, who won?"
"I won, but not really. So, technically, he won. It's complicated."
"Hmph. If you two are close in strength, then it's obvious you're not strong enough. That kick of his, my grandma throws stronger kicks even at her age."
Immediately, Arthur swung the Dragon at his head. The Dragonslayer attempted to evade, yet the cutlass was still able to slice off his nose. Blood flew through the air, before the man countered with a lightning fast punch to the nose.
Arthur himself was thrown down the street, crashing into a building, though he still held his cutlass tightly.
"Nk," the Dragonslayer let out, clicking his tongue. "Y'know, I don't heal like you dragons do. It'll take me an hour to heal this back, you bastard."
Arthur got up, emerging from the dust cloud formed by his destructive impact. Blood was running down his nose and mouth, similar to the experience that afflicted the Dragonslayer.
"Shut up," Arthur said, healing back the wound and absorbing the blood into the Dragon.
"I can tolerate you being a bit mean to Raiden, and I won't get too mad if you tell the truth, that we need to get stronger. But if you're just gonna keep being a brat, I'll kill you."
"Kill me? What makes you think you can do that?"
Arthur pointed the cutlass' tip at the Dragonslayer from afar. The blade began to sprout shards from the handle, to which Arthur stared at him.
He took a step back, and swung his sword, launching out the shards, breaking the sound barrier.
With ease, the Dragonslayer evaded. However—
A wave of destruction hit the area behind him, ripping apart a building. The Dragonslayer turned around, seeing the catastrophe with his own two eyes.
He turned back to see Arthur right at him, after he'd kicked off the ground, the sound masked by falling debris.
The sword was swung down, and narrowly evaded, before he spun around and threw a kick at him. The dragon was launched away, though he sprouted his tail, digging it into the ground to keep himself from going too far.
He hurled himself back like a catapult using his tail, getting back to close range and coating himself in armor. He kept his tail deep inside the ground, as he threw a combination at the Dragonslayer.
The man dodged, taking the shotgun off his back and pointing it at the head of the Dragon.
Without any words, he pulled the trigger, firing it directly at the head of Arthur.
Of course, if enough blood was put inside of something, the impossible would then be possible. However, the armor, in its current state, wouldn't be quite enough to withstand a direct shotgun blast.
As it wasn't enough, Arthur focused everything into the helmet. The helmet took the shotgun blast relatively easily, in fact, to which the surprised Dragonslayer was stunned mentally.
Naturally, Arthur hit him in the chin with a haymaker.
His neck was very thick, so his neck wasn't moved around as much as Arthur would've hoped. Instead, the punch was akin to a 5th grader throwing a haymaker at a fully consenting adult.
It was still not too bad, but it wasn't that great.
He reeled from the blow, holding his chin and letting out a "hm…"
Arthur formed his cutlass once more in his hand. His ears still rang from hearing a shotgun blast so close to his head, so he wasn't quite sure of what the man was saying. He healed his ears, finally hearing the man speak.
"—like that, I might train you."
"What?"
"I said, if it's like that, I might train you."
Raiden walked over to Arthur, looking up at the man and scowling. "Huh? Oh, just cause he got a haymaker in, he gets trained? We can throw down right now if you don't think I'm good enough."
"No, that won't be necessary," said the Dragonslayer. "This man is able to withstand a shotgun blast—with external factors, admittedly. But even still, a good amount of dragons here wouldn't be able to do that at all, with or without help. Plus, if he's marked with the Scent, he'll be good for drawing out those beasts."
"Huh? All ya did was glaze him, but what about me? Where's the merit in training me? I wanna hear it!"
"I downplayed your kick earlier, but I'll admit, it was good. If I were to put you two in hand to hand combat, unarmed, and without you using whatever electric ability you've got, then I'd say you'd still overtake him."
The Dragonslayer continued.
"But if you were both at what I'd estimate to be your maximum, then he might be stronger. Though, your electric abilities would bypass whatever armor he has, so you'd probably still win. It's a matter of matchups."
Raiden smirked, pointing at himself with his thumb.
"Well well well, it seems my hard work has paid off after all! I'm feeling pretty gosh-darned pumped up right about now! Ya feelin' the hunger, Arthur?"
"Arhur? Is that your name?" The Dragonslayer asked. Arthur shook his head, and the Dragonslayer extended his hand. Arthur shook it.
"My name's Eno. I'll take you to my family. Since we know where pretty much every dragon in this country is, we can set up plans to kill the dragons."
To which, the two men followed Eno, getting in his car and being driven to his home.