Dragon conjurer 2, p.4
Dragon Conjurer 2, page 4
“Yeah, but I did that in my free time.” I moved away from her and let go of her hands long enough to log out of the database. “I didn’t want the only words in each language to be the names of mythological creatures. I just love to learn, anyway. I enjoy reading books, and even if I never picked up a ‘useful’ language, I felt accomplished because I dedicated myself to learning more and more each day.”
“Is that why you love class so much?” she teased and broke out into a wide, pearly white smile. “No offense, Dyl, but you’re kind of a nerd.”
“I know, I am, but I’m okay with that,” I chuckled. “I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, so don’t worry about me. Reading and learning is fun. Didn’t you enjoy your college classes?”
“I guess I did, but I enjoyed the dorm life a lot more.” She shrugged her muscular shoulders and looked down at her lap for a moment. “Learning is great, but I was stuck in a general studies major, so I was only taking classes for stuff I already knew.”
“You didn’t pick a major?” I was surprised Nala hadn’t picked a major before she went to college, because she seemed like a girl who had her whole life figured out.
“I was going to try college for a year before I found my focus,” she explained with another shrug. “I just didn’t know what I wanted to be in life, but I knew I wanted to be more than someone who punches a clock and wears pant suits and talks about the weather like it’s the most exciting thing in life.”
“That’s a bleak outlook to have when you’re eighteen.” I frowned, but I knew she was right. Before I left the Midwest, I wouldn’t have thought a life off the farm would’ve been possible. I wanted so badly to get away, but I still got scared I’d end up like my grandfather. He was a good man, and he worked hard for what he earned, but I wanted to be more.
And now I was.
“Hey, think about it,” I said before either of us could get caught up with old anxieties. “We’re heroes now. How many times have we saved countless lives? We took on a swarm of tlahuelpuchi, then a pair of animal-killing yetis, then a horde of fire imps, and a fucking Mega-sus. Four different kinds of monsters, four different areas, but we saved thousands of people. We protected them. We’re fucking superheroes, Nala.”
“You’re right, we are superheroes.” She smiled at me, unfolded her legs, and looked at the library door. “Hey, it’s five minutes ‘til classes start. I’m sure the others are waiting for us outside the doors. Should we go see them?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I got out of the chair, powered the computer down, and took Nala by the hand while we walked out of the library.
“Excited for class, bookworm?” the dark beauty teased me as we got to the door, but she squeezed my hand a little as if to let me know she was only joking.
“Of course, I’m excited,” I answered without thinking anything of her jab. “We get to learn mythology as actual history. What’s not exciting about that?”
Chapter Three
We met up with Nick and Steffi outside of the library, and Nick was wearing his new uniform, too. He was looking at the yellow stripe down his body and even turning in place as he stared.
“Want us to leave you and the uniform alone?” I teased as Steffi walked forward and hooked her arm through my free elbow. “I mean, we can go to class and let you have some alone time.”
“Lay off, Dyl,” the nymph chuckled as he stopped admiring his new threads and looked at me. “Can you blame me? This is pretty badass.”
“I’m just teasing, man.” I shrugged my shoulders and looked down the hall. “Let’s get to class. I don’t want to be late for our next period.”
“We’ve got folklore up first,” Nala giggled and elbowed me in the side. “That’s why you’re so happy, isn’t it?”
“It’s not just that, Nala.” I kept my eyes pinned forward at our classroom door. “I love learning as you know, so any chance I get to learn more about… anything, I take it.”
We walked into our classroom and sat down at our table in the middle of the stark walls and floor. It wasn’t like a normal classroom, because there weren’t any flyers for upcoming school events tacked to the walls or posters about the grammar rules or a funny history joke. The only things on the walls in this room were the projector board, the clock at the back of the room, and a huge Godzilla poster behind the teacher’s desk.
“I hope you all got to enjoy the food from the celebration earlier,” the teacher, a squat man by the name of Goldberg, said as the clock ticked over to the beginning of the class period. “We have two of the newly promoted in this class with us, so let me say one more congratulations to Mr. Walters and Ms. Jefferson on their new ranks.”
The class gave Nick and Nala scant applause, but I patted both of them on the back to make up for the lack of enthusiasm.
Maybe AIMM cadets only got excited when there was food involved.
“Today, we get to learn about some of my favorite folklore.” Mr. Goldberg paused to turn the projector on, and then the screen lit up with a slide covered in pictures of cherry blossoms, bullet trains, and even a cartoon of Mt. Fuji. Then the teacher rubbed his chubby hands together and broke out into a smile that doubled the wrinkles on his face. “Japanese folklore! Japan is a nation steeped in such rich culture and tradition, so their folklore is no different.”
“Does this have anything to do with Japan opening communications with us recently?” Nala asked as she raised her hand.
“Somewhat, Ms. Jefferson,” the teacher explained, “but it is important to know about the Japanese variants of some of North America’s own monsters. You see, as most of you are aware, folklore can be mirrored across cultures, even cultures who rarely, if ever, crossed paths.”
“Like dragons,” I said and propped my arms up on the desk.
“Exactly, Mr. Cooper.” The man at the front desk rubbed his hand over his balding head and snapped his fingers at me. “Almost every culture has a dragon legend, even though some of those cultures never encountered each other.”
“So, are there other creatures in Japanese culture that are like the creatures we have here?” a brunette in front of the class asked as she raised her thin hand.
“Yes, Ms. Green,” Goldberg said, “but there are more unique monsters in Japanese lore to explore. Why don’t we jump right into it?”
“I’m excited,” I whispered to Steffi as the teacher switched from the title slide to a slide with a picture of a red-skinned, one-horned demon squatting next to a bloody, faceless human corpse.
“This right here is an Amanojaku,” Goldberg said as he used a laser pointer to highlight the demon. “Their name means ‘heavenly evil spirits,’ and they are a lesser oni or yokai monster. Does anyone know what an oni or a yokai is?”
“I do,” I said and raised my hand. “Oni and yokai are just the Japanese terms for monsters. Yokai refers to a wide variety of Japanese monsters or spirits, while an oni is more specific. Oni are usually trolls or ogres, right?”
“Excellent, Mr. Cooper.” The teacher looked pleased as he wrapped his hands around his pudgy belly. “Yokai range from mischievous little devils to true malevolent spirits, and the Amanojaku is no exception. These demons are creatures of pure evil. The Amanojaku are similar to the Fae across the world, but their main goal is to inspire humans to commit wicked deeds for the demons’ pleasure. They’re very tempting creatures, so they are hard to resist.”
“What sort of legends are there about these monsters?” Nick asked.
“Well, Mr. Walters,” Goldberg began, “the most popular fairy tale where the Amanojaku appears describes a little girl accidentally letting one into her parents’ home, then the demon skins her alive to impersonate the little girl by wearing her skin.”
“Fucking hell,” I muttered under my breath as a shudder ran up and down my spine.
“As you can imagine, these monsters are bad,” the teacher continued, “but believe it or not, there are worse ones.”
“More destructive ones, you mean,” I spoke up. “I know these Amanojaku are bad, but Japan was just attacked by sea serpents and underground tortoises, like, a week ago.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Cooper.” The man at the front of the class set his laser pointer down on the desk and fitted his hands over his belly again. “Like every culture across the world, Japan has been plagued by an exceptionally powerful group of monsters which seem hellbent on destroying their nation for reasons unknown. Like many others in AIMM and in the other Academies across the globe, I wish I knew the answers. Knowing would make it easier to combat such horrid monsters, but we don’t know. The only thing we can do is be better prepared for our adversaries so we can stop them from hurting anyone else.”
“As prepared as we can be against monsters that have evolved to kill humans,” I muttered so no one else would hear me.
“Now, the Amanojaku are not unique to any area in Japan,” Goldberg continued as the slide changed again, “but they prefer the forests of Japan. They will usually catch a hapless traveler and tempt them into doing their wicked deeds for them, although not many of these little creatures have seemed to pop up in recent years. It’s hard to say for sure since many of the wicked deeds could be seen as nothing more than human error.”
“Do you think the Amanojaku are responsible for the Suicide Forest?” one girl across the classroom asked without raising her hand.
“No, the Amanojaku have never been held accountable for the deaths in Aokigahara, or the Sea of Trees.” The teacher took his wire-framed glasses out of his pocket and slipped them onto his face as he spoke to us. “It’s a shame the beauty that is the Sea of Trees has been known as the Suicide Forest for the last several decades, but there is no evidence to suggest the Amanojaku have been blamed for the rash of deaths in the forest. Usually, the Aokigahara is cited as being haunted, so evil spirits which live inside the forest's dark depths could be held responsible, but no one has ever gone inside to find out.”
“Would the Amanojaku want people to kill themselves?” I asked and cocked my head to one side. “It seems like they enjoy using their victims up.”
“We don’t know exactly, Mr. Cooper.” Mr. Goldberg tilted the rims of his glasses down until he could look at me over the spectacles. “The Amanojaku are rare, much like fairies, and of course, Japan has rarely offered any helpful information to us. We have been relying on the information provided by publicly accessible folklore, and as I’m sure you’ve discovered, basing our science in folklore is not always helpful.”
“You’re right, sir.” I leaned back in my chair and braced my hands against the top of the desk.
“Are there any more questions about the Amanojaku?” the teacher asked as he took his glasses off and bit on one of the earpieces. When no one raised their hands, Goldberg turned back to his computer and changed the slide again. “Alright, let’s move on to the next Japanese monster on our list. We have a lot of ground to cover in the coming week, so buckle up.”
The rest of the lecture went by smoothly, and we only interrupted Goldberg a few more times before he dismissed us from the class.
“Learning about Japanese culture was pretty cool,” Nick said, and while his motivations could’ve been purely educational, I knew he was a weeb just like me, and he had to be excited to learn more so we could geek out about it later.
“I just hate how many nasty Fae creatures are out there,” Steffi grumbled with a shudder. “Why can’t fairies be good creatures?”
“I wish they were, too,” I said and rubbed her arm gently, “but there’s at least one good one out here. I’m looking right at her.”
“Kill the flirting before the next class, please.” The nymph rolled his eyes and pushed the next classroom’s door open.
Like the last room, this classroom was very sparse and sterile, but at least the walls had a few more pictures of dissected imps and trolls on the walls.
The Monster Biology class had been the most interesting so far, even though I wasn’t usually the guy to like biology classes. I just didn’t like the idea of cutting dead things open and poking around inside of them, but it was fascinating to learn about the inner workings of various monsters.
“Wish we hadn’t missed this morning’s classes,” I muttered more to myself as my team slipped into our table. “I wanted to learn more about the interpretation of monsters in literature.”
“Me, too,” Nala added and put her arms on top of the table. “Honestly, I was excited to see what Mrs. Wolff was going to say about Stoker’s accuracies on vampires.”
“I was more interested in how Van Helsing played into it,” Steffi piped up while she picked at her peachy-colored nails. “I love examining literature under a microscope, and it’s even more fun when you know what you’re examining isn’t just science fiction.”
“You three are made for each other,” Nick teased as he put his arms behind his blond head and stretched. “I’m glad we got out of it. I didn’t read the section.”
“Because you were watching something in the common room until early this the morning.” The dark-haired beauty smirked at Nick, but the nymph didn’t seem phased at all. “Maybe don’t do that, Nicky.”
“Get off my back,” the blond dude snorted and put his head down on his folded arms. “I was binge watching a show, and I couldn’t stop. You know how hard it is to quit when you’re in the groove.”
The familiar sound of high heels clacking on a vinyl floor interrupted us, and we turned to the front of the class as our teacher, Dr. Crawford, strolled into the room.
For a doctor, she was young, and very, very pretty. The brunette at the front of the class wasn’t much older than I was, and her youthful face still had a rosy tint to it when she smiled. Her perfect teeth shone underneath her ruby-red lips, and her dark green eyes sparkled whenever she got excited about the topic she was teaching us. Today, the woman was wearing an aqua-green blouse and navy-blue pencil skirt underneath her lab coat, and every inch of her slim and trim body looked good in her clothing.
It was no wonder the guys loved her classes so much.
“I hope everyone’s had a great day of training and learning so far,” she said in her melodic voice as she powered up her projector and moved to stand behind her desk. “I know this is the last period, and everyone’s probably tired after the big lunch we got earlier, but bear with me today. I’m planning on letting us out early.”
The class heaved a collective sigh of relief.
“So, you’ve probably noticed there aren’t any bodies to dissect today,” Dr. Crawford continued, “and that’s because I wanted today to be more discussion based. I feel like we’re all learning a lot as a class, but I know we can learn more if we leave the floor open for questions and comments. I have some videos for us to watch that will help and hopefully, you’ll also find it to be fun.”
“This class is always fun,” Nick whispered to me without moving his green gaze from the center of Dr. Crawford’ bust.
“So, since we’ve been talking about the differences between monsters who were once human, like vampires and werewolves, and monsters who look human but aren’t, like skinwalkers, why don’t I open the floor for review?” The good doctor at the front of the class fanned her hands outward and flashed everyone a smile that had to have won her a local beauty contest.
“I guess one thing I wasn’t clear on was how certain people are turned into vampires and others are just drained when vampires bite them,” one lanky boy behind us spoke up as he raised his long arm over his ebony head. “You know? I might not have paid enough attention, but it seemed like it wasn’t like the vampire was picking and choosing.”
“You’d be partially right, Mr. Anders,” Dr. Crawford said as she dimmed the classroom lights and flipped the projector on to her slideshow.
The display lit up with a diagram of a vampire’s body and a normal human body, and each side of the chart had various body parts labeled to help further illustrate the differences between vampires and humans.
“We’re not quite sure how vampires choose their victims,” the doctor continued, “but there seems to be a common thread on who turns into a vampire and who becomes vampire food.”
“Gross,” Nala murmured with her nose curled up.
“I apologize for the grisly choice of words, but here at AIMM, we’ve grown a little calloused toward the whole situation.” Dr. Crawford cleared her throat and kept going. “Inner strength and constitution seem to be deciding factors in the onset of vampirism. The disease takes over every part of the body shortly after a vampire bites someone, so perhaps the vampire can sense when his victim will succumb to the bite, or when his victim will remain strong and turn into one of his own. Some legends mention the use of vampire blood combined with human blood to turn the human victim into a vampire, but we don’t have solid evidence of that yet. Right now, we’re operating only on theory.”
“What about werewolves and skinwalkers?” Nick asked as his hand shot up. “Werewolves aren’t born, but skinwalkers are. Is that how we tell the difference?”
“Partially, yes, Mr. Walters,” Dr. Crawford explained as she turned away from the board and faced the class. “Skinwalkers are also not limited to one form. Individual skinwalkers have one form they can shift in and out of, but there are a multitude of different skinwalker subspecies. From dogs to cats to birds, we’ve found evidence of more than a hundred different kinds of skinwalkers over the years.”
“Cool.” Nick grinned.
“Werewolves, however,” she continued, “are limited to one form, and most often, they cannot choose when and where they shift. Their lycanthropy is triggered by full moons, so the only time to find werewolves is during that stage in the lunar cycle. Werewolves, also, cannot choose when they shift back, and usually have to remain in their alternate form until the full moon wanes.”
“Sucks for them,” I whispered more to myself. I knew all about werewolf lore since I’d studied it on my own time in high school, but that didn’t stop me from sympathizing with the poor bastards cursed with that sort of ability. It sounded like the opposite of fun, no matter what anyone else said about it, and I was glad I wasn’t stuck with a power I couldn’t control, unlike the lycanthropes who were affected by their disease.
