Chapter 22

Life, you could say, went back to normal.

I occasionally looked after my friends and relatives.

I was going through my usual training sessions, followed by the usual hunting of weirdos. I had the hunt for Alphas, thanks to Artemis, and they hid even better than the Princes, but the Goddess was good at it.

Later, the Goddess herself added color. Our relationship moved to the horizontal plane.

When asked about Prometheus, she said that she loved him, but that she also had to live for herself. Hmm, that's what you'd expect from a girl who fed me her father.

But I didn't care, who would refuse such a relationship with a very beautiful girl. Though now I could tell everybody I'd slept with the Goddess.

We killed everyone she could find. Sometimes we tracked Mercury down, just to scare him, to let him think with his head about who he opened his mouth to.

It was easiest with the vampire Alpha; he wasn't hiding, living in a huge mansion and on a grand scale. When he found out who was after him, he even tried to negotiate.

The negotiations went well, he gave me everything I wanted. Blood and soul, which went straight to my bunker.

You could say I relaxed. After all, what could happen, the canon changed rails and went down a new road. Without Lilith on the loose, there is no cage to open. There will be no Lucifer, and therefore no war in heaven.

Gathering his courage, he decided to absorb Metatron's soul along with all his knowledge. The problem is just his knowledge, there must be a lot of it. So I would have to go into "meditation" for about two weeks.

I don't need his whole life, but I could use the basics, like the knowledge of the tablets and the rest. Eh, I just got my brain straightened out.

I did not put it off for long, and took up the matter immediately after killing the last Alpha I knew, which was a shapeshifter.

He was the hardest to deal with, this Fantomas was hiding with the virtuosity of the Mystic of Marvel. But we got to him, too.

From there, Artemis and I went our separate ways, I had my own things to do, and she had her own. Her vacation was over, and she was back to her divine duties. It wasn't necessary to end our relationship, but feelings never came out, so it was a legitimate outcome. We stayed friends.

Plus, this breakup was easier, she just left and I didn't have to catch her in bed with someone else.

But as they used to say in my former homeland. Jinxed. Although this could be considered confirmation of the theory that it's oh so hard to break the canon and the world is trying to get back on the old path. But that's later.

The takeover dragged on for a long month and a half, something I had miscalculated. Worst of all, I was awake the whole time and actively "learning.

I learned a lot of new things, like that there was another alpha. The first and strongest was the dragon.

After so much time spent in the "brains" of the scribe of the Lord, I needed a break. And the hunt for a huge, vicious monster, completely fit my notions of rest.

But first a new problem had to be solved. It came out of nowhere. In a month and a half, and thanks to the grace of Metatron, which was the final impetus, my evolution was over. That's what I felt when all the spheres of my powers were "absorbed" into the core.

Only the grains of the Gods were left out in the open.

Everything would have been just fine, a sense of accomplishment made me feel slightly euphoric. But the moment was undermined when my vessel began to slowly deteriorate.

The constant healing only delayed the moment of final destruction. I even had to drain half my supply of grace to lessen the strain.

It helped, and there would even be an EO just in case.

Where to get a new body wasn't even a question. I had a couple of brothers in my friends who were perfect for it.

I showed up in the backseat of their car. Dean freaked out, couldn't hold the steering wheel, and we all went off into the ditch together. I had to pull myself up and teleport the car back to the track.

- Relax, guys, it's just me. - I got a long list of insults in response. Their father had taught them well not only how to hunt.

But then, on the third day, the Eagle Eye Indian noticed that the prison was missing one wall, and that was my not-so-healthy appearance.

- You don't look so good," the older man voiced the obvious as we entered the roadside motel room.

- The body's worn out, I need a new one. - I answered, seeing which one of the brothers was better suited to me. It didn't really matter, but when you buy a new car, you want everything to be perfect.

Sam was a better match for me in that regard. The presence of Azazel's blood in his system was the deciding factor. He also works out and doesn't poke his dick at anything with boobs.

- Adam, we're always here for you, but you're in the wrong place right now. - The would-be donor spoke up.

- Oh, Sammy, you have no idea how wrong you are. - I wanted to smile kindly, but I remembered in time that my teeth had fallen out, and the effect would not be the same - And I will prove it to you. All you have to do is reach out to your comrade, in the truest sense of the word. - Gave him a hint.

This is going to be fun, I thought, looking at the outstretched hand.

- Well laAAAAAAAA!!! - he screamed as I chopped off the hand of his left arm.

- Ahhhhhh!!!" his older brother backed him up in his hour of need. - Sam, he cut your hand off!!! - He gave the little one a sound hint, swiveling around him not knowing what to do, whether to call an ambulance or grab a gun.

- I didn't see that coming! - Sam snarled. - Get the first aid kit. We got to stop the bleeding.

- Quiet, you two, stop yelling. - Sam, you're not even in pain. And what blood are we talking about?

- What the fuck did you do that for, you crazy freak? - growled the would-be invalid, realizing there was nothing wrong with him.

I didn't know there were normal psychos.

- For the good of the case. - It's not like his head was cut off, it's not like his arm was cut off.

And then I had a long and tedious explanation: what? Why? And why? While I was growing Sam a limb. I heard even more about myself than when I'd met him.

Not a single Winchester had been seriously hurt during my experiments. And the fact that none of them shook my hand when I met them was nothing.

The new body fit perfectly, and, thanks to the use of my illusions, I managed to get my old look back. It wasn't necessary, but I got used to it.

Now I could go back to my planned vacation, namely a dragon safari.

Artemis did not find him. Metatron just knew he was there.

The search had to be done by the usual methods. It was a good thing that, thanks to Charlie and Ash, I was much better at computers. After digging through a lot of information, I managed to find several cases of missing young girls.

Time is of the essence, time to save the virgins!

It took me a week and a half to get on the trail of a couple of dragons. And that, I was actually lucky.

In a town in the state of Nevada, several girls had recently gone missing, so I was checking for leads. A strange soul appeared within my sensibilities, never met one before. Right next to it, a regular, human soul. I might have missed the moment, there were few creatures unfamiliar to me, but they were about three hundred meters away from me ... and strictly upward.

That was enough of a reason to take my mind off my business and pay attention to the strangeness.

One of the dragons was carrying its victim, a teenage girl, actually a child. I think I'll take a moment and interrupt this brood completely.

Their base was an old mine, which was clearly in a state of disrepair.

They won't die that easily, I realized when I heard what the two were arguing about.

- Eat them? Or fuck them and then eat them? - asked the one who brought the girl.

- If we fuck her she won't be a virgin, you idiot, which means it won't taste as good! - explained his point of view the other one.

- But if we eat her, we can't fuck her anymore! - The first one showed off his intellect, which was a great load for his partner.

I listened no further to this nonsense. I unmasked and quietly entered the cave, in the corners of which lay gold and human bones.

They smelled me at once, but did not have time to say or do anything. It's hard to talk when your face is pressed into a stone wall. I held them that way; even their transformation into dragons didn't help them, because there was too great a difference in their strength. What kind of dragons are they? More like bats.

He was treating the girl at the same time. The dragon that had brought her had left some deep and rather dangerous cuts with its claws.

After healing her body and adjusting her memories, I transported her directly to her home, where she was going before she was abducted. Telepathy.

And then, not caring at all about the safety of what replaced the creatures' brains, I used the same telepathy to find out everything I needed to know. These two idiots even knew the approximate location of the first of them. A very approximate one, the Ural Mountains.

Only nine dragons left... Oh, no, seven. But not for long.

I didn't absorb the souls of those losers; I took one, along with the blood and tears of the dragon, to my bunker, and used the other in a cleverly twisted ritual that Patrick had given me during our last meeting.

A compass, some blood, one soul, a couple more readily available ingredients, and a short spell.

The result was, a magical GPS that pointed at dragons. Handy gizmo. In 24 hours I had slaughtered all but the last of the tribe. Collected a huge pile of gold and quite a few rare ingredients.

Since this was, after all, a vacation, I decided to add a little authenticity.

I asked Bobby to set up a meeting with his ex, Eleanor Viziac.

- How the hell do you know everything? - He asked, clearing his throat. And no, I didn't specifically wait for him to start drinking coffee. Although, lying to myself is the last thing I would do, of course I did.

- Actually, I'm from another world, and my soul was reborn in a baby's body. And I know all this because in that world they made a TV series about you hunters. - I admitted without hiding anything.

- A soap opera about us, yeah, you should think a bit about believability when you're lying, you fucking fantasist. - The former hunter grumbled.

So you tell the truth, and they don't believe you.

On the fair question, why do I need Eleanor? Honestly told her I was going to kill a dragon, and that she had the right sword.

- Dragon? - He asked me why. - And where did you find it? At Hogwarts? - He was weird. He didn't believe I was an alien, but he didn't believe in dragons.

I have my own sword, and it's way cooler. But, man, I want to do everything right.

At the appointed time, I arrived at Eleanor's mansion. Yeah, she's not a poor old lady.

After the bell, just a few seconds later the door was opened by a smiling hostess. But after looking at me carefully, she abruptly stopped smiling.

- You're not human. - She stated the obvious fact.

Well, yes, the disguise I removed, I need more than just a sword from this "woman". She's the only one who knows how to open Purgatory's door. So that tail needs to be cleaned up, too.

- You too, let's skip the racism, we have serious talk. - I walked past her as soon as I realized I wasn't expecting an invitation.

What kind of creature she was, I did not ask, I did not care much. But that I was aware of her knowledge of Purgatory, and that it was the main reason for my visit, I shared at once.

The option of killing her did not suit me for some reason. So I asked her to rack her brains, how to make sure that such dangerous information would not fall into the hands of bad people or non-humans.

It was a contract, she sold me her knowledge of the location and how to open the passage to Purgatory. It was knowledge, not a copy of it.

And I gave her a dragon's soul and a couple of liters of their blood. And if they do come to her, she must tell me who it was passed on to.

That'll be fun.

- Why do you need a sword if you can slay a dragon? - She asked, holding up her fee.

- Bliss. - I threw up my hands. It was the only explanation I had.

It was easy enough to get Brunswick's sword out of the stone. I thought I might keep it, but I promised to give it back to my mistress after the deed.

Good thing the older Winchester couldn't get his grubby little hands on it now.

The search for the last dragon took a little longer, even though I had the compass. It wasn't easy to find something in a mountain the size of an average country.

But after a couple of hundred short shifts I found myself on a rather large rock ledge that flowed seamlessly into a huge cave.

There was a wooden house on the ledge itself, as well as several other useful household structures. All of this was hidden by a powerful concealment spell. The local equivalent of a fidelius, only much weaker; I have one covering my farm.

A young, handsome guy came out of the house, and he was clearly surprised to find the place.

I was also a little freaked out, because I was expecting to see a two-foot-tall brute with a beard, which should be more in line with the image of an ancient dragon.

And then each of us, turned our attention to the detail of interest. He noticed the sword in my hand, and his face reflected recognition.

I, on the other hand, looked at what he was eating. And it was clearly once a leg, a woman's leg.

- Man, do you think that toothpick will do you any good? - he asked in an arrogant, contemptuous manner, tossing aside the remains of his meal.

- Do you think an ordinary man could find this place, you stupid reptile? - I couldn't get as much arrogance out of me as my interlocutor, even on my best day, but I was pretty sarcastic. That's what I used.

The standard "fuck off" before a fight was over, I realized, watching the ogre growl something incomprehensible and begin to morph into a dragon. Yes, a dragon, not a bat.

And he was huge. Relatively.

It was ten meters long, half of which was its tail. The scales were dark green on top and white underneath.

It was two and a half meters tall and had a fairly impressive wingspan. An elongated snout and a mouth full of long, sharp teeth completed the picture.

His little snake eyes stared at me with not a little interest. Probably wanted to see how much I was frightened.

He did not.

I didn't wait, either, and made myself knight's armor. Illusory, of course, but who cares about the little things.

***

On a small plateau in the mountains, facing one another, two creatures stood ready to fight.

A huge dragon of dark green and a knight in black armor, which even in spite of his tall stature and massive armor did not look very good against his opponent.

The first move was left to the monster. With a resounding roar, he made a swift dash toward the dragon, who hadn't expected such a turn of events.

The poor beast barely had time to comprehend the move before it made a shallow cut on one of its front paws, relative to its size.

And only a moment later, a slightly smaller, but just as painful, cut adorned the back one as well.

Such an ancient creature could not be so easily defeated, as the reptiloid proved by exhaling a huge column of dragonfire toward the knight. The wave of unbearable heat sent all the sparse vegetation covering the plateau into flames.

- "Would-Nah-Kest," the knight shouted, dodging the devastating fire attack in a swift dash.

Stopping not far from the overgrown lizard, the knight took a deep breath and let out another shout.

- "Fus-Ro-Duh," the carcass, weighing a ton, swept like a fluff toward the wooden house.

A few seconds of crackling and rumbling made it clear that the dragon had suffered a crushing defeat in the standoff between the dragon and the structure.

- GRAAAAA!!! - expressed his displeasure to the last Alpha, literally throwing himself into the air with his huge wings. But he didn't have time to do anything else.

A new attack by the dov...knight immediately followed.

- "Strun-Bah-Qo," a lightning bolt of enormous power struck from the seemingly clear skies. Its target was the last of the sky lords.

The dragon was struck by the strongest electricity and fell to the ground.

Its frankly pathetic attempts to get back on its feet were unsuccessful.

But there is an end to everything.

The unhurriedly approaching knight, gave the dragon a few seconds to comprehend what had happened, and then with one mighty blow he thrust his sword into its skull.

A sharp movement and the man in armor holds a bright scarlet orb in his hand.

***

It wasn't hard or fun to come up with a substitute for screaming with my powers.

Fortunately, I didn't have to think about what to do with the huge carcass of an entire fucking dragon.

After I ripped the soul from the body, it took on a human appearance. I put it in the fridge in case it came in handy. It's a tough one, though.

I'll absorb the soul, I wonder how he could transform like that.

This fellow had plenty of gold, from all sorts of utensils to ancient coins.

The funny thing is, if I had found such a treasure back in that world, I would have cried with happiness, like a little girl.

And now I even thought of leaving it all here. But when I noticed a few ancient blades, I could not resist and decided to clean the whole cave. And as it turned out not for nothing, now I can open my own museum.

- Ah, interesting beginning of the vacation. - I muttered to myself, as always out loud. - "Our hero, our hero, he has the heart of a warrior...