Dragon's Pride

Lair

I take in the sight of the large lake's worth of bubbling lava in front of me. The orangish-red glow it gives off flickers over the blackened stone walls and enclosed ceiling as the lava seems to flow towards some sort of natural drain, preventing it from rising above the lip I stand on.

I dip my bare foot in, nodding in satisfaction at the warmth it's engulfed by. I turn towards the man by my side, giving him a thumbs up. "I like it! There's no hole like a traditional volcano, but the privacy is nice."

He nods seriously at me, a stoic expression on his face. "I am glad that it meets your satisfaction. If you could deign to accompany me, I will guide you to Ms Ora and Mr Kami to continue the tour."

I nod, following him as he leads the way through a different tunnel than we came into the cavern from, stopping myself from frowning. I'm not really a fan of how overly stiff the man is acting. I'm not even a teenager, after all! At least Ora and Kami don't treat me like that anymore. It was kind of touch and go for some of our meetings after the first.

Understandable, really, since I accidentally hospitalized some random guy who was walking by with his daughter and dog. Even I'm not sure why I felt the need to attack him! All I know is that I felt the overwhelming desire to murderise his face the moment I saw it. Something about the way the light glinted off his round glasses coupled with his almost buzz cut brown hair just set me off.

It turned out that it's a good thing I did so, after DAB requested an investigation into him. Apparently he used his quirk on his wife to fake a scientific breakthrough, and was planning on doing the same to his daughter.

It came as such a surprise that he did not end up leaving that hospital after word of the exact details got around to the staff. Unforeseen complications and such.

Anyways, I can't help but smile when I see the familiar forms of the two DAB agents speaking with each other at a three point intersection, far outside the range of the evidently sweltering heat. Must suck for them to be stuck in those suits, though my own oversized hoodie and shorts aren't exactly comfortable either. But that's more because I prefer wearing my scales than clothes. They're so restricting!

The guy who came with me to the lava pool apparently has a fire proofing quirk that prevented him from being affected, but anyone else would have gotten heat stroke- or is that heat exhaustion? Either way; he's fine but nobody else would have been.

Though I can't help but feel like he's familiar for some reason...

I wave at the two, eyeing the fire-proof man as he excuses himself and takes his leave, walking away swiftly but not so fast that it could be said that he's running away. It's close though. I chuckle, enjoying the way it echoes through the tunnels and prompts the man to give up all pretense and start full-on sprinting for the exit.

I'm half a mind to shout something ominous to see if I can get him to run faster, but Ora stops me. "Please don't scare him. He is a good agent, and he's the one who informed us of where you were when we first met."

I tilt my head curiously. "He did? How'd he know where I was?"

Kami clears his throat, smiling at me. "Well, he had joined the group at the warehouse as a spy. We had a variety of agents doing the same across Japan until we could figure out where you marked your territory. It's just good luck on our part that we managed to catch you before you left that day. We expected it to take another year at the minimum to contact you."

I frown, tapping my chin as I recall that day six months ago before snapping my fingers. "Oh! He's the guy who didn't cook after Eraserhead and Present Mic dodged my flames!"