I Guess I'm a Dragon Now (Part 1)

Armor

'This is it... the beginning of the end.' Ergen thought as he watched the rows upon rows of soldiers march beneath him. The Demon King's army was finally moving out in order to confront Emric's forces, and now he would have to go along with them in order to face the celestial griffin... if it could even be called that anymore. Apparently, whatever Emric had done to the creature had horribly mutated it, though to what extent he didn't know. And once again, Ergen found that he was faced with the prospect of fighting yet another giant monster that he knew nothing about. Though by now, Ergen thought gloomily, he was starting to get used to it. The giant fish that had chased him in the ocean, the fenrir that had attacked him in the mountains and finally the chimera broodmother that he's just barely managed to defeat in the dungeons... All of them had been opponents that had both tested his luck and pushed him to his limits. And as Ergen thought about them, he wondered just how the griffin would fight before he finally flew back down into his arena, looking at Farell's three cows that he'd demanded for a reward after completing his mission. Though, with the army moving and apparently Ergen's last opponent on the horizon, he didn't have much of an apatite and only managed to eat two of them.

"Lord Ergen, are you ready to be equiped?" A single gnome walked into the arena, and Ergen sighed inwardly as he supposed that it really was getting close to the time when he would have to fight. He only hoped that the armor that these creatures had made for him would still fit.

With a simple nod of Ergen's head, the gnome let out a loud whistle and the arena's main entrance suddenly burst open as several wagons entered it. And while Ergen had just finished watching the army marching away from the city, he hadn't expected another one to appear as what seemed like hundreds of gnomes poured into the arena  from what seemed like every entrance that the structure had. And all at once, they seemed to converge on Ergen, pulling on his wings and making him extend his legs. And while the process was uncomfortable to say the least, he was now hoping that his earlier thoughts on the armor would be false as he had been expecting to have outgrown the armor by the time that they had completed it.

Thinking that the moment of truth was coming, Ergen patiently waited while the gnomes unloaded all of the heavy looking metal plates out of the wagons, and he was both impressed and thankful to see that they hadn't made it to where it was only as thin as a normal human's armor would be. The dark-blue armored plates were almost as thick as each gnome was tall, and Ergen started to worry if he could even fly with all of the extra weight that it would no doubt add onto him before the gnomes set up some kind of wooden crane system and started hoisting the armor pieces in the air.

Seeing what looked like a helmet dangle from the air in front of his face, Ergen waited patiently as the gnomes slowly rolled their crane contraption towards him until finally the helmet was just over his head. And once they seemed confident that it was in place, the gnomes lowered the metal until it finally started resting on the top of Ergen's horns, which he guessed it shouldn't have been as several of the gnomes standing on him suddenly started shouting what sounded like curses at the other gnomes operating the crane. 

Eventually the gnomes lifted the helmet back off of Ergen's horns and they managed to fit it into place. The metal was apparently supposed to fit around his horns, though now Ergen was worried that they'd made the helmet to large as it completely hung loosely off the sides of his head. However, not seeming deterred by the development, the gnomes made Ergen lift his head slightly so that they could attach what looked like the bottom half of the helmet which would protect his chin and throat. And as soon as the moved it into position, the two pieces somehow attached to each other, snapping into place before the gnomes swarmed over Ergen's head again.

Hitting the dark-blue metal with some strange kind of glowing hammers, Ergen was surprised when the metal actually started shrinking until it fit perfectly around his head. And the process continued as the gnomes started lifting the other armor pieces into position. A plated and spiked chest piece, gauntlets for each of his claws that had metal claws to support his own and even a long and flexible section that they managed to fit over his tail that had a large blade as the end. However, as Ergen was covered in the protective plating, something seemed strange to him before he finally realized what was wrong. No matter how many armor pieces they put over him, he didn't feel as if they were adding any weight at all.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Farell suddenly walked into Ergen's fixed view as he was still having to hold still while the gnomes finished securing the plating around his stomach. "Mithril truly is a wonder... harder than steel, lighter than leather and extremely resistant to all kinds of magic. It makes for the most useful, as well as expensive material ever discovered on this world."

'Here to try to put me in your debt again?" Ergen thought begrudgingly before he realized that the elven king was dressed for combat as well. Wearing golden armor with it's plating designed to look like leaves, the man strangely wore a regretful look as he gazed at Ergen.

"I know that you're probably thinking that I'm here to make you feel indebted to me again..." Farell continued, and Ergen's eyes widened in surprise as the man was spot on. "But that's not the case. I just... well, I suppose that I wanted to thank you one last time for saving my daughter. As well as tell you that you're not going to fight alone. The representatives of each race under the Demon King's banner are accompanying him to the front lines where we will do battle with Emric. None of us want a prolonged war where hundreds of thousands of lives could be lost, so we are going to end it during the first major battle..."

"We're depending a lot on your being able to counter the corrupted celestial griffin, Ergen." Asal appeared as well while wearing what looked like extremely extravagant golden and white robe. "If you should fail, not only your game will be ended, but I will most likely die as well resulting in Ligan being lost to darkness for an untold amount of time. The world will suffer if we fail here..."

'No pressure though, right?' Ergen asked sarcastically in his mind before turning to the sides as the gnomes started putting armor on his wings, which seemed ridiculous as it would only slow them down. Thankfully however, they only appeared to be applying an outer layer of protection to his bones and left the webbing between them alone.

"With that we should be finished." The head gnome announced, and thankfully the rest of them climbed off of him before Ergen stood from where he'd been laying and shook himself. None of his scales were pinched, everything was secured perfectly and he seemed to have completely free movement after he walked for a lap around the arena. Instead of armor, the light-weight metal seemed almost like a second skin, and Ergen grunted in approval after he tested himself and made sure that he could surround the outside of the armor with his own ice armor.

"Well then... it seems as if  all of our preparations are complete." Asal nodded slowly, tensing his hands around the staff he was holding before looking down at his feet. The boy was obviously feeling extreme anxiety at the moment, but he controlled himself unbelievably well before he suddenly looked up with a face full of determination. "Let's go. To Emric, and the future."