[ TT ] You are an apprentice mage whose ability has far surpassed that of your mentor - who happens to be the most powerful blood mage in the kingdom .

`` You did what?!'' shouted the Mentor. 
 
 `` It was n't that hard at all really,'' the Apprentice replied. 
 
 `` How is this even possible?! Such a... thing! That should n't be able to breath, let alone talk!'' 
 
 Held up by the Mentor's hands, the top of an egg started the rattle. It shook and turned on the palms until a black, scaly head reared up from a cracked bit of shell. 
 
 The Dragon turned to the mentor, staring with narrowed, sick-yellowed eyes. A tongue flickered out of its mouth with a raspy hiss. 
 
 `` *Eyyy man! Eyy! You dissin' me cuz of my color, ai n't ya? Listen here you white-ass geeza-*'' 
 
 `` What language is that?! Did you teach him that?'' 
 
 `` No, it sounds like Man, though...'' 
 
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 The Mentor of the Royal Academy had held his position for twenty long years after his retirement from the king's service. During this time, he had been forced to deal with snot-faced noble children, nigh-retarded knights-in-training, and the occasional cheeky smartass. 
 
 Once in a while, the mentor would sit down with the head of a preserved bishop and think to himself. 
 
 `` Where did my life go wrong? So goddamn wrong?'' 
 
 After a moment of contemplation, he would return his attention back to the bloody head, shove his fingers between the eyesockets, and dig out the two organs for his personal use. He spilled the rest of the blood into a little glass piece on his workdesk, taking a moment ever so often to admire how pretty it looked. To him, personal usage ranged from `` repairing diseased heart muscles'' to `` something to go with red wine and goat meat.'' 
 
 More often than not, he chose the latter. 
 
 This, however, is not his story. This is the story of his Apprentice, a wide-eyed girl who, in the traditional high-fantasy fashion, had decided to go ahead and bite their thumb at God by creating life, a task so reprehensibly immoral and mentally twisted, that it caused the Mentor to barf up his eyeball. 
 
 Well, the bishop's eyeball. 
 
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 `` Dear gods, Goch! I said you could go ahead and help yourself to my stores for fun! I did n't mean you should go ahead and get a beast heart back up and pumping!'' 
 
 `` It was an accident! I did n't even use a beast heart!'' the Apprentice whined. 
 
 `` Then, how?!'' 
 
 `` *Eggs, dawg. Eggs, *'' the Dragon piped up. 
 
 `` Shut that thing up!'' 
 
 The apprentice pulled off her pointy black hat and dug a skinny arm through the huge thing. Long hair bounced around her face as she thrust her arm about the thing wildly, finally pulling out a large green egg. 
 
 She held the thing up to the Mentor's face, and began. 
 
 `` So, I was trying to get this egg to crack open for a mid-morning snack...'' 
 
 `` That's an unfertilized dragon's egg. It's four o'clock in the middle of the night. I just told you to eat dinner five hours ago.'' 
 
 `` Like I said, mid-morning snack. Unfortunately, the damn thing would n't open. So, I got some blood from that bishop's corpse you had a while back, copied the egg-'' 
 
 `` You copied a dragon's egg?! No, you copied existing mass?!'' 
 
 `` Yeah, so I copied it and tried some ways to open it. Hammer, no damage. Knife, not a scratch. At about two hours of trying, I decided fuck it. Threw the thing in a pot of nightshade, tobaleaf, and narcissius petals with some of the young fella's blood.'' 
 
 The Apprentice dropped the egg back into her hat and gestured at the Dragon. 
 
 `` Poof.'' 
 
 The Mentor rolled his eyes and sat back down in his chair. He reached for the dragon and held out a long pipe in his hand. 
 
 `` *Oh nuh nuh nuh... NUH! I'm not lettin' anotha' old fucker use my flame as damn match. Nuh, bruh. *'' 
 
 ``... You showed him to someone else?'' 
 
 `` Uhh... yes. Professor Bones.'' 
 
 With that, the Mentor's eyes shot up as he chucked the pipe at a glass flask on his table. The flask shattered into clear flakes all over the dark wood of the desk and dropped onto the ground below, spilling its red liquid all over the stone floor. 
 
 The Dragon and the Apprentice staggered back, shaking in their feet. 
 
 `` Out of everyone you could've stupidly talked to first, you told Bones?!'' 
 
 `` Well, why not?!'' 
 
 `` I freaking hate Bones!'' The Mentor got up, stepping closer and closer to his student and her dragon. The red liquid on the floor started to flow and solidify into a hard scarlet form of a man. 
 
 A smile shattered the face where the mouth should be, creating a drippy set of jagged fangs along the front. It began to follow behind the Mentor with a gait like a living skeleton, slow and sure, sturdy and straight. 
 
 `` *White man hating on a notha' white man? That's so typica-! *'' 
 
 `` Shut the hell up, you mutated beast! You're not even a freak of a nature! You're a bloody freak made by a man!'' 
 
 `` *Augh! *'' The Dragon gasped. 
 
 The Mentor continued forward, a look of absolute hate and envy in his green eyes. He heaved and shook with every step he took, cracking his neck in a twisted fashion as he continued. 
 
 The blood-beast behind him followed the movement, growing larger and larger until a great shadow as cast over the Apprentice and the Dragon. 
 
 The Mentor was face-to-face with Apprentice as she was backed into a corner. The blood-beast let out an ear-shattering shriek as it jumped to the Dragon's corner. 
 
 `` Wow! Calm down, sir! I thought this was a comedy! Not a horror fic!'' The Apprentice started, stumbling on her words. 
 
 `` You know, my dear apprentice. I've always had a certain... fondness for younger women...'' 
 
 The Mentor groped the air with bony hands. 
 
 `` What the hell?!'' 
 
 `` *What the hell?! *'' 
 
 The Apprentice kicked out, sending the Mentor to ground as he howled in agony. The blood-beast dove forward upon the Dragon, who drew his tooth jaw wide open. 
 
 There was a scream. 
 
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 The Apprentice turned to her Dragon as the curled up under a blanket. Before them, the Mentor laid dead in a pool of red. The teeth of the beast that was so close to approaching them was currently being chewed by the Dragon as he stared blankly at the scene. 
 
 `` *This... was supposed to be the greatest court wizard that ever lived? Laaaaaaaaaaaaame. *'' 
 
 `` He always told me to watch where I step and avoid broken glass.... I never thought he actually meant it.'' 
 
 `` *Seriously tho. How the hell does a grown-ass man trip on broken glass and bleed to death on it. It was like, one piece, tops. *'' 
 
 `` I do n't imagine old people have a lot of blood or life in them.'' 
 
 `` True, dawg. True.'' 
 
 The Apprentice got up and tiptoed over to the Mentor's corpse. She pulled a glove out of the endless portal that was her witch's hat and slapped it on her hand. 
 
 She dug her fingers into his face, dragged out his two dead eyes, and let the blood spill on the floor. 
 
 `` Well, all yours, buddy. Make sure you get the whole thing. Really do n't want to let the rest of the faculty know about this.'' 
 
 `` *Aight, man. Aight. *'' The Dragon leapt over and started to gnaw at the old, leather flesh, tearing the skin with bloodied fangs. 
 
 `` *That old fucker Bones could help us hide this. Pretty sure that geezer's smoked plenty of folks in his time. *'' 
 
 `` Whatever. I still want my mid-morning snack.''
