The Secret of the Dragon Man.

Mr. Dhaet is back! In this story, the main character Dara gets troubled by his only opponent, Mr. Dhaet, once again. But this time, Mr. Dhaet's got a secret to tell.

Dara sat in a chair in the middle of the room with the spikes under his skin trying to move while he held them down. His spikes move when he is in the mood to fight. His captor stood across from him, dimly lit by the small lamp in the corner of the small room, which was almost completely dark itself. His captor was a tall, lanky man with a stubbly face and a tux covering his thin structure. Except this man was different. Everyone in this world was different. Everybody had their own powers and their own body parts that were different than others, such as Dara’s captor; He had a spiky dragon tail along with sharp claws and teeth.

Dara glared at this man from his small, wooden chair as the man talked and talked as if there was no tomorrow.

“Mr. Dara, your family will never find you here”, He said in his deep, somewhat raspy voice.

Dara replied sassily, “Yes they will, don’t you know what power my mother has?”

Mr. Dhaet pointed a bony finger at Dara and snarled, “I’ve had enough of your back talk.”

The spikes under Dara’s skin started to hurt him slightly. He had had enough of this. But just then, something exciting happened. There was a burst of rubble from the ceiling accompanied by a loud explosion, which left a gash on the ceiling. Out of that gash flew down Dara’s mother.

She was wearing the usual pink t-shirt under her overalls and her favorite white sneakers. The 35 year old looked like a teenager again. Her hair was in the normal ponytail, which complimented the waves nicely.

She stood tall and proud as her son said, “Glad you could make it.”

He pulled lightly on the ropes that bound him to his chair.

His mother, Saffi, grinned at Mr. Dhaet and said, “Clearly you are highly uneducated, Mr. Dhaet. You see”, She said, walking towards him, “I have sharp ears, haven’t you heard?”

She stopped halfway and turned around to wink at Dara. While she had her head turned, Mr. Dhaet took a step forward with the intention of grabbing hold of Saffi’s neck, but because of her super hearing, she whipped around and latched onto his neck first.

She held on tightly for some time before saying as she lifted a fist aimed at his face, “Let my son go or I’ll punch you.”

Mr. Dhaet let a big smile spread across his face when he managed to choke out, “That punch would have hurt me no more than a regular human’s.”

Indeed, it was true, because Saffi had no other powers. That time though, she didn’t need her super hearing to listen in on what Dara was doing. Not shedding a drop of blood, the spikes burst through the skin all over his body, ripping through his clothes with a horrible crunch and also ripping the ropes.

He stood up, pointed at Mr. Dhaet with a spike on the end of his finger, and said fiercely, “Say cheese.”

The spike on the tip of his finger then shot out, regrew, and flew at Mr. Dhaet, who stopped smiling as soon as it stabbed him deeply in the cheek. These spikes are about 5 inches long. It took him a little while of attempting to pull it out before he realized his tail could be used as a weapon. He whipped it around, trying to hit Saffi, who was still clinging to his neck roughly. Eventually he hit her on the leg, which caused her to fall off to the side and let go of his neck. She felt her head smack the floor and soon after everything went black.

Dara screeched, yanking on the ropes as if trying to reach out to her, “Mom! Wake up! Please wake up! Please!”

Mr. Dhaet walked over to Dara and wrapped his spiny tail around his neck as he spoke slyly.
“I hope you enjoy this.”

Mr. Dhaet let go, seeing as he made indents on Dara’s neck deep enough to be craters, and walked over to Saffi, who still lay unconscious.

Mr. Dhaet looked up at Dara and said with an evil smile, “Who said I wasn’t actually part dragon?”

He looked down as Dara’s face became twisted with fear and opened his mouth to let out a flood of fire at Saffi. The flames danced across her body with no mercy. Dara stood, watching in horror as his mother slowly burned to a crisp. Rage filled his eyes and his stomach turned into a vat of boiling hot water. He felt hatred and anger rise quickly within him, and there was no stopping him now. He dashed towards Mr. Dhaet with a sudden burst of speed and fury, hitting him with such a massive amount of strength that Mr. Dhaet tumbled over and landed on his side so hard he broke a rib. He tried to get up, but in his struggles, the broken rib pierced his heart and he started coughing up blood. He lay back down, but also writhing and screeching in agony. Dara stood there, breathing heavily, watching Mr. Dhaet seizure out on the floor. After a few minutes, Mr. Dhaet started to blink rapidly as his body calmed down. Dara suspected he was seeing black or rainbow colors and couldn’t get them to go away. Dara walked over slowly, then stood next to a vast pool of blood.

“You deserve this Dhaet, for all the times you’ve gone after us.”

He looked over at his mother sadly, who was black as night because of the fire that had now ceased.

Mr. Dhaet looked up slowly, then whispered, “I know I’m losing blood fast, and I know you hate me, Dara. But can I tell you something?”

Dara felt the need to say yes, because it might actually be important.

“Anything, Dhaet.”

Mr. Dhaet smiled faintly.

“Just a quick thing before I go?”

Dara repeated, “Anything.”

Mr. Dhaet replied softly, “I love you, my son”, before closing his eyes and letting his smile fade away like his soul had done so many years ago.