"speak what happened to my child, how did he die?"

Mars struggled a bit under the ma.s.sive amount of killing intent that was pureed upon him but still managed to answer with a calm tone of voice

"as far as I know he was sealed in a stable orbit around the planet"

the woman narrowed her eyes menacingly before she asked

"sealed? how? who did it?"

Mars gave a sigh and answered truthfully

"I don't know, one moment I was getting executed and the next moment I was sealed in low orbit with a dragon suppressing collar around my neck"

"a dragon suppressing collar.... I see..."

the dragon woman fell into deep thought for a moment before she reached out and touched Mars' chest, just when Mars was about to ask what she was doing he felt a warm current flow into his chest and remained silent while it flowed into his chest. After about 10 minutes of waiting the dragon woman gave a nod

"you are definitely my blood... otherwise that would have destroyed you"

Mars' face slightly cramped but decide to remain silent as the dragon woman continued

"my blood.... my child... what is your name?"

"my name is Mars"

"Mars... Mars..."

the dragon woman mumbled his name a few times before she gave a nod and said plainly

"good you are to call me mother"

Mars' face cramped slightly once more before he decided to ask what was bugging him

"but I'm not Drekriz, you know that right?"

the dragon woman's face grew cold as she sternly said

"your vessel is my blood, so why shouldn't you call me mother?"

Mars swallowed his urge to repeat what he had just said and squeezed out a slightly respectful

"mother"

the dragon woman gave a nod and suddenly showed a happy face

"good, now let's fix your low dragon blood..."

"my dragon blood?"

the dragon woman's eyes narrowed slightly before she asked with a slightly menacing tone of voice as her tail swayed slightly from side to side

"what? could it be you don't want to?"

"that's not it mother... it's just..."

"just what?"

Mars gave a sigh

"sorry it nothing... please help me restore my dragon blood mother"

"very good, open your mouth"

Mars did as he was asked and opened his mouth, then the dragon woman cut open her finger and a few drops of blood flowed out and hovered in mid air before they flew into Mars' open mouth, Mars then closed his mouth and swallowed before he mumbled

"...this is highly unscientific"

"what did you say child?"

"nothing mother.... ugh"

Mars suddenly felt something start to burn in his body and kneeled over and clutched his stomach meanwhile his skin suddenly turned red like a boiled shrimp and sweat purred out of his body quickly soaking his clothes, the dragon woman gave a nod and patted Mars on the head

"do your best to endure my child if you don't you might die for real"

Mars felt his skin itch like hundreds of bugs were digging into it while his spine felt like it was getting ground into fine dust along with the rest of his bones and let out a low roar that sounded like a beast that was getting cooked alive. While Mars was going through pain greater than he had ever felt before the lesser fire dragon laid down in a corner of the cave and coiled up as it looked around the cave, it was uneasy it felt like something was looking at it and suddenly a pair of blue eyes appeared in the dark and a voice appeared in its head

"is... Mars okay..?"

the lesser fire dragon looked over at Mars that still was letting out a low roar and then it looked back at the blue eyes and gave a nod, then the blue eyes disappeared like they melted back into the darkness...

Mars didn't know how much time had pa.s.sed, all he knew was that the only thing he could do was endure and endure he did, after an unknown amount of time pa.s.sed the pain gradually let up and he then collapsed on the stone floor of the cave as he tried to catch his breath for a long time, then he heard a low raspy voice speak above his head

"good, that was the worst of it my child"

Mars forced his aching body up from the cold stone floor and sat up before he looked up at the dragon woman with questioning eyes, he sincerely hoped that the 'worst of it' meant there would be no more pain, it was not that Mars was a wimp it was just that the pain he had felt had been to great to endure for much longer then he had already did, so he mustered his courage and asked

"what's next mother?"

the dragon woman gave a smile and kneeled down and grabbed Mars' jaw before she looked him directly in the eyes and said

"now I teach you how to use your dragon blood to its greatest potential, but first let's get something to eat... call over the shadow panther that has been lurking in my cave, I smell something good from its shadow"

Mars gave a wry smile and called out

"Victoria come out, it's safe"

as soon as Mars spoke Victoria jumped out of the darkness and walked over and sat down besides Mars while her horns flashed

"Mars... are you okay?"

"yeah I'm fine now"

the dragon woman stood up again and looked at Victoria before she commanded

"take out the tasty smelling thing you have in your shadow"

Victoria looked at Mars and Mars gave a nod, then the lunchbox Mars had revived from Elsa materialized in front of her before it was picked up by the dragon woman that opened it and began stuffing her face with the contents while Victoria and Mars watched, Victoria's horns flashed as she asked Mars

"who is... she?"

"my mother"

less than a minute later the empty lunchbox that had contained 2 people worth of food fell to the floor before the dragon woman looked at Mars and commanded

"I want some more"

"...sure mother, then follow after me"

Mars gave a sigh as he stood up before he opened a portal and steeped though...

"...would you care to repeat that Mars?"

"Elsa my dear I would like you to cook up a storm for our esteemed guest"

"I have not seen you in a few days and then the first thing you do when you return is send me to the kitchen!? who is this woman anyways!?"

Varvei, Mary and Chloe nodded along with what Elsa was saying while sending sidelong glances to the dragon woman that had taken over the comfiest couch in the living room and was having a carefree nap, Mars gave a fake couch and answered Elsa's question

"she's my... mother"

""""your mother!?""""

the girls exclaimed at the same time before Chloe asked

"wait I thought you didn't have a mother?"

"well she's my vessels mother and has... forcefully adopted me and just so you know if she goes on a rampage I can't stop her"

Elsa gave a sigh

"fine but you all are helping me cook"

Mars stood at attention

"yes ma'am!"

what followed was a rather busy cooking session with one cook and 4 a.s.sistance cook's and one person eating, the whole deal lasted around 4 hours until finely the dragon woman was satisfied

"that was good... now let's start training"

"sure mother, should we head back to the cave or..?"

the dragon woman looked around before she gave a nod

"let's do that"

and then Mars and the dragon woman left for the island again...

"so let's start... transform into your dragon from"

"yes mother"

Mars quickly transformed and found that not much had changed while he was in his half-dragon from, he still had horns and his eyes had changed collar to red, besides that there was the scaled spikes on his knees and elbows and his claws, but that was all normal parts of his half-dragon from, Mars having finished looking himself over looked up and asked the dragon woman

"what now?"

the dragon woman didn't answer she just cracked her knuckles with a smile on her face before she kicked off the ground and sent a punch out towards Mars' chest, Mars reacted and tried to block the punch by crossing his arms in front of his chest but the force behind the punch was a lot more than he expected so before he had a chance to react he was sent flying into the cave wall where he was embedded into the wall with a bang

"....that was not so nice mother"

Mars jumped out of the wall but when he glanced at his arms he was stunned

"are those... scales?"

the dragon woman gave a nod, those were indeed scales and they had appeared on his skin exactly were he had been hit moments before the punch had hit him and had helped him block the punch

"...neat, but why did you hit me mother?"

the dragon woman gave a shrug

"I need to check how fast your scales were to deploy, with the speed they have you won't need much tempering"

"tempering?"

the dragon woman gave a smile and raised her hands again as she took a fighting stance and repeated

"tempering"