*In the skies above the east side of the Savage Lands, roughly 10,000 meters high*
High above a canopy of trees that stretched endlessly toward the horizon, a massive creature soared lazily through the clouds. Its body resembled a manta ray, if a manta ray had decided evolution wasn't extreme enough and grown to the size of a small island — the *Cirrus Devilfin*, as Ollie had dubbed it, mostly because it sounded fancy enough to make him feel smart.
Sprawled across its broad back were two figures who, by all rights, should not have been this relaxed. One was a lanky teenage boy, hands behind his head, green eyes half-lidded as he watched the clouds roll by. The other was Brutus — currently "only" the size of a small house in his mid-growth years, a hulking mass of grey fur, saber fangs, and bear-like muscle that made the ground shake whenever he so much as yawned. Not yet the 20-foot titan he'd grow into, but already big enough that most things in the Savage Lands wisely gave him a wide berth.
"So," Ollie said, voice carrying the tone of someone plotting a heist rather than a fight to the death. "Tomorrow, we hit the Lindworm Tyrant's territory from the north ridge, use the fog banks for cover, and strike his flank before the fat bastard even registers we're there."
Brutus's ear twitched. A long, contemplative silence passed, broken only by the low rumble of him chewing on absolutely nothing.
"...Or," he rumbled finally, with the confidence of a man about to say something profound, "we just punch him really hard until he falls over."
Ollie turned his head slowly, staring at his friend with the particular deadpan reserved only for Brutus's dumbest ideas — which, admittedly, was most of them.
"Brutus, you absolute walnut-brained mutt. He's the size of a small castle. His mane is basically a moving fortress that eats swords for breakfast. And your genius plan is 'punch harder'?"
"Worked last time."
"That was a rock, you giant furry idiot."
"Still counts."
"It doesn't have a *pulse*, Brutus, that's usually the difference between a rock and a—"
"At least I don't sound like a little bitch planning a tea party every time we fight something," Brutus cut in, baring his fangs in something that might've been a grin.
"Oh, real mature, coming from the guy who once tried to headbutt a volcano."
"IT LOOKED WEAK."
"IT WAS A VOLCANO, BRUTUS, THEY DON'T HAVE A WEAK SETTING—"
That was as far as the conversation got before a massive grey paw swatted him clean off balance, and Ollie retaliated by grabbing a fistful of mane and yanking hard enough to make Brutus yelp, and within seconds the two of them were tumbling across the Devilfin's back in a chaotic tangle of limbs, claws, and increasingly filthy insults, laughing too hard for either of them to actually land a real hit.
Which was, in hindsight, probably not the best thing to be doing on the back of a creature that valued its personal space.
With an irritated flick of its massive wing, the Cirrus Devilfin bucked them both clean off, sending them tumbling through open air like two idiots getting evicted mid-argument.
"OH COME ON—"
"THIS IS YOUR FAULT, YOU BONY PRICK—" Brutus roared, somehow still managing to sound offended mid-freefall.
Two bodies plummeted screaming toward a distant mountain, the wind doing absolutely nothing to slow their descent, right up until the moment they slammed into the mountainside hard enough to reduce a solid chunk of it to rubble and dust.
A beat of silence.
Then, from within the settling debris, Ollie's head popped up, coughing, followed a moment later by Brutus shaking rock chips out of his mane like a wet dog.
"...This," Ollie wheezed, spitting out a mouthful of dirt, "is *entirely* your fault, you overgrown carpet."
"My fault?! You're the one who started groping my mane like some kind of degenerate!"
"That was NOT groping, that was a legitimate tactical grapple, you absolute—"
The ground trembled.
Then it trembled again, harder, dust and pebbles hopping along the crater they'd just made.
Both of them slowly turned toward the source, the bickering dying in their throats.
Rising from beneath the rubble of the mountain's base — the mountain they had just so thoughtfully crashed into and partially demolished — was something that had absolutely not been part of the itinerary. A head like a dragon's, crowned in a thick, wild mane like a lion's, attached to a body roughly ten times Brutus's current size, unfolded itself from the wreckage with all the slow, building fury of something that had been having a very peaceful nap about four seconds ago.
Golden reptilian eyes locked onto the two of them.
Silence.
"...So," Brutus rumbled eventually, not taking his eyes off the now very awake, very furious Lindworm Tyrant. "This is your fault."
"*My* fault?! You're the one who tackled me, you absolute fur-brained disaster!"
"You started the strategy talk that led to the tackling, dickhead!"
"That doesn't even—"
*ROAAAAR*
Whatever Ollie was about to say was obliterated, along with several nearby trees, several loose rocks, and possibly Ollie's eardrums, as the Lindworm Tyrant unleashed a roar that shook the entire mountain range.
---
*Deep in the forests of Surrey, near a lake*
*Harry's POV*
Harry's eyes snapped open to a splitting headache and the distinct, unpleasant sensation of having faceplanted into damp grass.
"Ugh... the hell did you hit my head for, Harry?" a familiar rumbling voice groaned from somewhere to his left.
Harry pushed himself up onto his elbows, glaring at the massive grey shape sprawled beside him. "I didn't hit anything, you giant furball, we both just — wait." He blinked. "You called me Harry."
Brutus lifted his head, blue eyes blinking slowly, the gears in his skull visibly grinding. "...I did?"
Dead silence.
Both of them stared at each other like their brains had simultaneously blue-screened.
"...Okay," Harry said slowly, sitting up, rubbing his temple. "Gotta be from that blood thing we did like ten minutes ago. Guess mixing our stuff together did more than just let us feel weird about each other's mana, must've actually connected us for real this time, like, deep down. Would explain why you're suddenly using my new name instead of my old one."
"NEEEEEERD."
Harry's eye twitched.
"I said, like, one smart sentence—"
"Nerd nerd nerd, is what I'm hearing," Brutus said, grinning wide enough to show off every one of his sabers.
Something in Harry's head just snapped. Without thinking, he lunged forward and shoved Brutus's grinning snout with everything his scrawny ten-year-old body had.
Brutus's snout wrinkled slightly, like he was holding back a sneeze.
That was it. That was the entire effect.
Harry recoiled, cradling his hand, staring at his own palm in betrayed disbelief. 'What in the actual — this body couldn't push over a sleeping toddler, let alone—'
Brutus blinked at him. Once. Twice.
Then, after what appeared to be several agonizing seconds of processing — because thinking, for Brutus, had always been a full-body cardio event — realization dawned across his furry face like a slow sunrise, and he lost it completely.
"PFFFFFFFFT— HAHAHAHA—" Brutus collapsed onto his side, rolling in the grass, wheezing so hard he nearly choked. "You're — you're WEAKER than when we were BABIES, oh my god, oh my— HAHAHAHA—"
"Okay, that's ENOUGH out of you—"
"You couldn't even— HAH— push my FACE—"
Harry's face went red. Tick marks practically sprouted along his temple, one after another, as Brutus kept wheezing and rolling and mocking him without a shred of mercy.
Fine. *Fine.*
Harry jumped, digging into every scrap of muscle control this pathetic ten-year-old body had left, contracting and releasing in the precise rhythmic burst he'd picked up years ago just from flipping through the Source's records on some old forgotten combat style — a trick that could turn a normal hit into something ten to twenty times stronger, depending on how fit and controlled the body throwing it was — and stomped down directly onto Brutus's laughing belly.
***BOOM.***
The ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern beneath them. Brutus's beady blue eyes bulged, saliva flying from his open mouth as all the air left his lungs in one violent expulsion, his laughter cutting instantly into a strangled, wheezing gasp.
Harry sat cross-legged on top of him, arms crossed, grinning with all the smugness of a job well done.
Underneath the smugness, sweat rolled down his back as he fought to keep his expression neutral, because his leg muscles were currently spasming in white-hot agony, dangerously close to tearing from the sheer disrespect he'd just shown this untrained body. 'Worth it,' he thought through gritted teeth. 'Absolutely worth it, don't you dare show weakness now—'
"You," Brutus wheezed, still fighting for air, "are gonna regret—"
"Regret what? Winning?" Harry shot back, voice steady even as the pain in his legs slowly faded, the muscle knitting itself back together with the same stubborn resilience he'd been born with, the same gifts that had kept him alive through every disaster in his old life.
Brutus's paw shot out and swept Harry clean off his stomach, and the two of them tumbled across the grass in a fresh tangle of limbs, fur, and half-hearted insults, rolling straight down the bank and into the lake with a joint splash.
They surfaced a moment later, both floating on their backs, chests heaving, the fight already forgotten as easily as it started.
For a while, neither of them said anything. They just floated there, side by side, watching the sky slowly bleed from orange to deep blue above the treeline, breathing hard, the silence between them comfortable in the exact way only decades of friendship could make it.
After a moment Harry spoke again,
"So basically, that blood thing mixed our magic and created something like a familiar bond, so we might develop new abilities after the magic settles..."
"whatever you say... Nerd~"
Harry just smiled quietly,
" Asshole~"
Inside he felt a sense of peace he hadn't for many years since loosing Brutus, his friend was here, he was alive and still as brickheaded as before... He really missed this, he remembered how he changed after the tragedy he became colder, more serious and detached, he couldn't connect meaningfully with anyone even after all those years in the human world. But the moment he met Brutus again in this strange world, his real self came back as if by magic, he swore he wouldn't let him die agai-.
*PFFFFFFFFT*
His thoughts were cut off by a jet of water striking his face hard enough to sting and push his head back under the surface of the lake as he heard booming laughter above him.
"Did you fucking spit water in my face??!!!?!!"
"haha... You had that stupid looking expression on your face again, couldn't help myself... Bwahahahha"
I felt my eyes twitching again,
'Fuck it, let the bastard die, or better yet I'll kill him myself!'
...
...
After a few more round of play fighting in the water they were now sitting by a campfire, drying themselves off until the curtain of stars above.
"Alright, let's set a training plan for the year until I get my hogwarts letter."
He had just explained to the bear almost everything he knew about this world and it's rules.
"So how do we do this? There ain't no monsters around that I can smell, also this place feels way too peaceful"
As a proper battle Junkie, Brutus preferred chaotic environments with action all around, Harry was the same, it was one of the reasons he still chose to become a mercenary after retiring for active duty instead of staying in an office at the white house or retreating to a cottage in the countryside like most retired veterans.
"don't worry I know exactly the place we need, but first let's hunt some deer and get some rest, my body ain't gonna build any strength if I don't give it some nutrients"
"weakling~"
"YOU LITTL-"
-----------------------
To be continued...
Hey guys, got some inspiration and wrote a new chapter, enjoy.