Touching Children?

After a while, the first person had woken up from their state of unconsciousness. "Huh? What happened...? My head hurts." The little girl was the first person to wake up. She was confused at what was going on, as she had just woken up seeing that the rest of her friends were passed out scattered all around them. She couldn't remember what had happened, but as she tried to do so, she could only see a bunch of memories of nothing but the smile on another person's face. She couldn't see any other details such as the person's clothes, body, or facial structure. The only thing she could remember somewhat clearly was the blood-curling and terrifying smile that illuminated the darkness of the sewers. She experienced a short spike in panic as she started to remember what had happened, with all of them having been in a fight. It was as if she was still scared by whatever it was that had fought them, with chills running through her spine as she suddenly jumped up before turning her head to check on her knocked-out friends.

What she didn't expect was that Velios stood right behind her. As she ran into him, all she could see was the same smile he had given before on numerous occasions. Seeing Velios, her enemy so close, she became both scared and panicked as she watched him come closer and closer. "Stay away! Are you going to kill me the same way you killed the rest of them?!" She tried to cover her face the best she could with her arms to defend herself somewhat, but with every second that passed where nothing happened, she slowly began lowering her arms to check why nothing was happening. She noticed that the smile on Velios' face was gone; rather, it had been swapped out with something else. A look of disappointment.

"Here I thought I'd get a good reaction. Haven't you even noticed what I have done to your body, or is your memory still not fully intact?" Velios' face was instead normal with no remarkable expression. It was just a straight face. It did, however, not come across as friendly or casual to the girl, as Velios definitely could have framed that a little bit better. "Y-You... What did you do to my body?!" The girl started unconsciously blushing as she swung her arms back and forth as she hoped she could get rid of Velios. She tried to cover up her body while having assumed that what Velios had talked about was something completely different. "Why are you acting so weird?" Velios was confused by her actions. Velios had assumed that it was normal to thank others for helping each other, but that was not the reaction he had gotten. "Why are you acting so weird?! Taking advantage of me and my body just because I was unconscious... How dare you?!" Velios hadn't realized up until this point that there had been a misunderstanding.

"No, no, no, no. What do you think I talked about? I was talking about your mana. Does it feel more stable?" Velios had changed his tone to appear more friendly. This change in tone actually appeared to be working, as the girl started letting her guard down more and more since she was on the verge of crying. "N-Now that you mention it..." She paused her sentence to sniffle. "...My mana feels a lot more stable now. Wait, my poison... It's not leaking out anymore! I can control it, I can control it!" Although it took a while, the girl had finally started to sort of open up to Velios as if he was a friend. She didn't know how to show it; she didn't even know if she should have shown it, but she was really grateful for Velios fixing it. "W-What did you do?" She asked calmly. "Oh, nothing much. I noticed that all of you have pretty weak mana hearts and a very low amount of mana, making your unique magic unstable. All I needed to do was to infuse my own mana to help circulate and then maintain it." She paused to think for just a few seconds before she spoke. "Wait, does that mean... you did the same thing to all of us?!" This time, she didn't shout because she was scared or embarrassed but because she was extremely happy.

Velios was found sitting down for a short while, with the dragon resting her head on his lap. The girl looked tired and had fallen asleep pretty shortly after her burst of excitement. Velios was stroking her hair gently as he was thinking to himself. What is this feeling? I almost forgot that these were still dragons since they act just like any other human. This dragon specifically reminds me of my little sister... little sister? Did I have a little sister? Velios found himself in the same state he was in just a few hours ago. Knowledge about his life and identity he would be able to answer whenever, were now gone as if someone had erased them from his memory. I... don't know. Did I ever have one? What about my family, do I even remember them? Wait... that's right, I never had a family... My parents, they died before I could remember what they looked like, and my sister... Velios was interrupted in thought by the girl having woken up from her little nap. Velios was shocked after finding that he was still stroking her hair ever so gently.

"Mister! Can I wake up the rest of them now?" The girl seemed to suddenly be so full of energy. Before, she was hiding behind thick layers of clothing and barely speaking. She also looked miserable. It was almost weird to see someone like that happy, but Velios responded with a smile as he nodded as to say yes. Velios watched as the girl planned on going one by one to each and every one of her friends to wake them up, to explain, and thereafter happily showing them one by one that they actually had control over their powers. "Crow! Wake up!" She quickly started shaking his body until he woke up. "Crow, it's a miracle! Mister Dragon gave us control of our powers, look! I'm not poisonous anymore!" She started giggling to herself as she could now physically touch them without any repercussions. She happily crawled all over his body before he got up. "Crow, try speaking!" The girl happily exclaimed, but the dragon with the mask shook his head as to say no. "Crow, I promise that you can speak now, just look at my powers!"

"H-Hello..." Nothing happened. "Hello?" Nothing happened again. "I-I-I can finally speak! Mei, this is a miracle! Who did this?" As he held the girl in front of him in the air, he watched as the girl pointed to a direction directly behind him. As he turned around to watch who it was, he had also completely forgotten what had happened until he saw Velios sitting on a piece of rubble just a few meters away, smiling with one of his hands supporting his cheek. "Y-You! What are you doing here?!" He already looked both frustrated and angry just by the sight of Velios. "Crow! Don't be rude! He is the one that "cured" all of us from our curses. He had no obligation to, and he doesn't even know us personally, yet he still used up a lot of time and mana to help us. At least thank him! He said that he only attacked us because we attacked him first. You should apologize!" Crow was ultimately shocked by seeing Velios still sitting there, but even more so seeing that Mei sided with him. In the end, Crow thanked Velios not because he had to but because he had realized just how much he had done for them. "Should we wake up the rest of them, Mei?"

The next thing that followed was that Crow and Mei took their time properly explaining everything that had happened. How the one that they had attacked was so powerful, they didn't know, but multiple things were for certain. Velios had undoubtedly helped all of them get control over their powers. Powers that all of them hated, loathed, and detested were now the exact opposite, with each of them proudly showing off the newly found control they had over it. Even if some eventually tried to hide it, all of them were extremely grateful to Velios and were basically indebted to him. The majority of them were so over the top with their thanks that Velios had to interrupt them multiple times in order to get them to stop. In the end, Velios now had six loyal servants that would go above and beyond if he so much asked for, and he got all of it for free.