“Earth is forbidden for all other realms, so you’ve crossed a line you cannot return from. Even if this dragon bore no affiliation with us, we would still have to kill you!” Leonardo said.
“You wish to control the comings and goings of an entire realm? Are you mad? There is no reason to die for this asinine cause, friend. My family has a simple life, and we are the lifeblood of our community. You’d let an entire community starve because you don’t like people coming to your lands? Do you know nothing of trade? Do you know nothing of humanity’s struggles?”
“We know all too well, which is why we uphold this cause, for if it was anyone but us who was stopping your search, your entire realm would be fearing death, not just your community,” Leo said.
“Bah! I’ve heard tell of the people in this place, gawking at the dragons, living in their homes. There isn’t a warrior among this entire area!”
“With one hundred people everyone’s a hunter and gatherer; with one thousand people some are hunters, some are gatherers, others are field men and a few are tradesmen. More people doing increasingly more specialized things. How many people do you think this world has? How long do you think it takes to reach perfection in all things?”
“Are you telling me there are perfect warriors?” He had a smirk and a raised eyebrow, half calling a bluff, half interested in the possibility.
“There are things you can’t possibly comprehend. Imagine this, the largest city in your realm, turned to vapour in an instant. That is the power held by nearly every country in this realm. They have metal machines that can outrun horses, which have cannons built into them that can fire rounds that explode on impact. There are rockets that can fire throughout the realm. To the military might of this realm, you are nothing!”
“If there is such power, why don’t the guardians of the realm have it? Why use incomplete magic and only enchant rounds if you could cause the area around your portals to be vapour?”
“Because, as much as we are protecting this world from you, we’re protecting your world from this, and those attract attention,” Leo explained.
“The will of the people is strong. They will not fear your missiles that go from country to country, nor your vapour guns. There are strong warriors, fierce warriors that will find every avenue to crush you!”
“Then why haven’t they crushed Zambol?”
The hunter’s face, one of bemusement, angered. Leonardo pulled out his swords as the hunter gripped his tonfas harder than he ever had before.
The hunter charged Leonardo, who’d been ready for it. They clashed, sending Leo back. Gavin took up the backside, scratching at the shield.
The glyph Fumnaya had touched wasn’t shining anymore so there was only one shield to break. Fumnaya backed up and summoned her fireballs, and I grabbed the sniper rifle again. David and Lorenz took up Clawve-maga stances and waited for openings in his defences.
The hunter managed to duck and weave while being surrounded. He moved quickly to block all the claw attacks from the werewolves with the steel plate ends and stabbed at Leo with a ferocity not seen before.
I looked over to the other fight. The demon was missing a horn, one sword was broken in half and oozing green sludge and the silver dragon was mounted on his back with the rider stabbing him with her spear.
The green one yipped at his sister and started to fly towards us.
“Shit shit shit… other riders incoming!”
“The green one is weak, and the silver one would be weak to my fire! Give me as much as you have, and I can repel them!” the dragon said right into my ear.
I gulped, unsure, and it seemed that even while knee-deep in combat the hunter could feel my hesitation.
“That dragon cares not for you! It cares about its own life, it’ll take your age and fly free from the burden of friendship or duty!” he called out.
“Lies and slander!” the dragon called.
Genki raced to my side. “I have an idea! Give him your age!” Genki said excitedly.
“Fumnaya, make this thing quicker!” I said, holding up the age exchanging device.
A few moments and a few steps back from the racing battle pile that was inching towards me and the dragon, I was ready.
The dragon jumped down and I put the device to his head; with Fumnaya’s speed upgrade the change was nearly instant. The dragon grew and smacked the hunter out of the group that was coming towards us.
I felt really small, and also… airborne.
Before, it went slow enough that it seemed like you were shrinking down; apparently without the burden of time to let gravity do its thing you shrunk up.
Silvia dove to catch me, as the dragon roared and took me to the sky. His body was strongly muscled, his wings were massive, with his little orange spot turned into extra armoured-looking scales. The burst of wind was enough to make my tiny body shiver, even in Silvia’s grasp.
“Well, that’s just great,” she said, grimacing at how small I was.
Genki plopped a small brass and bronze-looking circlet into my hands. It had a large ruby in the center, or maybe it was glass or magic – who knew?
“Take this and say Pretty Princess Makeup!”
I and Silvia glared at him. “Weally?” I said.
Apparently, Amelia had shown him her favourite magical girl anime, and like his show about transforming people fighting monsters, he liked it and made transformation devices from it.
“Y-yes, really,” Genki said, with all seriousness.
“What stops him from breaking this one?” Silvia asked.
I was just grateful that despite the tiny size I could still speak.
“The belts were on you, and in you, so this doesn’t go on after the trans-form-ation,” Genki explained.
Apparently, it had been made to specifically deal with this guy. I held up the thing with my tiny arms and said the asinine thing he coded it to require me to say.
Unlike before with the belts, this was made to augment me, and I felt a rush of energy as the endless well of power Genki put into the small makeup compact rushed into me.
I flew into the air, floating at the start, as a wash of bright pulsating rainbow lights shot around me. I grew to my former size, armour formed on my arms, my shins, around my waist and head. All light and full of holes, but theoretically protective.
It seems he made his own creation, as the golden armour was unknown to me, but he kept in the short skirt and sailor-style uniform, much to my chagrin.
“Did you really have to include the schoolgirl uniform?” I asked, only I wasn’t speaking English.
Genki bit his lip, which was an odd thing to see a fox do – apparently an unintended side effect was I was now speaking Japanese.
I shook my head. There wasn’t time to contemplate this crazy bout of Genki, I had to use this chaos to my advantage.
I looked over to the dragon, and a shining yellow or bright gold light shot out towards him. I was pulled behind it like there was a tether linking me to him, and slowly reeling me in.
I got onto his back and the armour glowed, before a similar-looking armour formed on him, making him look very regal, with thin lines of gold swishing around like a hilt on a rapier. The centrepiece was a crown, which hung on with a ring around all the spikes on the back of his head.
The two dragon riders grimaced and charged at me. The red and orange dragon banked to the left and latched onto the green, causing both to spin. I jumped over to the other dragon and held out my hand.
A wand materialized, with a heart made out of gold top and bottom. There was an hourglass in a golden circle, which had a pair of feathery wings on the side and a pink rod. I smashed him in the side with it, and it sent him flying. The hourglass then filled up with blood for some reason.
I jumped back as my dragon slashed the green dragon’s throat and flung him down to the ground, landing hard to help finish the kill.
Fumnaya broke off the engagement with the hunter and floated over. She summoned he
r shackles, and yanked the man out of the sky, and let the dragon crash down.
My dragon, with me on his back, moved towards the white one. I could feel his jitters, as his orange scales glowed and he charged up his breath attack. The golden armour linking us glowed. When he opened his mouth, a massive fireball formed. It almost looked like magma.
The way he launched it made it feel like magma, as the force of the blast pushed us back and nearly made our flight stall out.
The silver dragon, elegant as always, banked to the right, nearly avoiding catastrophic fiery death. Only… the shot redirected.
The silver lady, considering it her victory too soon, looked back, to see the ball gaining on her.
The dragon, augmented by the Fae magic, started to fire more blazing magma balls, all with this homing ability. The silver dragon was quick and agile, but there was no running forever. A small one hit, sending the dragon sprawling in midair, and then the big one blasted it out of the sky.
“Oh, that Genki,” I chuckled.
Once again, the rider was left floating, and Fumnaya shackled them down.
“I guess it’s not so nice hurting your kin, huh?” I asked, patting the dragon’s neck.
“A dragon who’d work under a human has no pride as a dragon, they are better off dead.” I wasn’t sure if he’d learned Japanese from the same magic or just knew it like he knew English.
I paused, and I think he expected me to ask what about him. “I am working with you, that is another story,” he said as we turned to face the hunter.
By now I could tell that my friends were starting to be exhausted. Leo’s armour had a gash across it, David was retreating from battle. Lorenz was a wolf on the sidelines. The only ones going strong were Gavin and Silvia.
“Out of our way!” I shouted as the dragon leaned forwards and we started to swoop towards the hunter.
Despite speaking in a different language, they seemed to get what I was saying. They dipped out and the dragon shot another blast of magma to slow our descent. The hunter backhanded it with his tonfas, and I jumped off and backflipped to flank with the dragon.
The dragon slashed at the hunter, and the hunter immediately seemed to be in his element as he blocked the claw strikes with the tonfa and pushed the tonfa in. Just like Anderson’s blade had done, his tonfas glowed and when they were plunged into the chest of the dragon, they caused it to burst.
Rapidly he was gouging his way to the dragon’s heart. I took the heart-shaped blood-saving club and smashed it against his head. His shield fell and the dragon breathed fire in a cone. The flames seemed to duck around me but concentrate on the hunter.
He wheezed but protected his vital areas with the steel plates like before. I smashed his back with the wand. I broke his skin and sprayed some blood, but all that would hit me seemed to be contained in the hourglass.
I smashed the other side. He spat out some blood, and the fires from the dragon died down. If he didn’t turn his attention to me the dragon might be in big trouble.
He did turn and body-checked me, sending me sprawling to the ground. I grunted. The pain was minimal, most likely because of Genki, but I still felt something.
“Tch, even with your fancy tricks you cannot defeat me, you should have taken me up on my offer!” He pulled back his left arm and lunged towards me.
He was aiming that massive steel striking thing right into my head. I closed my eyes out of instinct and waited for the strike. It never came though, as a loud bang echoed throughout the flat plane.
Everyone blinked, unsure what had happened. I looked up to the hunter and saw a trail of blood streaming down his left pec.
From above, where the green dragon rider had smashed out the window, rested Melisa, using all four limbs on the gun I’d given her.
The hunter was now lung shot, and most likely would have a sucking chest wound. Without the use of one of those devices quick, he’d be dying.
Actually dying, and getting slower than he was currently.
“You were saying?” I spun and got to my feet as fast as I could.
Now no longer picking and choosing my shots with the club, I smacked it against him and the blocks he managed, over and over. He moaned in pain, and his breaths were laboured and raspy, his chest squirting out blood at every opportunity.
The dragon slashed at his back and raked his flesh. Leonardo waded back in and took out his swords. The hunter could take them all on before, but now with every breath, he was getting half as much air, and worse, the blood was pooling in his lung and squirting out at an alarming rate.
Gavin roared and jumped into the battle, slashing apart the man’s shield as it was recharging and went on a vicious stream of attacks.
I paused for a moment, watching as everyone got back in on the action. I then went over to retrieve the age-changing device. I was worried about the massive chest wound he had and thus headed over to heal him.
I held it so his age would flow to me. Neither of us changed, our forms largely dictated by Genki’s magic. The dragon, now healed, turned to the fight and I put a hand on him.
“I… I can’t. He’s going to die, I don’t want to look,” I said.
I turned around and heard him fall to one knee, even now refusing to give up the fight. Silvia walked over to me and held my hand.
The dragon seemed to grow angry at this. As the circle reformed in my hands, we both transformed back. He looked to himself, and to the man, and climbed back up onto me.
Even now, after killing several demons, I couldn’t kill the one human man, despite killing another a while ago. I shuddered, still not quite able to cope with this life.
Leonardo grunted and stabbed a blade through the man’s throat. He let out his last gurgle of life and then there was just panting. Not just wolf-like panting, but human panting as well. Everyone was exhausted.
“Are the elves attacking or…?” Silvia asked, turning towards them.
We all looked at them, they’d been standing still this entire time. Most likely they didn’t know what freedom was. Many probably spent hundreds of years in service and were kidnapped as children.
“We need to get everyone to an acceptable age immediately. The firefighters may be wanting to evacuate the area any moment now! Witches have first priority!” Leonardo barked.
Fumnaya grabbed the age device we used off me and probably made it go at the regular speed. She went off with Genki to get him back to normal.
“Why did you turn away from the kill?”
The dragon was apparently curious as to my apprehension. After all, he’d killed and gutted two of his kin just moments ago without another thought.
“One thing you’ve gotta learn about humans is emotions… Sometimes a human may have a stronger emotion than you expect for certain things. Death is one of my things, apparently.”
Silvia took my hand and started to lead me down the road.
Gavin, David and Lorenz all followed suit.
“W-where are we going?” I asked, wondering if maybe we should head to help with everything.
“Leo’s going to get Miriam progressed and she’ll be able to organize everything else. We’ve been fighting for three days, let’s head to David’s safe house and relax,” Lorenz said.
Angela drove by, and Valkyrie got out of the car. She bolted towards the elves, apparently eager to retrieve her status as an adult.
“Hey guys, you did it!” Angela said with a smile. “It might be a bit difficult to get out with the whole forest fire thing, so I thought I’d come in and help you guys get back to the house.”
“That would be wonderful,” Silvia said.
“You know what, no. There’s a forest fire coming, we should help out with the cleanup,” I said, turning back, but in such a way that I didn’t look at the hunter’s corpse.
“Also, we only restrained and knocked out the riders. Angela, could you…” I stopped.
“Capture them to see what they know about their enchanted weapons?” she
offered a guess.
I shuddered at what I’d actually wanted to ask: “Execute them for us.” That was certainly not something I wanted to say.
“Yeah, those shields could mean the saving of many werewolf lives! And those falling things would definitely help the survival odds in the Earth elemental plane!” I said, giving an awkward chuckle.
24
Chapter 24
Several buses came into the area, though you wouldn’t be able to tell until the illusions were peeled off. The people who exited the manor would go up to the still motionless elves and got the age they needed.
Miriam was organizing everyone, along with several other witches. Angela even helped out. Leo and Valkyrie were turning their attention to the bush. There’d been a lot of evidence of our fights on it, so it’d probably need to be burned.
“Well, sister, I’ve spent the last three days fighting, while you were incapacitated. I think it’s only fair that you watch the blaze and watch the manor house,” Leo said with a soft chuckle.
I, now fully in the dead college student phase of a massive fight, lazily walked up to them to see what the plan was.
“I… I suppose I should, but it’s not going to make up for what I did,” she said.
This was almost enough to knock me out of my stupor. Valkyrie Galvos, apologizing?
“I’m sure Elizabeth will forgive you in time. Fumnaya holds grudges though,” Leonardo said.
“No, not that, although that is part of it. I… called Father.”
That was enough to get me out of my stupor.
“You didn’t?” Leo said, abandoning his stoic gaze over the grasslands he might have called home once.
“There’s no stopping him and when he hears the tale of the sub-woofer that’s been… well, very helpful, he won’t think twice of banishing her at best, or…”
Valkyrie’s helm had always blocked her face; most likely there was some magic to let her see. Even so, I could tell the emotion on her face at that moment. The shame. She didn’t listen, she didn’t give us a chance, but now that she saw with her own eyes what we could do when we worked together, she’d finally grown some humanity.
The Stray Dragon : (A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves werewolf community center book 3) Page 20