Chapter 10

Sephie the Dragon

Sephie's friends watched in shock and awe as the lizard transformed into a more dragon-like form, and Fumetsu seemed to be just as shocked.

The red glow around Sephie's body faded, her hair falling down over her shoulders, and she leaped at Fumetsu, her arm pulled back for a punch.

"Die!" she yelled just before her attack connected. However, Fumetsu's quick reflexes allowed him to jump out of the way, if only barely, and Sephie punched the ground where he had just been, parts of the cave floor shattering and breaking apart.

Her eyes tracking his movement, Sephie quickly followed up her attack by breathing a torrent of flames in her foe's direction. The fire managed to lick the assailant's robes, but did little else as he kept jumping around to avoid her attacks. But Sephie wouldn't let him get away so easily, she dashed straight at him, striking with her clawed hands.

Using a pair of katana produced from his sleeves, Fumetsu parried her attacks, but they were so furiously that he had a hard time to find an opportunity to counter attack. Finding an opening, he lashed out with his swords and managed to inflict a rather nasty cut to Sephie's stomach, but the wound closed itself almost instantly, thanks to Tyroth's superior healing ability. His attack also gave Sephie the opening she needed to land a hit herself, leaving several long cuts on the torso of Fumetsu's robes.

Fumetsu broke off the engagement, and switched one of his katana for a meteor hammer, trying to utilise its range to keep Sephie at a safer distance. For a while, it seemed like the metal ball did keep her away as it was swung with lighting speed. But as they swung at Sephie, her hands were covered in red mana, which took the form of gauntlets with foot long claws, with which she cut straight through both the chain and the ball of Fumetsu's weapon.

Quickly closing the distance between them again, Sephie lashed out with her mana claws and sliced his sword apart as well. Producing a small glass flask from his sleeve, Fumetsu threw it at the ground between them, a cloud of smoke erupting from its contents, covering the immediate area. A couple of quick flaps with Sephie's new wings dispersed the smoke with ease, but Fumetsu had already retreated to a safe distance, now standing twenty feet away to her left.

With his arms extended to his sides, Fumetsu began spinning at high speed, all while releasing dozens of kunai, needles, shuriken and darts from his sleeves, all aimed at Sephie. But all his projectiles were engulfed in crimson flames as Sephie countered with her burning breath attack, the force of the flames knocking away Fumetsu's attack. Fumetsu himself had to stop his spinning attack and jump to the side to avoid getting burned to a crisp.

Landing from his dodge, Fumetsu saw that another attack from Sephie was incoming. Fire erupted and coalesced in her palms, forming two orbs of concentrated flames, both of which she threw at her foe. Seeing the two fireballs, Fumetsu dashed forward and dived between them, letting them explode against the cave wall behind him. The force of the explosion still knocked him over, but he recovered quickly and got back on his feet just in time to sidestep another attack from Sephie, as she lunged at him with a burning fist.

As Sephie and Fumetsu passed each other, one attacking and the other dodging, Fumetsu delivered a roundhouse-kick to Sephie's back, sending her to the ground. And while she quickly got back on her feet, Fumetsu had more than enough time to summon his two scythes from his sleeves and attack her, but missed, if only by an inch.

Red mana covered Sephie's body as she lunged into close combat, punching and slashing at Fumetsu while he tried to strike her down with the scythes. When it seemed as if he would hit her, she caught the blades with her hands and held them in a tight grip, the mana around her hands erupting in flames. The scorching flames turned the metal around her hands red-hot, and with a pair of twists, she snapped the scythes, tossing the remains aside and leaving Fumetsu wide open. An opening she didn't let go to waste, as she gave him a solid head-butt and actually cracked his mask.

Though the crack went from top to bottom, the mask still held together, but that wasn't of much comfort as Sephie grabbed Fumetsu by the wrists and threw him at a distant cave-wall. He impacted with a resounding smash, grunting in pain just before he slumped to the floor. Looking up, he saw Sephie collecting fire in her hands again, this time not only forming fireballs larger than before, but she slammed them together to fuse them into an even more powerful attack, an attack that she threw at him with all her might.

With no way to avoid it, Fumetsu took the full force of the attack, as the fireball exploded upon impact, engulfing a huge area in raging flames. As the fire faded, Fumetsu could be seen laying on the floor, his clothes badly burned and he barely moving. Sephie dashed over, raging flames around her right hand. Bringing her punch down, the fire took the shape of a dragon, its head around her fist.

Striking Fumetsu's head, the flaming dragon exploded into it, and when the dust settled, the head was gone, only the cauterised stump of a neck and a crater in the floor showing what had happened. But even as Fumetsu's body went completely limp, Sephie wasn't done. Dropping to both knees, she summoned the mana claws again, only this time they were set ablaze, and she started stabbing the corpse like frenzied, every hit causing it to jerk slightly until even that stopped.

But Sephie didn't stop.

Having picked herself up from the previous battle, just like the rest of the team, Amber had seen how brutal Sephie fought, and felt lucky that they hadn't gotten caught in it. But as Sephie repeatedly brutalized what remained of Fumetsu, Amber felt that it was enough, so she ran over to her.

"Sephie!" she said placing a hand on her shoulder.

The draconian gecko turned her gaze to Amber, her eyes still filled with anger.

"Please, that's enough, he's already dead."

Looking back at the severely damaged corpse, Sephie started to see clearly as her rage faded. The burning mana claws dissipated and she took deep breaths to further calm herself.

"Are you okay?" Amber asked, helping Sephie back on her feet.

"I… I think so… I don't think I got any injuries at least..."

"Doesn't look that way," said Donatello, giving her a quick look over. "but, you certainly look different."

"No kidding! She's a dragon now! How awesome is that!?" said Michelangelo. "Just how did you do that? Can all Mutopians do the same, 'cause there would be nothing able to stop you guys then."

"No, this..." Sephie began, looking at her clawed hands. "I had some sort of vision, and in it, Tyroth gave me his power. I don't know how he did it, but I know that it was him."

"Even when he's in a coma, the boss finds a way to help us. Just can't keep him out of a fight." said Jack.

"Much like back in Skyrim, when he was trapped behind that barrier, and we had to fight the ghost guardians. He managed to boost us so we could take them down." said Raphael.

Suddenly, Sephie began glowing red, leaving only her silhouette as her entire body was obscured by a layer of red mana. Her form changed, the dragon features vanishing into her form, and once the mana faded, she had reverted to her gecko form, with no evidence of her transformation, even the tears in her top that her wings made had been mended.

"That's a shame, I was starting to like your new look." said Percy.

"Me too." said Casey.

"It may not be the last time we see it, not if I know Tyroth right." said Monalisa. "He will find a way to give you that power again when needed."

"Yeah, but now I want to get back to him. I'm worried about him." said Sephie.

"Just a moment, we still need that cure." said Leonardo. Kneeling by what remained of Fumetsu, he searched for the electronic key, hoping that Sephie's onslaught hadn't destroyed it. But to his surprise, he found it to be completely unscathed.

Pressing the button, he was prepared to listen to where the strongbox might be, but he wasn't prepared when he heard the click right next to him. Looking to his right, he saw the strongbox on the floor, right in the open.

"What the shell?"

"Um… that wasn't there before, was it?" Sarah asked when she and the others also noticed the box.

"No, it wasn't. It couldn't have been." said Donatello.

"So it just appeared out of thin air? Is anyone else creeped out by this?" Michelangelo asked.

"There is something strange going on. Stranger than normal. But we can worry about that later, now we must get this cure back to Tyroth." said Leonardo as he grabbed the small vial in the strongbox.

With the cure in hand, the team left the cave, knowing that it would be a long walk back to Mutopia for them, with how badly they had been beaten earlier.

But, once they were all beyond eye- and earshot, the remains of Fumetsu, his body, weapons and even the strongbox, all dissolved into mist. The mist swirled for a while, before coming together and turning into Fumetsu once again, completely unharmed.

"Well done, my dear. A well earned victory indeed. But it is not so easy to slay me, after all, I am Fumetsu Misuto. Immortal Mist. We will meet again, in due time."

Fumetsu dispersed into mist, which faded away as his presence vanished from the caverns.

So what did you guys think about that fight? Rather epic showdown.

But it seems that Sephie's powers were only temporary. Or are they?

That may be answered in the future, just as what Fumetsu really is.