Ch. 27 Ezrah, the Fallen Dragon PT.1
Years Ago
Gerhilde is fourteen years old and is being presented with a gift from Odin. He has his usual smirk on his face as he tells her.
"You may have no titites right now, but I have a feeling you will in the next couple years or so. But I figure you might like this in the mean time."
Gerhilde takes the spear as she adores the design and sharpness of the blade. She notices the clean eye decoration adorned to the bottom of the blade. She turns around, and Odin then grabs her rear and comments.
"These cheeks, on the other hand, are getting better a fine pace."
Gerhilde gets a blush as she swings her new spear at the Norse God but he simply ducks. He also gives her one last piece of advice before leaving.
"Oh, and Valkyries train without panties. It helps with leg movements or something."
Gerhilde blushes a little as she thinks.
"Well, if Odin says it, I guess it's true…I guess."
A Year Later
Gerhilde is training in the mountains where the dragons live as she is training to become a dragoon rather than a valkyrie. She is then noticed by a green dragon that has taken an interest in her as a daughter of Issei. He looks at her armor, which is now bottomless and comments.
"You'd probably have an easier time here with some undergarments, Dragoon."
Gerhilde is taking a sip from her water bottle as she replies.
"I was told that Valkyries train without panties, so I figured bottoms would get in the way as well."
The green dragon has a tone of disbelief as he says.
"I have met few Valkyries here, and they did no such thing. Who told you of this method?"
Gerhilde mentions Odin's name and the dragon instantly understands as he explains to her.
"Odin is notorious for his perverse personality. May I look upon your spear?"
He looks at the eye on the Wotan and tells Gerhilde something she should have known about.
"This is a relic meant for spying, but it appears Odin has been using this to peep on you."
Gerhilde's face turns bright red as she now remembers Odin grabbing her rear as she realizes for the last year, Odin has been using her for a personal show. She grabs her spear tighter as she slams the eye relic into a stone and cracks to the point of making it useless. The dragon then comments.
"The spear itself is of immense quality, however."
Gerhilde sighs as she walks away to put her bottoms back on.
Present
Gerhilde is preparing to engage her opponents, the armored opponents, she adds one last piece of her armor, a mouthpiece that covers the lower half of her face as she prepares to use her most basic of skills as a sword user charges at her. She kneels down a little and the ground below her cracks as she jumps into the air. The opponents can't find her as she has jumped so high so fast that she can't be seen. As they look around, Gerhilde is making her decent as one of the fist-using opponents looks up and Gerhilde falls and destroys the armor as her spears impacts it with the force of a meteor. Gerhilde looks at the scraps in the hopes of seeing who she is dealing with. But the armor is hollow and devoid of anything that resembles flesh. Gerhilde doesn't let this bother her as she has five more armors to deal with as she jumps and dodges fists and sword swings, the latter of which is tougher to dodge due the speed of the armor.
She then grabs her spear with both hands as it begins to glow a little as she deflects a sword swing and calls out.
"Dragon's Fang!"
She pierces one the staff using armors and it cracks as a hole is created in its helmet. She then does this a few more times she aims at the elbows and knees causing the arms and legs to fly off. Gerhilde then immediately has to block two swords at once and she does this with enough force to push back the enemies.
In the museum, Raezal is being impaled by all eight of lances wielded by his eight opponents. His regenerates these injuries thanks to his lineage of the immortal phoenix. He then takes his whips and manages to knock them away by spinning them with burning flames. But this does little as they persist with their assault and his whips have no effect on these opponents. He then retracts his whips as he now gathers flames into his palms and points his hands at three gathered foes as he shoots a torrent of fire at them.
These fires do almost nothing except make them glow a little red. Raezal is surprised as this attack normally causes a lot of pain to his foes armor or not. He is clearly at a disadvantage as he endures another round of impaling. While these do not kill him, they still hurt a bit before being regenerated. He then looks at his boosted gear and utters to himself in a displeased tone.
""Sigh" I really hate using this move. But I guess I have little options."
Raezal opens his arms as he gathers flames into his body and the gem on his Boosted Gear glows red as it actually detaches from his body and shoots through a nearby window as in moments, his body explodes with enough force to blow up the entire building.
Shiroka and Xenovia notice this from their standpoint, and the latter is worried. Shiroka tells Xenovia in a plain tone.
"It was probably Raezal. He'll be fine. It was probably his Razing Dragonic Phoenix Fire."
Xenovia looks a little confused as she will need an explanation later. Gerhilde is just finishing up her foes using her Dragon's Fang technique. She has only one staff user left as it prepares a minor fire spell. Gerhilde is ready to block it when Raezal's detached Boosted Gear arm flies through the helmet and destroys it upon impact. It flies at Gerhilde, but she catches it with relative ease. She looks at the detached arm and sighs as she says.
"Again, Raezal?"
The hand starts moving a little with signals being apparent.
Boosted Gear Variant: Raezal- Raezal has one of the more useful Boosted Gear abilities as it not only increases his flames, which does take a while to take effect, but it provides him with maximum regeneration. By pouring all of his power into his Boosted Gear, he can make his body explode into a raging blast of phoenix fire. He is then able to regenerate his entire body from his detached Boosted Gear. This, however, exhausts his power and can only be done after charging for three weeks. His body regenerating takes at least an hour as well.
Gerhilde puts Raezal's Gear on the ground and sits next to it to wait for his body to regenerate. Xenovia and Shiroka are nearing the entrance of the tower when they suddenly get a child down their spines as whatever is inside isn't going to be an easy foe. Shiroka equips her variant as she and Xenovia make their way inside the tower and immediately see a dragon standing in the center, but something isn't right. Shiroka can sense that he is using Dragon Trigger as his Scale Mail, upon closer inspection, is damaged the colors are base black, silver trim, and purple gems. Part of his upper-face plate is missing and cracked around the edges revealing part of his face, part of the left side is also missing. The talons on both feet are jagged and serrated. He looks at the two ladies as he picks up his swords and asks.
"Why are you both here?"
Xenovia readies Durandal and Ascalon while Shiroka assumes her normal fighting stance and worries that she may have to use Dragon Trigger herself. Xenovia immediately charges the dragon and they clash blades, but she is at a disadvantage in terms of strength as she is pushed back but maintains a firm standing as she watches Shiroka take the next shot as she fights with her palms open and her nails being enhanced with Senjustu as they appear longer with a blue light as she slashes at their opponent, but he moves out of the way very fast causing her to slash the ground creating streaks in the stone floor. Shiroka immediately jumps back as she isn't going to stay in one spot for too long as she now decides to equip her second sacred gear, a silver metallic liquid metal that wraps around her opposite hand and forearm and takes the appearance of a Boosted Gear.
Boosted Gear Variant: Shiroka- Shiroka's Boosted Gear increases the power of her Senjutsu as well as sharpening the precision of the amount she produces allowing her to manifest it as a pair of pseudo claws that change color depending on the boost with blue being the weakest and crackling gold being the strongest. It is combined with her second gear called Joker's Mold which copies the base abilities of her Boosted Gear reducing the wait time for the boosts greatly as well as another increase in strength.
Shiroka reassumes her stance as she is trying to form a strategy to fight Ezrah. Xenovia is trying to think as well as this opponent is not one to take lightly. Ezrah's turns his sights on Xenovia as he has a white aura around his body and shouts.
"Holy Lance!"
A glyph appears below Xenovia's feet and she immediately jumps in the air to avoid whatever may emerge, but as she does, spears of light rain from above her and cut around her body as they pierce the glyph, Xenovia falls to the ground as the holy properties from the spears cause intense pain. Shiroka attempts to attack from behind as Ezrah is watching Xenovia attempt to stand up, but this doesn't work as Ezrah swiftly blocks her slashing claws, and counters by slashing her across the stomach with his short sword and she backs off while holding her wound with her left hand as it is harder to stand. Xenovia stands back up but is still in pain from being struck by holy spears.
Shiroka uses her Senjutsu to seal her wound shut and her claws begin to change glow as the blue fades into green as a voice calls out.
"BOOST!"
Shiroka gets an idea as she dodges Ezrah's next move which is fast, but she dodges by jumping over him. She runs over to Xenovia and whispers to her.
"I've got an idea; get him to attack you with something strong. Trust me."
Xenovia nods as she has no reason to distrust Shiroka's plan. Shiroka feigns another assault as she swipes furiously at Ezrah, but he deflects with his swords. She then manages to kick him in the back of the head causing him to turn his head which Xenovia sees as an opportunity to get in a couple of attacks in of her own. He turns his head and immediately they clash swords, but his reaction time doesn't allow for the same force as before. They continuously block each other's attacks and this continues for a few seconds until Ezrah's swords begin to emit a dark flame as he prepares to use Jouha Messhouen, but as he prepares the X slash, Shiroka appears in front of Xenovia as the glow around her(Shiroka's) claws begin to glow a brilliant blue as she blocks the attack with her right hand, and the sound of snapping can be heard as her right hand glows with the same black flame as she shouts.
"Dragon Blade: Albion!"
Shiroka strikes the exposed left side as she spins adding more velocity to her punch as she punches him so hard that he coughs up some blood behind his helmet as he is shot through the clock tower as he bursts through the giant clock, he manages to keep in air using his dragon wings. However, he is disoriented.
Shiroka falls to her knees holding her left arm as taking that front shattered her arm. Xenovia talks to her as she attempts to slowly mend her arm. She is impressed with that attack and asks.
"What kind of technique was that?"
Shiroka takes a deep breath as she explains with a slight pain in her voice.
"Vali inspired it. Like his Divine Dividing, I use a technique to absorb half of the strength of an attack and send it back through a single strike. It's not nearly as great. As you can see, it comes with a risk factor."
Xenovia then produces the phoenix tear she saved and hands it to Shiroka. Xenovia is still feeling the pain from the holy spears, but it has subsided. Shiroka declines and replies.
"I can heal alone. I think we should save it because we're not done yet."
Xenovia nods as she notices that Ezrah has disappeared, probably to recover. As the two recover, Gerhilde joins them by jumping through the broken clock holding Raezal's arm which is about ready to regenerate his body. They regroup, except for Kurone, as they decide what to do next while Ezrah recovers.
Outside, they hear a loud roar as unbeknownst to them, Ezrah is not done powering up. His star appears on the back of his hand, but then, he roars again as the star disappears from his hand appears on his forehead and something happens, his missing pieces of Scale Mail appear in place but they are colored gold and white contrasting with the black and silver. Upon hearing this roar, Gerhilde and Shiroka look at each other and nod. Shiroka then takes the phoenix tear and tells Xenovia.
"Xenovia, please stay out of this one."
Xenovia is a little opposed as she asks.
"Why?"
Shiorka and Gerhilde can sense their connection to Ezrah a little as they both answer Xenovia with.
"Because this is between Dragons."
Both Gerhilde and Shiroka both shout at the same time.
"Balance Breaker Dragon Trigger!"
