Hello again! This chapter, baby hybrids are almost as scary as having to use your free will to make split-second decisions!
109. The Floor is Lava
Huo was ready to fight.
He'd been ready to fight all day. All week, even. But he just. Couldn't. Reach!
He let out a roar of impotent rage as he sailed straight over the giant's shoulder, spinning end over end as he tried to get his wings facing the right way now that the world had turned sideways.
Too late. He smashed into the side of the Council Headquarters belly-first, and the next thing he knew he was lying on his side on the wall, looking up at several holes he'd just smashed through the building. A heartbeat later, normal gravity returned and he fell to the floor with a yelp.
On second glance... "Fang?"
"Hey Huo," Fang said, though he didn't take his eyes off the pair of hybrids facing down him, Storm, and Jade. "Everything okay outside?"
Huo huffed. "It's annoying. All I want is to fight something I can actually hit for a minute."
"Well..." Storm flicked her tail at the two hybrids. They prowled towards him, and he backed up a few steps when he noticed one of them leaking something so cold that it billowed mist on contact with the air.
"You guys go ahead!" Sun shouted. "Find Watts! We'll slow them down a bit."
They hesitated.
"Shoo!" Sun waved them off. "The quicker you're out of sight the quicker we get to run like—whoa!"
The bigger of the two, the one dripping cold, jumped at Sun. Huo reared up onto his hind legs, smacked his head and shoulders on the ceiling, and spat fire to force her to back away. She darted around to the side and spat at him. He jumped back just in time, but a few droplets hit his scales. Frost spread from wherever they touched him, and they were so cold that they burned.
He focused on his powers, pushing them until his scales were as hot as they could get, and the frost turned to steam. It filled the hallway, obscuring the other three dragons as they bolted further into the building.
The other hatchling was even smaller. He crawled forward with his belly dragging against the ground, fog curling from his nostrils. Strange, violet fog. The bigger one spat again, and Huo had to back up a few steps. The hallway was too small—he had to hunch so that he wouldn't bang Sun on the ceiling, and already the mist was filling the whole hallway. The bigger hatchling darted forward, careful to keep out of it.
"Oh, no you don't!" Huo growled, when she tried to slip past him. He whacked her with his tail, sending her crashing into the wall.
She bounced off and rolled right back to her feet—and this time the jet of freezing liquid struck him right in the chest. Huo lurched. His whole front went numb and tingly, and he could feel the ache spreading through his bones. He stumbled, and almost fell over. The fog inched closer. It passed a potted plant someone had left in the hallway as a decoration, and the plant's leaves turned brown and crumbled away.
"Okay, nope!" Sun blurted. "I think we bought plenty of time."
Huo bolted down the hallway and took the first turn he could find. It took a moment to get his bearings—and he mostly only managed because he found a big window he could just smash through. As he crawled back into open air, safely away from the little hybrid that was apparently breathing death clouds, he heard Sun groan.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I prefer the big one. The babies are scary."
Huo almost agreed... until he tried to get back in the air and realized he was too close to the beast. He let out an indignant roar as he fell sideways again. A flagpole rushed past him. He nearly smashed right into Justice and Ilia, who were sparring in midair with one of the bigger hybrids. Then he sailed past another hole torn in the roof of the Council Headquarters. This one was glowing an ominous shade of orange.
Then he finally managed to get his wings under him again, and started flying back. It was only a matter of time before he got in close. She couldn't keep tossing them around forever.
He hoped.
Fifty feet down, through the hole in the roof, Weiss was calmly assessing their options.
"Where the hell is it all coming from?!" she snarled, leaping up onto a desk and throwing someone's crystal paperweight at the hatchling that stood in the center of the room. It was up to its ankles in lava, now, and the stuff was spreading sluggishly towards the walls. The paperweight bounced harmlessly off its forehead and landed in the pool.
It then proceeded to melt, like the cheap plastic imitation it most definitely was. And a bit like Weiss, at the moment. She was already soaked from head to toe in sweat, and every breath smelled like ash and seared her lungs.
Pit prowled back and forth at the edge of the lava, growling and flaring his wings, but he couldn't reach the hybrid that was making the stuff. And the other one it was with didn't seem to mind it at all—it was light enough that it could just walk across, and its paws showed no sign of being burned. He snorted irritably and started to glow, dragging it slowly towards his reach. It struggled every step of the way, sinking in its claws into the magma and sending up clouds of embers every time it moved.
Two tables down from Weiss, a stack of papers near Blake's feet caught fire. She yelped and kicked them away.
Only Specter seemed to be able to do much of anything about the lava problem. He stuck his neck out as far as it would go, to keep as much distance between himself and the lake of fire as possible, and blew mist. Wherever it touched the magma, it cracked and hardened into shiny black rock. He circled around, doing his best to slow its advance while Pit and Weiss edged towards the door.
Maybe it would have worked—but the second hatchling bounded up to the end of the growing pool of lava. Its brilliant white scales started to glow. Weiss had just enough time to jump off her table and flip it onto its side, in the hope that it might be able to block whatever was coming.
What came was light. Light that reflected off the walls and the ceiling and the floor, still bright enough that Weiss squeezed her eyes shut. Then it was too much even through her eyelids, so she buried her head in her arms as their dragons howled and waited for it to stop.
It didn't take long. She took her arm away, squinting into what felt like sudden darkness. Bright spots danced across her field of vision. She lurched out from behind the table and shouted, "Specter! Ice!"
He let out another breath of mist at the sound of her voice. His head twisted back and forth, his gaze unfocused, chilling everything in front of him just in time to stop a surge of the magma that had been about to creep past his paws. But he'd clearly been blinded by the light—he couldn't find the edge of the magma to freeze it anymore, and soon had to retreat as the flashbang hatchling started taking swipes at his nose. Its scales had gone a dull grey, but even as she watched they started to lighten again.
Without Specter keeping it back, a trail of the magma had oozed all the way down the center of the room—and Weiss and Pit were stuck on the wrong side. Pit retreated as far from the lava as he could, whining and pawing at his eyes.
Weiss tried to back up a little more, and her back hit the wall.
This... was not ideal.
Ilia only caught a brief glimpse of them through the hole in the roof, as Justice rolled in midair to avoid a large wind and water hybrid that had been harassing them since the battle started. Just a flash of white, in a room that looked like the inside of a volcano.
It was enough for her to realize that Weiss Schnee was down there, and to urge Justice to circle around for another look. And, well... Weiss and Pit seemed to be stuck inside a shrinking island of linoleum. Surrounded on all sides by lava.
"Down!" she shouted, gesturing towards the opening. Justice hesitated. Her heart lurched—but seconds later, she realized that he had a fairly good point. Their own opponent was still circling them. If they didn't do something about that before charging in, they might make the situation even worse.
As Ilia was struggling to think of something they could do to distract their hybrid, Justice let out a bellowing roar. Another answered him from the other side of the building. Seconds later, Harbinger and Flux crested the roof. Gigas flew right behind them, the dusting of pink and gold freckles on his scales shining like tiny stars.
The second he was over the roof, he spread his wings wide and fell into a spiraling glide. The pit dragon swerved hard to one side and smashed into the wall of the building, only for Flux to dive at its head and send sparks dancing across its metal helmet. Finally Harbinger slammed into it at full force, driving it back down to the ground.
"Go!" Ilia shouted to Justice. He tucked his wings and dived.
Inside, Blake was up to her elbows in an electronic lock, trying to open the door before the tide reached them. She didn't seem to be making much progress—not when she kept looking over her shoulder and shouting directions to Specter. He swung his head back and forth, blowing mist at the edge of the lava to cool it down and buy them time, but never in the same place. It didn't look like he was aiming at all. Weiss had her arms around Pit's neck, speaking into his ear as he groped at the wall with one paw.
Could they see?
Justice dropped straight into the heart of the inferno. Ilia didn't have time to wonder about the blinded dragons—she just guided him over to the side, near where Pit was huddled in the last clear space still left. With the low ceiling and the floor covered in lava, there wasn't enough room for him to fly out, even if he could see where he was going.
"Climb on!" Ilia shouted. Pit's head snapped towards them, and Justice let him grope around until he found his shoulder. His scales started to glow, and he crawled right onto his back. Lighter than he might have been, but Justice still huffed and groaned and sank a little further into the lava. That left Weiss, still hanging from his neck. Ilia stretched out her hand.
She hadn't quite thought that through. An instant later Weiss was right behind her, clinging to her shoulder, her skin red and hot to the touch like she had a full-body sunburn. Ilia tried to ignore it. So, naturally, Weiss decided to grab her face and shout... something. She didn't catch it over the roaring of the dragons and the lava, and her own panic.
Ilia's first instinct was to struggle—which she thought was fair, when her crush's girlfriend had just wrapped an arm around her eyes. Then something seared across her vision, white-hot even through that barrier, and when Weiss finally let go she had to blink away fuzzy blotches it had left behind.
Justice picked his head up. He had apparently decided that the easiest way to cover his eyes was to just shove his face into the lava. There was molten rock dripping off his chin. He sneezed, and spattered the wall in magma.
A moment later he reached the other side. Blake didn't look up from what she was doing—she had a tangle of wires in her hands, a screwdriver tucked under one arm, and a pair of pliers in her mouth. Her hands were shaking, and there were several burns at her fingertips, but she twisted a last pair of wires together and the door finally slid open.
While Weiss guided Pit and Specter through, Blake paused in the doorway to give Ilia a nod of thanks. She glanced behind her—there was a second hybrid she hadn't noticed at first, and it was starting to glow.
Time to leave. She could go with them... but Harbinger and the little ones were outside.
"Good luck," she said, and urged Justice into the air. He left the two hybrids where they were—there wasn't much point fighting them, when they couldn't actually stop them without risking hurting them. They soared up through the hole in the ceiling, and then swept low across the street, passing over a drainpipe as they searched for the rest of the White Fang dragons.
The pipe was small.
That was good—it cringed further back, favoring its injured leg, until it found a metal grate and pressed its back against it. Like the bars of the cage. It had never gotten to touch those.
It shivered. Inside the pipe was cold. There was water flowing down through the grate, soaking its legs and belly. Its wings and tail came up to wrap around itself, nice and tight. That was good, too.
There had to be something it was supposed to do. There was always something it was supposed to do, a plan and a command, but all it could sense was the frantic beating of its own heart. Was this what it was like to have the magic?
It didn't like it.
There was a tingling feeling in its legs. Its eyes blinked open. The water had turned cloudy. Tingling turned to stinging turned to burning. It yelped and dashed out of the pipe, scrambling up onto the drier street. Fifteen feet away, one of the others spat another jet of acid at an intruder. It mixed with the water that was flowing in the gutter from some other fight, running down towards Hybrid 194.
It limped away, hugging its wings tight against itself, until the path split in two. It skidded to a stop.
Right or left?
There were intruders in both directions. Other hybrids. Noise. Danger.
Right or left?
It waited for its body to move, but it never did. Just sat there. Trembling.
Right or left?
It wished it had stayed in the pipe.
A noise from behind it. Paws pounding against pavement, shaking the ground. There was no more time to decide. It had to move—right or left!
Hybrid 194 curled up in a ball.
A hot gust of air passed over its scales. It pressed its nose into the dark, warm space between its forelegs and its chest and waited for the intruder to attack.
There was a soft thump, then running footsteps. A voice.
"Shh. No one is going to hurt you."
Was that an intruder? Should it attack? It didn't know how. Should it run? It didn't want to. It couldn't go right or left, it didn't know what to do, it didn't know—!
"Look at me."
The voice was gentle but firm. The horrible churning inside settled. It looked.
Green eyes. Blonde hair falling out of a tight bun. A stern face that softened when it whimpered.
"Here." The woman held out a hand. It stared at her fingers, transfixed, as they moved closer. Closer. Then the hand stopped a few inches away. Palm-up. Relaxed. Ungloved.
It couldn't touch it... could it?
Its neck extended, until its nose pressed against the palm. Its eyes slid shut.
"Good," the voice said. "That's good."
Warmth bloomed in the pit of its stomach.
Somewhere above its head, a much bigger dragon rumbled nervously.
"I know, York," the voice said. "We'll go soon, just let me—"
Go? Go?
It lunged at the arm, wrapping legs and tail and neck all around it, sinking in its claws until nothing could pry it away. The woman hissed a breath between her teeth. "It's fine," she gritted out, waving off the big dragon with her free hand. It was strange—only fire, with no other smell. One of its eyes was missing.
Hybrid 194 bared its fangs and hissed at the big one.
"None of that," the woman said. "Here. Why don't you climb on York with me?"
It whined and grabbed a mouthful of her sleeve, ignoring the pain that flared in its jaw.
"I need you to let go, now. I've got you." The other arm wrapped around its back and squeezed tight. It relaxed slightly, pulling back its claws. She lifted it up, grunting with the effort, and slung it over her shoulders.
The big dragon—York? That wasn't a number—crouched down and helped push her with its head so that she could lift both herself and Hybrid 194 into the saddle on its back. It curled up in her lap, nuzzling its head into the crook of her arm.
This was much better than the pipe.
