Author's Notes: OOOOOOIIIIEEEEeeeee!!!!! I'm sorry for not posting for so long! I'm sorry I didn't uphold my role as an author and note wait for my readers to die before posting another chapter! I'm sorry I took the last eclair! I'm sorry I didn't pratice my piano! I'm sorry...
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Okay, now that's out of my system, I can continue.
Sorry for being so late with this chapter, I currently am busy with all sorts of h/w and stuff so I didn't have the time to continue. That, and I had writer's block for a while. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I tried to add in more detail this time, and hopefully, it'll be better than my last chapter.
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Lifting her head up from the smoking, charred carcass, the dragon's movements were slow and deliberate. Her long neck arched back slowly, gleaming scales slid over each other in slow motion, gleaming with dancing lights. Muscles flowed unhindered as the beast pushed itself up onto its compounded backlegs heavily, its arms hung freely and its tail twisted in a semicircle gently but tautly.
Her eyes were closed, and her breath, despite the previous violence, was slow and leisurely, as if she was wallowing in something pleasurable, comfortable, something that didn't calm her nerves, but gave her control. Total control. It was 'control' in the strangest sense. She wasn't given control, or the control was merely a superficial thing. She felt being controlled, being given guidance, and relishing the moment of calm given to her.
In the far reaches of her mind, behind the animalistic implanted instincts and fears, what was left of her rational human mind comtemplated the fact she had killed and burned a man, bear, bearman.
But then, she realised another thing.
She didn't care. Not a bit. She herself has suffered, a sense of apathy was a result. She had to survive, and if she could destroy things that made threatened her, all the better.
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Within that aura of comfort, she failed to notice just what came of the ripples she had made, in the pool of the ZLF.
"...Boshcof...ze big lizzaard..."
"Don't say it, Loir..." grunted the rhino zoanthrope, presently in human form and fingering his armed bazooka furtively.
"...Boshcof...ze big lizzzaard juzt blew...faaai-re..."
"Like, I told you, don't say it Loir," he grunted back, lifting up the heavy artillery onto his shoulders. With quick, nimble movements unsuspected from such rough fingers.
Peering from the shadows of the nearby woods, the pair were just two of many zoanthropes that had decided to turn tail...some literally. The French zoanthrope, having already reverted to his fox form, jittered nervously in the brush as his partner busied with aiming.
"Ve should leaaaave...now, Boshcof...NOW..."
Boshcof didn't reply, sweat gathered on his thick brow, and flowed down his fire-tanned skin. Peering through his sights, he targeted the unknowing dragon quickly, his hands shaking as he tried to steady his target.
Loir crossed his arms and tapped his fingers impatiently against his arm. Finally, impatient and frightened of the prospect of being toasted, he hit Boshcof on the shoulder, "We leave or ZAAAI!"
"LOIR!!!" shouted the huge man as he accidentally let fly a shot from his bazooka.
It veered off too much, and did not set course for the dragon's head as Boshcof had wanted. But it still headed in the general direction, and though it missed the head, it struck something almost as bad.
The bullet shot right through the top cartilage of the dragon's left wing, bringing with it pieces of the black-red leathery skin in a flurry of thin blood rain.
"SKEEE-WAAAAAAAAAAARRGGH!" she roared as her unguarded wing was made lame in a second. Pain shot through her back worse than her fiery breath as with every tiny movement the wounded wing made, fresh bloody pumped out uselessly and ridged cartliage grated against each other. And this compounded and ochestrated unbelievable agony.
The dragon reared and roared, unable to realise the source of its frustration was her own movement, instincts forced her broken wing to flap and it hung on what splintered ends were left of the skin. The dragon was dancing, a dance of fury and torture, as unable to stop the pain, it turned back to the fiery world that was before it. Its blood boiled again, serving as a numbing effect on the much more defined feelings of pain, her anger was a quick remedy, and she would do anything to fuel it on.
Her head roamed in tense jerks, sighting potential prey and targets. The ZLFs were disorganized and panicking, like frightened deer to a lion. The dragon charged at those closest and the results were devastating.
The other zoanthrope soldiers had seen the power of the dragon's breath, but they had totally disregarded what she could do with her mere physical gifts. She charged in like a crazed rhino, her large head and blade-like horn speared any unfortunate in her path, her bullish neck flexed easilly to fling them clear overhead, crushing themselves in a hurtling pitfall. Those too large and stayed speared on were guranteed a ride, the dragon would toss her head viciously and wild abandon to force the foreign objects off. Often, her blade horn would rip asunder the stomach, chest, innards, until the victim was just a sack of pulverized meat that slipped down in a bloody mess.
Those that did not get speared instead faced a far more varied fate. Her jaws would clamp on a frighten or stunned foe, crush the head, or if she got a deeper hold, would toss them like unwanted ragdolls every which way, or plant them on the ground and pressed her huge feet on one end, and just yank upwards.
Her arms bested even a mighty buffalo zoanthrope who tried to face up to her. She crushed his arms backwards with a sickening crunch as the bones were pushed too far, and she would pull apart or crushed the creature together. She somehow did not forget how to fight like a human, and often punched those big enough, or squashed those small enough. Both types had the same fate, a short but violent death.
Even those behind, who have gotten too close, were not spared. Her tree trunk tail made shortwork of ribs, heads, legs alike, and all done without her even trying.
Almost the entire of her was drenched in sticky blood, they only heightened her senses and deepened her colouration. Her claws dripped scarlet blood on her tracks, her scales were deepening to a dark rouge, and if she the urge, she would let fly her trademark flamejets, that illuminated her crazed face, the eyes were hungry with an insatiable appetite, and yet she killed without provokation or prejudice. She was not a predator, she was a hunter-killer, worse by far. Her being was one of crimson, so much so that it created a faint and primal aura around her that awoke the deepest fears within man and beasts, not of self-preservation but the full-fledged realization of total annihilation.
Many many steps away, a scientist chuckled to himself at the sight of the carnage. The chameleon zoanthrope blended in with just a slight shimmer to show his location. Even then, he was a master of disguise and escapism, if not for the bodyshaking of the laugh, he would have been totally undetectable.
"My my! My little baby's all grown up and killing for herself!" mused the crazed Vidal Sasoon reject as he returned to his human form.
"Oh boo hoo! She came out a tad too early maybe, but she's still a beaut!" laughed the fanatical scientist as he put down whatever he had managed to salvage from his now destroyed lab. Cages empty or filled with mutilated and whimpering animals, serums of various colours, documents, files were among the salvage, and Busuzima quickly piled them into his jeep in waiting, hidden amidst some bushes.
"Ack! That babe's making such a noise," he said to himself as he delved into the back of his jeep headfirst.
"She ain't ready for the big world, ma! Gotta give her shots before something nasty gets inside!" he laughed in lunatic banter as he re-emerged with a large shotgun.
Fishing amongst stoppled tubes, he produced a blue-liquid filled injection, which he loaded into what was actually, a rather large dart gun.
"Time for shots, before she burns up on me like an engine on the fritz!" Busizima chattered as he jumped into his jeep and started the engine to life, laughing like a maniac as he sped off with the dart gun on his shoulder.
The ZLF may be full of ruffians and thugs as some might say, but their Major was a true army officer, and after the initial panic, some like Boshcof had immobilized their artillery. Those far enough loaded various firearms and fired at will, shotguns, handguns, semi-automatic machine guns, everything added to the medley. The dragon was hit from all sides with unexpectation, and she doubled back, faced with an inkling of fear.
Around and around she twisted, trying to fend off stray bullets, most hit her ironhide, but her face and wings were being battered. Her right wing was able to finally fold in completely, but her left wing hung like some neglected child, and was riddled with bullet holes, thin threads of skin gave way and her wing was all but beyond repair.
She could not see as her hands blocked bullets from her vulnerable eyes, but her fallen wing made her unsteady, and she toppled about, unable to get her barings.
Finally, she blew flames at will, the bright flashes shielded her for brief moments as her attackers were blinded. But even that was not enough. She had been pushed into a corner of the field, blocked on both sides by sturdy trees that in her anxiety, she had no opportunity to break through. Her wing was useless without the other and she found herself grounded, weakened, being beaten back with no way to retaliate, and no escape. It would be a matter of minutes, before a stray bullet would just hit her head enough, or get lucky and hit a soft spot, and that would be the end.
Pain and fury once again reigned in her mind. Whatever fear she had was being made into that fiery, boiling sensation within her blood. There was no outlet for her unbridled energy, her blood was heating up too much, burning her up alive. She had a disadvantage over those zoanthropes she killed. Her whole body was engineered to kill and destroy, and her makers had seen it fit to add in a control for her.
She could not sweat, could not cool her own body temperature naturally, and the increasing heat of her blood was killing her more than the bullets. The methane producing in her stomach was one outlet, but it was not enough, not in these kind of situations. She spewed continuous jets, and her body used her heat to produce more, but it simply was not enough. The heat clouded her senses, her mind, soon she would fall and not have the resources to get back up. Of all things, she could not outlast them.
Busuzima was well-aware of his creation's limitation, and he patted his trust dartgun to fix the problem. He stopped at the edge of the firing zone, tutting at his creation's distressed, "Pitiful! Pitiful! What would you do without your mummy, Crimson, what would you do!?" he muttered, dubbing his own pet name for the dragon. Even if he had the slightest courtesy to use the creature's actual name, she had long forgotten it.
He aimed his dartgun, centering the target, and shot the fated missle towards the dragon.
A stray bullet hit the dart straight through, but it was quite close to the dragon already and still puntured into it, its sharp needle point finding a soft spot between the scales.
"Phew! That was risky, lucky I got...LUCKY! HA AHA HA HA HA!" Busuzima laughed hysterically.
The injection emptied into the dragon's bloodstream, but the stray bullet had left a hole, the dosage was only at half the optimum level. However, it was enough for the dragon to feel its effects. The organic coolant spread through her system in seconds, dispersing the intense heat that threatened to consume her before. However, she felt residue heat, not all of it was dispersed, just enough not to kill her.
The dragon was tired, very tired, and toppled down on its knees in a groan. The bullets momentarily lessened as they saw the dragon kneel over. Then, she fell flat down, turning back into human form as she hit the ground.
A small, thin girl, naked and helpless, lay in the flattened grasses made by her own dragon's feet.
Slowly, the ZLF started to come out of the cover of forest and approached the hunter-killer cautiously. Some still wondering where the dragon had gone.
"Eeep! Noway, eh eh! No gets to see MY baby except MOI!" sneered Busuzima in his manner of anger and kicked the life back into the jeep, speeding and careening wildly, startling some nervous zoanthropes back into hiding.
He laughed all the way until he screeched to a halt, grabbed the girl and tossed her amongst the cargo and hit reverse. It was too late when the ZLFers regained some of their composure to try to halt Busuzima, but he had found a forest path meant for trucks and whatever vehicle of Tylon's to go through, and was already on his way.