Chapter 8: Prey of Prey, Hunter of Hunters
Hiryuu's body was so mangled the doctor's didn't know how he could be alive. He had no pulse, he wasn't breathing, yet he would often wake up, well aware of what was around him for a few minutes then he would seem dead again. The doctor stitched most of his wounds anyway noticing that there were other large, but old, scars all over him. After a day and 2,300 stitches the doctor said he had done all he could do, and with the gun-wielding insurance girls permission the doctor and his assistants left the room.
Hiryuu woke up for the umpteenth time. He looked over and saw the girls sitting down next to him. This time though he shot up into the air.
"How long have we been at this hospital?" he demanded.
"Since the night before last," Myra said. The morning sun was shining through the window.
"I can't stay here!" he said, pain searing through him as he got out of the bed. He suddenly realized that he was wearing only a bloody hospital gown. "Where are my clothes?"
"Um, you didn't have any when we found you, remember?" Kristyn said sheepishly.
"You mean I left it all in the … saloon?" he said so no one else would hear.
"You don't have to be quiet. Everyone found out who you are. One of the doctor's knew you by your eyes," Myra said.
"WHAT!" Hiryuu quite literally roared. "That means that every outlaw, bounty hunter, sheriff and their mothers are probably all outside the hospital either trying to get in or waiting until I come out! How long has anyone known?"
"They've known since we got here."
"That is very not good," Hiryuu said in a low tone.
Hiryuu looked out the hallway and back into the room.
"You girls wait outside for a minute," he said.
The two girls waited outside the door for a minute. They heard the sound of the stretcher being knocked over and Hiryuu struggling to do something. When the door opened again Hiryuu had one of the claw shaped knives and his finger nail was missing on his left pinky. Kristyn looked at the bloody finger and the knife with a black liquid at the end.
"Just in case. Let's go," Hiryuu said as though they were going to rob a bank or something.
"That is the grossest thing I have ever seen," she said realizing what the knife really was.
The three of them snuck down the hall and when they got to the end they looked out at the waiting room. There did seem to be several suspicious people there. They all seemed very much occupied with each other. They all looked around at each other knowing that only one of them would soon be a rich man.
There was an empty stretcher against the wall next to the three in the hallway. Hiryuu saw it and brought it to the two girls. He looked at them and devised a plan.
----
The door to the waiting room opened and the two girls walked out with the stretcher. One of the men in the room saw the blanket covered stretcher and figured out what was going on. The man got up and casually walked towards the girls who stopped where they were.
"Is there a problem, sir?" Myra asked in a very professional voice.
"Since when does stretchers come out of the hospital?" he said seeing the blanket's shape. "Did y'all honestly think that you would be able to fool all a us with that monster hidden under a blanket? 'Cause I ain't that dumb, ladies. Hiryuu the Flame is mine, thank you very much," he said taking the heavy stretcher and bursting out the front doors. Every bounty hunter, sheriff, and outlaw in the waiting room suddenly dashed out after the man. Cars started up and there was a giant chase before you knew it. The girls lay trampled in the waiting room.
"That was not worth all that pain," Kristyn said looking out from under the dazed Myra. "Get off a me!" she yelled up at Myra who only saw stars.
"Is it clear?" Hiryuu asked from behind the counter.
"It's clear. Now help me get this thomas-brained good for nothing dead weight off me!"
Hiryuu pulled Myra up and Kristyn felt her back snap. She thought it was very ironic that she gets hurt and then has to run out of the hospital rather than into it. The two of them dragged the senseless Myra to the car. Hiryuu hid under the back seat. They took off without any of the hospital workers noticing them over the ruckus of bounty hunters.
"Alright, just who or what the hell are you and where did you come from?" Kristyn said to Hiryuu hiding under the seat.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me! I think I've seen more than I would have believed already."
"Well, I'm a dragon and I'm somewhere around a thousand years old, and I-"
"What! Gunsmoke hasn't been around for that long!" Kristyn said, not believing him.
"I'm not originally from Gunsmoke."
"How the hell did you get here then?"
"The same way your great great great grandparents came here."
"You mean you're from Earth? Before the exodus from Earth? That's impossible."
"As impossible as it is that your sources of power are humanoid powerhouses," Hiryuu pointed out bluntly.
"So what are you saying? You're from Earth and you were born in the middle ages."
"Somewhere in the early fifteen hundreds in a country called Japan, yeah. But I wasn't born like this. I was as normal as anyone for seventeen years."
"I don't believe you," Kristyn said.
"I told you so."
Kristyn hated one thing above any thing else, and Hiryuu just said it.
----
"Dragon? Dragon?" the man said. He burst out laughing. "Everyone knows there is no such thing as a dragon! What do you think I am, a complete idiot? If Hiryuu the Flame is a dragon then I might as well be an alien!"
"Mr. Rockafeller, sir, you can ask anyone in the town of New Kansas, Hiryuu the Flame is a dragon about fifteen feet long, red, and-"
"Kristyn, the joke is over. Continue, and you're fired!" The man slammed down the phone.
"A dragon? Really, who would believe that?" the man chuckled. He went back to work on some of his paperwork when a man came into his office.
"You should come see this, boss. The owner of the Old New Kansas Saloon has the strangest claim. But he's got pictures to prove it. What should we do?"
----
The girls saw a whole bunch of bandits fighting at the edge of the road. One of them was the one who had rushed off with the stretcher full of flower vases. They acted like they didn't notice them as they passed.
"Hey!" one of them shouted. "Those two are them! Get in the car!"
Kristyn felt her foot hit the floor of its own accord. The next thing they knew there were about twenty crazy drivers following them. Their little stolen jeep was not exactly the fastest thing on the road either.
"Myra, I could use your help! They're gaining on us!" Kristyn said rather harshly.
"You don't have to yell," Myra said, hurt.
"Myra could you just give me a hand?"
"Fine, but only if you say you're sorry," Myra said unforgiving.
"I'm sorry," Kristen said semi-politely. "Now, shoot them before they shoot us!"
Myra gave Kristyn an evil look then turned and shot down the three nearest cars with Millie's giant gun.
A pile up of about ten cars quickly appeared. The others all swerved and kept on going. Myra checked how much of Aunt Millie's ammo was left. She had seven shots, but that needed to last a while. The rest of the cars were all the slower ones anyway.
"That's all!" Kristyn said, looking at the line of cars still after them in the rear view mirrors.
"You girls have got enough trouble to deal with I'll see you later," Hiryuu said as he suddenly jumped off the back of the jeep.
Kristyn and Myra looked at each other and back behind them. Hiryuu was gone.
"Where did he go?" Myra asked the air. She didn't want him to leave.
Suddenly they realized the cars were all swerving towards the north, where the geysers were. Hiryuu was in the air well in front of the cars, a dragon flying along in loops and circles above the bounty hunters like he was enjoying himself. After a few minutes they were far enough to the north that a geyser blew one of the cars straight up and it landed on another, causing some of the less persistent, or maybe more intelligent, hunters to stop and turn around. Within an hour all the cars that had been following him were either very far south of him or they were lying in pieces from being popped up like popcorn and crashing down like meteors.
The insurance girls drove on until they reached Texas City a smaller city about 50 miles southeast of October. They looked for the oldest bar in town and within minutes realized they weren't the only ones who had figured Hiryuu's target line out. There were a bunch of thugs with weapons and lots of talk of what one could do with ten billion double dollars.
----
The young bartender looked relieved to see the two girls walk into the saloon.
"Finally got some normal people who ain't searching for some monster," the man said to himself.
"Actually we are, too," Myra said cheerfully.
"You've got to be kiddin' me. I ain't got any payin' customers today, do I?"
"We've been on the road for a while actually and we were wondering if you had a menu, maybe?"
The barmen again seemed relieved and the man waited on them graciously, since no one was getting any drinks.
While the girls ate a mysterious old woman in a hooded cloak came into the bar. Several of the men in the bar snickered as the woman walked in.
"What's a old lady doin' in a bar?"
"You gonna have a heart attack if you smell alcohol, ya old hag," one said. He suddenly fell to the ground choking.
"I may be old, but that gives you no right to lack manners," the old woman's voice cackled from under her hood as she proceeded to the bar.
The man suddenly gasped and coughed. Some of the others started cracking their knuckles but otherwise the entire bar was silent. The short woman hoisted herself up onto a barstool next to Kristyn with a little bit of difficulty. She looked over at Kristyn.
"If only I were still that age," she mumbled to herself. She waited silently looking at the barman.
"What kin I do fer you, ma'am?" he said, politely.
"Are you the owner of this bar?" the woman asked.
"No, ma'am, that'd be my father. Do ya need to see him?"
"Yes, if you could take me to him that would be nice, thank you."
The woman and the barman walked around to a door in the back of the saloon.
The bar stirred again and after a few minutes all the rowdy bounty hunters were once again rowdy. An older man walked out from where the two had gone through the door, though no one noticed.
"How long before he shows up you think?" Myra asked Kristyn at the bar.
"I don't know. It depends on how he gets here, who knows. He probably won't be here for a while though. I don't think he wants to chance getting caught this fast."
"Good evening," the older man said, sitting down next to the girls. "Are you two aware of who is rumored to be heading to this very bar to destroy everyone in it?"
"We are very much aware of that, sir. We, too, are looking for him."
"You girls are bounty hunters!" the man said, disbelievingly.
"No, actually we're frie--- from an insurance agency looking for Hiryuu the Flame."
"Well, ladies, if you wanna live through the night I suggest leaving this bar because I have a tip-off that he'll be burning this whole place down. They even got people with hoses at the next door shops ready to ease the fire so it doesn't get out a hand. He's got it in for the gangs, see. First, the Creoles in March, then Haierra Kayne's Riders and the Gripper's boys in April, then Red Rick in New Kansas. He's killed them all and he's after the Texas Terrors next. That's Texas Terry right there," the man said pointing over to a giant muscular man with two ladies at his side and a pair of revolvers in his hands.
"I suggest you ladies get on out or that monster is gonna barbeque you along with the main course," he finished his thumb waggling in the direction of Texas Terry.
Myra looked over at the Texas Terry. Then she said something that would have gotten any man killed instantly.
"I thought Terry was a girl's name."
The locals all hushed and the outsiders soon followed suit. Texas Terry got up from his table and looked directly at Myra.
"What did you say?" he said, critically.
"I thought Terry was a girl's name," she repeated.
There were several gasps and the locals scrambled out of the bar. The strangers to the bar looked at the man than at Myra as though it were a performance or something. Then the man raised his gun.
POW.
Everyone ducked. Including Terry.
POW.
People started looking for the source of the gunfire.
POW.
"It's outside the saloon!" someone said.
POW.
Terry listened.
POW.
Five, he thought.
POW. Six.
POW. Seven.
POW. Eight.
No one breathed for a split second.
POW. Nine! Only one person has a ninth round. Hiryuu the Flame.
Texas Terry looked up from under the table as well as several others. There was complete silence. The girls looked out from under the bar. The only person standing was the old woman who had come in earlier. Kristyn looked over and saw her then…
That's impossible! Kristyn thought. The woman just disappeared. She was there, and then she was not there.
There was screaming outside suddenly. Then there was the sound of more gunfire in the night. Then every front window suddenly burst inward behind a wall of flame. Some of the men got ready to fire large weapons and some of them fled to the back door. Terry's girls ran for cover behind the bar with the insurance girls. The four girls looked up at all the alcohol gleaming in jars above them. They all looked at each other and scrambled toward the exit as flames shot over their heads sending the glistening bottles and kegs to the ground suddenly erupting in flames. There was a giant crashing sound as the beast rammed its way into the bar. Men screamed like little girls as Myra turned and saw it devouring them like a dog would scarf down dog treats. She stood there completely transfixed in the doorway. She couldn't move. It made sense to her in some way that it was doing this, but at the same time it petrified her. Texas Terry himself started to run for the door Myra stood at and was caught. He disappeared in the beasts jaws almost instantly. It looked at her as the room around it burned.
----
Hiryuu saw her standing there transfixed. He stopped. One of the men ran past him and pushed her onto the ground in an attempt to escape. He fell burnt to a crisp on the other side of Myra. Myra looked back into the building at Hiryuu just as the roof started to cave in, obstructing her view. He watched her until he couldn't see her himself then turned to finish his business with the other bounty hunters before the entire building started to collapse. He felt himself rejuvenating from the heat and the fresh meat. That's how he had thought of corrupt men for years: fresh meat. The only thing he could do to keep himself from killing innocent people.
But the fear in her eyes. She was too scared to move. He would lose another friend to this hideous form. The only real friend he'd had in several centuries. He felt the roof above him come down and he lay buried in the embers for a while before losing consciousness to the heat and the pain of his body mending itself.
Next, Chapter 9: Katoma Toyuki Returns