"Severe burns that have been healed, burnt and then healed again, multiple times."
Fire licked the plaster stripped bricks, the heat baking the structure as the field next to the school burnt intensely. The grey and red stones gained black scorch marks as the fire spread around me as I beheld the burning book at my feet. The black lining melted as pages turned to ash, scribbles and notes disappearing into the wind as the fire kept consuming air to fuel its increasing ferocity.
A year of planning, a year of hope, gathered into a small notebook that contained the key to my prison. Now burning in a mixture of yellow and invisible flames as my torturous peers found the scribbled pages and ignited them in front of my eyes, laughing while looking at my half-defeated form.
If they hadn't kicked me while I was down, I might have tried to save the book but the three and their entourage had enjoyed watching the fire reflect in my eyes as they held my arms tightly, barely fighting back as I pleaded with them to not do it, to not destroy a year's worth of documented torment.
They laughed as their misdeeds and the evidence of their crimes floated off into the wind. That's when the call of the void came, a great beast floated in the twinkling sky as I witnessed a golden shard hurtle down to the earth, its TRAJECTORY heading straight to the small city of Brockton Bay.
The DESTINATION was one of many, but the pull towards me was the most intense as the abject loss of hope became a shining beacon in the dark void.
Finally, AGREEMENT, agreement to bestow a curse upon me, a curse of draining and the curse of unrivalled power.
I sat on my legs, reaching out to the ashes of my salvation. Hardly a page remained as the group of unrepentant harpies swallow their amusement as it dried up and the sport of watching me break lose the lustre they were promised. A roar shook the windows as I pulled an imaginary trigger to end my sorrows. Fire lit the sports field next to the blocky school and doused the trees in crimson flames, what once was a barrier between the green field and the concrete jungle was now immolated, an omen of what was to come.
Yet I sat unmoving, staring at the ground, hoping that the ashes would turn back time if I begged hard enough.
Screaming, the pounding of feet, the shaking of the ground. A monster turned its attention to the lanky girl in baggy clothing, kneeling on the ground.
The burning of my face pulled me awake, the red and purple lion that towered over the school yard took a long, steady step towards me. Flames drifted off the purple wings and the red mane shifted as if were molten gold.
The conflagration around me caught my attention as I took a long second to decide whether to die by the snapping maw of a monster or to live and see another golden sunrise over the bay.
I jumped to my feet and ran for the door; the monster was too big to get into the halls and I could find a way to escape; if I could only make it. The rattling of the door dunked my spirit into a freezing pit of fear as the scaled lion took another stalking step.
"Please open! Anybody!" I called out, nobody was close or even willing to risk their lives for me.
' I'm going to die.'
I spun around, fruitlessly looking for another escape route only for the inferno to block every route as it consumed the courtyard. The fire flicked forward as the scaled lion took another step, the monster was close enough to decern the details beyond the heated haze between us. Blue eyes happy to kill sat on top a head that peeked just past the second story window, the two massive purple wings stretched to the sky and the claws, they dug into the paving as easily it would into dirt. 'Teostra'. I faltered as the name glided into my head from nowhere.
Eye contact with Teostra enraged the beast and as any predator would do once it locked eyes with its prey, it pounced.
My hands gripped cold steel, a lifeline to use as an eight-foot spike of metal formed between us. The steel lance didn't stop the monster's lunge and I cried out in pain as my back broke the wooden door. I refused to release the steel lifeline and the jerk from stopping mid-flight blossomed with incandescent pain in my shoulder. I took a few seconds to fight through the pain and I opened my eyes to see the steel lance embedded inside Teostra's chest.
Teostra jerked, his mass pulling me to my feet as he tried to dislodge my lance from his chest but only aggravated the wound as his movement made me stumble and lean into the weapon. Blood spurted out and burnt my skin where it landed on me, the boiling vitae soaking into my clothes as it erupted from the wound, the smell of iron seeping senses as Teostra struggled for a second time. The ragged shuffle removed the lance from the wound but by now the damage was fatal. With its lung pierced, filling with blood and shock overtaking its body, Teostra crumpled into a heap, a slow ragged breath leaving its body as it slowly died.
"You stupid thing!" I shouted through clenched teeth and dry tears, my back bleeding from the explosive force Teostra used to throw me through the door.
"A monster like you shouldn't exist! Why don't you go back to the hell you came from!" My words sent tiny red glimmers and purple motes into the air, they floated off Teostra's scaled skin and hung like vengeful stars. The entire room glowed as they hurriedly multiplied and blurred my vision as they filled the room. Their dazzling display covering the monster's final slow breath. As one the light flashed forward and dove into me, a swell of power rushing through my veins, knitting my wounds, healing my skin and depositing a foreign anger in my heart.
[/]
"I've never seen someone survive multiple lightning strikes, her body is a horror piece when it comes to her nervous system and her brain has multiple pieces that have fused together and seemed to break apart after whatever heals her, had done its half job."
Dad was asleep on the couch and I had this niggling feeling in my stomach. I had eaten half of the food in the house but no amount of stuffing myself filled the hole in my gut. Dad's sleeping pattern was relevant because I needed to get outside to get some cold, fresh air.
Four days ago, Winslow almost went up in flames, I wish it did but after I killed the monster, Teostra, most of the fire died down and the fire department doused the remaining flames before they caught on to something inside the building and gutted it.
So, it was with these thoughts on my mind that I started walking. Brockton was notorious for being unsafe for anyone in the after-hours of the day, but my neighbourhood had been pretty peaceful since I could remember. Not that my current state of mind allowed me to think of anything past the bottomless pit inside me.
My mind wandered and I wandered with it until I found myself at the substation three blocks from my house. The buzzing of electricity pulling me from my thoughts as I looked at the overhead cables, each as thick as my arm and transporting enough energy to power the entire neighbourhood. It made me feel small.
The hollow pit in my stomach kept me from returning home, but I didn't know what to do about it. It was an intense craving for something, but I didn't know what it was. I was afraid I was becoming an addict, but to what?
In my frustration, I kicked the fence and sat down in the dirt with my back against the silver chain-link that separated civilization from industry. Anger floated to my mind again, anger at so many people and so many things. Why couldn't I be normal! Why did I have to have this stupid craving!
I kept the anger at bay while I was home, nothing was there to distract me from keeping a lid on it and dad kept to himself -mostly- and while the school was closed, I had some time to catch up to some housework and extra homework.
But now! Now the anger tried to jump from my throat and I had no way to contain it, nothing to distract me as I sat against the chain fence with my arms wrapped around my legs. Anger at the past, anger at the present. Anger this, anger that, one day it would turn into a rage that I couldn't contain and I'd do something stupid and reckless.
"It fucking sucks!" I screamed to the barren night sky. I was upset and so angry, and the worst part was that it wasn't my anger alone.
"What does it take to be normal!" No answer came as I took a pebble and threw it across the street. The resounding clanger of the rock drifting over the silent roadways of the suburb.
"I just want…" I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted a lot of things, I wanted my friend back, I wanted my mother back. I wanted the shell of my dad to sit up and do something past going to work and moping the rest of the day.
"I want my life back." High school was supposed to be fun, instead, it was hell. This thought crashed a wave of anger into my skull and I could feel the pit in my stomach pounding in my head, demanding action. Whatever it was, it had a big sign on it and begged me to press… something.
A crackle and a boom made me leap from the ground as arcs of blue electricity lit up the dark ground surrounding me, I panicked as a second storm of lightning jumped between the boxes. Swallowing my fear, I balled my fists and sucked in a deep breath before peering down the alleys of sheet metal boxes.
A third wave of blue sprung forth and the beating of hoofs echoed over the buzz; in the distance the neighing of a horse.
"What in the world?" I whispered as the hole in my stomach abated in intensity. A strange sensation pulled me to see why electrical arcs danced between steel boxes.
Something was coming. The pounding of hoofs on concrete raced towards me as whatever it was that was approaching me picked up speed. A burst of white light and blue arcs sent me jumping through the air to land on my rear as a white and blue striped horse blitzed past me.
Or it could have a unicorn with the single alicorn buzzing with static adorning its face. But the scaled skin and digitigrade hooves told me a different story, this wasn't a mythical miracle. No, this was a nightmare, a monster haunting my reality. It circled around, red, evil eyes foretold me its murderous intention and I ducked away impulsively before a bolt of silver-blue light struck the ground where I had been sitting a moment ago. The thunderstrike's near-hit sent an aftershock racing through the ground into my leg and the spark made me convulse on the ground for a second before I found the strength to move again.
The monster. 'Kirin' my mind supplied, more urgently than it had for Teostra. Was rearing up and swishing its horn about. The air filled with the acrid smell of ozone and I jumped away from the light ball coalescing above me. The bolt of lightning struck my ex-location and blew the transformer box not too far from the impact site. Golden sparks sprayed into the night from the almost molten shell and the lights of the neighbourhood flickered with unsteady ease.
My skin itched and something begged to be used, I didn't know where it came from or what it was, but anything distracting me right now would only hasten my death. I accepted the feeling, provided that it helped me and stopped nagging my brain. Kirin raised itself on its back feet again and brays out to the night, swishing its thunderous horn back and forth.
I sprinted away from the beast, the thunderous blue ball tracking me as I ran away, it waited for an opportune moment and finally struck, nicking my leg as I passed another set of transformer boxes. Burning my leg and setting fire to my body.
Kirin trotted over, entirely too pleased with the hit and began to charge as soon as it could see me. The beast lunged forward to impale the sheet metal box I leaned against as I dropped down and rolled away. Another massive set of blue arcs flowed through the air into the ground.
Fire ripped over me as whatever had been nagging me to use it finally started, a red sheen of metal plates and a sense of added strength froze my feet in place. The half a second of transformation and the following quick look over my form to confirm that, yes, I was in a medieval suit of armour, was enough for Kirin to summon another ball of pale blue lightning and drop it on top of me.
I writhed in pain as the much stronger shock sent electrical burns down my back and legs. Fortunately, the burning feeling quickly faded and I decided to run away from the accursed monster. With a fleeing target, Kirin sprinted after me, within a scant number of bounds it had closed the distance between us and with shocked open eyes I looked down at the alicorn piercing through me.
Kirin's alicorn punched right through the hard red plate, deemed the soft leather as negligible resistance and broke several ribs to stop inside my chest. The suddenness of the attack and the pain following it pulled a silent gasp from me. the horn was deep enough to let Kirin raise me into the air and throw me into a hard metal transformer box. I crumpled into the side and took slow shuddering breaths.
A neigh caught my ears and I saw stars in my eyes as another lightning strike enveloped my prone body. I writhed alongside the blue arcs of power coursing over my body.
'Fight!' My voice echoed inside my head. The one that told me to hang on, to not let my opponents win, to prove to the world that Taylor Hebert was one that would never surrender.
I struggled to my feet, my breath misting the air as I squared up to face the monster. I'd kill it or die trying. A flash of steel pulled my weary body down and I beheld the humungous steel hammer that appeared in my hand. I gripped it with both hands, the weight tensing my shoulders Kirin reared up to charge. Murder clouded its eyes as and I dared it to charge.
The monster had speed in droves. It bolted forward faster than the eye could see and closed in on me with arcs running around its tail. It was upon me before I could blink, the blue corona in my eyes blurring the scaled form of the beast.
I let instinct guide me, the hammer in my hand eager to swing and devour, sailed through the air to hit soft dirt. Kirin, already behind me, started to circle around and chuffed at the missed swing. Let out a shrill neigh before hoofing the ground and charging at me again. I waited, waited for the perfect window and felt the power, felt the lightning.
Kirin cried out as the three-hundred-pound hammer smashed into its side, mauling bones into dust and bursting blood inside its chest cavity. Blood dripped from its mouth as a trail of blue trembled from the wavering body of the electric horse. A spark flew into the air and descended within a second, the explosion of writhing blue arcs covered the area between the hunter and the hunted. The electric attack travelled up my body, through my armour and into my squishy human body, melting nerves and frying pieces of my body.
Electrical burns and charred flesh, I was dying from blood loss and my blurred sight made me stumble and fall to the ground as my sense of verticality disappeared from the onsetting shock. Kirin keeled over, blood dripping from its mouth as it started taking its final breaths, heaving and faltering as more blood filled its lungs and made the ground its final resting place.
'Live!' A faint voice shouted over the darkness floating over my mind. I tucked my hand into a pocket that both existed and didn't and withdrew a tiny red phial.
'Ancient Potion' I pulled the stopper and downed the contents. Instantly my body felt numb in a good way as a miracle overcame me. Scars formed where wounds had been, blood filled my muscles after having Kirin drain it into my lungs and I could see without the blurring of shock.
I took a second to marvel at the restoration before finding the strength to walk over to the dying Kirin. It tried to stand and fight as I limped closer, but it had no strength left. A singular strike had killed it just like Teostra. I was either lucky or excessively strong, my luck would run out one day.
"Beast of lightning, your days of storm crafting are numbered. Come with me and let us see the pale beauty of thunder again." My words evoked blue and white motes to float off Kirin's body. I finished my sentence and waited for the rush of power to fill me.
The motes lifted me into the air and I felt the hardy nature of Kirin flow into me as well as the storm crafting abilities it wielded so effectively. I was stronger and I finally understood what had happened at Winslow.
"I'm a cape!"
[/]
"She has scars covering her scars. They criss-cross her body, everywhere except her face, I guess she's lucky like that. She has puncture wounds, some small, some large, most of them in her torso and arms. Several patches of torn skin healed over and over again. She looks as bad as Freddy Kruger on a good day." Amy finished her list with the second to last finger on her left hand.
The dining room table was clear of any decorative features, the lacquered hardwood reflected the visages of the occupants and their silent contemplative faces. Amy sat at the corner, relaxing in the soft chair with calm ease as she describes the mangled, torn and healed body of the girl they had evicted away earlier.
Next to her was Carrol, her mother, Amy almost hated the woman with how strict, ruthless and sometimes uncaring she was. But Carrol was still her mom and she tried to look out for her and Vicky, even if her heavy-handed and rash tactics strained their relationship. Vicky sat silent and contemplatively across from her. She barely moved and refused eye contact with anyone during the 'interrogation'.
Across from Amy sat the PRT liaison of New Wave. A fit young man in his late twenties with a limp, Amy had offered to fix it for him a few times, but he had kindly denied each offer. He told her that she'd get the full story when she was older, but the short of it was that he had been maimed while saving lives and bore the damage with pride.
Heroic pride like that ticked Amy off, living with a disability was preventable if they'd only accept that she, the number one healer in the world, could cure them without much trouble. A shift in biomass and a reconstruction of the muscles and bones and they'd be set. The same heroic pride in Taylor Hebert made Amy's skin crawl when she met the girl. A reckless youth, Amy believed that the girl was suicidal with all the wounds on her body and the half effective restoration she had been receiving.
"Thank you miss Dallon, I'll be including it in my report. Missus Dallon." The agent switched over to Carrol, the matron sitting stiffly in the chair while listening to her younger daughter list the biological profile of the fifteen-year-old home intruder. She was convinced that the Hunter had coerced Vicky to go along with her on the deadly 'hunting' trips and that her golden daughter would have been in no right mind to ditch her long-standing boyfriend to go out and play monster hunter.
"Yes, agent Redfield?" She tersely responded, itching to see the man off to get back to her job.
"There isn't much we can do with the information or accusation of the Hunter invading your home, there is no sign of forced entry or the use of parahuman powers. I can only give you the number for the parahuman investigation branch of the PRT, they'll be here by the afternoon regardless." The man started to pack his things, closing his notebook and clipping his silver PRT-issued pen back in his blazer.
He looked at Vicky as he stood up, he had worked with the girl since she had developed powers and seeing the bright and bubbly girl withdrawn and silent wasn't something he ever expected to see, maybe the Hunter had done something to the girl, or maybe it was just teenaged mood swings. The only thing he knew was that the other two had a bone to pick with the Hunter and their golden girl after he departed.
"Vicky." He softly called out to the girl, hoping for her to respond. She tilted her head a fraction, connecting their eyes to one another.
"I'll see you next week for your debriefing, stay strong." He almost reached out his hand to reassuringly pat her shoulder, thought about what it would look like and turned around to walk through the door, his limp hobbling every second step until he climbed in the passenger seat of the black sedan waiting for him.
The three waited for the rumble of the car to start and the man to drive away. Except all sound had ceased. Amy's mouth moved in the way people would ask what's going on, but nothing echoed from her. Something had gone terribly wrong. Vicky was in the sky before they could stop her, blasting upwards as she soared above the city to look for anything amiss.
Fire.
A complete conflagration had enveloped the Northern side of town as Vicky spotted Lung going toe-to-toe with Dauntless and the blazing form of Taylor.
[/]
Great deeds often come from great people. But great people are born from great deeds. I wasn't a great person; I wasn't anybody but simple old Taylor and the thought left a sour taste in my mouth as Dauntless fussed over my armoured form.
"Get up. Lung's coming back! We can't win a fight against him, not with him already that big." He spun around, fearfully looking down the street, hoping, praying that the mob boss wouldn't appear. He was lucky, something far worse came instead.
Unshackled, unhinged, unrivalled.
The roar foretold doom, death, destruction. Fire responded. A gigantic tornado of flames rose to the clouds as Lung retorted with a blazing inferno.
Even two streets over and a row of buildings between us, I began to sweat from the heat.
Dauntless turned back to me, a pleading look begging me to get up and run. I swallowed my dry mouth, a gasp for air to start the conversation.
"It..." A coughing fit delayed me as my lungs demanded a break from the sweltering air.
"It's too late, a hunt has started." I offered one of the two phials I retrieved from my bottomless pouch to Dauntless, the murky white liquid sloshing about as he inspected it.
"Drink it, and these." A yellow potion that reinvigorated the body and a red potion to knit wounds. I downed the three phials and watched as Dauntless uncorked his yellow drink, the Cold drink already clattering on the street.
Energy pulsed in my muscles, every limb suffused with it and ready to jump back into the fray.
"Alright, Dauntless. I know we said no hunts in the city -but sometimes shit happens. Now I can promise you that I'm not running away from this. I've been dealt this hand and I'll play it out till the end." Energy. So much energy. I bounced to my feet and hauled the spartan up.
I began walking towards the fighting, stretching my arms as I went. Dauntless whipped me around before I got too far from him.
"Hunter…" Words failed him but I was willing to give him a second to collect his thoughts.
"We've got standing orders to not engage Lung beyond what's necessary." A second roar and an accompanying crackle of thunder cut his words in two. "You're going to go against the strongest cape in the city, with a monster in the way. I can't support you. But I'll get people who can." I nodded in understanding. He didn't have a ranged power, he couldn't help me in melee or from a distance, he was simply out of his depth.
"I understand, I'll finish this. It's my mess after all." I spun around before his confused and concerned face could stop me.
A bow, larger than it had any right to be. Taller than myself and straining my shoulders as I took an experimental pull on the string. A quiver appeared behind my back, the arrows within weighing me down as I scaled the building.
Red, black, blue. The heat shimmer hampered my sight as the coiling form of Lung sprung against a black monstrosity. Easily the biggest of any of the monsters I had faced. Two massive horns curled from the head and a pair of leathery wings accompanied four taloned feet. A razor beak snapped and sunk into the silvery scales of Lung, but the eastern dragon hardly flinched as he clawed against the scaled dragon.
ALATREON
The bow's hardened point sunk into the concrete of the roof, from here a straight shot to the monster wouldn't be hard at all, heat shimmer notwithstanding. The bowstring dug into my fingers as I pulled back with all my might, the square base of the arrow nuzzling my cheek as I aimed my shot.
'Thuwsh!' White condensation trailed behind the bolt as it pierced the sound barrier. Two hundred yards disappeared in a blink and the thunk of steel hammering bone rung pleasantly in my ears, the shclink of another arrow withdrawn from the quiver complimented the growling pain of the black dragon.
Alatreon roared, his wild buckling throwing Lung into a building, the same Lung who kept growing. Dark pools of hate focused on me in a heartbeat. The second thunk of steel slammed into his horn, flinching him as bone splintered across the street.
"Hunter!" I wasn't used to monsters talking and the pause gave Alatreon enough time to torrent a gout of flame at me. Fire met fire. My flames countered his and a third arrow connected with his skull. With three arrows in ten seconds carving chunks from his curling horns. Alatreon reared up in anger and charged me.
Only for Lung to tackle him as he rushed past the silver dragon, Lung's sixty-foot, twisting form, dwarfed by Alatreon's bulk, still threw the bulkier beast away from my fourth arrow, which promptly pierced Lung's scales. Unfortunately, Lung didn't possess the pure resistance of the monster and the arrow sunk heartily into him. The wound spewed boiling red blood over the street.
"This feeble welp will die!" Alatreon's suave sibilant declaration heralded a thunderous downpour that struck Lung, sending him writhing as blue thunder rushed over him, Lung's flames flared up and licked the city, leaving molten signs and bubbling tar around him.
"And so will the hunter!" I responded with a missile of steel. Bone chunks clattering to the street below.
With a hiss Alatreon pounced away like a big cat, placing buildings between us as he barrelled down the street Dauntless and I had been. His large wings unfurled and with a mighty flap ascended to the skies and dived on my position. His tremendous bulk replaced the building with a dust cloud. I sucked in a breath as I floated above the rapidly expanding dust cloud, my floating escape confused Alatreon as he searched through the pile with large swiping strikes.
I sliced the dust cloud with a disk of razor wind, carving bloody ribbons in Alatreon's hide. Red jets pummelled him and exploded the ground as I sent bolt after bolt down.
"A hunter with tricks! I'll make sure you die painfully, usurper!" I sent another bolt and between it and the following one, tried to evade the hail of ice coming from above my head. Unfortunately, I couldn't evade what I couldn't see and a large chunk slammed into me and sent me crashing.
"You're not the only one with tricks."
"You talk too much." I retorted. A painful cough racking my body. Potions only lasted so long.
He leapt. Eighty feet of black dragon gliding in the air to slam into me.
'Bring it.'
My lance dug into his chest -a repeat of days past- and my shield blocked the eviscerating claws. But unlike Teostra, Alatreon snapped at my lance, grabbed it and flung me into the air where he unloaded a hellish flame. I had nothing that could save me.
Whiplash is a hell of a thing. Shoved away from the billowing flame at the last second by a streak of blond hair. We tumbled through the air and finally crashed onto a solitary rooftop.
I didn't have a second to thank who I presumed to be Vicky for saving my life a third time as the black dragon chased after us. I resummoned my lance, couched it against my hip and sprinted off the building. A jet of crimson accelerated me to meet my monster head-on.
Alatreon's eye widened as I saw my reflection enlarge in the dark pools of hatred, he shoved himself away but was a fraction of a second late and the steel tip scored a line down a flank. I reversed course, a billow of dust spew by the arcing jets of red fire from my feet and hurled the disintegrating lance into Alatreon's wing.
He cried out in pain, the lance digging into his side much as my arrow had done to Lung.
Speaking of Lung. His hissing, dragon tongue swivelled my head away from my target to his coiling silver body, which now bordered on seventy feet.
'Hunter of dragons.'
"Stow it! I don't want to hear anything from you. You're a murderer and I want no part in your deals!" His floating body had a firey ring circled him alongside a corona of heat, everything in proximity to him was baking and the heat shimmer traversed down the street as he slid closer.
'You have no choice!' His beak snapped out and he lunged, his stubby arms wrenching my arms before I could blink and carrying me over the roof that Vicky tried to hide on. We soared, his flames ignoring me for some reason and I struggled to break free before he could escape and press-gang me.
With a lurch, we reversed direction and crashed back down. Alatreon's maw clamped down on Lung's tail and threw the silver serpent to the ground. The sudden jerk released me and sent me sailing through the air, the height giving me a view of the destruction we -I- had caused over the course of the evening. Streets burnt, buildings crumbled, cars strewn about like an Autumn morning after a storm.
Beneath me Lung swiped at the black dragon's eyes, his coiling body allowing him to bend and grapple the beast with ease. The two scrambled to overpower the other but Alatreon was slowly winning the fight. His massive paw trampling on Lung and his mouth ripping into the middle of the Asian cape's body. Shouting, snapping, tearing. Alatreon pulled, his paw and mouth pulling away from one another as he split Lung in two.
"Taylor!" Vicky's voice appeared next to me and I took a second to look over the girl. She wore her standard fare of shorts and a crop top, sweat matted her hair and dust dirtied her face.
"Hey Vicky." She floated closer and enveloped me in a hug.
"I'm glad you're okay." Her muffled reply came, I patted her back, waiting for her to pull away. She pulled back eventually, a single tear forming in her eye.
"How do we kill it?" Vicky wasn't equipped to kill monsters, her resistance to physical attacks made her amazing against street thugs and other capes. Her vulnerability to the elements the monsters used and the sheer size of them meant that she couldn't stand toe to toe with them and to be frank, neither could I.
"I don't know, he should be limping from everything I've been throwing at him but he's on a totally different scale than the other monsters." Lung was still fighting against the stronger monster, even being torn in two didn't stop him as he began growing larger again and regrowing his dismembered body at multiple feet per second.
"We can kill Alatreon, but that won't stop Lung. He wants me in his gang, my 'destiny' or junk." The small breather we had was filled with the sound of tearing flesh and burning buildings. I pulled several phials from my pocket, the same set of three potions from earlier and gave them to Vicky.
"When we're fighting Lung, we often disengage and skirmish; keep him low powered and distracted. The longer he fights and the tougher the opponent, the worse it gets. He hasn't been this big since fighting in Kyushu I think." I had to kill Alatreon and then lead Lung away and lose him.
"Dauntless said he'll get help. But I don't know what's going to help now." A second longer let Lung snap his jaws around the throat of Alatreon, but the black dragon ripped him away with his front claws and unleashed a blue storm from within over the silver dragon. Lightning charring the street and blowing every light bulb and appliance on the block.
Alatreon's horns blazed with power when he used his elemental attacks, maybe if I destroyed them, then we could dispatch him with greater ease.
My hammer appeared in my hands.
"Alatreon is controlling his powers from his horns, if we break them we can kill him." Vicky had her arms crossed, she seemed reluctant to see me off.
"Sorry Vicky, you can't help me this time. Go be a hero for me." She stiffly nodded and I dove down.