Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Taylor

Lung responded to my claim of wielding a dragon-slaying sword with a deep, rumbling laugh. "If you say so, Sailor Weeb."

I didn't quite understand what he meant, but Opal, in the form of my sword, began babbling something in outrage, of which I made out "uniform," "Ruby's master," and "Onee-sama."

I rolled my eyes. "Armsmaster, are you alright?"

"Some of the servos in my armor are damaged," he stated clinically. "I'm mostly unharmed, but until the repair protocol kicks in I'm dead weight. And you need to get out of here, Lung is too dangerous."

I didn't look back at Armsmaster as I replied, "I'm not just going to leave you alone while you're-" Lung lunged for me, clawed hand extended, then slashed down, and I parried with speed that I didn't know I was capable of. Arondight went snicker-snack, and Lung's hand was cleanly cut from his wrist. "Helpless," I finished. "Also, I'm pretty sure I can take him." Lung took a moment to stare at his stump, and Saber was officially my new favorite card.

Armsmaster said something in response, but I couldn't hear him over Lung's shout: "Ooh da fug awr ooh!?"

"Oh," I said as I raised my sword to block an attack from Lung's good hand, "the name's Princess." I took one hand off my blade and socked Lung right in his scaley cat-face to punctuate my introduction.

Lung half-screamed-half-roared and burst into flames. He tried to bowl be over, but with Saber's strength I was able to stand my ground and Arondight's edge coming dangerously close to Lung's heart made him change his mind and retreat much further up the street.

I was about to charge him, but just as I made my first step he shot a blast of flame at me. A swing of my sword disrupted it… somehow, but if Lung wanted to play the range game that made things a lot more difficult. Unless… I eyed the firearms that Lung's thugs had dropped. Two Tommy guns, what looked like an old hunting rifle, and something military looking with a long belt, and that wasn't counting the shotgun that the runner had dropped.

That'd do. I leaped and rolled in the air to avoid a gout of fire that had been fired at my feet, sheathed my sword in mid-air, hit the ground rolling, grabbed the five firearms and tumbled into a steady crouch, three guns under my arms and a Tommy in each had aimed dead at Lung. The weapons glowed with a warm light and brilliant streaks of gold crisscrossed through them.

"Knight of Owner!" I heard myself declare as I pulled both triggers and unleashed a storm of hot lead on the Bay's resident dragon. The guns roared like the t-rex in a movie I'd seen and the bullets exploded on contact with Lung. Soon, however, came the empty click of expended clips… or magazines? Honestly, they hadn't exactly covered the difference that well in my gun safety class.

The smoke cleared, revealing a much large Lung with much thicker scales hunching over and snorting from a deformed x-shape that I assumed to have been his mouth and nose grotesquely merged together. His arms and hands, plural, touched the group and two long spines had emerged from his back. There were holes and dents all over his body and I think I destroyed his pants or something, but the damage I'd done was quickly mending. AHAOUH!? he roared. How?

"Because in this form, kicking your ass is as natural as breathing no matter what weapon I do it with." Did I just say that? Oh my God I just said that. This is so awesome.

"Princess, language." Damn it, Opal.

Lung roared again, no words. He swelled up, slightly but noticeably, and the spines on his back started to unfold or unfurl and-Oh fuck, he had wings. If he took to the air, I'd have to Uninstall or switch cards and then I'd lose my advantage.

So I stood straight and threw the Tommy guns at Lung, one striking him in the head, and one hitting him in the crotch. He grunted in annoyance, but it gave me time to switch to the belt-fed gun, glowing as the Tommies had, which I turned on Lung's half-formed wings. Three pulses each chipped through his wings and nipped his aspirations of flight in the bud. I turned the firearm next on one of Lung's knees and finished the belt before throwing the gun like a spear and impaling the other.

Both of his knees crippled, Lung almost collapsed but was able to support himself with just his arms. He pulled the gun from his knee, burst into flames once more, and then started dragging his way to me with frightening speed.

I was burning up. Knight of Owner took some serious mana and I could feel my circuits beginning to strain. But I couldn't give up, so with nothing else to do I aimed the rifle at Lung's chest and fired.

With a burst like a rocket, the bullet soared from the barrel and punched clean through Lung's scales. Blood gushed out, but it soon stopped and burned away in the flames. I changed my target, aiming a little bit lower, and put four bullets in his belly before the hunting rifle clicked, empty. Despite the holes I'd blown in his body, he didn't slow down.

Thunder cracked loudly in the sky, and out of a clear night came a sudden wall of falling water. Under normal circumstances, I'd curse my sudden loss of visibility, but the way the wind was blowing it didn't hamper me that much. In fact, getting suddenly drenched helped to cool the burning ache building in my body and, as a bonus, dulled Lung's flames quite a bit. The bad news was that his legs had regenerated and he suddenly doubled, if not tripled, in speed by pushing off from the ground into a proper sprint…

...And then he almost immediately slipped in a puddle that hadn't been there seconds before and falling, hitting the ground deformed face first and skidding the rest of the way to land at my feet.

He roared in frustration and pushed himself up, to be met by a shotgun, an old fashion double barrel, pointed square at him.

"Boom," I said, and pulled both triggers. The shotgun let out a sound that rivaled Lung's own fierce cry and a rather than a spray of hot lead a gout of plasma erupted forth and consumed Lung before depositing him, badly burned, at the far end of the street. I tossed the spent shotgun and rifle at him, both metal tubes spinning fest and striking him where his wings were just now beginning to reform and breaking them clean off.

I drew Arondight and prepared to charge Lung when I felt something in my spatial awareness. I stepped left, turned, and caught Armsmaster's Halberd in mid-air. Wide-eyed, I looked back to him.

He'd managed to stand at some point "If you weren't bluffing earlier," he said gruffly, "then you should be able to use that to bring him down without killing him." He grunted after, which made me think he might have been lying about not being hurt earlier.

The Halberd was a polearm, so I had to short-shaft it to use it and Arondight at the same time. With Armsmaster's famed Tinker-Tech weapon in one hand and a Legendary Holy sword in the other, I, with the power and clad in the armor of a fearless knight, charged down a dragon for a battle in the rain, a clap of thunder and fork of lightning underscoring what was essentially the single most awesome moment of my life.

Lung roared and braced himself to meet my charge. I didn't give him the chance to start running, however, and pointed the Halberd at him. I don't know if it was because it was tinker-tech, because it was because Knight of Owner turned it into a Noble Phantasm, or both, but the weapon responded to my thoughts and reconfigured itself to launch a flare that soared out like a heating seeking missile, knocking Lung upside the head before making a sharp turn straight up and exploding, forming a cross of white flame high in the skies above us for several moments.

Being hit by a flare hadn't actually done much, if any damage to Lung, but it did seem to take him by surprise enough for me to close the gap enough to use another of The Halberd's gadgets: The grappling hook! Well, okay, in this case, it wasn't so much a hook as it was a claw, but still. The point was that a heavy weighted metal thing on a strong and durable cord flew past Lung and then circled back around him several times, binding him tightly.

And then, I pulled back on The Halberd and set the cord to retract at top speed, sending the Dragon-like brute spinning back like a top. He landed and began to push himself back up just as I reached him. My heart was beating like a snare drum and I could feel the sweat forming on my brow. Lung stood to his feet just in time to have Arondight slashed across his massive, armor-plated pecs.

I didn't want to give him the chance to fight back, and so I became a flurry of blows. Slashing with Arondight, chopping with the Halberd's ax-head and striking with the shaft. I twisted and danced around him, whirling like a dervish and occasionally throwing my elbows, knees, and feet into the mix. Hell, I even headbutted once. However, despite how easily my blades cleaved through his scales and the speed at which I struck him, it seemed that he had escalated to a point that I couldn't deal damage to him faster than he could regenerate it and his scales got thicker and his muscles bulkier with every blow I struck.

After a few moments under my assault, Lung gained an equilibrium of sorts and exploded into flames. He shoved me, knocking me several feet back, and causing me to land on my ass and drop my weapons. And then, without a word, he hurled a massive ball of flame at me.

I didn't think. I just grabbed The Halberd and pointed it at the incoming projectile. Again somehow reacting to my thoughts, the ax-head unfolded into a fan-blade and started spinning at impossibly rapid speeds. The fireball was blown out, as were the flames clinging to Lung's massive body. That alone was impressive, but I'd never counted on him beginning to rise from the ground. There was just enough time for Lung's eyes to bug out in a cartoonish manner before he was sent spinning into the sky and vanished behind the storm clouds.

The fight wasn't over yet, however. Every so often there would be a crack of thunder and I'd see Lung, still in the sky, be illuminated by the lightning. I think he got struck by it once or twice. But soon he tore through the cloud barrier. If I had to guess, he was twelve feet from head to toe and that was with him hunched over. A monstrous split face with a mouth full of fangs, claws like spears, and the two massive wings that he was soaring on. Lung was well and truly a dragon now, and with a roar, he flew right at me.

I had to end it now. I threw the Halberd straight in the air, placed both hands on Arondight, and began pouring every scrap of mana I had left into it. My circuits burned in protest, but I paid them no mind as my sword began to glow a bright blue.

Lung was getting closer. Three: I braced myself. Two: My sword held as much mana as it could hold. One.

I jumped.

"Arondight!" I shouted as I leaped higher into the air than I was sure I could have a few moments ago. I raised the so-named sword high above my head and when I met Lung… "Overload!" I brought it down on his shoulder as hard as I could and let out all the power that was building within. The blade easily cleaved through the Dragon's flesh and then both he and I were engulfed in blue light…

…

...The next thing I knew, the rain had stopped and I was standing back on the asphalt of the street, Lung, human once again, naked, and missing his right arm at the burned shoulder was kneeling before me and breathing heavily. "What," he said between pained breaths, "the fuck... are you?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but a pained wheeze came out first. I huffed. "I'm just a girl," I said hoarsely, "who's a hero for fun."

The Asian giant had such a look of rage on his face at my answer. He tried to stand, but just as he managed to get to his feet, The Halberd fell from the sky and landed on him, the syringe somehow deployed, and the full payload of Tinker-Tech tranquilizers was injected into his system. At that moment, I vowed to tell anyone who'd asked that I did that on purpose.

'Damn… You," Lung cursed, and then he fell to his knees as the drug-induced sleep took him. I reclaimed The Halberd and checked to make sure that Lung was still breathing, but then I was startled by the sound of someone slowly clapping.

I spun around, maybe too quickly, and saw that at some point, backup had arrived. Velocity was helping to support Armsmaster, while Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Dauntless, and Triumph were all staring at me. Well, most of them were. Assault was clapping. The others turned to him.

"What?" was his only response. I couldn't see from here, but apparently, Miss Militia's gaze conveyed some meaning to him because he said again "tell me I'm wrong." Battery facepalmed.

...I'd just defeated Lung almost single-handedly while fighting in a spontaneous thunderstorm, in front of what was basically the entire local protectorate team and one of them was applauding me. I might have saved Armsmaster's life while wielding his Halberd. I looked down at The weapon in my hands and suddenly gripped it tight, afraid I'd drop and break it. Oh… Oh, My God, I can't believe I just did that, I… this was…

"Princess?"

'Huh?" I must have spaced out for a second because Armsmaster was standing in front of me.

"I asked for my halberd back."

"Oh," I said, and reverently held it up for him to take.

"Now, there's just one question remaining," he said, "are you going to want to take full credit for Lung's defeat?"

"What?"

"There's a risk, however small," Armsmaster explained, "that Oni Lee might try to retaliate against the Hero or Heroes who managed to take Lung out. Given what we discussed on The Rig, it wouldn't be too difficult for him to find you if he put in enough effort. I assume that you've done something to mitigate that risk?" I nodded. "Regardless..." he continued, "honestly, it would be impossible to completely cover up your involvement here. Between the modifications to my flare and the rather conspicuous effect of your Noble Phantasm, this fight had all the signs of a Princess sighting." I wasn't sure how to feel about him saying it like that, "but, for your safety, it would be possible to get this spun as a collaborative effort and make uninvolved parties think that this was a Protectorate take down that you assisted with and draw any of Lee's ire down on the Protectorate."

"And the reward could be wired to you under the table," Assault chimed in.

I blinked. "Reward?"

Armsmaster groaned. "We don't exactly like letting this information spread around," he said reluctantly, "because when it comes to capes like Lung, stupid people could go rushing into danger, or there could be confusion with Kill Order bounties or the like, but the basic idea is that, rarely, for capes like Lung who are very dangerous and have been active in multiple locations, sometimes… Well, not a bounty per se, but rewards of one type or another will be posted for assisting in their capture or information leading to an arrest. It's mostly through organizations like Crime Stoppers or Inter-Para, but every so often a wealthy relative of a victim will offer something."

"And taking Lung down entitles me to that?"

"Maybe," Armsmaster replied, "it really only applies to civilians and independent heroes, so I haven't looked the exact rules regarding it, but I do think there's a pretty penny saved up in Lung's case. You'd have to come down to HQ and fill some things out, if you are, however. Now, if you could answer my question?"

I looked down at Lung on the ground in a drug-fueled torpor, to the friend/Holy Sword at my side, then back to Armsmaster. "I want my full share of credit on this, sir." I doubted that Oni Lee could get past the wards and runes I'd installed on the house, and I could double up Lisa's and Brian's apartments just in case the next time I did maintenance.

"So be it," Armsmaster said. He was about to say something else, but I suddenly collapsed and didn't catch it.

After landing on my butt for the second time tonight, the Saber card was ejected from me and I was suddenly intimately aware of every last bit of heat, soreness, and exhaustion that had built up in me during the fight.

"Princess!" Opal called as she flew to my side. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I said, "I just… I overdid it a little."

"Good," Opal said. "Now, I didn't want to say this in the middle of the fight and distract you, but..." I winced as she bopped me on the head. "Do you have any idea how reckless what you just did was!?"

"Huh?"

"You're feeling very sore right now, right?" She asked, "exhausted? Very, very hot?" I nodded. "That's because you overstressed your magic circuits. Did you notice that they were glowing in the visible spectrum?" I shook my head. "They were, your whole body was covered in blue lines. That is not supposed to happen with natural circuits! Especially with that last attack, you could have burned out your circuits completely. As it is, there is some serious, but thankfully not irreparable, strain and some inflammation to the surrounding tissues that I won't be able to safely repair until you've rested your circuits for at least twenty-four hours."

"Wait, what?" did that mean…

"No flying, no installs, no magecraft, no strenuous activity… Honestly, it's not doing any further harm but every minute you spend in-trance delays your recovery by the same amount." I gulped. "And it goes without saying that you will not be Installing the Saber Card outside of life or death emergencies until I say it's okay." I nodded. "Honestly," she muttered, "you should have just run the brute through as soon as you Installed."

"Heroes aren't supposed to kill except in-"

"Princess," Opal interrupted, "I do not care. Criminal scum and monstrous cretins are a dime a dozen. You are irreplaceable."

"Sorry."

Opal sighed. "It's alright. Now you," she said with a gesture towards Armsmaster, "Master of Arms. Please be a gentleman and lend my Princess a hand up."

Armsmaster startled and said "of course" before lending me his hand and pulling me up. Honestly, I wasn't that worn out, I could probably have gotten up on my own, but I didn't want to argue with Opal after the earful I'd just gotten.

"Princess," Armsmaster said, "does your father know that you're out here?"

"Uh, yeah," I said after a moment, "He knows I'm a Cape and this is one of my regular patrol nights."

"That's good," he replied, "because you're going to have to call him when we get to PRT Headquarters. There's some paperwork you'll have to fill out if you want to claim full credit for Lung's capture and since you're a minor he'll need to witness it."

"Okay," I said… Oh shit. I was going to be so grounded when Dad found out I'd fought Lung