A tail almost swept Max off his feet and hit Alistor off hers. She landed roughly on her back as Max landed perfect in a crouch after dodging. Her weapon of choice, a machete, flew backwards and landed blade first into the dirt beside her.
"Are you okay?" He asked, ducking under another swipe.
Alistor raised her hand shakily with a thumbs up. "Never...better..."
Max parried one swipe against his clawed gauntlets which created sparks before somersaulting backwards to keep out of reach of another. He lured his pursuer to the side to safeguard his apprentice to give her time to recover.
He quickly dodged a strike of the monster's claws that struck the ground and when the monster found it unable to remove them, Max took his opportunity and ran up the outstretched arm. Right as he got onto the upper arm, he jumped off to the side and swung himself around the arm to give a brutal uppercut kick to its jaw. The monster's head jolted back and it squealed in pain, ceasing struggle and placing its active arm across its mouth. Max leapt down and used the spare time given to run to his apprentice.
Alistor had watched part of that and grimaced, "That looked like it hurt. My own mouth felt that, damn dude!"
"Yeah, alright, are you fine? Can you stand?" Max scoffed.
She nodded and stood, cracking her neck and shoulders until they popped. "What is with this dragon? Why does she have so much against you?"
Max frowned, "There's a pretty long list why my enemies hate me and a grand total of those reasons are why they are my enemies in the first place. I've pissed off a lot of people and most of these monsters are angry because I stop them from hurting others. She's no exception."
"I thought she had beef with Artemis Ashford, the military chick?"
He replied, "Artemis is her rival, but Lily Cameron went too far in her obsession to win and went on a rampage. Turning herself into a drake, which is the proper term by the way, led to her permanent decline in sanity, and she is my worry because she's classified now as a monster. Irredeemable in every sense too. I can try to talk to her but I doubt it'll do much good."
The monster finally released her claws from the ground and opened her hand to flex the muscle to make sure it was fully operational before sending Max a growl and death glare.
"Alistor, I need you to do me a favor," Max said, never breaking eye contact with Saurus. "Go to the woods."
The girl was surprised and grew worried. "What? No! I can handle her, I just messed up this once! I'll do better-!"
"Go to the kauri woods and wait. You'll know what to do."
Defeated, she nodded, grabbing her weapon and ran towards the forested area nearby as Max approached Saurus.
With a loud roar, Saurus stalked towards him and leaned down to try and bite him in half. He dodged and she instead decided to slam her head down where he landed. The ground rumbled as uprooted soil and rock went everywhere from the impact. The monster shook off the remaining debris and ran after Max. Despite being larger and having a longer stride, Max still outran her and she grew furious. Converting to all fours somewhat improved her speed but he stopped and slid underneath her before bringing out his sword.
Max smirked when Saurus had to slide to a halt and maneuver around. She was chunky for a drake, not allowing much ability for quick actions, but that didn't make her less of a threat. All it took was on miscalculation and he would be killed by her strength.
Saurus' black body with grey growths and purple spikes down the spine, horns, and claws didn't blend well in most environments, not to mention it was an ugly color scheme. When Lily injected herself with the serum that turned her into this monstrosity, she also developed a feral mindset as well as the inability to see herself for what she was. Her narcissistic tendencies were delusional at best.
Snapping her jaws at Max again, he retaliated by giving her a cut on her lip. She lifted her head in confusion and licked the part he injured before giving him a frown.
"Don't give me that look. You're the one who lunged first."
This frown turned into a wicked smirk filled to the brim with crooked sharp teeth on a small head. She swung her tail around and lifted her hind legs to slam them down on him. He had only seconds to dodge and in the right direction given the tail had a bit of reach to it.
He also came to realize how disproportionate some of her body was. Her head was small and rounded with a thick neck and a short but large-jawed snout, but she had muscular arms, a small chest, and huge hips and legs where most of the fat was aside from her underbelly. Her tail was extremely thick as well, capable of crushing a Cybertronian with a good pounding. Her chest didn't look big enough to hold a heart and lung size she had or perhaps should have which brought the question of will her heart collapse from the lack of room to expand properly or will it give out from having to pump way too much blood than what it's capable of?
She growled angrily and snapped at him. Growing tired of having to watch her jaws every minute, Max waited for the next time she made an attempt to bite him and quickly activated his grappling cables on his wrists. Saurus became shocked when her jaws were forcefully restrained by the cables wrapping around them and she whipped her head trying to break loose. When that failed, she was about to claw at the wire when Max pulled at it which brought her head close to him. Purple-pink eyes stared into shimmering green and she didn't move.
Max snarled, "Lily, I know you're still in there and I know you have the power to stop this. I don't want to be your enemy but you've forced my hand. What happened to the woman who walked proud and led her team across the battlefields in Iraq with no fear and great leadership? You were respected, a commander and a friend of your troops. You let your own envy and pride consume you over another woman as skilled as you. If you couldn't be the best, no one could."
Lily grew less tense but Max could see in the corner of his eye, her tail flickering. That was a common sign of irritation for most animals but for dragon-types like drakes, this was a sign of malice. She was trying to play him for a fool and pretend to let her guard down so he can lower his then strike when he was unprepared. Clever, but it doesn't work on someone who has studied animal and creature behaviors for years.
Making sure he played along, he reached out with his clawed gauntlets and placed a steady hand on her nose. She gave a grunt of confusion and he sighed, "I really wish we could have met under different circumstances. You would have done well in the military, maybe would have become a general. I would have been a friend if you let me. But it's always been too late, even before you transformed and I see that now."
Her pupils suddenly contracted and he took that as his cue, immediately jerking the cabling down to slam her head against the ground unwillingly before she could get the jump on him. Detaching the grapple, he ran straight towards the woods.
Saurus gave out a cry and quickly stood upright, placing claws under the cables and snapping them. With her jaws freed, she gave a bloodthirsty bellow and chased after Max.
Alistor slowed to a halt just as she breached the forest line. She turned back to see Max taking on Saurus head on. At first, she felt bad for leaving her master behind but orders were orders on top of the fact it probably had to do with her screw up of not reacting fast enough.
"I'm sorry, Max," she whispered.
Downtrodden, she kicked a few rocks and one hit a vine attached to a tree. Wait, vines? Kauri didn't have vines. She immediately eyed the odd sight and looking up, she saw it was covered in thick vines known as liana. As she began to look around the other trees that were a mixture of kauri and rimu, more vine infestations were visible. Some of the vines had been there for decades and overgrew to the point of dangling from the trees. This was a remote wilderness seldom touched so the only explanation was some humans long ago ventured with the infestation. What type was hard to tell but it could have been Asiatic bittersweet.
The vines were thick enough that if anything large like a cow up to an elephant got caught in the dangling, they wouldn't be able to break free. Perhaps not even...a drake either.
"You know what to do, Alistor," the girl spoke to herself, her mouth curving into a grin.
She grabbed the low hanging vines and pulled to test their strength, almost all of them sturdy enough and the branches some lied on of the old kauri were thick from the centuries they had lived. It was perfect.
She found thinner vines, definitely a different breed among the ground and rimu trees, interweaving them. She quickly deduced where the least crucial vines for her plan were linked to and severed them. Making sure the vines were attached tight to their trees, she then elected one as her primary pull and hoisted the pile of vines upward into the canopy hidden from view. Tying it off on a branch, she then came to see how Max was doing.
If this wasn't what Max was implying for her to do, then she may have outshined even her own expectations. But that was about to be put to the test as Max was running straight for her with an angry drake stomping behind.
"Max! Over here! Follow me!"
Her master acknowledged her plea and she ran back to her trigger vine for the trap. Max entered behind her and when he saw her stop, he slid to a halt and gave a wild gesture.
"Now's not really the time for waiting, don't you think?" He urged.
Alistor said, "I have a plan. Do you trust me?"
Max calmed slightly and eyed the approaching drake before grunting in thought. "I trust you. Show me what you got."
Saurus swiped away underbrush and tree branches in her way as she charged at the two stationary humans. She didn't notice the canopy vines and when she got close enough, Alistor brought her machete down on the one vine holding all of them up. A slew of vines, some Asiatic and the other the unknown breed, came crashing down right in front of Saurus. She couldn't stop in time and they tangled around her, getting caught between her spikes, her arms and her frantic movements didn't help.
Instead of untangling herself, she struggled and tried to continue forward snapping her jaws at her prey like the wild animal she had become. The trees creaked from the pressure the vines holding her put on them but they were a strong, sturdy goliaths. Two vines snapped but the others held true and soon, Saurus was unable to move, restrained by her inability to think out her situation and react accordingly.
Max was impressed and gave his apprentice a renowned look of approval. "Nice job, Asiatic bittersweet hybrid vines were a nice gambit alongside liana, very restraining material for a quick getaway. It won't hold forever but just long enough to get Lily into a portal back to the Devil's Den."
"Hybrid vines?" Alistor asked confused.
"Mutation crossbreeding can sometimes occur between plants of similar structure. Liana and Asiatic bittersweet aren't very far off. Normally, they wouldn't breed with each other but under certain conditions, a mutation can occur which will lead to accidental crossbreeding. This isn't the original Asiatic bittersweet; it must have bred then got overrun by its own creation. The liana is being attacked too I noticed in the canopies. Poetic really."
Alistor ignored the pitiful bellows Saurus gave and turned to her mentor. "Max, I want to apologize for my inability to keep focus. Had I not done that, we would have probably been able to take her down your way."
"And who said my way was the right way?" Max raised a brow. "You think I sent you off because of an error of judgement? I sent you into the forest because I figured a direct approach wasn't the fastest way to win the battle. You getting knocked down proved direct assault would give us broken bones. Yes, we had the chance to still win but that would be unfair to you so I thought you could make use of your surroundings while I distract her."
"Sooo...you're not mad?"
Max scoffed with a smile, "No, Alistor, if anything you did better than I did today. I didn't really think of the vines. I was thinking maybe dropping a few trees on her instead. Sometimes looking in another direction to solve a problem is more beneficial, and sometimes you need to fail to see another side of things. Not every fight is going to go in your favor but that doesn't mean it's the end, just need another way to go about it and that's why I sent you to the forest. You aren't a failure, you're just not an on-the-second reacting type of person so I put you in a situation that benefitted your abilities as a critical thinker more than a fighter."
Alistor gleamed at that and hugged Max much to the latter's surprise. He at first was unmoving with a concerned sneer but slowly he melted a little and hugged back before coughing and scooting her away as friendly as possible.
"Alright, enough of that. Now, I need your help to transfer Lily."
On cue, Saurus gave a miserable bellow in her restraints and Max made a cautious approach. "I warned you. I can only help if you let me and so far, you've done nothing but attack me. Either you don't want to be saved and terrorize everyone in your way or you want me to kill you. I can't accept either of those outcomes so I have no choice but to imprison you."
Saurus' eyes darkened and Max could only shake his head and turn away. Some people never changed even when the opportunities to do so are presented. Lily was a lost soul and now there was nothing Max could do except keep her locked away.
"You always were a bad person."
AN: For those of you who don't know about my very early years as a fanfic writer, I created Tigressa and all her siblings in 2009 but put them into words around 2013. I developed an enemy for Tigressa and the hero of the story named Artemis Ashford and her little twin brothers Connor and Conrad Ashford. Looking back on them now, she was essentially a prototype of Max and his adventures in the Transformers world which is also funny because Max was originally supposed to be a Harry Potter OC. You probably saw words like Patronus and dementor mentioned in a few of these stories and that's the reason why. It's a nod to what he used to be associated with.