Thank you all for the birthday wishes! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any other fandom I manage to squeeze in this story.
ooooooooooooooo
Lightning Dragon's Roar
A Harry Potter Fanfiction
By Zero Rewind
© 2015
ooooooooooooooo
Chapter 38: Escape
The room shook, and I shook along with it.
Was it from excitement? Or was it from fear?
I couldn't tell. Probably both?
All I knew was that I had to figure out how to get out of this situation.
"What did I do to deserve to be killed?" I questioned her intently.
Specimen T tilted her head curiously at me, as if she had not expected me to talk back to her.
"Your words are without fear. No..." She bit her lip slightly, and gazed at me. "There is much fear, but it does not overcome you. Why?"
She had completely ignored what I was saying.
I huffed in irritation.
"Look. I'm here to save all the people being experimented on." I started to explain, trying to change the subject.
"Why?" She asked simply.
"What the hell do you mean, 'why'?!" I sputtered out heatedly. "What these people are doing is wrong! It has to stop."
"Indeed it is, and indeed it does." Specimen T replied jovially, spearing through the men laying prone on the floor with her projectiles, their blood adding to the already abundant gore around us. "But that's not why you're here, now is it?"
"What?" I said, the display frightening me slightly. "What could I possibly be here for?"
"Revenge."
I opened my mouth to retort, but couldn't find the words to say.
"You see?" She said, waving her hand at the room. The gore and blood around us vanished, leaving us in a pristine room. How…
"These people wronged you, no? And you're simply here for revenge." She giggled into her hand.
She was right. What they did to me had driven me into a rage the likes of which I had never experienced before. I felt vulnerable, afraid, and weak. They had violated me, and I wanted to kill them for it.
But she was also wrong.
"I wouldn't say I'm simply here for revenge." I said, after a few moments of thought.
I lifted my head and looked into her eyes.
"It is true, I want to kill the bastards that experimented on me." I said slowly, feeling her gaze pierce me. "But I saw those people in their beds, lying there, being cruelly tortured in the name of science. Not having a single moment of peace, even in their dreams."
Specimen T didn't say anything.
I held out my hand, and her eyes went wide.
"Come with me." I said. "We can all get out of here."
She stared, stared, and stared some more.
Then she laughed.
It was different from the joyful laughter I had heard before. It reflected her innermost character— one who has seen far too much and forced to see the humor in things which possessed not.
I took an uneasy step back.
The laughter abruptly stopped.
"Get out of here?" She said, staring at me with blank eyes. "And fix me? You are too late. Far, far too late."
The room shook harder as she floated off of the ground, now eying me with both anger and sorrow. Chunks of the wall were torn off and began circling her body.
She made a few motions with her hands as if she was sculpting the concrete chunks. The material began to break up, forming some jagged looking weapons that were pointed straight at me.
I began to channel Lightning to my nerves in preparation for whatever she had in mind.
Power. That was what I had to face against, right now. Power had beautiful, creamy skin, and amazing green eyes. Power also had the mental capacity of an abused lunatic.
Was it even correct to fight her?
Could I even win?
It didn't matter. She seemed intent on putting me down, so I had to put her down first.
Hopefully, I wouldn't kill her in the process. Or she, me.
"What is your name?" I asked, before she could start.
"What concern is it of yours?" She lifted a delicate eyebrow.
"I would like to know it."
"I am called Specimen T." She said in a monotone.
"Tch." I scoffed, frowning and showing her my scaled arm. "And they named me Specimen S, as in Scales. What's your real name?"
She glared at me. "Enough talk!"
The weapons sailed to me with incredible speed, even with my nerves supercharged by the power coursing through me. I jumped, forcing my body to contort in a way that allowed me to avoid the onslaught of random weapons.
"Not bad." She commented with a smile, before waving her hand again.
The projectiles flew back at me with a furious spin. I responded by immediately surrounding myself with Lightning Blades. The electric swords appeared in time to swat the projectiles away.
Specimen T simply humphed, before sending the projectiles back at me, once more. I tried to cut through them with my Lightning Blades, but the concrete weapons shined purple as the swords slashed into to them, dealing very little damage, and forcing me to dodge.
One of them smashed against my scaled arm, shattering on impact against the powerful leathery scales.
But pain still managed to shoot up throughout my arm. Balthazar was screaming bloody murder in my head, while I was trying hard to concentrate on the fight.
I guessed my arm wasn't as infallible as I had hoped it would be. In previous fights, it had been an incredibly amazing asset, so I had the mistaken belief that nothing could cut it, or harm it. Nothing could crush it, destroy it, or even give it any pressure.
Here I was, though, pain shooting through my armored limb randomly, breaking whatever measure of concentration I attempted to achieve.
Strengthening her weapons, was she?
Two could play at that game.
I channeled Lightning into Erebus. Black and blue power oozed from the dark Falchion, before settling in on the cutting edge of the sword. I tightened my grip on the blade and swung it horizontally, cleaving through her constructs with ease.
Judging by the crazy lady's raised eyebrow, she did not expect me to successfully counterattack in such a manner.
I dashed at her, preparing to stab the sword into Specimen T's midsection, but the ground beneath me cracked again. I lost my footing for a few seconds, right as I felt a sudden weight fling me into the wall to my left.
I recovered just in time to see the projectile headed straight for my brain at ridiculous speeds. I dropped to all fours, narrowly avoiding my head getting skewered, before taking a deep breath, charging my lungs with Lightning.
"LIGHTNING DRAGON'S ROAR!" I bellowed out.
A wide beam of bluish white, destructive electricity exited my mouth, engulfing the entire room in bright light. The energy easily overtook whatever projectiles were still spinning around in the air, before smashing against Specimen T's psionic shield.
I kept the attack going for a few seconds, before relenting, a bit out of breath after having unleashed such a powerful attack.
The devastation before me was quite substantial. My Roar had dug a wide, five foot deep trench in the floor, stopping around where Specimen T currently stood.
Electrical burns ran up the length of her arms, and she was breathing quite heavily. I crinkled my nose at the scent of burning human flesh, and swallowed down the bile that was threatening to rise up my oesophagus.
Perhaps her telekinesis was not as absolute as I had thought it would be. Then again, it was like my dealing with Clark. According to him, the only things that had actually beaten him were my magic spells, and the green meteor rocks that come from his home world.
And since she was affected by those rocks, it stood to reason that her telekinesis couldn't stop my magic.
In essence, her powers weren't as effective on me, and other wizards.
Regular humans, on the other hand...
"You—" She spat out, looking at her hands in a mixture of fear, pain and shock. "You actually hurt me!"
I took a wordless step forward.
Her eyes widened, and she took a fearful step back, falling on her bottom. She stared at me, her body shaking.
"You were trying to kill me!" I shouted at her, starting to feel a little guilty as well as angry at the sight of her looking helpless. "Should I have just died, instead?"
She was about to say something— or maybe even cry, before the sound of metal hitting the ground reached my ears. We both turned to my left.
It was a metal cylinder, which had already begun to eject a foul tasting gas.
Was it anesthetic? Tear gas? Or simple smoke?
I pulled out my wand and snapped it towards the smoke in a whip-like fashion. "Ventus!"
The wind answered my call, sending the fumes outside of the chamber we stood in, right back to whoever sent it.
"We've got company, T." I said, turning to Specimen T. "Truce?"
The green eyed woman eyed me with a fair bit of suspicion, before turning to the source of the smoke bomb as well.
She gazed into the dark doorway. "There are eight men with guns just outside. Rifles, to be precise."
I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know that?"
"I can sense their brains."
"Sense… Their brains." I repeated dumbly. "Okay, then, T. Let's show them who's boss— before we start beating the crap out of each other again."
"Anne."
"Huh?"
"My name is Anne." She repeated as the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder.
"Anne..." I said, rolling the name in my mouth.
I wasn't sure whether or not I could trust this lady. She was volatile, easily angered, and switched moods at the drop of a hat. One second, she was completely pleasant, the next, she would have a murderous look on her face.
Granted, that could simply be because of the treatment she must have endured here at the hands of these 'scientists'.
I only had a few hours of consciousness in which they put that stuff in my body, as well as taken one of Balthazar's scales.
How long had she been in here? Weeks? Months? Years?
Just thinking about it drove shivers up my spine.
Maybe I couldn't trust her completely, but one thing was for sure. I could trust in the fact that she wanted to leave this god forsaken place.
"Just stay there, Anne." I smiled at her, before heading to the door way. "I'll take care of them and get you all out of here. I promise."
I didn't see the way her body seized up at my words, but I did hear her sharp intake of breath.
I felt Erebus vibrate in my left hand, and pointed the sword at the doorway.
"Don't kill them. Dark Stream!" I snarled.
Erebus made a sound of displeasure, but acquiesced. The Darkness that came out of my Falchion was less wild, less violent than I was used to. It flooded into the doorway, and the halls behind it.
The attack quickly snuffed out their yells of shock and fright. With a sigh, I ended the onslaught, before placing Erebus on my shoulder.
"I really wanted to kill one of them." Erebus whined pitifully.
"Maybe some other time." I said, before turning to the still shaking Specime— Anne, I corrected myself. She was watching me wordlessly.
This continued for a few seconds, until I started to get uncomfortable. I thrust my hand out to her, and smiled.
"Anne." That seemed to make her jump. "Are you ready to go?"
She looked at me for the longest moment, as if she didn't truly understand what exactly was happening. I frowned inwardly, and waited.
Eventually, she grabbed hold of my hand, and I pulled her back up on her feet.
We made it about five feet outside of her own room, before I heard a loud whoosh, and saw Clark blur into my vision. I lightly squeezed Anne's hand, so as to let her know it was safe.
"A bit late to the party, aren't you?" I smirked.
"I came as soon as I could. The other place was filled with Kryptonite, but there were no prisoners there." Clark said. He looked a little pained. I gave him a nod to say that we would talk about it later.
He nodded back.
I turned to Anne. "Can you free the others?"
"I think so." She answered, before waving her hand at the dozen doors in the hallway. Each one broke in on itself, and the debris was set aside.
"See if you can wake them up, Anne." I said curtly. "Clark and I will do the same. We've got to do this before they send more guards here."
We gave each other nods, and went inside of the rooms. I moved straight to the bed in which one of the prisoners was being kept.
It was a girl of maybe thirteen years old, with bright brown hair. She might have looked quite good, had I met her at her best. Instead, I was forced to look at her frighteningly thin appearance in a hospital gown that barely covered anything.
My throat constricted slightly, but I attempted to wake her up. I nudged her. She didn't respond. I gave her a light slap to the face.
Her breathing didn't waver in the slightest.
I pulled out my wand. "Rennervate!"
Her body spasmed for a moment, before she relaxed.
Nothing was working! It was a repeat of what had happened underneath that hospital.
I heard the dripping sound of her IV, and turned to look at the bag.
Wait…
"This isn't just an IV..." I scrutinized the bag for a moment, before my eyes widened. "This is some sort of sedative!"
I immediately pulled out the needle which fed the liquid into the girl's bloodstream.
"Guys!" I yelled out. "Take out their IVs! It's filled with some kind of sedative!"
"I know!" Clark answered back.
"Thank you!" Anne's voice called out shortly afterwards.
It was a little strange, how she was helping us now.
I waited a few seconds, before recasting Rennervate on the little girl.
This time, her eyes opened up, and she sat up, looking dizzy.
"Where..." Her voice was rough, as though from disuse. She cleared her throat. "Where… Oh god, I'm still—"
I gave her a quick pat on the head. "You're okay, kid. I'm getting you all out of here. You're safe now."
The little girl looked at me with wide eyes. I saw the panic, the fear. I saw the pain and anguish. It made me angry.
Not at her, but at her captors.
"What's the last date you remember, kid?"
"Date?" She repeated, not understanding.
"As in, the calendar. Which is the last date you can recall?" I continued with my questions.
"Uh..." She rubbed at her head, as if in pain. "Maybe September..."
"What year?" I pressed on.
"I think… two thousand fourteen." She answered, starting to understand. "How long?"
"It's May, two thousand fifteen right now." I said tonelessly, helping the girl up, and out of the room. There were a few similar prisoners rounded up by Clark and Anne outside.
"Could you wait here?" I led her to the group of frightened children and adults alike. "We're almost done waking up the rest."
"A-All right, mister." The little girl said, before joining her fellow victims. She looked terrified.
For the next ten minutes, Clark, Anne and I went in each room, waking the prisoners up and helping them join their group. After rounding up the final prisoner, I stood in front of the large group.
"Listen up." I said. "I don't really know when the guards will get back here, so we have to go, and we have to go quickly."
I took a breath. "I understand that most of you have been in long comas, so your physical prowess will have most likely gone to hell."
I saw a few grimaces and nods, and continued.
"So I want you to know that I'm not leaving any of you behind." I said with a smile. It seemed to put some spirit back into everyone. "We're all going to make it out alive, you hear me?"
"Yeah!"
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and saw a smiling Clark. I turned to my left, and saw Anne, also looking somewhat thrilled.
"So, what's the plan?" Clark asked, and Anne leaned forward.
"It's pretty simple." I smiled. "Take it from an RPG standpoint. Our enemies have guns, bombs, and the like."
"Right." Clark said.
"Well, you're basically bulletproof, right?" I continued.
"You're saying I should be at the front of the group, taking all the damage?" Clark concluded.
I gave a nod. "Not only that, but you've got incredible speed. So you can also act as a scout for us. Don't forget, your main priority is defense. Got it?"
"Yeah." Clark nodded back. "I can do that."
"And what about me?"
"You… Well." I gave Anne a look, lightly rubbing at my scaled arm. "You can control air particles, and you've got a shield which took me forever to break through. Even when I actually did, you barely received any damage.
Your job." I said, before she could answer. "Will be a mixture of defense and attack."
"In what way?" Anne asked.
"Well, you can shield against the grenades that the enemies might throw. You can get rid of the smoke particles that their smoke bombs emit. You could even choke our enemies to death, if you wanted to." I explained, and added after Clark's look. "But try not to kill anyone, okay?"
"Why shouldn't we?" One of the prisoners said. "After what they did..."
I heard a murmur of agreement from the crowd, and palmed my face. "Look, kill them if you need to, but don't take more time than is absolutely necessary."
They were still frowning.
"I mean, you want to waste an extra five seconds finishing a downed guy off and take a bullet to the chest because you were more focused on revenge than on staying alive?" I snarled. "Be my guest. But if you do that, I'll let you die."
"I thought you were here to save us!" One of them said valiantly.
"We can't save those who are suicidal." I bit back instantly, and it seemed to kill whatever anger the group had managed to muster up.
"What you can do, however, is help us out during the next fights." I continued. "If you've been in these labs, that means you're so called 'meteor freaks'. Am I right?"
Some of them winced at the name, but most nodded in confirmation.
"If any of you have defensive abilities, use them to supplement Anne's shielding."
"I can do that." A middle aged man said, looking a little nervous. A few more also offered their help in supporting, attack, and defense.
They probably wouldn't contribute much, but something was better than nothing, right?
Clark shifted nervously.
"I can hear them. The guards." He clarified at my glance.
"Where?" I instantly turned to the man. He was looking up, through the ground. His eyes widened.
"They're setting up explosive charges!" Clark yelled out. "They want to blow the whole place up!"
"To the elevator!" I bellowed, beginning to usher all the prisoners to the elevator. It opened up, and everyone rushed into the elevator. I hurriedly pushed "Two".
"Warning, weight limit exceeded." I heard a female robotic voice say. "Proceed?"
I pushed "Two" again.
"Acknowledged." The voice said once more, and the elevator whirred into motion, albeit very slowly.
Anne tsk-ed, before raising her hands. The elevator picked up speed, easily reaching the second floor in a fraction of the time it should have taken on an empty elevator, let alone one beyond its limits.
The doors opened, and Clark rushed out, going all over the place in a matter of seconds, before stopping right in front of us.
"So, what's the situation?" I asked.
"There are a dozen of them that were still setting up the charges to blow up the complex." Clark said, looking angered. "I knocked them all out, but the charges are still going to blow. I didn't know how to defuse them."
"And the rest?" I continued.
"Over there." Anne pointed to our left.
"How'd you—" Clark started to say.
"I can sense their brains." She replied.
"You can sense their brains?" Didn't this sound familiar?
"Echo." I said. "Echo. Echo. Damn it! Why do you guys get to echo and I don't?"
The two gave me a look of mild irritation, before focusing onto their current task.
We moved in the direction of the guards. Clark was at the front. Anne was right behind him, with a psionic shield over the entire group of prisoners.
I stood at the back of the group, offering support in the form of Lightning Bolts for when they were needed.
"They're just up ahead!" I heard Clark call out.
True enough, the men were already there, waiting for us, their guns loaded for bear.
"All right." I took a deep breath. "Thumbs up! Let's do this!"
The group looked at me oddly, before shaking their heads and rushing at the group of guards. The guards gave us amused glances, before firing away.
The bullets smashed into Clark at three times the speed of sound, but he simply powered through the hail of projectiles with extreme ease.
The bullets that made it past the man bounced off the psionic shield that Anne had erected for the group.
I had to dodge an errant bullet or two. Luckily, the bullets that made it past Clark and Anne were slow enough that I could dodge them with no trouble.
I ducked below an errant bullet, sending Lightning bolts into the rear guard, effectively disabling any support they could muster for their troops.
Clark, true to form, tore through the front guards like they were made of cardboard, sending them flying into the walls.
Anne grabbed a few of them, instantly snapping their knees, eliciting anguished screams.
Clark gave her a look.
"Well, I'm not killing them." Anne smiled pleasantly, before telekinetically breaking another guard's fingers, not breaking her stride in the least.
Clark sighed in displeasure, before tearing through the guards once more.
I felt the barrel of a gun lightly touch the back of my head.
"I've got you no— AHHH!" The man threatening me suddenly yelled out, and I felt a powerful heat behind me. I turned sharply as the man's shouts died out, and his body turned into a crisp.
I checked with the group that Anne was protecting, and saw that thirteen year old girl, with her hand extended to that guard. She looked mortified.
I smiled grimly at her, before going back into action.
A few more minutes of dodging bullets, taking out guards, and generally stressful times, we finally reached the outside.
In time to face the barrels of not one, not two, but three tanks, with several platoons of soldiers around them, and more on the way.
There was no warning. If the previous environment was loud with gunfire, then this new one was simply deafening with the shock waves that the tank cannons caused each time they fired.
I charged my cells with even more Lightning, hoping to dodge the attacks, but it was like trying to avoid the inevitable.
I winced as the hot metal of a bullet pierced through my flesh, but kept shooting out Lightning Bolts, easily taking out another dozen soldiers.
I heard a loud explosion, and dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding a tank shell.
As I was getting back up, the shell violently exploded.
I felt the vibrations rattle my body, and I was flung forward at least ten meters, smashing into Anne's psionic shield, which had easily held under the fire they had received.
Disoriented, I tried to regain my focus by observing my surroundings.
Next to Anne, a few of her fellow prisoners were helping as best as they could. A bald kid that looked like he was my age slammed his hand into the ground. In the distance, a large spike made of earth erupted, spearing through several soldiers.
The enemies responded by throwing grenades at our group, but the middle aged man that had spoken up before waved his hands, the grenades blasted back at the soldiers with a powerful wind.
The explosions tore through the platoons, effectively causing mayhem in their ranks.
But I felt it wasn't going to be enough.
The bullets, and tank shells couldn't penetrate Anne's shielding— but, by that same token, she was too busy keeping up the shield to be able to aid us in the counterattack.
And, judging by the way she was trembling, it was likely that she was going to run out of juice, soon.
The amount of energy she was expending just to maintain a shield of that nature must have been stupendous.
Not to mention, she was likely still weakened from months upon months of experimentation, constant anesthetics being used on her to keep her docile, etc.
"Clark." I said, and the man was beside me in an instant, helping me back up. "We can't hold out much longer. Look."
He followed my line of sight, seeing the struggling Anne breathing hard.
Clark swore violently, something that caught me completely off guard.
"I'll disable the tanks. You take down as many men as you can." Clark ordered. I responded by fishing a small vial of Pepper-Up Potion, and downing it in a quick motion.
I grimaced at the taste, feeling my energy levels increase once more.
"All right. I'll try." I answered, before crouching, and jumping as high as I could. The soldiers were mesmerized by the feat, so much that they stopped to stare for a split second.
At the same time, I saw Clark blurring past the tanks, turning their barrels into scrap metal, effectively disabling the war machines.
I raised Erebus into the air and charged the dark blade with electricity.
Let's see them get back up from this!
"Lightning Dark Stream!" I slashed down, unleashing a bluish black wave of Dark Lightning that blotted out the sun.
The soldiers yelled in horror as the attack washed into them with force, paralyzing them while feeding on their life energy.
I began to fall back down. I controlled my descent with precise, powerful bursts of electricity so I wouldn't break my bones on impact with the concrete.
I landed easily, the sound of chirping electricity ringing in my ears. I surveyed the group of soldiers ahead of us. Every single one of them was down for the count. My Lightning enhanced Dark Stream had made them all go unconscious.
Clark blurred right next to me.
"I think that's all of them." I said, before taking a breath and turning to Anne. "You can relax now, Anne."
I heard a tired, female grunt, and the sound of glass breaking, as Anne's psionic shield shattered. She took a few steps forward, before losing her balance and falling on her butt in the process.
She must have been running on fumes this whole time.
"They're all alive. Just unconscious." Clark said, gazing at the guards in wonderment. He looked back at me. "I thought..."
"That I killed them?" I finished his thought, and he winced.
I tried to smile, but it probably came out wrong. My arm hurt, and— woah! I was shot in the leg. No wonder it hurt like a bitch!
"Maybe killing isn't the answer." I admitted, taking a seat, and bringing out my wand. "It's not so black and white to me, anymore. Before, I could simply shut off my mind, and do what needed to be done. But I'm different now."
Having gone toe to toe with the Demon Emperor, Mundus; it gave me a little perspective. Even the worst humans could not compare to the sheer malevolence that exuded from that particular Devil.
Lilith couldn't compare, either.
That mysterious presence that rerouted our Apparation attempt to Prato didn't compare, either.
Not even Voldemort was that evil.
What gave me the right to play the judge, jury, and executioner?
I shook my head— it wasn't the time for philosophical pondering— and pointed my wand at my thigh. "Accio bullet in my leg."
I felt a horrible tearing sensation as the bullet exited through my wound, further exacerbating the wound— but at least there were no longer any foreign substances in my body.
§You okay, Balthazar?§ I hissed out quietly, as I tore a part of my shirt, cast Scourgify on it, and cleaned the wound as best as I could.
§I'll live.§ Balthazar replied. §Honestly, that crazy lady's attack hurt more than the bullets.§
§Tell me about it.§
I tried to stand up, but found that the pain in my thigh was too great to overcome.
It would be a simple matter for me to turn off my pain receptors using my Lightning— that's how I was able to overcome a spell like the Cruciatus, after all, but that generally was never a good idea when you had open wounds.
So I grit my teeth through the pain, and tried to get up again, only to fall back down on the ground.
I felt strong arms prop me up; I weakly turned my head to see Clark slinging my right arm over his shoulder.
"Heh." The man of steel laughed softly. "Guild mates have to look after each other, right?"
I took a moment to absorb that comment, and smiled gratefully as he led me to the others.
"Yeah, they do..."