AOE Saga
The Reluctant Dracopyre
Chapter 3: Midnight Fight
Of course nothing much happened during the daytime, except for them finding a pharmacy to help Morph's reaction to the manticore quills. Slightly ironically, they found diluted quills used for acupuncture. But when night fell, that's when things got edgy. Like Draco said, everyone took shifts sleeping. But sleeping shifts is never easy. Especially if you have an enemy that might strike at any given moment. The tension was so thick; you could walk on it. The slightest shift in the shadows could make you jump. But it was all things of no consequence, or more importantly, danger. But that changed when it was Matt's second shift.
Matt was constantly looking around for any sign of danger. He couldn't help shivering with nervousness, or was that from those several coffees he drank to keep himself awake? Suddenly he thought he heard something. He stiffened but he didn't do anything yet. It could be some kind of city-dwelling vermin, like a raccoon, or an owl, or a Garzian Sewer Salamander. But then Matt noticed that there was a ghostly light and a slight clacking sound. Matt quickly remembered a group of zombies that attacked them not too long ago and the flickering candle-creature that created them. He nudged Chris who woke up with a start. "This has better be the real McCoy this time," he said. Then Chris noticed the ghost light and asked, "What the heck is that?" "Definitely not good," said Matt. They quietly sneaked out of the hotel lobby they were in and out into the streets. They heard the clacking getting nearer so they hid behind some garbage cans. They readied their blasters and prepared for a fight. "What kind of creatures do you think they are?" whispered Chris. "They're probably nothing but skin and bones," whispered Matt. Suddenly the garbage cans were thrown aside and the two turned around to face their enemy. Chris blinked and said; "I don't see any skin."
The creature that was getting ready to attack them was a skeleton. And by the looks of it, it belonged to a Dracon. The skeleton Dracon roared and swiped at Matt and Chris with its claws. They leaped out of the way and used a nearby fire escape to get out of harm's way. Matt kept climbing the stairs but Chris stayed where he was. "We have keep moving," said Matt, "you want that thing to catch us?" "Relax," said Chris, "it can't get to us. The membrane's rotted away so it's completely flightless." The Dracon skeleton spread its wings and a milky green fire filled up the gaps between the bones. It flapped them twice and took off. "You were saying?" said Matt. Chris nonchalantly fired his blaster at the skeleton, which shattered into several pieces. "See? Problem solved. Can we go back to bed now?" Suddenly the roar of several more Dracons filled the night air along with the sound of clacking bones. "Looks like an all-nighter to me," said Matt.
Meanwhile, the others had been woken up by the Dracon skeletons' roaring and were leaving the hotel lobby to find out what the ruckus was. "Can you keep it down?" yelled Chip. "Some of us are trying to sleep!" Suddenly Matt and Chris came running past them, screaming, Matt saying "Undead, why is it always the undead?" Stitch blinked and asked, "Where's the fire?" Suddenly a bolt of plasma-fire hit him in the head. Stitch shook his head until the flames were out and said, "Never mind, I found it." They looked in the direction the plasma-fire came from and saw several Dracon skeletons and Waste-Crawlers coming right at them. "That'll wake you up," said Lilo.
The Waste-Crawlers charged at our heroes, screeching, closely followed by the Dracon skeletons. Matt kicked the first Waste-Crawler in the face and shot the second one that tried its luck. He heard a 'Look out.' and ducked as a Dracon Skeleton was tossed into the wall behind him by Draco. Another one leapt down in front of Matt and whacked him hard, knocking him clean through the lobby doors and into Morph. They landed in front of the pharmacy they'd got the manticore venom cure from.
"Uh. They're tough for a load of old bones," groaned Matt, rubbing his head. He looked behind him through the pharmacy window to see a jar of fresh manticore quills and an idea came on in his head. "Oh Morph…" he said. "What, Matt?" answered Morph. "You're gonna hate for this idea but…" Matt said grabbing the jar…
………………………
Chris blasted yet another skeleton only to have it reconstruct. "This is dumb. We need to get 'em all at once." He yelled and noticed the ground was shaking. The skeletons and remaining Waste-Crawlers had noticed too and turned to look at the entrance. A low rumble could be heard and what sounded like someone singing the Indiana Jones theme tune badly. Suddenly the doors were demolished by what looked like Morph, swelled into a giant ball, closely followed by Matt who was running after him. Morph crashed into the unlucky skeletons, scattering their ones all over the lobby and flattening any Waste-Crawlers that were too slow or dumb to move.
"Strike!" yelled Matt happily, taking a vial of antidote from the pharmacy and injected Morph, making him shrink back to normal. Morph groaned dizzily "I'm never going on a rollercoaster again." Matt kicked one of the bones. "These damn necromancer wannabes and their dumb leader are really damaging my karma. As if we didn't have enough trouble with Silvia," he said angrily. Draco picked up one of the bones and said, "So these were those psychological warfare weapons NegaMorph mentioned. It must be pretty unnerving to be attacked by the corpses of your own kind." "Yeah," said Stephen, "but we should really think about what we do when Echidra sends… Is someone playing the xylophone?" Everyone looked over at Morph who was using a pair of tibias and a ribcage from one of the Dracon skeletons to play the xylophone. When he noticed everyone staring at him, he said, "What? I need to practice. And I left my drums on the BiNebular."
"What exactly do those guys want with Stephen anyway?" asked Lilo. Matt pondered on that and then remembered that legend he had read earlier. "I'm not sure, but there's a chance that it might involve the Dracopyres." Draco scoffed and said, "Those things have been extinct for millennia. The only way for a Dracopyre to come back is by a werepyre absorbing the essence of a dragon." Matt's eyes turned to the Drac Omnitrix and said, "Or the other way around."
Suddenly the clacking began again. "Morph," said Chris, "will you stop playing that stupid xylophone?" "I'm not doing anything," said Morph. And true enough, the bones were hopping along the ground towards Stephen. "Oh man," said Stitch, "I thought we were finished with those guys." Suddenly the bones leapt up, but they did not reform back into the skeletons. Instead, they constructed a cage around Stephen. There were some legs attached to the bottom so the cage started going out the door. "Oh, no, you don't!" yelled Matt and he blasted the cage. The blast made a small hole that was quickly repaired. The cage turned around and the skulls on the front released several plasma-fire blasts. Our heroes were thrown back by the barrage and the cage stepped through the hole that Morph had made previously. Wing bones extended from the cage and it flew off.
The others quickly followed it. Draco took to the skies after it. They had run three blocks when Draco came back. "What are you doing back here?" asked Chip. Draco panted and said, "Waste-Crawlers… shot acid at me… had to stop…" "Now how are we going to find them?" asked Stitch. "Actually they're in that building over there." They looked in the direction that Draco was pointing and saw a 20-story skyscraper with a thundercloud at the top. "You think we would have noticed that," said Morph. Chip quickly made long-ranged calculations and said, "I've got an idea. My guess is that Echidra will have a lair on the top floor of that building. We'll split up into three groups so we won't all get easily caught. Draco, Morph, and I will fly towards the top from the outside. Lilo and Stitch will go through the ventilation system. Matt and Chris will go inside and heads towards the top. At least one of our parties will be able to reach the top."
Matt and Chris approached the doors stealthily and readied their blasters. "What kind of guards are in there?" asked Chris. Matt peered through a window and saw that Echidra had decorated the ground floor with several kinds of snakes, no doubt poisonous. He turned to Chris and said, "Asps, very dangerous, you go first."
There's another chapter. I apologize about that slight improper language. The next chapter's going to have a duel that you will want to watch. Keep an eye out for it. Please review.