Taylor is anxious.
No, scratch that.
Taylor Hebert is absolutely nervous.
She wakes up this morning with instructions from Lung to meet him in the training center inside ABB Headquarters at 8 am sharp.
So she goes there at exactly eight in the morning and expects to see the Dragon already there but what she finds is an empty room, supposedly reserved for the day.
So she waits and waits and waits some more until finally his royal pain-in-the-ass graces her with his presence after 12 noon!
Taylor was waiting for more than 4 hours!
Damn him!
So she makes her annoyance known by downright snapping at him the moment she sees him enter the room.
"You're late!"
At her irritated exclamation, the ABB leader simply snorts in derision and sneers at her, "Yes, I am and I don't care that you have been waiting here for hours for me to arrive."
The nerve of him! She thinks, nearly apoplectic with rage.
She wants to yell at him and voice out her opinion but she resists. For certain, Lung is going to punish her for her insolence if she succumbs to the temptation.
So she has to remind herself again that she is working for him now until she finds a way to free herself from Lung's clutches.
For now, he is her boss and he can do whatever he wants to her while she is in his territory.
Taylor bites her lower lip to stop herself from cussing at him.
Completely distracted, she momentarily fails to note the way Lung's eyes flicker to her lips for a moment right before he meets her glare again.
"I hope you have already prepared yourself for what we are about to do here," Lung says calmly to her, too calmly which is enough for her to be suspicious of.
Taylor's glower turns ferocious.
"I've been preparing for hours!" She cries out in irritation.
"Hmn," is Lung's only response while he completely ignores her exclamation. "Why don't you show me what you can do now that you have absorbed my power?"
Taylor grumbles for a moment before obliging him. She instantly draws Lung's stolen power within her. After absorbing his power yesterday, she is able to understand how his power works and Taylor can easily mimic it but with more access to the hidden features.
Now, she is going to show Lung that she isn't a pushover. She's going to show the Dragon of Kyushu that she can be a Dragoness too with little to no limitation.
And if what she expects to happen comes to pass, then there is a high chance that her training today will mostly consist of Lung and her duking it out with their dragon forms inside the training center, which can house a third of Lung and her.
Taylor Hebert is absolutely ready for it.
She's going to bring the fight to Lung in the name of training herself into becoming a Badass Motherfucker. Because she has every intention of defeating the bastard for what he has forced herself into, but first she definitely needs to use the ABB's resources and train so hard until she is powerful enough to beat Lung until he lets her go.
Unlike Lung, she doesn't need to fight just to increase her power and transform into a dragon. She only needs her power to direct the changes in her body for her to transform into a dragoness. So in less than a minute, Taylor forces her body to change.
In mere seconds, her body begins to elongate and stretch. Taylor hears the sound of her clothes tearing as a tail and golden scales appear all over her body. Meanwhile, a snout forms to replace her mouth and fiery red eyes glow with hellish light in her draconic face after her mask clutters to the floor. Her hands become claws while six wings sprout behind her back. She only stops changing when she nearly reaches the ceiling of the training center and waits for Lung's verdict.
When she turns towards him, Taylor is a bit disappointed that she hasn't struck Lung speechless after her transformation, instead the Dragon is carefully inspecting her from head to toe with a cold but calculating look in his eyes.
"I'm impressed… You managed to control your transformation and you did it in less than a minute," Lung remarks in his usual gravelly voice as he crosses his muscular arms over his bare and tattooed chest.
"Yes," Taylor replies and it unexpectedly comes out coherently from her strange mouth.
"And can somewhat speak with coherence as well," the ABB leader muses out loud. "Aside from that, what else can you do?"
"I don't know most of my capabilities yet but I think I am able to control my pyrokinesis really well," she replies, her voice comes out a bit guttural but mostly almost the same as her human voice.
"Better than me?" Lung asks, sounding very much annoyed and doubtful with that fact.
"I don't know…" Taylor says hesitantly, noticing the Dragon's darkening mood. She can tell that he is irritated with her because she appears to be a far more developed dragon than he is, at least when he turns into one.
"Why don't we find out?" She asks him, somewhat excited about the possibility of fighting Lung on equal ground.
There is a short pause wherein the two simply size each other up.
As seconds tick by, the silence continues to lengthen until it turns suffocating.
She can tell that something is now bothering Lung, but she doesn't know what it is yet.
Then, Lung opens his mouth and reveals it to her.
"You know the only reason I even let you absorb my power yesterday was because I wanted to use you and your power to take the Empire off guard two weeks from now. Now, I'm beginning to regret my decision, especially when you are standing in front of me looking like a better version of my own transformation but with no loyalty to me at all!" Lung proclaims his displeasure as he glares intensely at her. "Tell me why I should trust you with this borrowed power?! Tell me why I shouldn't kill you where you stand, Jiang-shi!"
Taylor becomes a bit wary and terrified at Lung's sudden threat.
"What is this Lung? Are you now threatening me because you are scared of what I can do with my power?" Taylor asks him uncertainly.
Despite her current draconic form and size, Lung still has power over her. She is still terrified of him and what he can do to her and her father.
"I'm not scared of you! I'm only being cautious because you are not loyal to me and now you have the power to even possibly go toe to toe with me in my dragon form or even the Endbringer Leviathan!" Lung half-growls, half-yells at her in fury.
Taylor is shocked, but she doesn't back down from Lung's obvious wrath.
"I may not be loyal to you but I know where I stand with you and your gang!" She roars at him just as furious and just as upset that her loud voice shakes the ground and the rafters. "And if you continue to hang my father's life over my head just to keep me in your gang, then I have no choice on the matter but to serve you as long as you wish! That I even gave up school and my only family just because you asked me to do it! Isn't that enough for you already?! What more do you want from me, Lung?!"
She can feel unshed tears prickling from the corners of her eyes but she doesn't let it fall. She will not give the Dragon the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She also just realizes how much her life has changed since she came to free her father three days ago. And now Lung is acting like a total asshole because he is afraid of what her power can do to him? Fuck him and all his Azn Bad Boys!
At her sudden outburst, Lung falls into a thoughtful silence. He gazes at her through his ornate mask with a disgruntled look.
There is another pause as the two glare at each other in mutual rage.
"I will admit that I didn't think it through before letting you absorb my power," comes Lung's unexpected rumble, his voice deep and strained.
Taylor stares at him, completely surprised at his statement.
After a moment, his admission is soon followed by a sigh.
"And now…now, I will have to accept the consequences. So let's forget about it and move on," Lung states, sounding reasonably calm again.
Taylor can only feel relief washing over her after hearing his words. She really doesn't like to incite the Dragon's wrath and a few minutes ago Lung just threatened to kill her because of what her power can possibly do to him. She understands the reason for Lung's caution and she isn't going to refute that, not when she has every intention to break free from him someday.
"Let's start with your training," Lung says to her like nothing just happened, like he hadn't just threatened her and they hadn't just had a shouting match a few seconds ago. "I think you already know what to expect from here on out."
Taylor simply nods her head, grateful that Lung is no longer acting furious at her.
"Good," is the Dragon's remark, "Then, I want you to attack me first and don't hesitate when you do. And no fire. We don't want to burn down the training center before we even begin."
"Alright," comes her determined response.
"Now, go ahead and attack!" Lung commands and Taylor does as she is told and attacks him.
Quickly, she uses her tail to swing it at Lung, who leaps back and out of the way.
As she continues to press for attack, she silently wonders who is going to end up winning in this fight after this.
She hopes it's going to be her but Lung is far more experienced at fighting than her. So she has to admit that she is at a disadvantage there.
The Dragon of Kyushu is a formidable opponent. After all, Lung was able to fight Leviathan to a standstill and caused Kyushu to sink while at it.
She is certain that she is going to lose but she isn't going to let Lung have an easy win.
So Taylor is going to fight with everything she has - and some - to defeat Lung and hope that it is enough for her.
She can only hope.
AN: Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think or ask question!