Super Science
Ch 103: Team Work Makes the Dream Work part. 2
The hunters trekked through the real fake forest bog; the deeper they went, the deeper the water became until their heels submerged in the water. It had already been twelve hours since their final test began, and they had gotten nowhere. The King Hounds tried to pick up on a scent, but the bog interfered with everything. Yoko tried to see anything from the sky but couldn't get high enough to see far, and getting too high would make it impossible to see through the trees. No tracks, no scales, no poop, no signs, no nothing! It was starting to look like a wild goose chase.
At one point, Keanu tripped over a branch hidden just underwater and fell face-first into the bog! Getting up while shaking himself off, he complained, "I still can't believe this is all a simulation!? It's like we're walking through an actual bog!"
"Let's marvel at the advancements in technology later. Right now, we must take stock of what we could potentially be up against.", Fujitora told him as he ordered the hound to spread out.
"Fujitora is right. They drilled that Draconology into us hard for a reason.", Rei agreed.
"Of course, you'd agree with him, miss daddy issues.", Keanu shot back while shaking the last bit of mud off.
"Hey! The hell's your problem!?", Rei snapped at the man grabbing his armor to stare him down.
"Okay, you two, let's not be at one another's throats at this very minute. Remember, we are on a mission.", Fujitora told them while pulling them apart.
Keanu pushed him away, and with a click of his tongue, he chastised, "Tch. Who died and made you in charge, old man? You're already two and a half feet in the grave."
"You are really something else.", Fujitora said, irritated, while narrowing his eyes at him.
"Throat Oak.", Kai suddenly said out of nowhere, breaking the tension.
The three other hunters all looked at him in confusion, and Rei asked, "Sorry, what?"
Kai, standing next to a tree and pointing at the strange plant growing on it, repeated, "Throat Oak. This plant right here is throat oak. Tall deciduous trees, mucky terrain, poisonous plants, and thick foggy air—this is a Toxic Forest-marsh land subclave. And there's only one kind of dragon that lives in this environment." He fell off, leaving the other to piece his cryptic message together.
"Veil Wright.", Rei answered.
"Geeze, leave us in suspense trying to decipher your Grable. Next time, just say it instead of spewing clues to your riddles," Keanu grumbled.
"Ok, I've had just about enough out of you! I have half a mind-.", Rei began to yell at him.
Only for Keanu to cut her off, as he stated snidely, "You said it, not me."
Just before the woman could yell or attack the man, something was slithering through the waters unknowingly to the hunters. Only the hounds sensed it and began to bark, but it was far too late. Suddenly, a vast and long coiling something broke through the water and wrapped itself around Kai's leg, hoisting him up into the air!
"AAAAAAHHH!", Kai screamed as he was lifted well over twenty feet off the ground.
"Kai!", the three hunters cried out of concern.
But the coiling thing quickly showed itself, and it wasn't a snake-like monster; instead, it was a dragon! It was huge and bulky, with ocean blue scales on top and a pale belly. Its face was short and blunt, with a small nasal horn and catfish-like whiskers that hung under its chin and neck, and they appeared to glow with power. Its wings were large but most certainly could never be used for flight, with its main feature being a tail that was far longer than its whole body, wriggling and writhing like a snake.
"A Tasseled ThunderMaw?!", Fujitora exclaimed in shock.
"But they're supposed to live in the ocean?!", Rei added.
"I guess the simulation still has a few bugs.", Keanu scoffed, trying to look up to where the viewing window once was.
Quickly, the Thunder Maw began to enrapture the boy up in its tail as he hung there like meat, ready to be butchered! Kai screamed as he was immersed and then squeezed in its coils!
"We gotta free Kai before it suffocates or electrocutes him!", Rei exclaimed as she took out her bow.
Keanu and Fujitora did much the same, with the old man saying, "Okay, listen closely. I have a plan. The first thing we do is-.", Keanu suddenly ran out of the group, screaming like a mad man as the old man yelled after him, "Not that!"
From here is where things go downhill. Keanu threw caution to the wind, alongside his great sword, as he tried to take the dragon on like any other hologram or robot, only for the dragon to not stand there or charge at him and instead jump out of the way just before he slammed the sword down! Keanu looked up in surprise at this as the dragon slapped him with its wing, causing a small shock of electricity to course through him!
With Keanu out of the picture for now, Rei, Fujitora, and the hounds began the attack. When Rei called out for the lightning beast to help, they saw it sleeping a long way away in one of the few dry patches around. Seeing their trump card out of commission, they decided just to do it themselves. Fujitora sent out the hounds in a pincer formation while Rei threw Yoko into the sky. The bird took a wing, and Rei connected to its eyes, seeing everything the dragon did from a bird's eyes view. The hounds surrounded it from three sides, barking up a storm while nipping at its heels and tail! The dragon snapped at the dogs, but they were far faster than it, and the dragon had to protect its tail.
Rei set an arrow into its exposed sides, making the dragon cry out and draw its attention, allowing the dogs to attack! With this, Rei unleashed a floating bag filled with spiked objects that floated over and above the dragon before releasing at the bottom of the bag and flailing all over the dragon's head and body! This gave the hounds a chance to grab or pounce on the dragons as Fujitroa came in and whirled the hammer behind his body and slammed it into the dragon's head, stunning it enough for Rei to shoot arrows into its tail, releasing Kai and allowing Fujitroa to finish it off with three deadly blow to the head, ending its fake life!
…is what I say would happen in a perfect world, but it didn't. After the hound surrounded the dragon, Keanu somehow got his second wind and ran back into the fight! He screamed like a madman again, causing the dragon to backstep and smush a hound underfoot! When another hound tried to advance, it got too close to Keanu, and he kicked it out of the way, allowing the dragon to grab it in its mouth, electrocute it, and throw it into the other!
With all three hounds out of the picture, Rei tried to stun it with a charged arrow, only for Keanu to throw his great sword at the dragon, who ducked down and allowed the flying weapon to crash into the woman! By this point, Kai had been sufficiently crushed and went limp. His weapons slipped from his grasp as he was flung at Fujitora, who was forced to drop his weapon to grab him! When he did, the dragon tried to charge into him with its full body weight! So the old man used his strength to hold the beast back as it tried to shock him with the electrical organ under its jaw and neck!
Meanwhile, Keanu grabbed the bow and charged up a shot to blast the dragon in the face! Only Fujitora prevented the beast from reaching his face on its own, and at the same time, Yoko swooped in to stun the dragon and allow Fujitiro to counter. But Keanu released the shot and stunned the bird and the man, not the dragon. Yoko fell from the air, and Fujitora took the full brunt of the electricity! As the old man lay unconscious on the ground, Keanu grabbed the discarded hammer and ran towards the dragon again, this time running up a tree, jumping off it, and bringing the hammer over his head, ready to bring it down on the dragon! All the while, the dragon rushed to him with its maw open!
Only for the dragon to suddenly vanish into thin air and cause Keanu to fall to the ground! As he got up from the dirt and muck, he quickly saw how the forest was vanishing before his very eyes! In a matter of seconds, the poisonous bog was gone entirely and replaced by the white walls of the lab, and everything was converted back to a pixelated layout.
As the holographic terrain disappeared around him, along with the dragon, he looked up to where the viewing window, now revealed once more, and griped loudly, "Hey hey! What gives! I had that thing on the ropes?!"
"I think you got that backward. It had your team on the ropes, and you were just attacking it wildly.", Genus said, displeased.
"Well, they were getting in the way.", Keanu argued.
"It's more like you put them in danger. And so, you failed.", Genus said in a no-nonsense voice of displacement.
But Keanu couldn't help but make noise and prompted, "Did I?"
"Yes.", Genus confirmed.
"Did I?"
"Yes!"
"Did-?"
Genus quickly got sick of this game and shut him up while saying, "Keanu, where is this going? You failed. Plain and simple, and it's all thanks to you.", he said this in an even more aggravated tone, audibly slapping his face in frustration, taking a calming breath, and telling the hunters, "Hit the showers and rest up. It is clear you four need to talk."