“Sitting down on the talking chair?” I smiled.
“For someone calling at the crack of midnight, you’ve got quite a bit of sass, young lady. I suppose you’re calling for a reason though.”
Anderson’s voice, while nothing unexpected, reminded me of someone who had been caught in a lie but was keeping it up.
“There’s this guy, I don’t know where he came from, but apparently he’s in charge of those voices we heard from behind the portal, and he wants the last dragon of the clutch of eggs,” I explained.
“Hmmm, yes, a dragon hunter no doubt – does he have the traditional dragon hunter tonfa?”
“Is that just a thing in the world through the portals? Dragon hunting tonfa? What’s with that?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. It’s actually a fairly straightforward explanation. Dragons can be up to two meters wide, and one worth hunting is usually one to one and a half meters wide, meaning that a regular human half a meter to three quarters if I had to guess, fits in that area nicely. That means that if the dragon wants to attack, they are slashing their claws around the side of the human.”
“And those bulky plates stop pretty much anything from sniper round to werewolf claw, so it makes the dragon unable to do anything?” I asked.
“Exactly, the front is a really sharp, but also highly durable, edge. Despite the fact that not many people understand it over there, it’s almost always made of titanium, and they spend thousands of gold coins on diamond sandpaper and files just to sharpen them.”
“Titanium? Is that some super dragon killing metal or something?” I asked, failing to remember normal chemistry.
“Do… do you not know what titanium is?” Anderson asked. His voice cracked, it was that much of a surprise.
“S-sorry, I got caught up in dragon hunting lore.”
“What we do know is it’s a very strong metal, and it’s very abrasion resistant, cool to have as a weapon, but pretty shit when it comes to making the actual weapon.”
“So, guys can move both arms to block dragon claws, and can jab those strong points into their strong hide, all from the danger of right in front of the dragon.”
“Oftentimes it’s seen as the true measure of a man: how long can you keep blocking a dragon’s blows? Are you in tune enough with the dragon to know when it’s going to try and bite you or blow fire at you? Then there are the professionals – they enchant their tools to ensure victory, and the more successful ones can have people bend time to give them an advantage.”
“Do all of them have a possie of elves to drain age into, and age up meek newborn dragons with?” I asked.
“Possie of elves? No, only a monstrous person would have something like that. Elves are just as prideful as dragons, except when they are kidnapped at a young age and inducted into a group.”
I grit my teeth. “Could this day get any better?” I asked sarcastically.
“Elizabeth, you can do this, you have all the tools you need, you just have to put them together,” Anderson said, sounding cocky.
“I…” I shook my head, I didn’t want to think about this right now. “How do you know so much of the culture outside the Earth elemental plane?”
“I’ve been over there, I was over there for a very long time. I was about the age Silvia was when she first entered, only I didn’t make it back, I went forwards. I remembered thinking that there were a lot of portals like that. So, if I could get to one, I’d wind up back on Earth and be able to get flown home by another community of magical people.”
I bit my lip. “Oh shit, how long did you spend in there?”
“In the Earth elemental plane? A day, maybe a day and a half, but when I went through the portal that I thought would bring me to a place I could get back home from, I was brought to a very different place…”
“But like, you could head back through the portal if you wanted to, right?” I asked.
“Hmmm, yes and no. Yes, it was still there, and whatever horrors awaiting me in the Earth elemental plane could have gone through again, without the benefit of remembering where I had been. But there was more on the side I was on that worried me.”
“Was it some kind of magical adventure that made you the hero of the land?”
“Here I thought you weren’t magical, but it seems you have the witch’s ability to see the future!” Anderson chuckled from the other side of the line.
I heard the pop of a beer bottle cap and the sound of the metal disk hitting the floor. He must have gotten himself a beer or had someone else do it since I didn’t hear him get up.
“Yeah, I was a fourteen-year-old boy. Any sort of screaming woman could have me running off to save the day, but that’s a story for another time. Perhaps one day, you’ll even meet that woman…”
I heard Anderson gulping down his beer, and soon he let out a loud, “Ahhh.”
“Beer any good?” I asked, missing the dulling sensation of it right now.
“No, it’s terrible, it’s poison, and what’s worse is I can’t stop drinking it,” Anderson chuckled.
“You should really head to bed now, or are you still hoping for a eureka moment where I say something out of the ordinary and you get the entire picture.”
“No, I guess not, just want to remember your little wheel of hard counters. Smart people need something illogical, but what happens when someone can see through illusions and can break your illogical generator?”
“You’re calling this person smarter than you are?” Anderson asked as if challenging me.
“Well, finesse didn’t stop him, overwhelming force didn’t stop him – and my tricks didn’t stop him either.”
“You haven’t tried overwhelming force,” Anderson said as if he’d been there.
“There was an entire pack of werewolves on him!” I shouted, and nearly slapped my face when I realized not only were people asleep in the house, there were others around that were trying to sleep, and didn’t need to know about werewolves existing.
“And what did he do with them?” Anderson asked as if cornering me in a word game.
“Stabbed them and blocked their attack.”
“In other words, he was…”
“Not overwhelmed?”
“Remember, if brute force isn’t working, you’re not using enough of it.” A glug of beer came over the phone before he slammed it down on the table.
“What could possibly overwhelm someone that well prepared?” I asked.
“Come on, E-lis, I know you can figure it out.”
“Gah, why can’t you just tell me? You clearly know what the answer is!”
“Yeah, but telling you the answer won’t achieve what I want it to, and would reveal a bit too much.” Anderson had never felt this tricksy before.
“You sure you’re Anderson?” I asked.
“I’m sure what my name is, but I’m definitely not the son of man,” he said.
I sighed. “Goodnight,” I said, exhausted from the call.
“Sleep tight, and guitars…”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m sure you’ll remember that at the appropriate time. If not, that’s fine, but I think it’d work out well.”
“O-okay,” I said, closing the phone, and placing it back where I found it.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and I needed to be ready for the fight(s) of my life.
16
Chapter 16
Breakfast was interrupted by the sound of someone’s kid, who’d been mowing the lawn ungodly early and started shouting.
“Oh my god, is that a dragon?!”
There was a collective gulp of all the food everyone at the table had been chewing before we all rushed outside to see what the guy was talking about.
Sure enough, it seemed that a Middle Eastern woman was riding a silver scaled dragon, and scouting the area.
“Ohhhh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” I said, biting my lip.
“As if this vacation season couldn’t get any worse,
” Leonardo said, watching it as its presence gained more and more attention.
Angela, our only witch, was currently asleep, and Fumnaya wasn’t doing so hot either.
“Fumnaya, we need an illusion that looks like an illusion stopping. Like, right now,” I said, grabbing her shoulders and trying to shake her awake.
“Oh my god, why did this have to happen so early?” she moaned. “I don’t suppose a Timmie’s run is going to happen any time today?”
“We have instant coffee, just get to hiding the dragon!” I said, looking up towards the previously unheard-of dragon rider.
The illusion went up, and what was shown was a drone with projectors, apparently what hologram projectors looked like in her mind.
Unfortunately, this only caused the dragon rider to chuckle. “You think I’d be susceptible to those Fae tricks?” she said, before finding us specifically.
“Fumnaya, cover us, now we have to run!” Leonardo barked, metaphorically. And we all started to run down the street to the forest and grasslands beside the street.
From there Leo kept bolting, while Silvia and Gavin, who’d been further in the house, came running out as wolves. David closed the door and attempted to lock it with the lock picking gear he had, and ran after us.
The silver dragon was a majestic beast, its scales like perfect mirrors reflecting the world as it was. Its head was slender and wise-looking. The rider atop of it had clothes that reminded me of a lot of towels, wrapped around the torso, and a skirt with a few metal scales on it.
“Did you really think I couldn’t follow you into this forest area? A dragon doesn’t need to see you to know you’re there!” the woman called out as the dragon landed.
Leo ran out of the back, calling out his feago rune before the dragon took in a large breath and turned its head to face him. A rush of white spread out from the mouth, combated by Leonardo’s flaming shield, giving the white an orange glow.
It took me a moment of watching a tree’s bark get struck by the white, to realize what was going on. A cold like no other I’d see was being blasted out. It didn’t quite make ice or not traditional ice. It was nitrogen ice or dry ice, I couldn’t tell. Either way, it was white and grew off every surface that wasn’t sheathed in Leonardo’s flames.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” the woman said dismissively.
She stood upon the dragon’s back and took out a long bronze-coloured spear with an iron tip. She leapt off the dragon and nearly dove right into Leonardo with it.
I was a few meters away from where we left the horses, and subsequently the guns that we couldn’t let civilization see we had.
Leonardo started to float upwards. “Ventos sevetias, Feago, vos galvos!” he shouted, reaching his hand forwards as a blast furnace of heat erupted at the base of the dragon.
It grunted in pain and recoiled from the immense heat, and Leo took out one of his swords to fend off the spearwoman.
“Hack magic… hack magic…” Fumnaya said, gazing at the woman.
“It’s not that complicated, get the grimoire and, I don’t know, her sword!”
“I’m still kinda shit with a sword,” Fumnaya said, holding out the grimoire and floating backwards away from the woman’s reach.
“Acid gun,” I reminded her, as I got out my sniper rifle, and quickly loaded it with what was increasingly seeming like the last bit of ammunition I’d have.
“Best make this count,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Gavin and Silvia transformed and flanked either side of the spearwoman, and as she turned her spear to go after Gavin, Silvia ran in and bit at her leg.
That same blue shield appeared, just like the man she looked like – like, really looked like – had.
“Tch,” she scoffed and used the spear to pole vault away from the werewolf biting at her shield.
“Dang it, where’d he get someone just like him?” I asked aloud as I went through all the firing tips Cynthia gave me.
I shot and her shield flickered. Leo floated towards the dragon, throwing fireballs and using the blast furnace spell over and over, to fend it off.
Fumnaya had her sword arm and acid gun equipped and sent a glob of it at the woman. For the shortest of seconds, I thought the woman was smiling, then the shield dropped and she struck the projectile with her hand. Her ring’s jewel, most likely an emerald although a diamond might look like an emerald through that acid green, glowed and the acid started to form around her arm.
“Well, shit,” Fumnaya said, sighing. “Wish I had something like that.”
“Wait,” I said, my eyes widening. “Hit her with everything you’ve got!”
“Uh, fireballs?” Fumnaya looked back confused.
“Acid!” I reassured her.
I quickly looked at the little satchel of alchemicals Fumnaya had given me. One alchemical that was never in drinks for obvious reasons was an acid one. It was fairly simple to utilize, combining it with an aqua shroom for more coverage, or with other things to make it a gas.
Right now, I figured I wanted it as concentrated as it could get. I still wanted the water chamber for any firefighting that I had to do.
Fumnaya started a barrage of fire on the girl, as her ring kept glowing and the armour it formed grew. It was a massive suite that would be impossible to move in if it wasn’t for the magic of the ring keeping it off her body.
“Tch, you don’t know when to quit. This acid is becoming my armour, you fools!” she laughed and walked towards Fumnaya.
“Yeah, but with you distracted your dragon is getting owned,” I said.
She turned to look at the dragon. With two werewolves on it and Leo still holding it down, the woman couldn’t focus on us, which was what I was planning on. We kept firing our acid shots, with me exhausting my supply quickly.
“Are you sure this will work?” Fumnaya asked me.
“Hopefully you just have to know how to shut it off, and get your hand out of there at the right time.”
The woman, now a jolly green giant, stabbed her spear at Leo’s side, penetrating his armour, and causing him to bleed a little.
“Gah, damn it… Gavin!” he said, turning so that both dragon and woman were ahead of him.
The dragon reached its head over to attack Silvia on its back, apparently not as smart as the demon mage who just rolled over.
I quickly switched to my sniper rifle. “No dragon’s eating my friends today,” I said, hoping it would, in fact, prove true.
I fired a shot through its neck. A spurt of blood came out the side, but it wasn’t the rush one might expect from a neck shot. It was only slowly oozing out, which was giving the dragon a lot of time to turn to me and suck in a breath.
“Fumnaya, run!” I said, running in the opposite direction.
Now living where I live, there’s the general notion that we are more cold-resistant than most people, but even I was under no illusion that it meant I could survive that frigid cold breath without some kind of winter coat and insulation.
The dragon ran forwards, knocking down trees and slashing apart others to get to me. The only advantage I had was the total amount of trees and how long it took the dragon to get through it.
It roared, getting closer and closer to me.
Fumnaya floated up behind the dragon and started to throw her own fireballs.
“Pita Gavalex bol bol Zambol!” she shouted, tossing the spell circle it created towards the silver dragon. The circle seemed to bend space in a way and caught its rear leg, pulling it in towards a pit of fire, which was hot enough to cause those wavy heat lines as far up as I could see.
I aimed and fired again. “Silvia, get off that thing!” I ordered, seeing it starting to slip into the giant hole.
“Why weren’t we using that on the guy from before?” I asked, looking at Fumnaya.
“I don’t know, never needed hot fire?” she shrugged.
The dragon roared, and scratched at the ground, revealing the rock shie
ld underneath all the dirt.
The spell circle expanded more and more, bringing more of the dragon in, and we could smell the burning flesh that entailed.
The dragon beat its wings, apparently remembering them just now. I breathed out best I could, emptying my lungs to help steady my shot – this had to be perfect.
Silvia transformed back and covered her ears, not having much time to find her hearing protection, if she even had it. I fired, and the bullet landed right in the wing’s joint. It didn’t exit through, and the dragon roared in pain.
“Simpleton!” the woman’s voice came from behind the dragon, and Fumnaya had to practically launch herself back to avoid the woman’s spear.
A twist of the spear’s haft and a similar device appeared, the one the elves seemed to have in abundance.
The dragon seemed angry, snarling, as the woman put the thing up to its neck. The dragon’s form shrunk by about a third, then to half its previous mass. She pulled him out of the flaming circle before twisting the device.
I saw her face through her armour as she did so; a few silver hairs and wrinkles melted off her face as the dragon grew in size.
Gone were the burns from before, gone was the apparent neck and wing injury. This woman not only got him out of our flaming hole trap but healed him, which was most annoying after hearing that it was not possible.
“Be more careful next time, they are supposed to be inferior to you!” the woman teased the beast.
I groaned and pointed the sniper at her, only to have it click.
“Well, balls,” I said, returning it to my back.
With me being the closest person to her, she put the device back into the spear and charged at me. Silvia leaned over and transformed into a werewolf, but I put my hand out.
She came running and I quickly sidestepped the spear and grabbed hold of it, using what I learned of Judo to toss her over me.
The woman landed with a sizzling crackle as some moss and shrubbery turned into acid-eaten dirt. With her on the ground for just a moment, I launched for the center of the spear to pull out the hourglass age changer.
The Stray Dragon : (A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves werewolf community center book 3) Page 13
