The dragon scrambled around its larger kin and jumped for the woman. I flipped around the tonfa to smack away her weapons.
The purple dragon loomed, its mouth already sparking. “Silvia, throw this into the dragon’s mouth!” I said, handing her one of the enchanted arrows off the woman’s quiver.
The woman hadn’t time to react as she fell. Silvia transformed into hybrid form and chucked the arrow into the dragon’s mouth with about as much force as a bow could.
Just like before, the breath attack followed the arrow, the only time it got to its destination in record time.
The purple flame backfired, and the dragon screamed in pain.
The woman struggled to get out from under our dragon while it writhed in pain, and started to retrieve her own device from her pant’s side.
Silvia moved her foot over to the woman’s head and transformed into human form and tapped her on the temple.
“That should hold her for a bit,” Silvia said, looking at the purple dragon.
Our dragon turned around and spoke in what I could only assume was the dragon’s natural language.
The purple dragon retreated slightly from the battlefield, nursing its wounds and odd burn.
I held the device to the dragon, and we returned to our original sizes.
“You were really cute as a kid,” Silvia said, chuckling a bit.
“This is NOT the time, Silvia,” I said, once again getting the lay of the battlefield.
The silver dragon rider had managed to free her brother from David and Lorenz’s onslaught, and Leo was back with Fumnaya trying to knock them out of the sky.
I looked over at Gavin. His light was dimming, and the hunter didn’t seem to be sweating too much. That had to change, and it had to change quickly.
“Silvia!” I pointed towards the two fighting as I hopped on her.
The dragon was riding me, while I rode Silvia – it was an interesting moment, that was to be sure.
The hunter grunted as another blow came in from over the top of him. No doubt Gavin understood that the normal savage wolf techniques would get him a broken spine or two.
I took out the sniper rifle and aimed at him. Silvia saw the barrel and started to change her run to a circling. Soon as we were behind the hunter I fired. I pinged off his shield, but with Gavin pounding at it, along with the high-speed round, it was providing progress.
“You are certainly formidable warriors, but you don’t make it as a dragon hunter by fighting honourably,” the hunter said.
A necklace around his neck started to glow and he sank into the ground. It was less the ground than just the shadows, as I could see even with the absence of something to block the light, a shadow was there, nonetheless. Gavin jumped back, as the shadows on the ground slowly filled up with the azure light of the shield spells.
“Dammit,” I scoffed as the shadow bolted for us. “Shit shit shit, Silvia!” She started to gallop away, but the shadow was on us quickly.
Gavin let out a primal roar, just like before, and bolted for the shadow. The formerly white eldritch rending claws gained an extra smooth swirl of purple or two as he ran.
The shadow was quite literally on our tail when Gavin caught up and slashed the effect. The hunter popped out of the shadows and instantly got into his fighting stance.
I now really wanted that necklace, but one thing or another had to give. “Gavin, give him everything!” I shouted as Silvia turned.
I’d only seen him use collected magic for a flashbang effect the first time he’d showed me anything out of the ordinary for a werewolf. I was hoping that was merely discharging this same power upwards, and if targeted it’d actually hurt people.
An assumption, but luckily this one didn’t make an ass of me. Gavin held out his claws and a massive white light shot out of him like a laser. The hunter put both metal plates in front of his heart.
He grunted and started to get pushed back, as the glow began to leave Gavin’s legs. The plates became red hot, and then even white-hot, as he was slowly pushed back. The shield was flicking by the start of it, and then in an instant, they shattered like glass. The hexagons that flew out seemed to race out like bullets.
The hunter growled as the sheer intensity of the blast burned his skin. Gavin’s glow was then completely gone, and the laser turned into a streak of floating pure magic, returning to the air. Or rather one of the two.
The problem was the bastard was still standing. The plates were white-hot, but refused to melt into slag; their glow was intermittent and seemingly fading; his chest and shoulder were horrifically burned, but he was breathing. He’d shielded his airway and heart with his tonfas and they’d held out just enough.
“Elves!” he called out and dumb and dumber elf, his two personal servants, I guess, were at his side with a device.
A simple grab and flip and he were back at one hundred percent, and we were out of portal magic.
“I’ve got to say I’m impressed. I have travelled far and seen many things, but that was not one of them,” he said as if he genuinely wanted to compliment Gavin.
Gavin panted, exhausted from the fight and possibly carrying all that magic. Unlike the hunter, he didn’t have a chance to age swap and remove all damage.
“But like with a dragon’s breath, you used up your power, and have left yourself open. Only a dragon can regain what’s needed to breathe… You are without a portal now, aren’t you?”
The man bared his teeth in a smile, both to show his joy and as a threat.
Gavin panted still, really heavily. I was worried that he might be having some sort of attack. The glow was on both his wolf side and human side, and if it damaged him he could be in big trouble.
I opened fire with the sniper, hoping to stop the man from engaging Gavin. The elves jumped into the way, taking the bullet. Then for the next a different one moved forward towards us.
“Keep the riffraff busy, I have a warrior’s death to bestow!” the hunter said.
Gavin and the hunter charged each other, as the elves kept advancing on us.
One produced a crystal ball from the chaps he wore and suddenly colours of all shapes and sizes surrounded us like a bad drug trip.
“Shit shit shit,” I said, looking around at the illusion.
The two threw their voices, taunting us. This was no doubt how the hunter had managed to learn how to ignore fake magic – the elves were users of it, and he kidnapped their children.
A blade came out of the illusion and struck Silvia. She yelped as it went through her flesh with no resistance.
Whatever they were throwing, it was just like silver. I held out the tonfa to try to shield us from their onslaught. Knives came and went as the illusion kept us from being able to move anywhere.
“What are you doing?” the dragon asked.
“We’re fighting blind here, we– Right, Silvia, smell-o-vision!” I commanded. She closed her eyes and sniffed the surrounding air.
A deluge of strange smells assaulted my nose. “Dammit, they can make smell illusions?” I whined.
Apparently, though it wasn’t enough to stop them from being found. Silvia leapt, and I caught a glimpse behind the illusion of a startled elf backing away from her claws.
The illusion caught up with me as Silvia’s claws landed on something firm and slashed. It looked like she was slashing at a blue blob, but as her claws came away with blood, it was rather amusing.
Then a moment later, Silvia shrunk, and her legs buckled underneath my weight. I jumped back and she transformed into human form.
“Ah! No no no!” she screamed, horrified, and jumped through the illusion to get at the elves.
“Ah! Silvia!” I called out – her as a child and they with what appeared to be silver knives was really, really bad.
“Why not just look through it like the hunter does?” the dragon asked.
“I don’t know the first thing about looking through illusions!” I said, trying to listen for Silvia.
“Try!” the dragon demanded. Apparently, he hadn’t learned patience yet.
A knife came flying at me and the shield deflected it with ease. I quickly stepped on the knife and swung the tonfa. It wasn’t meant to be slashed so it did next to nothing when I hit something. When I pulled back and stabbed it forwards in the place I’d hit something, there was nothing there.
A moment later the knife under my foot was yanked out and tossed at me again, only it didn’t land on the trippy-coloured floor.
I grunted, and strained my eyes, hoping to see through it. “I don’t know how he does it. The only time I’ve seen through illusions is when I knew what was on the other side. There’s no way–”
I blinked, thinking of Miriam’s illusions. There was one thing that caught my attention. “GENKI!” I called out.
I listened for the small footfalls of a fox, but I didn’t hear any because foxes are lightweight creatures. “Counter illusion now!”
Suddenly the trippy colours that were making me dizzy flipped around. The two elves were now visible, and it seemed like they were now in an illusionary world.
The only time Miriam couldn’t create an illusion of something was when Genki first arrived, so no Fae entity could deal with this Yokai’s mastery of illusions.
Silvia, now with eyes open, ran up to one of the elves and grabbed the device. She grew, with little effect on the elf, but then she grew a bit more.
“Ah, too much!” she shouted.
The elf took this as his cue to slash at her. She jumped back and ran to the other one, to deposit the little extra she got.
“Genki, can you keep this up?” I asked.
A pink and cyan fire appeared and did a circle. I assumed that since he was using extra power to make the foxfire that everything was fine.
Silvia had to duck and weave at the thrusting of the elf’s knife while holding her device. He was quick and panicked, jumping back and forth as the colours of Genki’s illusion blocked off the world around him.
Silvia jumped, trying to flip over the elf and deposit the age that way. She managed to smack his head with it and knock him back. She gained a little height, then threw the device down and stepped on it, trying to shatter it. Dissatisfied, she tossed it away and retreated.
Silvia galloped towards me. With the elves taken care of, I looked to the two other raging fights again. Gavin was trying his best on the hunter – Clawve-maga wasn’t the best fit, but changing it to blocking the enemy strikes kept Gavin from a lethal skull bash. Gavin, while panting heavily and making sloppy moves, was keeping up with the hunter.
Fumnaya and Leonardo were doing the blast-furnace spell on the green rider and dragon, a tad odd, but okay. David and Lorenz had gotten onto the silver dragon, which was currently rising several feet in the air as she used her spear like a quarterstaff.
“That’s not good, but…” I turned to look at the hunter; we needed some way of dealing with him.
“Fumnaya! I need you!” I called out to the other battlefield. I hopped off Silvia and pointed her at Fumnaya, before reloading my sniper rifle and taking aim at the hunter.
Without the effect of the necklace, or at least with it being broken by Gavin if he tried it, destroying his shields would be the best I could do for Gavin.
Silvia ran over to the floating magic hacker and she grabbed onto her tail for a swift ride over to this side of the battlefield.
I fired a shot, thankful that it hit the shield because it was pointed down the road towards the convenience store.
I shifted over to the side of the road so that there was less of a chance of that.
“What do you need?” Fumnaya asked.
“Angela said that messing with the age-changing devices might help, said it was highly correlated with victory. In my head, there was some surrender play where he’d try to use it on you, but now I think if we get him with it mid-fight we might be able to do something.”
“You wanted me to hack it while it was getting used on me?” Fumnaya asked, sounding quite offended.
“That’s what came to mind, not what I was planning! Now, help! I don’t know how long Gavin can hold out!”
Fumnaya ran to the elves and grabbed the changer Silvia had failed to destroy. In the morning sun, I couldn’t see the glow, but I knew her eyes were glowing.
I kept up the firing as the two slugged it out.
Gavin still had his arms up, slashing down with the help of gravity. The hunter kept blocking it with the steel plates. Every now and then Gavin got off a feint, and managed to jab the blow to the hunter’s stomach, stopped by the shield.
As he lost his stamina, though, the blows started to be less frequent and the shield runes could recharge fast enough for the hunter to get an edge.
I fired as fast as I could but hitting Gavin could be disastrous, so I had to be careful about my shots.
“Got it,” Fumnaya said she put the device up to the elf’s back, something that promoted a swipe of that dagger, and she held her hand out towards the fight with Gavin.
I could see it happening. At first, the hunter slowed down, then his features started to gray and wrinkle.
Gavin’s thrusts were taking more and more energy from him. Then he looked over to Fumnaya and dove into the shadows with his necklace once more.
“Fumnaya, watch out!” I called as he popped up right behind her and grabbed at her head.
He had one hand on her chin and one hand over the top of her head, using just fingers to control her, but that’s all he needed even in middle age.
“Uh, I surrender?” Fumnaya whimpered out.
“Don’t take me for a fool, you’re too dangerous to be left alive!” With that, he twisted his hands.
23
Chapter 23
An aura of blue wrapped around the area, forcing his hands outwards from Fumnaya. I realized that as he moved his hands and tonfas to her neck, she had ample time to touch one. I smiled, proud of her quick adaptation to her powers.
The hunter pulled back both tonfas and struck the shield she’d stolen. It broke in one hit and she was flung back by the force. Gavin charged in in wolf form, and I jumped off Silvia to let her do the same.
“Fumnaya, try that hell pit spell!” I reminded her.
It wouldn’t take him out, of that I was certain, but having the whole team on this opponent seemed like a good idea.
She nodded and started to recite her spell. Gavin and Silvia jumped back as the ground distorted underneath him. He stabbed his tonfas into the sides, but they were pulling away just as fast as he could stab them in, keeping him in place, albeit while getting hotter.
I was under no illusion that the heat would be what did him in; they seemed to be desert dwellers, and the blue hue the elves took on for some reason made me think that to be accurate.
“We gotta get everyone on this guy, he’s way too good for all of us,” I panted.
“What can we do to defeat two dragon riders that have taken the rest of our group this entire time to fight?”
“We don’t have to defeat them,” I said, looking down at the grimoire of the blood mage.
“Then what?” Fumnaya asked.
I got onto Gavin and Fumnaya held onto Silvia’s tail while we raced over to Leo and the others.
The green dragon shot a line of bright acid green at Leo and the other boys, and Leo quickly cast his air spell to deflect it the best he could.
The silver rider looked down at her bracelet in disappointment.
“Summon the demon!” I said to Fumnaya as we neared.
“What? He only serves those who serve Zambol, what use is that?” Fumnaya’s eyes bulged as she spoke.
“They don’t know that.” I realized only too late that the ice spewing dragon would probably end the demon too early for us to actually get a distraction out. Fumnaya started to chant, and the massive spell circle opened up and started to glow.
“Summoning?” The silver rider seemed to spit the word like it was dirty.
The two dragon riders swooped up into the air to reposition.
“Leo, some shackles might help with the height problem!” I called out.
“D-don’t talk to me…” he said as he started to chant the runes for his earthly shackles spell. The arm of the demon rose from the circle as the two dragons found their flight path blocked.
The demon’s head rose, and he looked very confused, at least as confused as a demon could be.
“Ah, the tricky princess and my rival. To what do I owe this meeting?”
“Uh,” Fumnaya said as the demon rose out of the hole and stood tall.
While Lorenz, David and Gavin ran up the chains to the dragons, the white one dove towards the ground.
“Did you really think a demon could survive me?” she shouted as the dragon reared its head back and a sparkly white glow emitted from its mouth.
The demon’s head swivelled, and its barrel rolled out of the way of the icy blast, which caused the dry grass to freeze and shatter at the concussive force of the blast.
The demon waved its hands, so that glowing red circles appeared, and he crossed his arms over his chest to put a hand in each.
Out of them came giant swords, which proportionally would be greatswords even for him. He pulled them out and twirled them as though they were batons or at least short swords.
“This is where we run back to the other guy,” I said to everyone.
Silvia turned. The boys jumped off the chains, and we all raced off towards the pit of fire.
The two elves, still being occupied by Genki, actually managed to make their way to the pit and were in the process of freeing the hunter. He was back to the age he started at, which at this point just made me agree with Leo – it was super annoying.
He got out of the pit and it closed up. I assumed that Fumnaya realized the drain it was having on the book’s or her mana.
“You’ve defeated one of my daughters and required me to heal twice, but I am not an unreasonable man. Surrender the dragon to me, and we’ll leave you be,” he said.
While very graceful in defeat, as no doubt an extended life had given him the wisdom to do, we were tied.
The Stray Dragon : (A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves werewolf community center book 3) Page 19
