by Aaron Oster
“When we last saw him around five months ago, he was at Base Purple,” Pelata said. “Can we assume that he’s somewhere near Red by now?”
“I don’t know if he could have made it quite that far,” Ikari said. “Remember what Duncan told us. His original Core was removed, meaning the monstrous growth we were concerned about might not even be happening. The kid was unstable at best and his level was fluctuating between Green and Purple…” She bit her bottom lip for a moment as she tried to think all of the details through.
“Why don’t we just send a few Gold-Belts after them and be done with it?” Ame asked as Ikari trailed off. “This way, we cover all our bases.”
“There’s no way something like that would go unnoticed,” Pelata said with a shake of his head. “My clan only has twelve Gold-Belts in total. If even one went missing without explanation, it would be noticed.”
“Same with my clan,” Ikari said. “After what my bastard of a brother did, we only have seven Gold-Belts left. Each and every one would be accounted for.”
They looked to Ame, whose brows came down in annoyance.
“Well, he would definitely notice if I sent three of my Gold-Belts away. I might have more than the two of you, but three out of twenty-two is still significant.”
There were a few moments of silence as the three of them thought, finally broken by Ikari as she began speaking again.
“What is the worst-case scenario we can imagine for Duncan’s brat?” she asked. “That he’s managed to reach Base Red?”
She looked between Pelata and Ame. Both were nodding in agreement.
“Good, then I say we send a squad of Five Red-Belts between 3rd and 4th Dan, with one of them being a Grandmaster. While not exactly common, we have enough Red-Belts between us for a few to slip away. Additionally, both Duncan and my brother wouldn’t bother watching any Red-Belt that wasn’t also a Supreme or close to it.”
“That could work,” Ame said after thinking it over. “I have a Grandmaster who’s particularly good at stealth missions. He’s only at 2nd Dan Red, but I think that should work. Unless one of you has a stronger Grandmaster?”
Ikari shook her head, as did Pelata.
“Excellent. Then, since I’m providing the Grandmaster, I’ll expect the two of you to provide the other Red-Belts.”
Ikari and Pelata both nodded in agreement again, and Ame smiled.
“Then let’s get our plan into motion. If all goes well, we’ll be free and clear in just another couple of months!”
Ikari could feel a smile creeping onto her lips. She’d been feeling helpless ever since her brother’s advancement to Black-Belt. Now, though, they had a real shot at striking back.
Herald Leroy would be theirs, presenting as the perfect bargaining chip to see Duncan and Hermit bow to their demands.
22
Roy streaked into the village, Aika trailing at his back. The place was on fire, emerald green flames licking at the sides of houses and sending plumes of smoke curling up into the sky. The village was eerily silent, the residents having either fled or forever silenced. Roy’s eyes flicked quickly around the area, searching among the ruins for any signs of the creature who’d done this, but he saw nothing.
Aika took off toward the main street, and Roy quickly followed. Smoke rose all around them, despite the misty rain that fell. Aika reached the main street before he did, skidding to a halt and finally finding a singular figure still in the village. Roy came to a stop at her side, his eyes fixing on the figure as well.
The man sat in the center of the street, his bare back to them. He was dressed only in a pair of ragged pants, with no Belt in sight. To either side lay destruction in the form of torn-up houses or masonry strewn across the street. Smoke rose to the sky in thin tendrils, while green flames still licked at a couple of the houses along the street.
Roy took a single step forward, holding an arm out to prevent Aika from rushing in. He was tense and could feel the quaking in his Core that warned him of a dangerous enemy. The mere fact his Belt wasn’t visible told him that this man was stronger than he was.
“Doragon!” Roy called, hoping the man would recognize the name.
The easiest way this could go would be if he stood and willingly swallowed the stone without putting up a fight. Of course, Roy very much doubted that would be the case, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
The man started, then slowly turned.
His eyes, still the same burning red as Roy remembered, were open just a bit too wide. His features were just as they had been before, but there was obviously something different about him. The way he sat. His bearing. The way he moved, almost jerkily, as he rose to his feet and turned to face them head-on.
“You’ve been following me,” the man said, his voice coming out raspy and hoarse. “Do you want to die too?”
“We’re only here to help,” Roy said, grabbing onto Aika’s shoulder as she once again tried to dash in and fight him.
“Help?” the man asked, cocking his head to one side. “No one can help me.”
“We can,” Roy tried, but he could already see that the man was preparing an attack.
His features hadn’t changed just yet, but the influx of Wind Essence told Roy that if he wanted Doragon to swallow the stone, he’d have to shove it down the man’s throat.
“Can’t,” the man said, reaching up to clutch at his head. “Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t!”
With a roar, the man launched himself at them, Wind Qi surrounding his lower body in a miniature tornado and lifting him several inches off the ground. Roy had never seen a Movement technique quite like this one, but as a sphere of green light gathered in Doragon’s palm, he knew that holding back would not be an option.
He released Aika, and in a flash, she’d covered the distance between them. Her staff, already drawn, blurred out in a streak of white, slamming into the side of Doragon’s head and launching him through one of the destroyed houses.
Roy tapped into his Core, reaching for his Qi and wrapping it around himself to activate his Shockwave. Aika dashed after Doragon and Roy after her. She barreled through the wreckage of the house, only for a condensed green twister to slam into her, sending her careening through a house on the opposite side of the street.
Roy paused for just a moment, feeling a pang of worry. He relaxed quickly enough, as he noticed the telltale flash of rainbow-colored light that was Aika’s Armorer technique.
Doragon exploded from one of the houses, splinters of wood and chips of stone flying in all directions. He roared, flying after Aika, the twister still surrounding his lower body. He’d made it about halfway across the street when Roy’s Void-Sphere Pulse slammed into his chest. The blast of displaced air staggered him, and almost immediately after, the beam of golden light took him right in his neck.
There was a strangled grunt as the twister beneath him dissipated, his body flying over thirty feet before careening through another building. Roy followed quickly, his Shockwave carrying him across the open area in mere seconds. He smashed through the building, just in time to meet an overlarge fist made of swirling green energy.
He dodged, sliding under the blow and right into Doragon’s waiting foot. Roy’s left side flared in pain as he was tossed skyward, kicking quickly to his left and throwing himself several feet to one side. A blast of condensed wind shot up where he’d been just moments before, letting him know his instincts hadn’t failed him.
Aika came flashing in again, her staff blurring and sending several lances of white light into the destroyed building where Doragon still stood. He whirled, hand extending, and a wall of green appeared before him.
“I’ve never seen an Armorer technique like that,” Roy commented to Geon as Aika’s Light Lances were turned away.
“Not all Armorer techniques cloak your squishy human bodies like a shirt or whatever,” Geon said.
Roy landed while Aika moved in to close the distance. Her body seemed to blur and w
arp as Doragon sent several more blasts of condensed wind at her, then shimmered out of view as she wrapped herself in a cloak of distorted light.
Doragon, however, wasn’t fooled in the slightest, the wind around him kicking up in a rising tornado nearly ten feet wide. With a yelp, Aika became visible, her body yanked skyward and robes flapping in the wind.
Roy landed and shot forward, reaching out to the world around him and to the abundance of Power Essence their fight had already kicked up. The Constellation Cluster formed quickly, the individual spheres of light firing to a single point and unleashing a blast of power.
Doragon, who was still focused on keeping his own Terrain technique going, barely had time to throw up the green wall before Roy’s attack slammed into him. As it was, he was driven back, the wall cracking and faltering as his technique blasted into it.
But Roy hadn’t sat still while his technique was active, already dashing around to attack Doragon from the rear. He whirled, trying to strike at him with his Projected technique, but it was then that Aika came plummeting down from above, her staff taking him between the neck and shoulder and driving his legs a good foot into the ground.
The stone cracked and buckled, and a muffled boom echoed, only slightly muffled by the rain. Aika shoved back, landing gracefully on her feet, staff sweeping out to slam into the side of Doragon’s head. The man reached up, intending to catch the staff, when he found his body suddenly frozen.
Roy stood just a couple of feet away, golden light pouring from all over in a massive dome. His Containment technique kept the man from so much as moving as Aika began hammering at his skull.
Roy, in the meantime, reached into his robes, removing the black stone and intending to end this before things truly got out of hand. Aika was dancing around the immobile man, her staff blurring and twisting as she attacked again and again, the force of the impacts sending shockwaves to destroy whatever remained of the house they were in.
Aika leaped back, drawing her staff in to deliver a powerful attack and giving Roy the opportunity to rush forward.
He blurred toward the stationary man, preparing to shove the stone in his mouth. Then, Doragon’s head turned, his burning red eyes meeting his, and Roy faltered. At the same time, his hand snapped up, catching the descending staff with little effort. Aika gnashed her teeth and tried to pull it back, but the man’s grip seemed to be unbreakable, as he easily kept hold of it.
Then, still staring at Roy, he stepped out of the hole, as though the Containment technique raging around him didn’t affect him at all. Roy could feel it, the power fighting against his own. It was far more potent, the man’s body flowing with green Chakra as he walked.
Knowing there was little point in keeping the technique going, Roy cut it off, feeling the weight drop off his shoulders as he did. Keeping the Overflow-Plus going was hard enough as it was. Keeping it going while this monster fought against it was another matter entirely.
Aika let out a yell, then tried to kick at the man’s head, only for Doragon to catch her foot as well, still without looking. Roy, knowing what was going to come next, tapped into his Chakra and shot forward.
There was no technique involved this time — he had yet to learn any — but when he slammed into Doragon, it was with all of the power of his Perfect-Body enhanced by the superior energy. Doragon flinched, his head twitching to the side to avoid the blow even as he kept his hold on Aika, beginning to squeeze down on her captured limb.
Roy’s follow-up wasn’t so easily avoided, in the form of a knee to his stomach, and Doragon was forced to release Aika’s staff to catch it. An elbow flashed at the man’s face, and finally, he released Aika completely, throwing both hands up to block.
Aika, who’d begun screaming in pain at the pressure around her leg, skipped back with a hiss. A brilliant ring of light formed around her, then shot right at Doragon, wrapping around his arms and attempting to pin them at his sides. The man growled, his muscles flexing and green light rippling all across his body.
With a sound like shattering crystal, Aika’s technique was ripped apart. But it had given Roy plenty of time to land an attack. His fist, empowered by raw Chakra, slammed into the side of Doragon’s face. There was an explosion of energy as Roy ejected some of the Chakra out of his fist to increase the power of the blow.
Doragon’s head slammed into the ground with enough force to create a five-foot crater, his head completely buried beneath the earth. Aika was on top of him before Roy could approach, her staff slamming down into his midsection as she likely tried to break his Core. The man was made of tougher stuff and she was forced to leap back as a blast of condensed wind shot up from beneath the ground.
Doragon ripped himself from the earth, and for the first time since the fight started, Roy could see that he’d sustained some actual damage. The attack Roy had thrown had split the man’s lip and blood leaked from the corner of his temple where it had hit the ground.
The man’s red eyes were wide and livid as he glared between Roy and Aika. Aika was about to rush in to reengage when Roy sensed the shift. Aika wouldn’t be able to feel it, as she hadn’t yet gotten her Perfect-Body, but to Roy’s senses, Doragon lit up from within like a bonfire on a pitch-black night.
He released the Chakra in his Core, and with a muffled boom, shot between Doragon and Aika, snagging her around the waist and dragging her away from the man.
“What the hell are you—?” Aika began to protest.
“Look!” Roy shouted, dropping her as he whirled to face the man.
Aika did as she was told, and judging by the set of her jaw, she wasn’t happy. A dome of shimmering green surrounded Doragon on all sides, an attack using Chakra that would have blown her to pieces had Roy not gotten her out of the way in time.
The nearby houses had already crumbled, burned to ash by the intensity of the attack.
“What the hell kind of Wind Artist can burn things?” she muttered.
“The type that isn’t human,” Roy replied grimly as Doragon’s body began to warp and shift before their eyes.
It wasn’t a slow transformation. His human body cracked and splintered, green scales covering his form in heavy plates, just as the insane man back in the village had said. A pair of impressive horns curled outward, and massive batlike wings sprouted from his back. A tail, half again as long as his body, spiraled out, the sharpened spines running its length seeming to glow green from within.
In just half a minute, Doragon was gone, and in his place, stood a monstrous dragon.
“Still think we can kill him?” Roy asked as the burning red eyes, still the same as before, turned on them.
“Well, I’m sure as hell going to try,” Aika asked, leveling her staff at the Beast.
Roy had to wonder what his mother had been thinking when she’d sent them after this monster. He didn’t have much more time to contemplate that line of thinking, as the dragon opened its mouth wide and unleashed an earth-shaking roar, green fire blasting from its open mouth and turning the rain to steam.
23
Now that he was at Base Red, Roy found that he could get a pretty good read on the levels of others, even if they weren’t showing off their Belts. The feeling that this monster gave him was that of the mid-Gold stage, more than a full Belt higher than his own and two-and-a-half above Aika.
It also told him that there was about as much chance of them beating Doragon as there was a titanic flying bunnycorn coming out of the sky to bless them all with unlimited riches.
The dragon didn’t give him much time to lament, its jaws cracking wide and green fire building in its throat.
“Don’t let that stuff touch you!” Roy yelled, then used his Shockwave to dodge right.
Aika went in the opposite direction, and thankfully, the dragon decided to follow him instead of her. The blast of green fire shot from its open maw at an astonishing speed, ripping through the already-destroyed houses and melting them to slag. The beam of fire followed Roy as he ran, the
dragon’s head turning to keep it trained on him.
Roy could sense what the fire was made of, and it was both fascinating and terrifying.
“I don’t think that fire has anything to do with him being a dragon,” Geon commented as Roy’s Trace-Hex flared across his body, the Armorer technique tracing golden lines across his skin.
Roy was too busy trying not to die to answer, but that didn’t discourage Geon from continuing to talk.
“He’s using a variation of his Path,” the Core continued. “Something which you should already be able to do at this point, by the way.”
Roy leaped into the air, kicking hard and launching himself nearly ten feet back as he used his Airstep to avoid the sweep of the flames. He landed in a crouch and shot toward the dragon, just as Aika came lancing in from the side, her entire body rippling with white light. Roy realized that she was using her Full-body Qi technique right before her empowered Light Saw slashed across the dragon’s eye, forcing him to cut off the stream of fire.
Aika darted around the massive creature, staff blurring in a dizzying array of light as she tried to target the creature’s weak spots. The dragon’s muscles tensed, and thankfully, Aika was smart enough to retreat as a swirling dome of dark green exploded up around it, ripping up the ground in a ten-foot radius.
The dragon turned on her as its failed Terrain technique missed, his red eyes locking onto her flickering form as she lunged in once more, staff blurring as she aimed for the spot between his eyes. The dragon dodged nimbly, belying his size, then swung his tail around in a blurring arc, a massive forged green blade covering his tail.
Roy dashed in, his body not bearing the strain of his Full-body technique, and lashed out with a powerful kick. The Exploding Fist-Strike traveled through his bare leg, impacting with the dragon’s exposed side and sending lancing, lightning-like tendrils of Power Qi through his form. At the same time, an explosion of force rocked the dragon’s body.
