V3Ch43-Beatdown
Kistana quickly scrambled up the wall of one of the buildings to get above the level of the fire.
But halfway up, she felt the structure shake as if struck by some heavy object.
The catgirl instinctively threw herself free a moment before a mighty flame-cloaked claw smashed through the chunk of building directly over her head.
More smashing ensued as the dragon tried to tear both buildings that formed the alley apart around Kistana.
She conjured her bow again and shot over and over in the direction where she knew the dragon was, even as the air filled with dust and flying loose stones. The arrows she shot now were not her normal javelin-like projectiles. They were tridents, swords in the vague shape of an arrow, shovel-bladed weapons, anything the catgirl could think of that might make as large a wound as possible on her target if it penetrated.
More mana, more penetration, bigger projectiles, larger cuts…
Kistana dodged falling debris, let some of it hit her when it wouldn’t injure or interfere too much with her aim, but most importantly she kept conjuring arrow after arrow and filling the dragon with as many holes as she could.
Eventually, something would hit an important enough place or penetrate deep enough to bring the dragon down.
***
Aoife let loose another curtain of flame at the catgirl.
As she was wondering if she’d ignited the opponent on fire, three great arrows shot through the flames and struck her in a tight triangle, just above her heart.
Rather than feeling threatened by the repeated light wounds in key areas, the dragon found herself annoyed.
“You cannot run forever, kitten!” she taunted.
Aoife cloaked a great claw in flames and smashed it into another building. She ignored the pain of the impact - if she broke a small bone, it would quickly reset on its own - and focused on striking as close to the catgirl as she could.
“Who’s running?” came a voice through the dust cloud that all the fighting and destruction had kicked up.
Then Aoife felt it.
“Aah!” she cried out and jerked her claw back.
A crimson axe was embedded down the middle of her claw, almost bisecting it.
No more playing gentle.
Aoife smashed her whole body into the space where only her claw had just been. She felt the building give way beneath her force, and then she felt the meat of the catgirl’s body as they collided.
There was a satisfying grunt of pain and surprise from the catgirl, and then the dragon stopped. Her opponent’s body kept going, slamming into the next building with the massive momentum from Aoife’s lunge.
The catgirl’s head made a terrible cracking sound as it struck the wall of the structure, and then she dropped to the ground and lay lightly twitching.
The game of hide and seek, the catgirl dodging attacks and shooting dozens of arrows while the dragon smashed through buildings and incinerated random rubble trying to get to her, had gone on too long for Aoife’s taste. Perhaps as little as four minutes, but long enough that now that it had stopped, Aoife’s wings were barely intact enough to fly. Her underside scales were mostly gone from the sheer volume of arrows.
“You fought well, catgirl,” Aoife said. “Surrender, and I will take you prisoner.”
You are still alive… and conscious, I think?
The catgirl twitched again. Then she sat up, blinked, cracked her neck, rolled her shoulders, and slowly rose to her feet. She left a bloody mark on the ground where the back of her head had been. Blood streamed from her nose. Her arms and legs were scorched raw. A scrape on her face had left one side pink. Her frame looked slightly lopsided, as if she had suffered a few broken ribs.
Yet still she rose, that aura around her flaring as brightly as ever, and a grin spread across her face.
The catgirl spat out a glob of blood and then spoke.
“You fought well, too, dragon,” she said. “If you surrender, I’m confident you can join our side. You would be a great addition to the team. Otherwise, you’ll end up just a head mounted on the town wall.” She even managed to sound a little sad about it, like she thought it would be a shame if the dragon made the ‘wrong’ choice.
Aoife stared at her for a moment, then let loose a long, rumbling laugh.
“That’s a good joke. A head mounted on the wall. I think I like you.”
“Same,” the catgirl said, breathing heavily. Her expression turned more serious again.
That red aura seemed to condense around her body, growing smaller but denser.
“I will speak no more of surrender if it offends your pride,” the dragon said. “I offered out of consideration for the life growing inside you. The name of the one who will kill you is Aoife, daughter of Typhon and Serenna, harbingers of destruction. I am a dragon of fire and desolation.”
“I’m Kistana,” the catgirl replied. “A huntress of the cat tribe. You wouldn’t know of my parents, but my house is called Black, and it rules these lands. My king’s descendants will rule every land. It’s not disregard for my pregnancy or my own life that makes me continue. I just believe I can beat you, and I can’t let you and the Hero hurt my family.”
Well chosen words, for a woman who apparently comes from nothing, Aoife thought. She felt something strange in her chest. A sense of kinship, perhaps. Her own parents were known to her, but only through instinctual memory. Knowledge she had possessed since before she hatched.
Aoife had a feeling that she and the huntress were not so different.
In another life, they might have fought alongside each other instead of opposed. And it would have been a prouder thing than fighting alongside the so-called Hero.
Without any further words, the dragon charged, claws outstretched, flames bursting forth, tail whipping around at the opponent’s legs.
Kistana dodged around the tail and flames and met Aoife’s charge cloaked in this bright, newly enhanced aura, looking almost like an explosion in motion. She moved more quickly and forcefully than she had for the entire fight. In the last moment before impact, her hands materialized a great polearm bigger than the catgirl herself.
Aoife felt the impact to her unmaimed claw as her talons and the halberd blade collided. Invincible draconic bone struck this strange aura weapon, there was a terrible pressure - and then the halberd cleaved through the bone talons and into the much softer flesh of Aoife’s claw.
What?!
The blade kept going and chopped the limb straight through, from the claw through the middle of two fingers, all the way up to the elbow of the limb.
The dragon let out a great, pained cry as she stared down at her left limb, now almost torn into two limbs, hanging uselessly at her side. The injury wasn’t even healing.
She inflicted too many wounds for my natural healing to compensate, Aoife recognized instantly with a sort of grim admiration. The same thing had happened the last time she fought a fellow dragon, and then shortly afterward while she was facing Chad in her human form. She had thought, now that she was an adult, that it would never happen again, had told herself that she was too strong for that.
Now she stared down at the catgirl with nothing in her heart but respect.
If you were only a male… with that determination and strength, I would accept you. Even if you’re still not quite as strong as me. Without Draconic Law, I lack the power to heal this injury immediately.
It was an ability that took a dragon at least a century to develop, usually much longer. Great deeds accelerated development, but those were hard to come by. The only other way was to develop a long track record of honoring one’s word, including promises to others as well as goals one set for oneself.
Of course, even without that key ability and with the wound, Aoife would still win this fight.
The catgirl’s weapon had disappeared almost instantly after she struck the blow. Her aura was visibly diminished, and she wobbled slightly on her feet, her face pale, though her expression remained determined.
“You are strong,” Aoife acknowledged simply.
“Yeah, I told you I’d win,” Kistana replied. “Surrender.”
“We have to go, Aoife!” Chad’s voice broke in from behind the dragon in an urgent yell. He sounded like he was running toward her.
“You look like shit,” Aoife said bluntly, eyes still riveted to the catgirl. “You didn’t win. I could keep fighting, but my companion seems determined to flee. Speaking of which, I still possess wings, and even if I tore them off for your convenience, you are in no shape to chase me.”
“Don’t be… like that…” Kistana said, the words obviously difficult as the fatigue caught up with her. “Running… away… is for cowards.”
Aoife’s mouth curved in an involuntary smile. What a crazy beastgirl. You want me to stay? Adorable. You could be eaten at any moment in your condition.
The dragon felt Chad’s weight as he leaped onto her back.
“Go!” he yelled.
Now Aoife felt why he spoke with such urgency. The ground shook with approaching forces the dragon had disregarded in her zeal for the fight with the catgirl.
“Farewell, then, Kistana,” Aoife said a little regretfully.
She beat her wings against the air and took off.
Aoife saw a single fluid movement from Kistana after that. As the huntress’s body shrank in the distance, Kistana pointed a palm at Aoife and then closed her hands into a fist.
Every single one of the arrows that remained embedded in Aoife’s flesh suddenly burned like a hot poker as she flew. Even the places where she had plucked arrows out burned a little, as the aura the catgirl had created the weapons from ignited. Aoife forced herself to keep going even as the pain took her breath away.
Was she saving that for a key moment? Hoping to weaken me just before another clash?
In any case, it hadn’t worked to stop her from leaving the fight.
Aoife kept gaining altitude, kept getting distance, and gradually the pain began to fade.
“What a stupid failure!” Chad grumbled from her back.
Well, I had a good time, Aoife thought.
Everything hurt, and it would take the dragon weeks to heal from some of these injuries, but she had never felt so alive.
***
“Damn, that didn’t even slow her down,” Kistana muttered.
Weakness washed over her. Her head swam. She had used up all her remaining mana with that last attack, and she could feel her aura beginning to fade with the prey getting further away.
She blinked and shook herself.
Stay conscious! She might come back. Can’t let them… hurt the others…
The pain hit her in full now, though. Before, the adrenaline had tamped it down.
Her broken ribs stung. The back of her head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it, except that of course, if an actual hammer had hit her while she was powered up, she probably would have just been annoyed.
Maybe I’ll just relax a little…
She tried to relax her leg muscles slightly, then dropped to her knees.
No, I didn’t mean to do that, stand back up!
She fell forward and barely caught herself with both hands. A pang ripped through her side from the broken ribs.
“Ow,” she whined quietly.
A few dark red droplets stained the ground in front of her.
Oh, that’s my blood… That’s not good, it belongs inside.
Kistana felt a terrible wave of dizziness. The pain from the back of her head seemed to be pushing its way to the front. She pressed a hand to her nose, where the blood seemed to be coming from, but she started to wobble with only the one hand holding her head up, so she was forced to put the first one down again.
The sound of feet walking filled the air.
Kistana managed to look up and saw Mariella surrounded by the undead. More mummies, revenants, wights, draugrs, zombies, skeletons. Everything Tybalt had was out in full force.
But the focus of all seemed to be on Kistana.
She let out a little sigh of relief. Mariella was a competent fighter.
I can relax now that you’re here.
The fire mage gave the catgirl a worried look. Then, from the midst of the undead, Vidalia and Victoria ran forward and stopped at Kistana’s side.
“Why did you two come?” the catgirl asked weakly. “You could get hurt out here—”
“You look half-dead!” Vidalia exclaimed. “Don’t ask why we’re here! Lie down and save your strength.” Both foxgirls’ hands grasped Kistana’s sides, and she allowed them to delicately guide her onto her back.
“Just fine,” Kistana muttered. “I’m fine. I just need a little cat nap, and I’ll be ready to go another round.”
Her eyes closed. She would rest for a little while. There was a small army around her allies. They’d be fine.
“I’ll bring the monks from your tribe, Kistana.” It was Mariella’s voice, but she sounded like she was very far away.
Don’t need monks, the catgirl thought. Just a little sleep. I’m all right.
As her conscious was beginning to fade, Kistana felt a familiar presence and heard a very familiar voice.
“Who did this?”