Dragon Conjurer 3, page 22
Out of the trees, the clear sky revealed a full moon overhead, and it was the first time since we’d been out here that we actually had a lot of natural light at our disposal.
“See anything?” I asked the group as we turned in circles looking for signs of the monsters we’d been chasing. “I don’t think they would’ve vanished.”
“They’re farther ahead,” Nick mentioned while he put his hands on his hips and surveyed our surroundings. “The stone is going to make it harder to track them down, but we have Nala to guide us in the right direction. Right, Toph?”
“No sweat,” the caramel-skinned goddess answered as she stopped turning and pointed to my left. “They’re that way, but we’d better get a move on if we want to keep gaining on them. They haven’t slowed down yet.”
“Then let’s get going.” I motioned for the rest to follow and started the charge toward our prey.
Thinking about the Wendigo and Ogress being prey seemed wrong at first, but that was what they were to us. We were chasing them down like lions hunting a gazelle, and it was invigorating as hell to do it. We’d been on the hunt for almost a week now, but actually knowing we were chasing the monsters down felt incredible. We’d been hunting them before, sure, but we were just wandering through the woods as we searched for signs of the Wendigo. We’d fought other monsters along the way, but we hadn’t full-on stalked anything until this moment. Chasing the Wendigo down made me understand why some people enjoy hunting exotic animals like moose, bear, or even wild cats in rugged places.
Stalking and taking down something this big and scary made me feel alive in ways I hadn’t experienced before.
And it was fucking awesome.
With the light of the full moon to guide our path, we pursued the monsters at a much faster pace than before. The adrenaline pumping through my system got me fired up to keep on running, and even though I knew we’d been going for a long time without much of a break, I could sense the rest of my team was as pumped as I was.
Steffi still flew next to us, and her magic fairy dust sprinkled over our heads as she kept pace with the rest of the group. The golden glow of her magic illuminated the smile cracking across her face, and her grin made me smile right back at her.
The only one struggling to keep up with us was Leon, and the quickened pace seemed to be taking a toll on the muscular man.
“You good back there, Leon?” I called over my shoulder as he started to fall a couple paces back. “Need Ky to carry you?”
“I’m fine,” he huffed and puffed, but then he stopped in his place and held up one finger to tell us to wait. “Alright, perhaps I do need to ride on your dragon. I am not built for long periods of exercise like this. I’m sorry.”
“No problem, man.” I signaled for Ky to kneel down so Leon could climb on his back. “You’re stronger than any of us, but everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. I just want you to conserve enough energy for the fight ahead. We’re going to have to take down the giantess first, and then we’ll fight the Wendigo.”
“Sounds good,” Nick agreed as we started running again. “Tell us what to do when we catch up to them, and we’ll do it, boss.”
“Thanks, guys.” I grinned at the rest of the group before I forged ahead of my team and followed after our quarry. “If we hurry, we can catch them and get this boogie started.”
We raced for another ten minutes before we caught sight of our prey trying to escape back into the woods. The problem was, the trees they were trying to hide in were thicker than the ones from the last stretch of forest, and both monsters were too big to fit between the wider trunks.
The giantess started ripping trees out of the dirt, but we’d gained a good bit of ground on them before she’d managed to sling the first trunk aside.
“Give up!” I shouted as they tried to spin around and head in the other direction. “We’re here to settle this once and for all, Wendigo! If you’re so big and bad, why don’t you face us?”
“I have every intention of crushing you,” the antlered monster growled while it and the giantess turned to face us. “You think we ran out of cowardice?”
“Looks that way, yeah,” I snorted, and I glanced around at my team even though they couldn’t understand the Wendigo. “Fleeing your asses off sort of screams ‘coward.’”
“Dylan, wait,” Steffi gasped under her breath, and she grabbed my arm as she glanced around at the rocky basin. “They just evened the playing field. There aren’t trees for us to use as cover.”
“Your fairy-girl is quite smart,” the Wendigo sneered and pinned its rotting gaze on me.
“Thanks, but as much as I’d like to stand here and chitchat, I don’t really have the patience for it,” I said while my team got into a line on either side of me. “Let’s get this dance over with, big boy.”
“Ogress, attack!” The Wendigo darted away like I knew it would, and the monster it commanded set her feet and prepared to charge us.
“Give her everything we’ve got!” I yelled to my posse as we split down the middle and got ready for our assault. “Let’s show this huge bitch what we’re made of!”
“Yes, sir!” Nick shouted back as he vanished from sight.
I was shocked at how far he’d managed to teleport, since we were at least a dozen yards away from any trees. His powers were so much stronger than they were when we left AIMM, and I couldn’t be prouder of how far he’d come.
“You two fucked up,” Nala laughed like an evil villain. “You tried to run, but now you’ve put yourselves smack in the middle of my kind of territory. I own this place!”
The dark-eyed goddess didn’t hesitate to thrust her hands over her head, and she carved out a ten-foot wide chunk of stone to use as her ammunition for this fight. Then, as the massive piece of rock rose out of the earth, Nala used her powers to break it apart and refine the sections into cannonball-sized spheres.
These monsters were in for the ass kicking of the year.
While Steffi and Goldie launched into the air, Beyblade disappeared to find Nick, and the French cousins bolted toward the giantess’ feet. I turned around and hopped on Ky, and then I saw Leon slide off my dragon’s back and stalk toward Nala like a man on a mission.
“I will help her,” he said as he walked past me. “I know I will be of use to her here. I am strong, and I want to throw rocks, too.”
“I don’t blame you one bit, big guy,” I chuckled as I mounted Ky and squeezed my legs around his ribs. “Keep her safe, okay?”
“You have my word, Dragon Conjurer.” The muscle man pressed his hand over his rock-hard pec and bowed his head for a moment. “Now, hurry. We have an Ogress to take down.”
“Indeed we do.” I gritted my teeth as Ky jolted into the air like a scaly rocket, and I gripped his spike with all my strength to keep on his back. I had a feeling I was in for a bumpy ride, so I kept an iron grip with my hands and my legs to make sure I didn’t go splat.
For a moment, Ky and I hung in the air, and I contemplated racing after the Wendigo alone. The antlered beast was what we came here to take down, and I could’ve easily pulled my dragons away from the fight with the lady giant and gone after the Wendigo.
But what good would that do? I’d abandon my team, something a leader should never do, and take on the most powerful monster we’d ever fought on my own. Even if I could’ve taken the fucker down, I couldn’t leave my teammates to fight their own battle. I’d stick with them no matter what.
Then we’d take this rotting bastard down together.
So, Ky and I joined Steffi and Goldie in the air, and the four of us buzzed around the giantess’ head like gnats on a tiger. We might have had dragons on our side for this one, but it was hard not to feel like a buzzing pest in comparison to this gargantuan woman hulking around like a tree that came to life.
The giant lady swung her arms over her head and clapped her hands together as she tried to crush us, and the ear-splitting crash of her palms coming together almost knocked me off Ky’s back.
“How do you topple a giant?” I asked my fairy companion while we zipped and dodged around the Ogress’ matted hair. “It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too easy.”
“Maybe, but we have our team to help us, and we haven’t failed yet,” she replied as a smile lit up her whole face.
She was just too perfect.
“We can do this if we all work together,” she continued after she volleyed an attack at the back of the giantess’ head. “They’re on the ground, and we’re up here. We’ve faced bigger and badder, haven’t we?”
“Damn straight.” I returned her smile with one of my own before I kicked Ky in the sides to spur him on faster. “Let’s hit this big bitch with everything we’ve got.”
“Will do, babe.” The rosy-haired beauty winked at me before she summoned one basketball-sized orb in between her hands and launched it at the crown of the giantess’ head.
The golden fairy magic smacked into the Ogress’ scalp and seemed to absorb into her hair, and then the big-ass monster whipped her head around and pinned her malicious glare on Steffi and me.
“Better fly fast!” I shouted as the four of us got out of her reach before she could make a grab for us. “At least we know we’re doing a good job of pissing her off!”
Steffi laughed as we continued to zip around the Ogress’ head, and down below, my teammates attacked the giantess’ feet with their firearms and powers.
Beyblade zipped between her legs while Nick darted back and forth to shoot into her thick skin. The nymph and my fiery dragon made for a great distracting team, and together, they kept the Ogress from being able to stand in one spot and move for an attack.
Nala and Leon kept their distance so they wouldn’t be stepped on, and they hurled the rocks and boulders at her ankles in an effort to take her down, but even though Nick and Beyblade worked together to knock the giant lady off her balance, she seemed to be able to keep her feet pretty well.
Lastly, I spotted Michel and Elisabeth fighting even closer to the monster’s big feet than any of our other teammates. From the shadows, it was hard to see what both of the cousins turned into for their advantage in this fight, but their forms looked really similar in the darkness. Both of the French seemed hunched over, and their bodies looked so much bigger than normal.
Suddenly, the way the cousins danced around the giantess’ feet gave me a brilliant idea. If we could make it work, this fight would end well for us.
“Steffi, keep her busy up here!” I ordered as I snapped my fingers to direct Goldie to snatch at the monstress’ hair and annoy her even more. “I have an idea on how we’re going to take this big bitch down.”
“What’s the idea?” my golden-eyed lover asked while she sprinkled more fairy dust over the giant lady’s head.
“Let’s just say an 80’s cult classic inspired it.” I grinned at her before I turned Ky into a nosedive straight toward the rest of my team.
If we were going to end this fight, and end it soon, we’d have to pull out all the stops.
“Nala, how far can you summon dirt?” I asked as Ky and I whizzed past her and Leon. “I need you to make something malleable for the next phase of our plan.”
“I can get the earth underneath these rocks,” she replied while she launched the boulder she’d been holding over her head at the giantess’ feet, only for the monstrous lady to kick it aside at the last second.
“Perfect.” I flew Ky around in a circle before I landed directly outside the battlefield. “Listen up, everyone! Keep fighting, but I need your attention!”
“Not a problem, boss!” Nick shouted as he put his gun away and zipped around the giantess’ feet so he could get closer to me. “What’s your plan? I know it’s got to be a good one.”
“Oh, it is.” I grinned at him and watched as the rest of the team kept fighting, but I noticed everyone else seemed to be able to take their gaze off the fight long enough to look my way.
At least I didn’t have to worry about shouting louder to get them to listen.
“Alright,” I continued, “this is the way it’s going to go down. Has everyone seen Empire Strikes Back?”
“Yes!” the French cousins shouted, and now that I was closer to them, I could see Michel had the furry muscles of a bear, and Elisabeth was in a wolf’s body.
“Are we going to snow speeder this bitch?” Nick gasped, and his forest-green eyes started to shimmer like an anime character’s after they saw a plate of delicious food pass by. “For real? Your plan is to recreate Hoth?”
“Yep.” I fixed my best friend with a sharp grin before I looked around at the rest of my team. “Nala, you’re going to use the dirt like you used sand to tether us back when we fought the Mega-sus.”
“You got it,” the dark beauty replied with a salute, and then she started cracking through the rock underneath us to get to the dirt below.
“Nick, you, Beyblade, the cousins, and I will have the dirt wrapped around us like wires.” I patted Ky’s neck as I talked, so he wouldn’t get too antsy about being out of the fight for a second. “We’re the fastest ones in our group, so we’re going to be the runners.”
“What about me?” Leon asked as he cocked his head to one side. “What can I do?”
“I’ll need you to help hold Nala in place once it’s time to trip the giant,” I explained to him. “Nala, I know you can root yourself into the ground with your powers, but we’re going to need some added strength to hold the cables in place when this bitch goes down.”
“Then what do we do?” The ebony-eyed goddess waved her hands around like she was moving water through the air, and soon, geysers of dirt erupted from the hole she’d made in the ground. “After she trips, what good does that do us?”
“Well, ideally, we keep her arms bound because Ky and I tied her down.” I pursed my lips and looked at the terrain in front of us. “She’ll be easier to kill if she’s on our level. When we get her down, I want everyone going for her neck and head. I think that’s our best bet.”
“Got it,” my blond friend added with a thumbs up. “We’re ready when you are, boss.”
“Nala?” I looked over at my dark lover as she continued to whip dirt out of the ground like tendrils of soil. “Got enough?”
“Yeah, I do,” she replied as she finished siphoning the earth out of the rock and started to wind it around the people standing next to her. “I’ll keep pulling out more as we wrap it around her, and when I need to pull them taut, I’ll increase the soil density to make it rigid.”
“I know we can count on you.” I smiled at her before she finished wrapping the dirt around my midsection.
It scratched through my shirt, but I could put up with it as long as I needed. We had a giantess to knock down to size, and I wasn’t about to give up because I had some itchy dirt coming through my shirt.
“Michel, Elisabeth, get ready!” I shouted to the cousins as Nala shot the tendrils their way. “Keep weaving around her feet! Don’t stop until I say so!”
“How are we going to disconnect the dirt when we get enough wrapped around her?” Nick asked as he raised his arms over his head while our smallest teammate encased his torso in soil. “I don’t want to be yanked with her when she goes down.”
“I’ll wrap it back around,” Nala explained once she’d finished putting the dirt around all of us. “Now, go! Let’s end this fight quickly so we can kill the Wendigo. I know he’s sitting on the edge all smug because he thinks we can’t beat him and his giant friend.”
“We’ll prove him wrong,” I assured her as I nudged Ky in the ribs to get him flying again. “Now, buddy, I need you to fly like you’ve never flown before. We’ve got to be quick so the Ogress can’t break her arms free before we end this fight. Got it?”
My scaly beast seemed to bob his head like a nod before he started zipping around the monstress’ torso like a blue homing missile. He flew at speeds I didn’t think were possible, and it was all I could do to hold on while he raced circles around the giantess’ arms and midsection.
“Dylan, you’re wrapping her arms up!” Steffi shouted above me while I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to keep from getting dizzy. “She’s not swatting at me anymore!”
“Keep her from looking down at her feet!” I yelled back as my stomach settled enough for me to open my eyes and look down at my teammates.
The cousins danced in figure eights around the Ogress’ ankles, like they were forest spirits tiptoeing across toadstools. Even when they were in graceless animal forms like a bear’s or a wolf’s, they could be really smooth and sleek with their movements, and I almost found myself being hypnotized by the way Elisabeth moved around the giant lady’s feet.
Nick and Beyblade were doing something similar, but while my nymph friend stayed low around her feet, my red dragon snaked higher around her knees. With the way they were going, it wouldn’t be long before the Ogress couldn’t move anymore.
Which was the idea after all.
“We’re about done!” Nick yelled from below as he stopped running around the giantess’ feet and instead put some distance between himself and the monster. “What about you, boss?”
“Let’s get this show on the road, Nal!” I shouted at the dark-haired goddess as Ky zipped up and away from the Ogress’ body. “Tighten it up!”
As Beyblade and the French cousins darted away from the giant lady’s legs, Ky and I raced to Nala’s side as she put tension on the dirt and turned loose soil into thin tripwires.
“I need someone to hold onto me!” she cried out as she wrapped the dirt around her arms and pulled her limbs closer to her body. She set her feet on the rocks below, and then a couple holes opened up under her boots so she could sink into the ground and remained rooted in place.
“Grab her, Leon!” I instructed as I jumped off Ky’s back. “Ky, put your tail around them!”
