Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 25
“He’s going to get himself killed,” Boyd grumbled, which was unacceptable.
For one, it would be a blemish on his otherwise perfect mission. Second, he still had plans for Archangel—and Boyd wouldn’t allow the fool to die until he had made maximum use of the pompous asshole.
Boyd sighed and added, “Silver, be prepared for an extraction.”
“Yes, Darling.”
Boyd could just barely make out the slight change in her bubbly tone that told him she really would rather not. He understood the sentiment and, heeding Mindy’s advice, he had kept his plans for the ‘man’ from his lover. He was almost disappointed when Mindy didn’t have a remark in relation to his thoughts, but then he remembered that she was busy paralyzing a giant, ancient dragon.
“Archangel, you buffoon,” Hope sighed over their comms, causing Boyd to smirk.
She continued sadly, “I’m sorry he is interfering with the operation and endangering you all… endangering everyone. I could try talking to him, but he never listens.”
“You don’t need to apologize for the actions of others, Hopewing. And I don’t think you will have time to talk to him,” Boyd kept the gratitude he felt out of his voice but made a mental note to thank Hope for the statement that would make it clear to everyone listening that Archangel’s actions were reckless and bordered on criminal.
Boyd saw an icon, a sickly green little skull that represented Archangel, hop its way across his tactical map on its way to the Last Dragon. All he could really do was wait. If he tried to interfere, Archangel could blame him for foiling his attempt and insist that he could have done it all along.
He wanted it clear to everyone, even the narcissist himself, that his failure was completely his own doing.
The fool at least had the sense to wait for the dust to clear before making his attempt—likely wanting to make sure everyone could see his shining moment. It didn’t go the way he thought it would, though.
He appeared in a flash of golden light right next to the leaking eye socket with one of his burning energy swords pulled back to thrust into it. His thrust was good, aimed at where the creature’s brain should be. If he could hurt the legendarily impossible to hurt creature, such a thrust might have killed it.
Unfortunately for Archangel, the energy shell that made it so hard to injure surrounded each of its cells. Also rather unfortunate, again for Archangel, was that the Last Dragon sensed his attempt. It responded with lightning speed, flicking its neck towards the attack and sweeping its head into the white and gold-clad would-be-Hero.
Boyd saw him half-flash into gold energy to teleport away, but he wasn’t as well trained as he should have been. Therefore, his reaction was too slow. The half-teleport seemed to award him some protection, at least. Instead of becoming a smear on the side of the creature’s massive head, he bounced away—clearly badly injured, but apparently whole.
The unconscious Archangel was propelled like a rocket across the valley, along with shards of stones that had also been in the path of the ridiculously powerful monster’s head.
“Tinker, can you get me his vitals?” Boyd asked as Archangel’s limp body skipped and bounced across the rocky valley floor.
“He’s critical,” Tinker replied.
This meant he was alive, but not for long. The dragon’s head remained up and started tracking towards him as its front legs rose from the rubble.
“Silver, distract her,” Boyd barked as he leaped into the air, diving toward where Archangel had tumbled to a stop several hundred yards away.
He glanced up to see Silvie blur into the dragon’s line of sight and open up with rapid blasts of her silver light.
The dragon responded with a stream of blue-white energy, chasing his love as she blurred ahead of it.
Boyd landed next to Archangel’s broken body with a thud seconds later. It looked like he’d broken just about every bone in his body. His eyes were gone and blood seeped from their empty sockets, along with his nose, mouth, and ears. He wouldn’t last long without Hope’s aid.
“Silver, hot potato to Hopewing, he’s only got a few seconds,” Boyd growled over comms.
With that, he grabbed the battered hero by his dented ridiculously intricate breastplate and tossed him into the air in Silvie’s general direction, not giving her time to argue.
“But…” she started to argue.
“Go!” he overrode her. “He’s already airborne. Tinker, send it out.”
“Launching.” Tinker’s single-word reply dipped with a tremor, containing a whole lot of panic.
“RAH!” Silvie screamed in frustration before blasting the dragon with her eyebeams for a second before blurring through the air to intercept Archangel’s nearly dead body as it reached the apex of its arching path through the air. The silver blur curved away, heading toward position four.
Boyd sprinted towards the Last Dragon, wings up and angled to allow him to use the booster packs mounted to them to propel him forward. While he did, he discarded the shield with the spears mounted to it. They were meant for longer range and their unwieldy lengths would only get in his way this close to the massive beast. Instead, he pulled two of the scary flechette balls from his harness and charged them while making a suicide charge to get close enough to use them.
The dragon’s head followed Silver’s blur, and Boyd didn’t like that. The Last Dragon blasting position four right now was completely unacceptable, so he dissuaded the behavior—firmly.
Boyd cracked open the first ball and propelled most of the five hundred darkly burning razor-sharp shards of reinforced obsidian into the side of its head and snout. Boyd used all the strength he could put into the throw without risking the accuracy of his throw and was pleased with the results.
The dragon screamed in pain and threw her head to the side as more scales and blood exploded from her face with the hundreds of devastating impacts. Though Boyd could throw with his left hand, he switched the remaining flechette ball to his right hand as he broke to the right, sprinting around to circle the dragon now that he was closer.
The Last Dragon shook its head, scattering thick crimson blood all over the place from its latest mauling.
Boyd saw the glint of metal as Tinker’s last piece of equipment arrived above the dragon, but he ignored it—for now. Using it under these circumstances was too risky. Instead, he looked for an opportunity to change those circumstances.
The great beast began randomly spewing a torrent of blue-white energy in the direction Boyd was sprinting, well out ahead of him. Then she started swinging her head towards him and he realized she intended to sweep the entire valley floor. He leaped into the air, kicking all three propulsion packs to full to get up out of the path of its death ray.
The maneuver provided him with the opportunity he needed. As the beam passed well below him, Boyd got a good angle on the Last Dragon’s remaining eye. He took the shot, breaking the remaining orb into hundreds of deadly shards as he threw them into the ancient creature’s eye with all the force he could muster.
He might have imagined it, but Boyd thought the last thing he’d seen in the glowing orb might have been fear.
The cry of pain that erupted from the beast and rattled his bones certainly contained a helping of the emotion that was likely as alien to the creature as the pain Boyd had introduced it to. He wouldn’t let it suffer for long, though. It might have killed millions, or even billions of people over the years, but it was ultimately an animal and not subject to moral obligations.
And therefore, undeserving of punishment.
Boyd angled his wings to take him over to the final piece of equipment Tinker had made for him—a great sword that was literally bigger than Boyd. The blade was eight feet long and three feet wide at the base, but thinned slightly with the mostly gentle curve of the blade. At three inches thick at the tip, it was made from shining steel with a glinting obsidian edge that used the very maximum amount of obsidian that Boyd could charge—well, the maximum amount he could have charged this time yesterday.
The dragon gave off a short but desperate scream before it began blasting away randomly with short bursts of its energy breath. The bloody head darted this way as she blindly tried to kill her attacker. She got nowhere near Boyd, however, who was almost directly above her. According to her perception of the way things were, she owned the skies—nothing would dare attack her from above.
Boyd scanned the gorgeous and massive sword as he closed on it and grabbed the massive handle. It was totally impractical to carry—or even to use for almost every situation a Hero might find themselves in—so Tinker had installed gravitic drives along the slightly wider top of the blade. It was effectively a drone, and much smarter than the short-lived missiles she’d made for the early portions of the fight.
It would fly if Boyd wanted to use it again.
The small drives linked to the sensors in his circlet. If he spent more time training with it, eventually they would assist with his swings. Or he could learn to do really cool stuff like charge it up and send it spinning through the air. Tinker had said such things would take a lot of time, especially to make usable in a combat situation when the circlet would have a lot of brain signals to decipher.
For now, it was a big ass sword—the perfect size for decapitating dragons.
He took it from where it waited for him in the air by its long handle, designed for a dramatic two-handed grip. Boyd was strong enough to swing it one-handed, despite its size, but a widely set two-handed grip would be more dynamic. The blade was mostly simple and understated, allowing its size instead of any form of fanciful filigree to communicate the message he wanted to send.
Boyd charged it through his right hand where he gripped the hilt near the massive blade, since the lower part of the long grip didn’t contain any obsidian. The blade took up the Black Flame and burned merrily. Boyd raised the sword over his head and paused just long enough to line up his swing.
His other self really wanted to roar as they made their killing blow, but Boyd shut him down. Sure, it would be dramatic. But to his knowledge, the dragon’s hearing remained undamaged. The last thing he wanted to do was to warn her he was coming.
Boyd would partake in a well-earned victory roar after she was dead.
The dragon had pulled its front legs, shoulders, and neck out of the rubble. While its head darted back and forth to fire blasts that exploded the stone of the walls and floor of the valley, the base of its neck was fairly immobile. It was a bit thick at that point for Boyd’s preference.
A partially severed head was not ideal for several reasons. So Boyd aimed for a point about a third of the way up its neck. This part moved back and forth, but more slowly and predictably.
He swung the massive blade and the drives in his sword kicked in at that moment to pull him along with it in a downward slash. Boyd crossed the dozens of feet between him and his target in an instant, the blade slamming into the metallic scales on the back of the creature’s thick neck and slicing cleanly through them.
It was a clean cut. The blade didn’t catch or leave a jagged line. The Last Dragon’s life ended in a single stroke. Boyd carried the strike all the way through to the ground, his momentum driving his bulk faster than the beast’s severed neck and head. He leaped back before a splash of the creature’s blood bounced up from the rocky floor of the valley and caught him.
A light splattering would be fine, but a bloody shower was to be avoided. He landed forty feet back from the dead creature. Or dying creature, based on the way its forelimbs and neck twitched and squirmed for another thirty seconds. Boyd half expected two heads to replace the first, so held his roar until humanity’s ancient enemy lay still.
Even then, he pushed his Black Flame to his eyes to confirm that the brilliant blue-white motes that made up its form under this sight were dissipating. When he roared his victory to the sky, he kept it short. It was more of a cheer than a proper roar, but it would have to suffice.
Boyd took a deep, centering breath and drove his massive sword into the ground next to the Last Dragon’s head before rumbling into his comms unit for all to hear. “We’ve done it. The Last Dragon is dead.”
Chapter 26
Boyd was preparing to shift gears from fight mode to media mode when he heard angry voices over their open comms. Hope and Archangel were arguing. Suddenly, Hope’s startled voice shouted, “Archangel, no!”
In his head, Mindy shouted, ‘Boyd, Look out! Archangel is coming!’
Glad his other self was still close to the surface and just as ready for a fight as Boyd was, he barked, “Cut the feed!” while pumping his Black Flame into his wings, tail, and hands all at once.
That was all he had time to do before the arch-prick appeared directly in front of him, a golden energy sword pulled back for a swing, six golden sword-wings projecting out behind him. Their eyes locked and Boyd glared hate into the narrowed blue eyes of the man whose life he’d just saved, but who clearly didn’t understand who he was fucking with.
Boyd would just have to show him.
Archangel’s face was contorted in a rictus of hate, his murderous intent clear in his gaze. He was a man used to getting his way, and Boyd had stepped on his moment to shine today—several times. He was also used to having any mess he might create cleaned up for him. He was unaccustomed to dealing with the consequences of his actions. Boyd would teach him about those, too.
“You’re evil will not be allowed to spread, Corruptor!” Archangel cried as he swung his golden-fire-filled energy sword forward in a wide and high arc aimed to cut Boyd in two from his left shoulder to his opposite hip.
Boyd’s Black Flame-infused fist swung forward and down on a trajectory to intercept the sword, continuing on into his opponent’s shoulder as Boyd aimed for a non-critical injury that would take the wind out of the fool’s sails.
The blue eyes that glared up into Boyd’s widened with shock as his large crimson fist punched through the side of Archangel’s energy sword, shattering it—or shattering the thin layer of energy that seemed to contain the golden fire that burned within it. Those golden flames surged out of the broken shell in a burst that quickly evaporated.
Archangel was just barely fast enough to flash out of the path of Boyd’s descending fist as it continued to pass through the short-lived golden fireball the energy sword became. Fortunately, Boyd was fairly certain he knew where the short-range porter would appear next. He tucked his still-burning wings in against his back, not to protect them, but to protect his vitals from Archangel’s next attempt to kill him.
He began swinging his Black-Flame-infused tail in a leg sweep before his attacker appeared in a flash of light. Archangel didn’t even have time to begin the thrust he intended to sever Boyd’s spine with before the demonic Hero’s tail caught him in the side of his thigh.
Archangel’s resistance was one hundred percent energy-based and not more than skin deep in an invisible shell of force that coated his body. And while it was fairly tough, it might as have not existed to Boyd. His Black Flame broke through it as easily as it had the sword’s energy frame, allowing his thin but strong tail to deliver its full kinetic force directly to the organic tissue beneath.
With a sharp crack that could only be a broom handle or a femur cleanly snapping in two, Archangel once again found himself bouncing across the valley floor. His golden wings vanished as he lost his ability to concentrate on them; they disappeared before he skipped the first time.
Boyd frowned after Archangel’s form as it skipped across the valley floor; his aim had been a little off. Archangel’s tumbling body came to a stop a few feet to the right of the thick slurry of muddy dragon blood Boyd had been trying to swat him into.
To his credit, Archangel didn’t stay down for more than a second after coming to a stop. With a flash of golden light, he reappeared about sixty feet in the air with his golden wings supporting him, one leg dangling uselessly beneath him with a bad break.
He flicked his right arm out and another energy sword appeared in his hand as he shouted, “I’ll kill yo—”
Suddenly, a dark gray blur streaked through him, driving the ‘Hero’ into the ground with a solid thud, one fist gripping a handful of his feathered golden hair and pressing his face into the dirt. The fist belonged to a man with gray-streaked black hair, whose piercing green eyes glared up at Boyd from a handsome but aging face.
Victory Seeker had seen better days. More gray now streaked his hair than when Boyd had seen him last. And though only a few years had passed, the former Mentor looked about a decade older. He still looked younger than his age by a fair margin, but time appeared to be catching up to him.
Crouched over the supposed Hero he managed and wearing a finely tailored, deep gray, five-piece suit, Boyd could almost swear he could see the anger and hate radiating off of Victory Seeker in jagged black squiggles as Archangel squirmed beneath him.
A split-second later, Boyd saw a silver blur resolve itself into Silvie in his peripheral vision, floating about twenty feet in the air. She was there to back him up—not that Boyd expected any further violence.
‘I’ve warned Silvie to stay back and to let you handle this—she REALLY wants a piece of Archangel,’ Mindy sent, ‘but I keep telling her that would undo all we have worked for today.’
“My apologies, Devil,” Victory Seeker seethed, “my mentee was overzealous. I’ll remove him and see to a proper punishment.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t allow you to do that, handler,” Boyd said, injecting his tone with false sadness and shaking his head—except for the word ‘handler’, which he filled with scorn. Not that Boyd thought the position itself was worth his scorn. He did it because he knew it would get under Victory Seeker’s skin. Boyd continued firmly and clearly, calling out the words more than simply saying them, exactly as the man he directed them at had trained him to do.
“Archangel is charged with entering a marked engagement zone without authorization and attempted assault on a Hero in pursuit of their duties. He will submit himself for arrest or be treated as a hostile Powered Criminal. Any attempts to prevent his arrest by another or to remove him from this location will result in aiding and abetting charges being filed against you.”
