"There are just too many of them. Perhaps we should flee?"
"FLEE?!" bellowed Janice's harsh response. "Even if I wanted to, how would I go about that? I'm trapped behind this shield and without me, your essence would go back to being entombed in an inanimate object. PLEASE! We need to fight, not just for ourselves, but for every other being here. We're making a difference, you and I. We can continue to do so."
Not a selfish being, just one that had been lonely and lost for so long, and one who'd do practically anything not to go back to his previous state, her words struck a chord. It wasn't just the way she said them, more the passion and the feeling behind them. Intoxicating was the only way for him to describe it, so with all thoughts of escape put to one side, he shot straight through the back of the nearest naga that had been pounding the shield with cream coloured bolts of magic, not satisfied until his eerie blue tip exited the scales at the front of its chest cavity. Achieving this under the petite bar worker's guidance, he pulled out at speed and as the naga's dead body slumped to the ground, both of them selected the next target, before his dynamic and deadly streamlined shape disappeared swiftly in that direction.
Explosive magic ringing in his ears, wayward projectiles zipping all around him, he rocked up right next to his target, sliding to a halt on the shiny white flooring. Immediately he wrapped his tail around as much of the body as he could and without wasting any time at all, he lowered his head on to the being's forehead, only to feel... NOTHING! Whatever should have been there was gone, almost as if nothing there had ever existed. This, he knew, was definitely not the case. After all, this one selfless being had risked his own life to rescue him from the confines of the icy prison in Antarctica, giving him hope for not only his future, but for his entire race.
At one with the ancient magic that flowed through every molecule of his being, he commanded it to flood the smouldering body and seek out what he was looking for. Very slowly, a crystallising blue haze started to create a shell on the motionless human shape, working its way down from the head, until every last millimetre had been covered. Still nothing!
Acutely aware of the danger surrounding him, a sense of ethereal power closing in on his position startled him away from the task at hand. With his head still planted firmly on Flash's brow, he glanced across to face the threat. Sure enough, a barrage of flaming orange spears headed his way at speed, their intense heat causing them to shimmer as they cut through the air. Bringing up his right hand, momentarily he held it fully open, stretching his fingers as wide as he could, seeming to get a lock on the target heading swiftly towards him. Simultaneously closing his fingers, locking them into a tiny fist, the fiery projectiles seemed to get sucked in towards each other before causing one hell of an explosion, about thirty metres from where he crouched. Shielding his eyes from the blast, he felt an array of fast moving magical shards pepper his body and tail. Only then was he grateful that he'd had the forethought to offer up the extremity to his would-be rescuer for protection.
Interspersed with the recurring ground quakes, tons of debris started to fall from the surrounding walls and the hidden ceiling, making the already lethal battlefield of the king's private residence deadlier than ever. In the last thirty seconds or so, a tidal wave of rubble had slipped down the wall adjacent to where the light sided force were shying away behind their extremely well defended shield, and with the kind of force usually only associated with Mother Nature, had washed away half a dozen unsuspecting dark dragons who were caught so off guard they hadn't even had the chance to take to the air, providing a temporary respite for the beleaguered force.
But what the huge fight gave with one hand, it easily took with the other. From out of nowhere, crashing through the air at quite a rate, tons of speeding debris shaken loose from the ceiling nearly set the air on fire as it plummeted down towards the circular group of dragons atop which the king and Amelia Battlehard fought back to back. In the end, it was only George's outstanding awareness and battle hardened experience that had saved them. That and the fact that as a unit, they'd all instantly obeyed his command to move, in the end suffering no more than a few scratches and bruises. Luck, at least for the time being, was well and truly on their side.
A fast moving blur, that's all anyone would have seen, and that's including all the beings with magically enhanced senses, so fast were they moving. Wrapped around each other, on opposing sides of the fight, each looking for leverage over the other, just the tiniest of edges, hoping to gain the merest advantage, in this very moment the ultimate dysfunctional family was baring its teeth, quite literally in this case. With both of their personal shields having melded into one, flickering and sparking as they crashed together, constantly creating weak points in some prime spots, failing altogether in others, the two combatants, father and daughter, went at it hammer and tongs. Grinding to a halt momentarily against a huge mountain of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling, Fredric had the upper hand as he lay on top of his daughter, left hand pinning her right hand, the thumb on his right hand only a centimetre or so away from his daughter's left eye as he tried to gouge her with all his might, all the time avoiding the venomous, vicious viper strikes from the serpents her hair had changed into. Just the thought of his daughter being able to generate these horrors was enough to make him feel nauseous. It was disgusting, disgraceful, despicable and on most levels truly terrifying. How the best part of him had ever turned into that, he had absolutely no idea.
Quelling the panic rising within her, she summoned all her strength to escape... but it wasn't enough. Desperate times called for desperate measures and so, unable to break free from his grip, she thrust her head upwards and bit down on his thumb as hard as she could. Instantaneously he yelled in agony and wriggled what remained of the bloody stump out of her mouth, his body reacting as it should, shooting his hand up out of the way, but not before the passing fingernails raked at the criss-crossing purple lines that tormented her lunacy ravaged face. This time it was her turn to let out a cry, much to her father's satisfaction. But that spark of pain provided the impetus for her to fight back, because of course she was used to the pain; it had been a constant companion for as long as she could remember, and now felt as though it were her friend. Instead of making her weaker and fearful, it actually made her stronger and more determined than ever to put her father down, once and for all.
Ignoring his half torn off thumb, consumed by the total need to destroy this runt of the litter, Fredric flexed his muscles, putting all the power he could behind a well timed punch aimed directly at her face. Before it had a chance to connect, a huge jolt of kinetic energy exploded between them, tossing him back some thirty metres or so in the air. Landing with a 'THUNK', the former Antarctic prisoner shook his head in an effort to stop his ears ringing, blood trickling from both nostrils, rather a large chunk of rock sticking out at an odd angle from the top of his left thigh. Delighted at the result of her lesser known naga magic, Earth stood up from the pile of debris and, with a sickly smile, brushed herself down, the snakes in her hair writhing, wriggling and hissing wickedly.
Face and body feeling as though they were on fire, and not in the way a dragon might like, Fredric angrily ripped the chunk of rock from his bloodied thigh, tossed it off to one side and promptly used the laminium in the chains that still adorned his chest to heal all his wounds. Dust and tiny particles of debris spewed out of the thigh wound before the falsehood skin knitted itself back together. Simultaneously, the thumb that Earth had bitten down on fully regenerated, the bone growing back right in front of his eyes, before a layer of skin spread out of nowhere to cover it up. Impressive, but not as much as his nose clicking back into place all by itself, the blood from the nostrils running back up inside.