Monster's tears

Leila’s instincts alone were sharp with her new form and the same could be easily said about her now enhanced senses. Even in the state of meditation, she was quite easily able to feel a presence of a new shadow on the ground, slowly growing larger as the wings moved through the air and caused it to vibrate, creating sounds that carried throughout the small forest. Considering the identity of the strongest of monsters she would have to face, it was a fair assumption that she was found out by the enemy forces before she could even reveal herself on her own. This caused her to roll backward and grab the hilt of her sheathed blade as she looked in front of her with an analyzing gaze. It was not exactly what she expected. No feathers for the start. Actually, scratch that! There were feathers, but mainly it was scales. Obviously, she figured out that it must have been one of the Griffins descending and challenging her to a duel. But instead, she found herself right in front of a drake. Or at least that was what Leila thought. After some more thorough examination, she quickly came to the conclusion that this might have been a rather young dragon who yet had to grow to the proper size, hence why it was so tiny in comparison to what you would normally see from this species. Still, a creature like this descending was not exactly the most pleasant sight, considering the even Leila went through not all that long ago.

Thes information was probably spreading across the entirety of Fiore by now. A giant Golden Dragon attacked Hargeon and two mages present managed to drive it off. Suffice to say, dragons were now more or less symbols of enemy forces incoming to the Caretaker. At least until this one spoke. Yes, dragons were highly intelligent creatures, often exceeding humans in their IQ. But they rarely spoke to humans unless they were completely accustomed it. And the way this one spoke, well… it was a bit odd, to say the least. And with no clear indication of a hostile intent, Leila came to the final conclusion of this being not wanting to tear her into bloody bits. At least not yet anyway. And if it did, then it would also probably find that Leila was a little tough cookie to chew through. “Apologies, but thinking is something I’d rather do more than less. And if you want to spend time with my companion, you’d do better asking her directly.” Talking to something that was not a humanoid was actually rather normal to the girl. After all, she traveled through Bosco for a good bit in the distant past. A land that is filled to brim with magical creatures that can speak without any issues. And Melon kinda fell into that category as well. The wolf was rather intelligent despite not looking the part more often than not. She would let out a single bark at the dragon and sit down next to her owner’s leg.

Still, this situation was… well, it most certainly was unexpected. And while there was no obvious intention of hurting the girl, nothing could truly guarantee that this dragon was not with the monster army, trying to lure her out. Not that it had to, as a rather uncomfortable noise reached their ears and started getting louder. Realizing what it was, Leila ducked and forced Melon’s head to the ground with her hand at the same time, the trees behind her suddenly being torn apart by a rather big iron ball flying at high speed. “Are they seriously able to use something as deadly as a cannon?!” Saying that to herself, she grew visibly restless. Her position was compromised, most likely because the monster noticed that dragon landing from the skies and decided to take it out. Which at least meant that it really wasn’t with them. In any case, she now had to move in or face the cannon fire forever. “If you really want to help, now is the time!” with no time to really negotiate, Leila jumped up onto her own feed and snapped her fingers. At that simple order, Melon suddenly started growing until she was about as big as a regular horse and a pair of wings that looked like a giant rose petals sprouted from her back. Hopping onto her, the two of them would quickly take to the skies and start heading toward the enemy base.

Several more shots were taken at them, but the flying wolf managed to avoid them all with relative ease. Once above them, she would pat her companion’s back and suddenly jump off. During the free fall, she would just sigh at the whole situation and grabbed the hilt of her weapon once more. Below her was one of the many human-dragon amalgams, staring at her and ready to engage. Though it probably didn’t count with her landing directly on it. Flipping around, the girl was no longer falling head-first and her feed slammed into the giant’s shoulder, the impact breaking whatever bones its skin was hiding and making it fall to one of its knees. From there, she would just do a sharp turn as she kicked the beast’s head at full force and send it flying to the side, falling to the ground herself. Naturally, she was rather quickly surrounded by the rest of the giants in this position. Sighing, she would return her blade into its sheath and look around. To the enemy, this probably looked like she either gave up or was mocking them. Either way, they clearly desired to smash her to a puddle of red for what she did to their brother, as a good number of them quickly bolted forward and attack her with swords and maces they were wielding. What they did not know was that the gesture of returning her weapon to where it was had its meaning.

Even the ones that were not attacking right away were close enough for this attack, as the mechanical sheath itself started shaking and vibrating lightly. Mere moments before being hit by their attacks, she would release the blade again, the metal glowing bright blue with sparks coming off of it like crazy, and stabbed it into the ground. The stone and dirt beneath her would crack instantly and form a fairly large crater all around her as a giant explosion of raw energy followed, swallowing the giants along with everything else that would get in the way. The blinding light from this most likely temporarily forced anyone present to close their eyes. And once they would be open, they would see a ground scorched pitch black. Leila stood in the center of it all, but the Giants all stopped moving. They were not dead, but some of them fell over right away, as the attack was enough to make them pass out right away. Others that were a bit more far away had it better, especially with their armors, but there were still only about 5 left. As far as the girl was concerned, this was going extraordinarily well for a full frontal assault. Taking a deep breath, she would take out the blade from the ground and get ready. One of the Giants opened his mouth and send out a poison breath, something that the girl managed to quickly sidestep and then sprint right at him.

A mace in hand, he would try to crush her, but something strange happened. One half of the girl’s body turned bright and light blue in color as she suddenly split into two. Or rather, a wraith-like clone suddenly pushed out of her, as if her soul itself manifested to fight. While the original went for the Giant's legs with her blade to make it kneel down, the wraith would take advantage of this and start jumping up the titan’s body, avoiding its other hand skilfully and then finally getting to its head where it would deliver another powerful kick, sending the beast back and making it land on the ground unconscious. The other four were having their share of troubles as well, since Melon went straight down after the explosion and landed between them, spinning around and essentially using its tail and crash into the enemies and send them flying. The wolf also grew in size even more than before, leaping at the Giants one by another and forcing them to stay on the ground while its body pounded on theirs. Her teeth even sank into the scales few times, eventually making all of the give up and surrender. With that, the duo managed to successfully dispatch the largest group of enemies present. But the battle was still far from over. An elemental construct was still around here somewhere. And all the commotion managed to wake up the leaders of this base, three different giant griffins that radiated with power.

While two of them continued to soar above the battlefield, one of them landed right in front of Leila and roared. Once the ear-piercing sound subsided, it would leap right at her, the golden armor chiming and forming a dreadful lullaby to its movement. This beast was about as big as that snow white dragon from before but still fairly large for Leila to just block like that. Thankfully, Melon managed to step in and slam into the creature’s side, sending it into the ground. But that was the last attack it could do in that side, as she started to shrink into a pup once more. It seemed that the trick was still not mastered by the wolf, but that was quite alright. Now it was two on one. While getting up, the Griff would heavily slam one of its wings toward the due, creating a wave of air that managed to cut them all over and send them back while also creating an opening. Its beak got dangerously close to ripping the female’s stomach open, but it suddenly slammed into a saturated black ball of shadows that appeared around Leila. Another ability of her armor, a shield that could block quite a fair bit. Though the impact did leave a crack in it already, showing just how much force was behind it. Knowing that she couldn’t give it a moment to recover if she wished to win, the girl would quickly head forward herself.

And from the ground, several roots and vines shot out to wrap themselves around the creature. This time, it was Melon’s magical power as the pup focused fully on this attack. Not only was this restraining the beast, but the grip was also trying to crush it which was causing visible damage to the armor and the body clad in it. With yet another penetrating shriek of anger and pain, the Griff would start thrashing around, but that did not stop the Eden’s Caretaker from getting on its back. Though before she could actually do anything, the vines and roots would give in and break apart, the giant brown wings now extended and carrying to beast back into the skies. Due to the sudden movement, Leila also found herself falling back to the ground as the distance between her and her enemy grew. She knew that if she allowed it to get back into the skies, they would be at a great disadvantage. Her right hand was holding her weapon, but the left quickly returned to the sheath and suddenly pulled out a small survival knife that she tossed. On its way, it grazed the golden armor, but that was about it. At least at first. But in the next instant, Leila’s body disappeared and re-appeared right next to the knife, grabbing it and then stabbing the main blade into the Griffon’s leg. This ensured that she would not fall as her body split again, the wraith climbing rather swiftly to the beast’s head.

And with no delay, it would use the blunt side of the wraith blade to deliver a rather powerful attack. Hitting the beast’s head was clearly the way to do this, as it became rather disoriented and changed its directly back toward the ground. Jumping off at the very last moment, Leila managed to land and roll to minimize the impact as the heavy Griffin crashed right behind her. Looking over her shoulder at it, she was quite relieved to see that it knocked itself out at the impact. Like that, she managed to finish a good chunk of the enemies with Melon’s help. But the question was - what of the rest? Two Griffons and the elemental construct still remained and most abilities of both Leila’s equipment and Melon were now recharging and couldn’t be used for a while. Which meant that fighting them would grow much more difficult and dangerous. Looking around, the female hoped that she would spot the dragon actually being on her side and not just flying away because it was not interested in this situation. Some help right now would be quite appreciated, even if the two of them didn’t really talk when they first met. Something like that just had to be excused with the situation they were quickly tossed in, even a creature with so much pride hat to recognize that.


Enemies remaining:

Elemental Construct 1x
Gryphon Lord 2x

Word Count: 3,234 / 3,000   |   Tags: @Itova