Journey to the Capitol - Part 4 - Dragon Fight

"Now hold on just a minute!" came an indignant cry.

Ahsch resisted the urge to roll his eyes as everyone's attention turned to Kirasiel. "I have important business in the Capitol and we don't have time for you little game."

The hrafthi started to curse the petulant brat of a royal in his mind, but before any firm thoughts could form, he blanched as the ambient temperature noticeably increased by at least a dozen degrees - enough that in the summer heat, the boy gasped slightly as the air seemed to thicken, making it harder to breathe.

"Mother mentioned you as well. If it were up to me, I would take you for a flight to the mountains and drop you in harpy territory beyond your silly kingdom's borders." Despite the sudden heat, Ahsch shivered at the cold, baleful tone of the dragon's voice, and the disgusted ire in her gaze. "Fortunately for you, Mother has other interests." Her glare intensified for a moment. "I can still give you heat stroke without killing you, so you may wish to mind your words, if reaching your capitol is truly so important to you."

Just as sudden as it came, the oppressive heat, and the dragon's wrath evaporated. Which still left a cheerfully battle-happy monster. "So just sit back, and enjoy the show. I doubt this first bout will take long."

With a thought, Ahsch urged Mahat forward, and was thankful that the knights had better sense than the royal twat, breaking their circle to allow him out. Tell mom not to worry, he instructed Ariin, I know the dragon is being truthful due to Heart Sight, and someone here must know some proper healing.

That's not really going to help, you know, his sister replied dryly, even as she began to pass on her brother's message.

The Dominant Mage paused midway between the group and the dragon. "Any rules?" he asked his opponent.

"Don't die, avoid killing blows..." she made a show of thinking for a moment. "Entertain me for at least a minute and I'll even throw in a gift."

_Is that a good thing or... _he started to wonder.__

Look out!

The hrafthi had to physically jump off of his familiar to dodge the leaping dragon, her emerald claws brushing through his hair. Growling, he prepared a Heart Pierce while instructing Mahat to engage physically. As she confirmed and charged, Ahsch hit the ground, rolled, and came up just in time to direct the ready arrow of his spell, which he shot center-mass at the dragon... to basically no effect. Heart Sight showed no disruption in her emotions, and he might as well have gently tossed a pebble at her for all the physical damage it seemed to do.

Yeah, no shit her defenses are beyond my attacks, Ahsch snapped to himself, unslinging his spear from over his shoulder and casting Ironwood instantly. His mind quickly parsed through his options, with little luck; direct attacks would fail outright; his primary toy, Spirit String, couldn't help since he wasn't able to generate enough power to actually hit with any **** with the things he puppeted around; ditto that for Heartstring.

She never said anything about beating her, just 'entertain' her, Mahat interjected.

So stay moving, don't get caught?

The gears in his mind shifted as he rolled away from another leap of the dragon, Mahat struggling to keep up with their opponent's ability to glide with her wings. Not to mention that the two were simply outclassed in the basics of speed, strength, and agility. But how could he take her off guard, gain himself precious seconds?

He started multi-casting Spirit String, targeting his own clothing. The sheer mana cost kept him from casting the spell quickly, but the fact that it was Innate allowed him to cast it several times in parallel. He barely made it the little longer than five seconds he needed for the strings to form, and as he started casting Float, he started channeling his mana skyward. Even those necessary brief thoughts almost cost him the 'test,' the dragon managing to grab a handful of his sleeve before Mahat barreled into her, ruining said sleeve.

The dragon grabbed Ahsch's familiar by the scruff, ripping the fox off her and sending Mahat soaring through the air dozens of feet away before turning her attention back to Ahsch. He still had almost six seconds before Float would activate, so got ready as the dragon once again charged him. This time, be braced with his spear, not anchoring himself, but rather getting the long piece of wood and metal in between himself and his opponent. With his half-dozen Spirit Strings lifting upward - admittedly without much **** behind them, as the weight limit was, in fact, only a limit on weight, not an indication of the **** he could produce - he was significantly lighter than the dragon expected, so when she impacted the spear, rather than go sliding back along the ground, Ahsch became airborne for a few key seconds before hitting the ground again.

Then Float activated, and he waited for the dragon to once again close... then jumped with all his might, pushing down with his spear for even more height. Forty meters of null gravity was a lot to work with, and as the dragon went stumbling, her weight suddenly disappearing, Ahsch grinned in momentary victory.

He'd expected the monster to be confused for at least a few seconds, and he was rewarded with being right. Claws sunk into the ground, the dragon glared up at him, analyzing the situation. Then she grinned, and launched herself up at him. So he pulled his Spirit Strings to the side, getting just enough motion to avoid her. Ahsch was further gratified when it became apparent that, despite only gravity, not air pressure, being absent from the bubble, the dragon seemed to be having trouble adjusting to the zero-g zone; she was generating lift with her wings, as that was needed for flight normally, but rather than fighting gravity, it simply pushed her up.

So where she could be quite fast, she was having trouble actually maneuvering. The hrafthi, meanwhile, was quite slow, but given a few seconds, he could precisely adjust his heading using his strings. Unfortunately, it was just a matter of time before the monster adjusted, and Ahsch was willing to guess that she would figure it out before the remaining 30-odd seconds were up.

So, straining his focus to the extent that he ended Heart Sight and Mana Sight to give his brain that tiny bit of extra processing power, the Dominant Mage started to move the Float bubble around, carefully keeping himself within it while using its 20 meters/second speed to repeatedly put the dragon within and outside its influence. He hoped that by constantly shifting gravity's effects on her, he could keep her disoriented enough that she couldn't reach him.

Ten seconds passed, and she only managed to get a handful of feet off the ground, but she went rocketing up uncontrollably when the null-gravity zone affected her at a powerful downbeat of her wings at the tenth second.

Ahsch desperately pulled away from her with his strings, her fingers coming within inches of catching him as she went spinning past him. She fought to regain her balance and control, but dropped like a stone when the hrafthi moved the Float's influence away from her. She managed to glide down, once again coming far too close for comfort to catching her target. Another ten seconds had passed before she had come about... and started climbing rapidly, taking advantage of Float's effect as she entered it again and started propelling herself ever-higher.

She wheeled around, beat her wings furiously to end her ascent, and started to dive, accelerating rapidly towards Ahsch from above as she flapped her wings. Whether she was in the area of Float or not was irrelevant here - gravity only pulled her down faster, but she didn't go flying off to the side within the null-zone.

And she could maneuver fast enough to keep on target as Ahsch tried to pull himself aside with his strings. With only a scarce few seconds left, the boy ended Float, and pulled the strings hard towards the ground to accelerate away from the dragon, even as he reached out to Mahat, instructing her to leap and shove him aside...

But the dragon was faster, her hand grasping the center of his shirt, pulling herself close to the boy, before she spun, putting her back towards the ground... and glided them away, grinning up at the Dominant Mage.

"Your minute was up... one second before I got you," she purred. Then she yanked him close and gave him a searing kiss, before spinning once again and dropping him the remaining few feet onto the ground.

After rolling painfully to a stop, Ahsch stumbled to his feet, only to watch the dragon flying away.