Dragon Bound

Chapter 17

Ryoka was panting hard, she was tired, dirty and frustrated, it had gotten to a stage where she is now sure there was something wrong with her, probably she had bad dn genes because if not, then why was she finding it next to impossible to shift into a full dragon.

What could be stopping her from achieving a feat known to be rather as easy as breathing for Eldrians, all dragon kind, at least from Damien’s explanation, it is only when there is something wrong with the genes that this happens like it did with him.

But then that is only an issue for dn mutants, new generation dragons if you will, those that were human with abundant dn gene and got experimented upon by the WIC Inc. not for originals and special generation dragons such as she.

She was about to consign herself as to being damaged in some way, if not then this sure wouldn’t be happening to her.

She was out of breath and so was Damien, they had been at it all morning and afternoon, the sun had started to set now and they were both exhausted.

They sat on the floor and rested for a while, it was starting to look as if Damien’s promise to get her turned by all means wasn’t going to come to pass after all.

“Admit it Damien, there something wrong with me, just tell me now so we can just stop to give ourselves unnecessary stress, I really am fed up Damien, I am” Ryoka said as she started to calm down and regained her strength just from the little time she has had to rest.

“There is nothing wrong with you, not physically anyways” Damien answered, and gave her a knowing look, she glanced back at him and thought on his words for a few seconds before getting the implication.

“You mean it could be psychological? That I am hindering myself in some way?” Ryoka asked after realizing what he meant, she hadn’t thought of that truly, whereas it might very well be true.

“It may be that there is a form of psychological block stopping you from achieving the shift, so far you have been able to utilize almost all your dragon abilities even while human, all that is left is to shift, attain the true dragon form, tell me Ryoka, are you scared?” Damien asked a question Ryoka had been unwilling to face and admit.

Truly, deep down, as much as she wanted the shift, as much as she wanted to transform and attain the true dragon form, as much as she wanted to experience the dragon experience, the flight, the fire breathing, everything, as much as she wanted to, deep down she is scared, and even she doesn’t know why.

It could be a number of things that got her scared, the transformation process, would it hurt? The full dragon form, will she be able to move around as she wanted or will it be like a baby learning to walk? Will she still have her mind while in dragon form or does another entity take over, the dragon in her.

These questions got her scared in all sincerity, but then she really wasn’t sure it was these that was hindering the process, it had to be something a bit more than that.

She looked away from Damien as he asked the question, thinking on and on about it, but the more she thought, the more she was convinced that it couldn’t be her fears holding her back, even if it was, it couldn’t be independent, there has to be something else.

The wind suddenly changed so much so that they both felt it and immediately they were on high alert, they both stood up and crouched and then Ryoka’s hands went to her knife and staff, this particular staff was a special one, it was made partly out of titanium and a really strong wood that Damien had mentioned but she had forgotten it’s name.

Damien as well took out his sidearm and had another hand placed on his sword, they looked around them quickly, knowing this threat they sensed wasn’t going to come from the ground but rather from above so they glanced up after the quick scan of their surroundings.

The quickly arriving night brought a lot of clouds so it was difficult to really spot anything, still yet though, they did not take their eyes away from the sky, the only issue was that they were out in the open, this much Damien noticed.

“Ryoka” he said with a low voice “Start moving towards the cover of those trees, we are too open here” he said to which Ryoka immediately started to do, moving in slow intentional crouch steps towards the trees, to her, she felt it was going to be obvious to any foe especially one coming from above that they had noticed and were trying to evade.

Just as she finished that thought, a screech louder than a multitude of hawks sounded and they both started to sprint towards the tree cover, it was now apparent that the threat was indeed real and headed for them.

Another screech sounded and at that point Ryoka knew it might very well be over for them this very night, two full actual dragons hunting and chasing two defective dragons that can’t even shift, the odds were impossibly against them, Ryoka thought, but she wasn’t about to give it up just like that.

She spotted one of the dragons first and shouted as she hurtled her knife towards it, for two reasons she chose to throw the knife, one the dragon was close enough and within range and secondly, its soft side -the underbelly was exposed- so that was where she aimed for as Damien had thought her to best bring down a dragon or at least make it suffer well enough, besides her dragon sight and powerful throw and precise aim all contributed to her advantage.

Damien followed and shot the direction she had thrown her knife but the dragon had moved entirely from the region and back into the clouds, having been touched by the knife.

They got to the trees and headed in then stayed unmoving at strategic locations, waiting for the dragons to make their moves, so they could know what to do next, Damien had always taught her to wait for the opponent’s moved and then counter using the opponent’s move against him or her.

At that point Ryoka figured the dragons had to be new generation dragons seeing as there wasn’t any fire breathing or any other type of breathing in fact, only new generation dragons had no fire or gas or ash, and that fact only brought her a bit of assurance that they might yet escape this in one piece.

But she had made the conclusion a bit too soon, because just then, she smelled gas, a choking pungent smell that threatened to snuff the life out of her, Damien gave her a sign and then they ran, heading away from the gas as much as they can, she was sure the dragon responsible would keep spraying it in one direction so as to flush them out, and they had no choice but to comply at the moment.

They got to a clearing and bronze-back dragon landed in with them, ‘Dammit, I hate being right in life or death situation' Ryoka thought to herself even as she slid right underneath the massive creature and lunged up aiming her staff at the underbelly, right before it hit though, she twisted the hilt of the staff and a blade the size of a jackknife popped out with force, cutting into the underbelly of the dragon.

The dragon bellowed, and the sound almost drowned out Damien’s shooting, Ryoka then ripped out the staff and aimed the bladed part to the paws, but on first impact, the dragon took off and flew up, the beating of its wings creating a dust cloud.

Damien and Ryoka quickly exited the clearing and moved back into the trees, but then another dragon, still a bronze-back, landed right amongst the trees, crushing trees and blocking their path, immediately, Damien started to fire off with his gun, and Ryoka only kept getting angry at that.

Hadn’t it been Damien who had told her that guns were mostly useless against a dragon, because even their underbelly is thick enough to repel the bullet, unless very advanced tactical weapons or 50 cal. guns, so why was he firing at them when he had a more effective weapon, his sword.

Before the dragon could get oriented enough though, Ryoka rushed to Damien and pulled his sword free, he got shocked and stopped firing for that moment, the dragon took advantage of that and swiped its wings at them both.

Ryoka slashed forwards as the wing came for her, but the impact and momentum of the wing threw her backwards, and even her grip on the sword loosened since it had bit the flesh of the dragon, gaining her a screech of pain from it again.

Damien on the other hand had received the full hit of the wing and was hurtled far way, crashing into trees as he did, he got stunned and dazed at that point and couldn’t get up straight away.

Ryoka got up though and ran to the underbelly of the dragon once again, this time she saw her knife -the one she had thrown on sighting the dragon for the first time- still stuck underneath it.

Before she could make for it though the made as if to sit, which would totally crush and flatten her should it do so, so she rolled away quickly before she became pulp.

She tried heading for Damien to check on him, but then the dragon whirled and it’s tail blocked her path, she moved back quickly as well so the tail won’t hit her, now she was weaponless and without a plan.

The dragon seemed to lose sight of her though and headed instead for Damien, it was now or never, she thought to herself and reached within her to touch her core, her dragon, then she ran towards the dragon and grabbed it by tail, the dragon only had the chance to notice it was being touched somewhere before it got whisked and flung sideways.

The dragon crashed into trees as it rolled about and over from the swing, Ryoka breathed hard and glanced at her scaled hands, the scales looked dark red though, she hadn’t actually thought that she could get that much strength from adding her dragon features to her human form repair, although Damien had warned her not to overdo it, lest she damages herself to the point of no repair.

Ryoka started to realize something as the second bronze-back dragon descended upon seeing what she had just done to its partner, she suddenly started to realize that there were three dragons and not two, one must be an original or a special generation for it to have been able to gas them up.

There was no time for Ryoka to duel upon this for long though because the other dragon now faced her and the first was about getting up, she glanced to where Damien was and saw that he was up and looking ok, she made a sign to him which his eyes widened as he understood what it meant.

Then she drew back her dragon arms, the scales disappeared as if dissolving back into her body then with both hands she formed the seal her father had formed before turning into a dragon in her presence.

Damien upon seeing this, obeyed her initial sign to him and took off running away from the place, at the same time, Ryoka took in a very deep breath, touched her core and then blew out fire.

What came out of her mouth was an Inferno, it wasn’t like the little streams she had been making all these while during training, it wasn’t even like the one she blew out when she sneezed at dinner, no, this was a blazing rage of fire that headed for the bronze-back dragon.

Ryoka turned to the other rising dragon and breathed out more fire as well, hurtling it like a comet at the bronze-back who was only just getting it’s footing.

Both dragons screamed and screeched as they were set on fire, they must have not expected at all because their shock about it was apparent in their screams and screeches.

Then they flew up and away, seeing that as the only option for them now as the flight would blow out the flames on them and they would be at less risk of being burnt some more.

Ryoka got up from her knees as she had fell from exhaustion after breathing the fire.

‘Now, for the gas breather’ she thought to herself as she walked through the burning trees all around her.