"You've just killed everyone here..." Ave warned as he collapsed on the ground. There was a brief silence as no one was quite sure what to do. Heavy breaths escaped through Bounty's teeth, as the high of anger was slowly dwindling.
"...What the fuck did you just do!?" Reggie yelled as he grabbed Bounty's rifle and pointing it to the ground.
"What do you mean 'what did I do'? I shot him!"
"Why? The was no reason to just shoot him!"
"He was pissing me off!"
"That not a reason--"
"Boys! Knock it off and look!" Vanity yelled out to them pointing to the field.
Ave's body convulsed on the ground; the rapid sound of shifting flesh and snapping bone radiated through the field.
"Guys... What did he mean by we're all going to be killed?" Gala worryingly added.
"I hope to not find out..." Mordeki replied, still struggling with his recovery.
"Everyone ready yourselves! We may be in for a fight, and I don't want any more of this team dying on my watch!" Ag commanded.
"As if this could be considered dying!" Dian joined in while drawing her blades.
Weapons drawn and runes at the ready, the party circled around Ave. They looked at each other with weary gazes his the bleeding lizard continued to shutter and shift.
They watched in horror as he slowly grew in size nearly sevenfold, his claws extending like scythes, his frills shaping into a bed of quills, his scales hardened and greyed, and several eyes erupting around his head and shoulders.
"Anyone care to explain what the fuck we're dealing with?!" Reggie shouted with a wavering voice. With his trident still at the ready, he took a few cautious steps back.
"I'd say demonic possession, but this is much too quick of a transformation!" Vanity replied while she focused on a massive grey rune at her hooves.
Just then Ave had risen to his full height towering above them, and let out a gutteral roar that echoed around the palace, shattering windows and inducing fear in those who could hear it.
"Hold fast everyone! If we work to--" Ag stopped as he had to dodge out of the way of Ave taking a downward swipe at him. His palm forming a small crater, and his claws digging through the dirt as easy as scissors through paper.
"Dian, you fight monsters! How do we deal with him?" Gala asked in a hurry.
"Sorry Birdie, but 'giant lizard' isn't in my job description! All I know..." Dian replied as she ran forward getting a sweeping strike against Ave's Achilles tendon, staggering him. "...is size doesn't matter!"
Dian took a readied stance again with a cocky smile the quickly shifted to one of frustration as she watched the leg wound heal in a matter of seconds. "He's got regeneration! Ag, Yoona, hit him with fire!"
Ave slowly turned his attention to Dian, but was quickly hit by a volley of flaming arrows and dragon spit. Though neither seemed to effect him. His attention was once again diverted towards the dragonkin. Both quickly took evasive maneuvers.
"Nice plan, but it didn't do shit!" Bounty called out snidely.
"I don't see you coming up with any ideas!"
"I got one right here!" Bounty racked the bolt of his rifle and fired on Ave once again. The blue streak of a lightning infused bullet put a clean hole through Ave's shoulder. It once again diverted his attention, and once again the wound seemed to heal without fail.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Shooting him was what got us into this mess!" Dian yelled back.
"And shooting things is how I get out of them!"
While the two bickered, Reggie was putting a keen eye on their adversary. "Guys! He seems more simple minded; he's focusing on who attacked him last! That means -- Bounty, watch it!" Reggie tried to warn him but it didn't seem to get through.
Ave was down on all fours with the quills on his back bending forward, pointed straight at the arguing cat. With a full flinch of his body the quills shot out in a volley. Bounty finally noticed the impending danger, but much to late. A split second before impact, a feathery blur intercepted the volley.
Ting-Ting-Ting!
The quills bounced and ricocheted off of Gala who saved Bounty last second. Her feathers glinting with a metallic sheen, as if her own body was a suit of armor.
"Oh shit... Thanks Ga --"
"You can thank me after we kick some giant lizard ass!" She said finishing with a pained smile.
"Now someone's speaking my language!" Bounty loaded a slug into his rifle and took aim for another shot. Gala stood ready to act as a living shield.
"Gala, you were just past out a minute ago; are you sure you can fight?" Dian called out, a subtle worry in her voice.
"I used up a lot of mental energy with Mordeki, but I still got mana to spare. I can take it, trust me."
The party continued to trade blows with the monstrous Ave, but nothing was lasting as he regenerated from anything they hit him with. Even Mordeki was slinging every bit of mana he could get back during the fight. All while Vanity quietly focused on a single rune she's been slowly constructing in the back since the fight began.
An exhausted Reggie, scraped and bruised slid in by her side from taking a massive back handed slap. "Not to sound -- ungrateful -- but we could use some help out there V."
"Another minute of focus and I will be." Vanity replied through some strain.
"The hells are you casting anyways that takes so long?"
"I'm summoning my armor from my home."
"Your -- You mean from your world?!"
"Yes. I've done some testing and I can grab certain items that I'm familiar with, but it takes a lot of focus depending on it's size."
"Then why are you doing it in the middle of a fight!?"
"I didn't think about it until now..."
Reggie had a stunned expression from the demon queen's sudden humility. "Okay, that's fair."
On the other side of the battlefield, Ag started luring Ave away from the center. Even though they had a poor disposition of Lily, she was still lying down in the middle of the field, and one stray step could lead to her getting crushed under Ave's toes.
"Come on big guy! Follow the shiny dragon!" Ag taunted waving his swords around. Yoona prepared a rune while Dian set up her own blood rune. On the other side Bounty readied a shot with Gala ready for interception.
As soon as there was a sizable gap Ag gave the signal. Their small rescue operation was away. Dian's rune activated causing her body to take on more feline features. She got down on all four, her nails digging into the dirt. Where then Yoona casted a speed spell over Dian. From her eyes, the world slowed down around her.
She pounced forward quick as lightning rushing between Ave's legs and straight for the child. "Gotcha!" With Lily in her arms, Dian ran for cover with Ave focused in on her. Even with her boost of speed and reaction time, Ave still had a surprising speed to him.
Dian could feel a full slash of claws coming for her but didn't dare to look back. Until she heard a loud CLANG, where a full-metal Gala took the brunt of the attack flinging her across the field. Before he took another swipe, a bang followed by blue lightning pierced one of his eyes.
Dian got Lily away from the field and ran over the the smoking skid mark Gala carved through the ground. "Shit -- Gala! Are you okay?"
She lazily waved her talons. "Armor took most of the impact, but I think my whole body is bruised."
"Assuming we survive this... I take it nothing to extreme tonight?"
Gala looked up with a half confused half pained expression. "... You're thinking about this now!?"
Dian looked down with shameless, irritated look. "What? I'm allowed to be horny too. Dangerous stuff turns me on."
Gala rested her head on the ground. "...Noted..."
Meanwhile the party kept up their routine of changing aggro while they came up with some plan, but mana drain and exhaustion was setting in, and Ave showed no sign of stopping.
Just then Vanity finally summoned her suit. The grey rune shattered with an intense burst of magic as plates of metal seemed to form out of thin air, and clamp themselves around Vanity's body. A sleek yet hardy design of sigil decorated, shining, gold-silver colored metal.
"Let me show you boys how a real queen defends her country!" She shouted with a running start. The sigils burned with arcane energy; powering her movement. She clenched her fists, reeling one back for a punch. In the fluid motion, the sigils lining her gauntlets lit up with a green flash as her fist impacted Ave's knee; blasting a solid chuck of stone through flesh and bone.
Ave fell to his knee with a roaring scream. He reached down and started pulling at the chunk of stone to pull it free and give him his movement back. Just at Vanity moved to put another stone in Ave, the sigils on her armor faded, causing her to immediately slow and her punch to do nothing but slightly inconvenience him.
"Damn it all!" She cried. Unable to move an inch.
"Vanity, move!" Ag warned. Ave had just removed the chunk and was focusing on Vanity.
"I can't! Too much mana has be siphoned from the air! The suit won't budge!" Just then she got launched across the field, but not by Ave.
"I gotcha!" Their familiar and flamboyant panther had joined the fray catching Vanity in his arms. "How you doing, V?"
"I can't... um... move." She replied, slightly flustered under her armor. Whistle channeled a bit of mana into her suit getting it back into operation.
"Whistle, where the hells have you been?" Dian called out to him.
"Helping Julia and Zackaria evacuate the palace. We're free to let loose if we have to."
"I think letting loose at this point is suicide."
"I agree with Dian." Ag joined in. "We can barely put a dent in him, and anytime we do he recovers from it quickly."
"If only we could knock him out. Buy us some time." Vanity chimed in. Whistle thought on this for a moment.
"Bounty, keep him distracted! Reggie, keep Bounty alive!" Whistle ordered.
"Why?!" The two shouted together.
"Just do it! Everyone else on me! I got a plan."