Alright people, new chapter is out. Just a warning, I'm releasing this one earlier, so chapter 10 will only come out late at night on pat_reon. I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
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Outwardly Anakin stood unnaturally still but the Force seemed to roar around him, causing the street to crack and the lamp post to twist, releasing a screaming noise as the crystals contorted inside the structure of the metal.
On the other side of the street, having finished off his previous enemy, the flaming dragon drew to his full height, the silvery scales gleaming as they reflected the light of the fires around him.
For the average Force user, controlling the Force in any outward activity was always a challenging feat. Simple Force pushes were uncomplicated, if still strenuous, but any display of either skill or raw power took a toll on the wielder —both mental and physical— making the use of the lightsaber, while necessitating proximity, a much more efficient option most of the time.
For Anakin, efficiency had rarely been a concern. His mastery of the Force was so great that even the usual gestures were unnecessary, although it did make things easier in the middle of a fight. With a crack, two lamp posts were ripped out of the ground. One at each side of his body, they floated in the air for a single second before slowly tilting down to point towards the beast.
Still, he felt the need to be diplomatic, or at least attempt to start with words. Given the amount of anger he was feeling from the parahuman, he was fairly certain it would be fruitless, but he knew that not trying would be to backtrack.
"Lung, if you surrender I will be merciful. Do not make me destroy you," Anakin said graciously and with all sincerity.
Lung barked what could have been a laugh before rearing back, the fires around him swelling in size and gathering into an inferno above his head, the flames turning white as their heat increased. Staring at Anakin with two burning orbs for eyes, the dragon opened his mouth, the words distorted, only the Force allowing him to understand their meaning. "This city has forgotten fear; enemies old and new disregard what I am capable of. It is time I remind them. DIE!"
The fire surged towards him like a wave. The flames licked the asphalt, releasing a dark cloud of smoke. A display clearly meant more to impress and intimidate than an effective attack.
Almost as fast as a speeder bike, the poles were launched one after another at the creature, the fire briefly pushed back by the displaced air where the metal projectiles flew. Lung was fast enough to bat aside the first one, the impact causing him to stumble back before the second smashed through his left thigh, almost pinning him to the ground and disrupting his fire control.
With a roar, Lung fell to his knees, but he just grabbed the metal with both hands, increasing the flames around himself and causing it to melt out of his regenerating wounds. With a growl, he sent a fireball at Anakin.
Anakin finally moved: lifting his hand, he blasted the fireball with a powerful Force Push, causing the fire to explode on impact and showering the street with tongues of flame.
For a brief moment, Anakin felt a hint of fear at the inferno around him; without his armor, he was more exposed to fire than he had been in decades. But after so long living in Mustafar surrounded by literal lava, all it did was bring back a few nearly forgotten memories. Still, as he was, it only served to feed his anger, old rage barely contained under his skin.
"That was unwise," he said in an emotionless voice as he looked around. Stepping forward, his boots smothered one of the flames as he let those memories fuel his power, drawing strength from the emotions. "You speak of fear? Let me teach you."
With only an enemy in front of him, one he absolutely despised, Anakin couldn't help falling back on old habits, his mindset as Darth Vader overcoming his new resolutions. Curling his left hand fingers into a claw, he choked the air out of the dragon, causing Lung to abort the newest flaming spear he was creating, the fire falling down on his form as he grasped for breath.
Suddenly, immersed as he was in the flow of the fight, Anakin's Battle Precognition screamed at him. With one swift motion, he pulled the lightsaber from his waist with the Force and slashed back, cutting through the body of a short man with a demonic mask that had been about to stab the back of his head.
Anakin felt only a hint of surprise when the man didn't fall but disintegrated into a cloud of white ash. With reflexes he hadn't had in years, he ducked under a knife blow, his lightsaber turning into a blur as he slashed through four more clones, leaving piles of ash behind, all the while keeping the dragon contained in a Force choke.
A metal sound clattered at his feet and a scream of danger in the Force caused him to widen his eyes. In reaction, he dropped the Force Choke and turned towards the primed detonator.
Pointing with his now free hand, he enveloped the explosive in a field of Force Stasis, watching as the fragments actually disintegrated, the explosion spreading in slow motion, consuming the street in a wide radius around and turning it into sand. Empowering his legs, he leaped away towards a nearby building.
No longer choking, Lung charged him, his claws leaving burning gouges in the street. The parahuman's wings were almost completely grown and the fire enveloped his entire body, making him look even larger.
Another two detonators flew at Anakin while he was in the air, one from each side. Using the Force, he grabbed them and flung the weapons at the charging dragon.
Lung tried to halt his run and dodge, but one grenade exploded against his blocking arm, turning the entire limb into sand while the other hit the floor ahead of him, creating a pit and consuming part of his foot. With a roar of pain, the large creature stumbled.
Anakin almost sighed. First fire, now sand. Why did it have to be sand?
With another scream of rage, Lung used his two intact limbs to adjust his position, the fire around him turning blue from the heat and the sand under his leg becoming glass… That's better.
Kicking against a nearby wall, Anakin lunged against the fallen beast, lightsaber aimed at his neck. Lung twisted aside; letting the blade cut deeply through his shoulder, he traded the hit for a slash at Anakin's head with a claw.
Lung was fast, his reflexes faster than all but the greatest Force users Anakin had ever fought. Worse, the heat radiating from his flames was intense enough to kill a normal man. Anakin needed to maintain constant control over the Force, enhancing his physical condition and keeping the heat from overwhelming his lungs.
Dodging between claw strikes and bites, he cut off fingers and even the dragon's entire hand, but they regrew in record time, any wound closing in seconds as the creature grew larger, to the point that a lightsaber could no longer cut all the way through the center of his body.
Calming his breathing, Anakin fully concentrated in the Force, letting the precise and aggressive movements of Djem-so guide his steps as he read the flow of battle with unmatched mastery. His heartbeat slowed down, and his mind focused.
His heart beat once.
A claw strike aims for his head. Swing upward to cut the incoming claw. Turn the slash into a thrust aimed at the head. Force the beast to lean back and abort a kick that would have hit his chest.
A second heartbeat.
Cleave through an Oni Lee clone attempting to grab him from the back. Retreat as Lung attempts to smash with both arms since Anakin couldn't cut them off in time.
A third heartbeat.
Lung extends his neck, attempting to bite down on his head: a mistake. Step aside, use precise footwork to adjust position. Slash upward, lightsaber cutting through half of the serpentine neck. Follow through with a downwards—
Danger!
Anakin could have finished the fight there by following up on the blow and fully cutting off Lung's head. The dragon had stepped back, trying to keep away until his neck finished regenerating, but the ex-Jedi was fast enough to keep up.
Unfortunately, such a move would cost him more than he was willing to give. Less than a second later, Oni Lee acted again; the assassin had learned not to risk getting too close, but he created several clones around the former Sith Lord.
Instead of attacking with their knives or throwing the detonators, the duplicates pulled the pins on the grenades and tackled him. Slashing with the lightsaber, he cut several of the clones down, creating a cloud of ash, but there were too many.
Gathering the Force around himself for a second, Anakin exploded with power, Force Repulse creating a visible shockwave that disintegrated the bodies around him before their bombs could go off.
Those Force-cursed clones were starting to irritate him.
Twisting around, Lung attempted to swipe his leg with a flaming thagomizer while keeping his re-growing neck away from the blade.
On instinct, Anakin backflipped over an abandoned car, the vehicle's windows broken and its frame twisted by the heat and violence in the street. Falling on the other side, he extended a hand palm up before squeezing it into a fist, lifting the entire vehicle into the air and crushing it into a compact ball before using Force Push to send the result flying at the dragon.
1.5 tons of metal, plastic and glass hit the parahuman's back at 40 km/h, breaking both of his wings and smashing him several steps back. Turning towards where he sensed the teleporter, Anakin saw him above one of the burning buildings, waiting for an opening.
Acting in anger, he used the Force to lift the man by the neck, channeling his rage to smash through any resistance of the Force and crush his throat. Unfortunately, before he fell back to the building, the body dissolved into ash.
Staring at his extended hand, Anakin closed his eyes for a moment and took a slow breath, re-centering himself. He did not mind drawing power from his emotions, from the Dark Side —in fact, he was convinced it was necessary for balance— but that last attack had been done in haste, without control.
Opening his eyes again, he dodged another knife slash, letting it pass not even a centimeter from his face, the parahuman's clones swarming at him with knives and bombs.
Separating the original from the clones was difficult, but Anakin found his imprint in the Force, slashing through the clones with ease as he reacted faster and faster.
There was almost no delay between the creation of the clones, no outward sign of strain or gathering of power, but Anakin noticed the teleportation was restricted to line of sight. Making use of this information to draw closer and closer to cutting down the original before he could teleport away, he was only delayed by the Force warning him about which ones had bombs about to explode. Unfortunately, Lung had finished regenerating.
"KILL YOU!" the now 21-foot-tall dragon screamed, his anger having only grown from the pain. Lung's wings were fully spread at his back, two small nubs starting to grow from the side of his chest, a new set of arms. Drawing his remaining fully formed arm back, the parahuman lifted the crushed car in the air and threw it even faster than Anakin had managed. "INSECT!"
The projectile smashed through a few Oni Lee clones, but Anakin just waved his lightsaber, cutting it in half and using a flick of the Force to part both sides around his body, clearing some space around himself.
Fighting both enemies at once just wasn't working. Neither would last more than moments in a single fight but, together, Anakin just couldn't fully concentrate to deal or capitalize on a decisive blow before the other one interfered.
Even Anakin had trouble using the Force for more than one overt manifestation at a time. He was capable of doing it, but it was extremely taxing and took more concentration than he could spare in the middle of a fast battle, especially as he needed to keep his battle precognition active.
Having brought enough time for his master to recover, Oni Lee teleported back while Anakin wasn't looking, moving away from his reach in an instant.
Sensing the heat starting to gather at his location, the former Sith Lord enhanced his body again, charging at Lung with Force Speed and letting the pyrokinetic explosion destroy the place he had just been standing, blue flames lifting towards the sky in a pillar.
Rushing at Lung, Anakin dodged another pillar of fire before using a Force Push to blow out the fire covering the dragon and sidestep another claw swipe. Lightsaber flashing up, the dragon's arm was opened from wrist to elbow, drawing another roar of rage and pain before Anakin slid between his legs, slashing through his pelvis and deep into his belly, meeting barely any resistance from the scales, flesh and bones.
Unable to control his legs, Lung fell on his arms, his entire body reigniting in blue flames and forcing Anakin to leap away. Sensing Oni Lee's teleportation at his back, Anakin twisted to see his body just arriving, a grenade in his hand as he attempted to suicide bomb him again.
With an effort of will, Anakin used the Force to pull every pin on the grenades held in the assassin's bandoleer without any gestures, followed rapidly by a lightsaber blow to bisect the man. The body dissolved into ash, but a few seconds later, he heard the explosion above one of the buildings.
Anakin didn't sense death, so the assassin must have been able to get rid of the belt in time, but without the grenades, he was relegated to melee attacks or perhaps projectile weapons; either would be much easier to deal with.
A scream of the Force made him jump away, but Lung's tail still caught him with a glancing blow. His rate of regeneration had far surpassed what Anakin had seen before, taking only a couple of seconds to heal a wound that would have taken half a minute at the start of the fight.
The impact sent him flying several meters through the air. Enhancing his muscles, he twisted midair to fall on his feet, his boots sliding nearly another meter. The blow had cracked a rib, the tail leaving a huge gash on his chest where the skin burned despite the brief contact, a few flames still clinging to the remains of his robe.
He was wounded. Someone so… weak had actually wounded him. It was downright insulting.
Using the pain, anger and outrage to fuel his power, Anakin turned off his lightsaber and motioned with both hands, smashing the giant dragon with a Force Push of such power he broke most of the bones in the beast's body and sent him flying all the way through a building, leaving a gaping hole in its side.
Pointing at the top of the same building, Anakin used the Force to collapse the remains on top of the dragon, crushing him to the ground and finally buying himself enough time to deal with the teleporter.
Putting a hand over his chest, Anakin channeled Force healing into the wound, struggling to even use the power after using so much of the Dark Side. He wouldn't be able to completely heal the cracked rib in anything less than a day even if he was in top condition, but he diminished the pain and dealt with the superficial burns.
Straightening his back, Anakin looked around, using the Force to sense Oni Lee's location. "Your surprise betrays you," he said, turning to look at the window from where the assassin was watching him. "You do not have any weapons capable of threatening me. Surrender or flee, and I will be lenient."
As the entire street burned, the fire spreading to the nearby buildings and a dense cloud of smoke covering the night sky, Anakin waited for a reaction. In the distance, he heard the sound of sirens, but they wouldn't come closer while there was still a battle. Finally, he sensed the answer before the assassin acted. Oni Lee was loyal; he could respect that.
With a thrum of power, his lightsaber reignited, his cape flapping back in response as the red light drove back the shadows from around him. "Very well. I will not be as forgiving a second time."
With a flick of the wrist, he ripped a large piece of the sidewalk, smashing it at the window almost as fast as a bullet. Oni Lee teleported to the other side of the street, leaving a clone midair as he repositioned himself before attempting to attack Anakin from the back with a wave of clones.
Submerged in the Force as he was, he felt the instant the assassin manifested with any aggressive intent. Twisting around and slashing at the parahuman with one hand, he pointed the other along the teleporter's line of sight and released a stream of lightning.
HisForce Lightning was nowhere nearly as powerful as his master's, or even that of his former apprentice; Sidious and Marek could each disintegrate a sentient entirely. No, his lightning could not match that… yet it was more than sufficient to lock Oni Lee's muscles in place, melt his mask to his face, and, after a few seconds, explode his heart in his chest.
Still crackling with energy, Anakin lowered his hand and patted his clothes, once. In the distance, he heard a motorcycle approaching, the sound still very muffled, but growing louder as it approached.
From under the rubble, Lung exploded out, blue flames spreading like a wave of lava to cover the entire area around him. With a beat of his extremely large, bat-like wings, he lifted into the air, a second, smaller pair starting to grow just below the first one at his lower back.
Lung looked around, finally seeing the smoking corpse of his follower. His feline face turned into a snarl as he roared. Angry beyond words, the dragon pulled his head back, releasing a stream of fire that covered the entire street, the flames hitting with such physical force they blew several walls away and spread through the alleyways.
For a full minute, Lung bathed the streets in fire, the heat distorting the air and burning down brick and asphalt alike, raising a giant cloud of pitch back smoke above the buildings. Finally, he stopped, hovering in the air above the inferno, his wings flapping slowly.
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From a side street, Velocity slid to a stop, his body falling out of his Breaker state as he stared up at the enormous beast without any idea of what to do. The hero could run fast, but he could do less than nothing to what he was observing.
With Armsmaster still busy at Bakuda's hideout and Miss Militia's bike yet to arrive… "Well, fuck me." Velocity wondered if Miss Militia could even do anything; having been in the Army, he knew there were some experimental handheld nuclear devices…
Suddenly, Lung turned towards him, the dragon's improved hearing catching his words. Velocity swallowed hard, ready to bolt as the leader of the ABB was probably considering just slaughtering him. Having already started a terrorist run with tinkertech bombs, there wasn't much Lung was unwilling to do.
From the smoke, a red blade of light flew, twisting through the air so fast it looked like a disk. Lung twisted his serpentine neck aside, the blade only scratching his scales before cutting into one of his larger wings and amputating it.
With only three wings, the Parahuman attempted to keep himself aloft, but his lower wing was too small and the wingbeat only caused him to fall sideways on top of an empty burning house, the entire thing collapsing under his considerable weight. Recovering fast, he used all his limbs to twist himself, releasing another jet of flame into the smoke.
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Inside the dense cloud of smoke, Anakin blocked the new spear of fire with another Force Shield, leaving a round area of asphalt perfectly intact around him. Fully empowered with the Force, he strode forward while using the Force Shield to push fire and smoke away from him, breaking out of the cloud with sure steps.
"You are beaten. Without Oni Lee to distract me, you are no match for me."
Lung snorted, starting to gather four spears of fire above his head, his clawed hands digging into the asphalt as if it were dirt as his fail flicked from side to side behind him.
Before he could attack again, Anakin lifted an arm, sending a stream of Force Lightning into the enormous body; at his strength, it wasn't enough to actually cause real damage to such a large creature, but the pain disrupted his concentration, stopping Lung's pyrokinesis.
Gritting his knife-like fangs, Lung released a growl and charged. Anakin simply increased his power, allowing himself to channel more of his rage into the stream, actually forcing Lung's head up, the electricity crackling loudly around the dragon's body and preventing him from hearing the lightsaber flying back.
The blade cut almost entirely through his neck and severed his spine before falling on Anakin's extended hand. Cutting off his Force Lightning, Anakin used Force Pull to rip the head the rest of the way through, causing the body to collapse bonelessly into the ground.
Almost the size of a grown human by itself, Lung's head was still alive, his nose flaring as his power attempted to regenerate, slowly reverting into a normal human body. "Impressive. I believe you could actually survive decapitation."
Snapping out of his daze, Velocity saw Anakin walking closer to the fallen gang leader and, realizing his intention, yelled. "Stop! You don't need to do this; he's out of the fight, let me arrest him!" Behind him, the hero heard Miss Militia sliding to a stop on her bike.
Anakin considered the newly arrived heroes. Both the Force and common sense told him Lung would actually be taken seriously this time, his rampage and bombing campaign having caused too much damage for him to be allowed to escape… unfortunately, Anakin wanted him dead. "No."
Inverting the grip on his lightsaber, he crossed the last meters and stood above the almost entirely human form of the gang leader.
"Anakin, stop! You don't want to do this!" Miss Militia yelled, aiming a large rifle at him with both hands. "Everything until now can be argued as self defense, but this will be murder!"
"Yes." With a quick hand movement, he thrust the lightsaber through Lung's head, finishing off the gang leader without even leaning down.
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