The blue-scaled dragon roared as it released several beams of orange light into the air, waving around as the dragon thrashed its head around.
Bellona and Michael had started to deal damage to the underbelly of the beast with Torm, Pyralis, and Teacher Brutus close behind.
Teacher Brutus landed a solid strike with his fist against the throat of the dragon, then backed off. After landing their attacks, so did the rest of the gang.
Teacher Brutus then yelled over the sounds of the whooshing wind and the roaring dragon.
"Hey Bellona, how are you holding up!?"
Bellona yelled back in an equal tone.
"I'm doing fine!"
Teacher Brutus smiled and nodded his head before taking a few steps backward and picking up the severed dragon tail.
He looked up at the recovering dragon and roared like a forty-year-old man's impression of a lion before leaping far into the air and releasing a whip-like attack with the tail of the dragon.
The tail itself had a tip, and the tip of the dragon's tail was shaped in the form of a mace. The mace part of the tail smashed against the skull of the dragon, and Bellona saw a few dragon scales fly away.
Upon the attack landing, the dragon roared once again. This time, however, the winds started to pick up and feel warmer than earlier.
The warm winds gently carried the scattered scales down and onto a pile of charred corpses. Bellona didn't need too much more evidence to theorize that they were the burned remains of several blood fiends.
'I'll pick those up later and mail them to Lucas and Audrey.'
Bellona then avoided sputtering flames by lunging to the side and out of the way of the flames. After avoiding the flames, Bellona leaped forward and activated Ruination, striking with precise calculations on specific weak points in the dragon's limbs.
Bellona struck the elbows, behind the knees, and some scales that were easily accessible by the other students.
All the while, she narrowly avoided swipes from the dragon's claws and flames. Teacher Brutus did his best to maintain the dragon's wrath, but the mythical beast seemed to bear some sort of intelligence.
And it was that very intelligence that saw Bellona Finley as a true threat.
After a dance of unknown time between a human and dragon, Bellona activated Ruination once more but quickly deactivated the disastrous ability in fear of overspending again.
The black flames of ruination burned away some scales, revealing soft flesh underneath, and the dragon's joints became weak.
Bellona leaped out of the way of a beam of pure head and wiped the sweat from her brow.
'It'd be embarrassing if I got scolded twice in a row for the same thing, and even more so if it were for something so silly.'
Bellona saw that fewer students were required to restrain the dragon, with more and more of them joining the never-ending assault.
Torm and Michael joined the left flank of the dragon, delivering debilitating blows to the limbs of the dragon while Jude and Pyralis joined the other side. That left Bellona and Teacher Brutus in front of the dragon and thus forced to take the brunt of the attacks.
Luckily, the brunt of the attacks was a sporadic release of flames now and again. Bellona found it slightly strange how easily all of the students were acting as one, they had never met before this but worked together like the parts of a machine.
But Bellona didn't have time to ponder that, avoiding another beam of flaming breath. After another all-out assault from both the students and Teacher Brutus, it roared again.
After roaring, the air grew uncomfortably hot, and the wounds from earlier started closing.
"Damn it! This guy's an adult!"
Teacher Brutus had yelled to himself in anger, he then turned to Bellona and a few other students before exclaiming:
"We have to kill this thing in the next five minutes or else he's gonna transform!"
Bellona looked at Teacher Brutus in bewilderment.
'What could a dragon possibly turn into!?'
While two students took a few steps back in fear of the dragon's sheer power, a few of the other students started to diligently deliver more and more wounds upon the azure dragon.
Torm yelled something in the flank of the dragon to a few of the students he seemed to be leading. The students holding the reins keeping the dragon from regaining flight started to run to the edge of the train car.
Bellona was high in the air, attempting to strike the weak point in the dragon's head.
'What are they doing?'
The dragon avoided Bellona with a quick jerk of its head, and Bellona fell to the ground gracelessly. She then saw that the students were tying their cords of magical origin to the rails on the sides of the train.
'Huh...'
Soon after, Bellona heard the taller student with the great axe yell something similar to Torm, and her group of students did the same. The dragon started struggling after feeling the difference in its chains but to no avail.
As it turned out, having the dragon tied to the train itself was a better idea than having a group of sixteen-year-olds trying to hold it. Even if the teenagers were magically enhanced challengers of mystical and deadly trials.
With more and more hands to help, more and more wounds appeared on the dragon, losing scales slowly, but surely as the beatdown continued.
At a certain point, Bellona almost felt a hint of pity for the dragon before remembering that the number of times she was nearly cooked was at least more than her age.
The battle would consist of Bellona and Teacher Brutus keeping the focus on the dragon while the other thirty or so students slowly built up damage on the dragon's joints and exposed flesh.
After a full minute of fighting at full speed, Bellona started to feel fatigued. It made sense to her subconsciously, seeing as how she had only rested for about five minutes before immediately getting back in the action.
Teacher Brutus landed another attack with the giant mace-tipped tail of the azure-scaled dragon, more scales flying off of the dragon's head.
The head of the dragon used to look regal and composed but was now almost rid of its scales, and bleeding from most of the orifices on its face.
Bellona activated Ruination once more, leaving Teacher Brutus to attend to the dragon's fury on his own as she dealt more damage on the sidelines. Heading down the left flank, Bellona quickly delivered several slashes that left weakening gray flames dancing within several of the fleshy wounds.
Upon closer inspection, Bellona saw that there was a potential path up the back of the dragon, and feeling daring, Bellona took that path. She jumped onto the stump where the dragon's tail was severed, no, ripped off, and took several unbalanced but quick steps up the spine of the dragon.
As she reached the neck of the divine beast, Bellona found herself being flung into the air. She easily cleared five meters before she began her descent, finding a perfect window for a maneuver, Bellona allowed the flames of Ruination to grow into the shape of a long blade.
The flames danced further and further out from the blade of her sword. At a certain point, her sword looked more like a spear of flames originating from the void.
As she began her descent, she pointed her sword downwards and aimed her fall to be into the flesh of the dragon's mouth, aiming to pierce it. With a minor amount of flailing as she fell, she landed, her sword passing through the top of the mouth and out of the bottom.
The dragon roared in pain and attempted to shake Bellona off, likely off of the train car and to her certain death. Still holding onto the handle of her flaming blade, she reactivated Ruination, thus deepening the flame's color and burning away more of the beast.
However, the flames seemed to have a negligible effect at this point. Bellona saw that her maneuver worked and planned an escape.
'Wait for it to fling me to a place that I can hold onto? Sure, why not.'
Bellona then further held onto the handle and observed the path that she would most likely take if she were to let go, waiting for the perfect moment.
After several panicked lunges, Bellona found a path that would allow her to not die. The window was short, however, and Bellona needed to be extremely precise.
At the perfect moment, she thought as she let go and got flung.
'Three two one go!'
She was then launched several meters forward and down the car towards the rest of the injured. Upon making first contact with the metal rooftop, Bellona jumped once or twice like a bouncing ball.
She was safe now.
Bellona observed the makeshift battlefield now, seeing Teacher Brutus start the final act of the battle against the fearsome dragon.
As it charged up another flame beam, flames leaked out of holes in its throat and mouth. When the dragon released the devastating attack, the holes in its throat and mouth expanded, then exploded in flames.
It screamed after its attack, and the air started to singe Bellona's hairs.
Several of the students ran into a safe area before the rest followed. Bellona saw that the rest of the students quickly followed suit, one of them even catching flames on several parts of their clothing.
Teacher Brutus was then left alone to fight a crippled, restrained dragon without its main form of attacking.
The group of students gathered around the injured while Hilia continually checked up on the resting.
Bellona was slightly tired, but nothing too much for her to handle.
Pyralis walked up to Bellona and began complimenting her performance.
"Hey... Bell? mind if I call you that?"
Bellona looked up and replied with a slight glare.
"Just call me Bellona."
Pyralis's cheeks turned a shade redder, which was a surprising observation that Bellona found. Most of the skin revealed by his worn outfit was rosier due to the heat emanating from the dragon's body.
"But what's up?"
Pyralis had been looking slightly down, but quickly looked back towards Bellona and got whatever he needed off of his chest.
"You're damn good at fighting, where'd you learn how to do stuff like that? Were you a hunter?"
Bellona's expression slowly twisted to one of rumination. After a moment deep in thought, she said plainly:
"Hunter? Like in hunting animals?"
Pyralis looked dumbstruck, he coughed into a closed fist.
"A hunter as in... hunting creatures... not hunting animals."
The two were continuously striking confusion in one another.
"Oh, no. I picked up a few things from a few years down below."
Pyralis turned to his brother, who had appeared behind him at some point. He chuckled and pointed a thumb at Bellona.
"Hey Mikey, you hear that? She said she's spent a few years down there."
Michael scanned Bellona for a moment, his eyes gleaning any information he was looking for. He then replied to his brother.
"Yeah, looks about right, she has the marks."
Bellona examined her exposed arms, her sleeves long burnt off. There wasn't anything extraordinarily wrong with them outside of slight burns. Now that she was looking at them, she became aware of the condition that the rest of her clothing was in.
Her shoes were worse for wear, her jeans were burnt up to her mid-shin. Small holes from the embers burnt small holes into the rest of her clothing, and her sweater was tattered, revealing her shirt.
'Well, these aren't gonna be good for much longer. I should patch them up.'
She then looked up at Michael and asked a question.
"What marks?"
Michael looked at Pyralis, then Bellona, and sighed.
"If you've inhaled the toxins from the ground layer, then your body gets thinner and your skin gets black dots."
Bellona looked at the birthmarks that she had gotten from her mom and replied in a defensive tone.
"These are birthmarks though."
Michael's expression hinted at pity.
"A few of them probably are, but most of them are likely from your time on the ground floor."
Bellona suddenly wanted nothing more than to cover her arms and wear a pair of gloves. Hell, it wouldn't be too far as to say she'd like a face mask and hat as well.
'Well, that's nice to hear...'
Teacher Brutus then spoke up behind the Erikson brothers.
"Alright, everyone! The dragon has been dealt with, and Brother Bradley is currently elsewhere, the disaster is now over! You all can head down into the car, I'll lead the way."
All of the students turned to face him and saw that he punched a hole into the ground.
As he did, the sound of rapid winds and crumpling metal weren't the only sounds heard.
A gigantic roar, and the sound of a church organ accompanied by electric guitar.