1.16 Devil Part 5

The scaly monster grabs Gears from behind with its claws as the dragon dives down on him and Bolt.

Gears tries to break free of the dragon’s grip, but the monster’s hold on him is too strong. Even his KEPs at full blast lack the force necessary to overpower the dragon.

Bolt blasts the dragon, but his powers aren’t strong enough to overcome armoured hide of the dragon. The dragon responds by swiping at Bolt with its tail, the razor sharp barbs tearing into Bolt’s chest.

Heck! Is he okay?

Can’t tell.                 

Gears doesn’t see Bolt’s fate as the tumbling superhero is blocked from his view as the dragon swoops down.

Is that a building?

It is a building.

Swooping down lower, the dragon goes down far enough that Gears is smashed into a building. He averts his eyes as he smashes through the wall at high speed and crashes through the furniture, items and walls inside the building whilst still being held by the dragon.

Stupid beast! This is just annoying, not harmful.

As he comes out the other side of the building, the dragon lobs the disoriented Gears at the ground.

Gears tries to shield himself with his arms as he spots up and coming ground. He plows into the street, tearing up the road and pavement in addition to losing his grip on his halberd. He comes to a halt face down and grunts in irritation

Freaking dragon! I am so taking it down.

That’s the spirit! Give him what for!

As Gears starts to get up, a massive claw slams into him, tearing across his back. The blow knocks him to the side so he lands face up. Gears snarls as damage alerts pop up on his HUD in addition to a warning message.

Just great. Most of the outer armour on my back just got torn up in addition to losing most of the KEPs on that section of the armour. Which has the extra result of losing my ability to fly effectively.

You still got enough KEPs to manoeuvre on the ground and air in addition to the KEPs on your boots if you really need to fly.

I still lost a major function of my armour and we haven’t even reached Apocalypse yet!

Gears rolls to the side as the dragon strikes again. The claws rip into ground where Gears just was as the vigilante scrambles to his feet.

I’m not going to go down without a fight.

As Gears begins to summon his halberd to him, he is bathed in a blast of fiery flames. He yowls in pain as his left arm flares up in pain again and a multitude of damage alerts flash up on his HUD.

Aarrgh!

Stay in there!

Unable to summon his halberd through the pain, Gears drops to his knees. Through the burning pain, Gears glances at the message briefly. The outer armour plating is being superheated, causing the Gardium to become brittle and his eye pieces to being to crack. Even his heatsinks are being overwhelmed.

While strong, lightweight and flexible, Gardium is set in its current form once it has settled, unable to be moulded or changed. And while extremely resistant to heat and cold, at certain temperatures, Gardium becomes brittle. At that point, it can’t be conventionally fixed and needs to be replaced even if it retains some of its effectiveness.

Gritting his teeth, Gears mentally fights this way past the pain with the aid of his companions and focuses on summoning on his halberd.

I really-ugh-got to think of a name for it.

Reinkal?

Why not?

The flames stop as Gears finally summons Reinkal. He looks ahead, ready to fight the dragon, only to see a wall of solid ice between him and the dragon. Out of the corner of his eye, Gears spots Draugr standing off to the side with ice spires and shards around her as she fends off a pack of cat beasts.

I owe her one.

She did just save our lives.

Gears takes a moment to look at the dragon. The monster is roughly twenty metres long according to his HUD with motley black and grey scales and leathery wings. It looks like your average western fantasy dragon with its massive horns and long spikes running down its spine and tail.

As the dragon slams into the wall of ice, denting and cracking it, but not quite breaking it entirely, Beowulf leaps at the dragon from the rear with a wild battle cry and both of his swords in his hands.

The Norwegian vigilante stabs his swords into scaly hide of the dragon, but only one pierces the armoured scales as the other glances away. Holding on firmly to the sword lodged into the dragon’s back, Beowulf slashes with his second sword.

But the blade just scrapes off of the scales.

Those scales must have B class, possibly A Class toughness.

Reinkal can do the job.

Ready to slay a dragon?

As ready as I’ll ever be.

As the dragon turns its attention to Beowulf, Gears leaps forward, using his KEPs to boost onto the ice. Glaring at Beowulf, the dragon jerks its wing towards the hero. Beowulf yelps in pain as a razor sharp barb on the wing pierces his shoulder.

As Gears dashes across the top of ice. The dragon stretches its wing out again, yanking Beowulf off of its back and tossing him away. To Gears’ horror, the dragon unleashes a fireball at Beowulf as the vigilante flies through the air.