Chương 42: Dragon Disposed

The redirected fire from Circus burns my calves as I roll out of the way, accidentally plunging a foot into molten asphalt as I hurriedly evade two more knives from my opponent.

"God damn it!" a growl slips from my lips as my foot heals while encased in the rapidly cooling material. The glance I send at Glory Girl leaves me concerned, as she abandons the molten lampost, Lung proceeding to wildly swing it at her while she zips through the air to dodge it.

*Clink!*

I smack a knife out of the air with my stolen one and slam my foot into the ground, breaking apart the asphalt encasing it. "You couldn't have picked a better time than this?" I spit at Circus.

"Now seems perfect." She... They drawl, their head tilting up as a wave of heat washes over both of us, Lung firing a huge fireball through the air at Glory Girl. Circus reaches up and grasps the air with both hands, redirecting the wave of death in an arc, causing it to shoot down towards me.

Well, at least that helps Glory Girl...?

I throw my knife at CIrcus and run directly at her and the huge wave of fire drops towards me, hoping to at the very least catch them in with their own attack if it hits. Thankfully my thrown weapon cuts into their forearm, causing them to spin backwards like a ballerina. The fire falls and explodes behind me now that her control has been severed, allowing me to shorten the distance between us quickly.

I throw a punch with all my weight, intent on taking the cunt's head clean off... Only to find myself face-to-face with a sledgehammer that'd been pulled out of seemingly nowhere!?

*Crunch!*

My nose and some of the bones in my face crumble as my body spins through the air, my momentum working against me as Circus rearranges my face. Idly while in mid-air, I could feel my orbital bone rubbing gruesomely against the back of my eye... Exploring the sensation further would have to wait however, as Circus had raised her hammer to flatten my head against the road, now that I'd finally landed.

Hastily, I claw some asphalt into my hand and throw it at her face as I roll to the side, feeling the top half of one of my feline ears disappear. I try to grab the sledgehammer but find it already gone, replaced with knives in both of my opponent's hands that were speeding towards me in a gutting strike.

Gritting my ruined teeth, I perform a kick-up, my hands reaching the floor over my head as I spring up with both feet slamming against her face. Her blades slide into my sides but do little to no damage, my attack to her face however did almost as much as her sledge.

*CraacK!*

She span away while throwing knives that I ducked under, her nose now resembling a pug's under that domino mask. Her makeup was smudged and covered in blood. By the way she was gritting her teeth, I'd pissed her off.

"Y-you're dead!" she/they/whatever angrily shouts, reaching into her pocket space and throwing out several canisters... All of which were labelled with a small flame.

Yeah, it didn't take a genius to figure out her intent. I kick one back at her before sprinting in her direction. The incendiary grenades explode into napalm-like flames, which she manipulates to follow me, but I was too quick.

She summons her sledgehammer to attempt a similar attack from earlier, but I see it coming, punching right through the handle before grabbing her face and forcing it upwards. My teeth, now healed from the combined efforts of Avalon and my demon physiology bury themselves into her jugular, which I tear at like a rabid animal. I make sure to do enough damage that even if she got me off, she'd bleed out in under a minute.

Not that it mattered, I control her arms to prevent her from giving me the shiv and all she could do she scream in terror as I tore her apart.

*CRAAASH!*

Something explodes nearby but when I look up I see Glory Girl half buried in a wall with Lung rapidly approaching her... She tries to shift some bricks off of her but is somehow too weak to budge them?

Dropping Circus' corpse, I run in front of the now towering Lung and throw my hands up, "OI YOU SNAKE-FUCKING CUNT! YOUR BEEF IS WITH ME, LEAVE THE CHICK ALONE!" I shout at the top of my lungs.

The man-dragon snarls at me and unfortunately, he isn't quite as stupid to ignore his advantage. Flames smoulder in his clawed hand as he throws a fireball at Glory Girl, who can only look up helplessly at it

I wasn't fast enough to intercept it, leaving me as helpless as her...

Thankfully, not all 'heroes' in the city were completely useless as Armsmaster flies through the air on his bike and cleaves through the fireball with his polearm, dissipating the flames as if they were never there at all.

"Both of you get back! You're only making this worse!" he exclaims after he lands, skidding to a stop in between me and Vicky.

"Good idea! Maybe we can calm him with some tea, retard!" I all but spit at him.

"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" Armsmaster exclaims.

Glory Girl, now with her strength apparently returned explodes out of the wall and crashes into the dragon's chest, uncaring of the burns she receives as a result. Lung stumbles backwards slightly, but his continually growing form doesn't receive any lasting damage at all...

"We need to stall him, help's on the way!" Armsmaster reluctantly says to me before speeding off, his halberd's blade glowing blue as he rides under Lung and passes by his leg, but clean through the ankle.

Well, I'm fucking useless here, aren't I? Every time Vicky hits Lung she has to land and recover for a moment to go again. Armsmaster slowly whittles Lung down to keep him from destroying anything else, but all he's doing was fueling the monster's growth. Unless Alexandria or Eidolon was on their way I saw no way this was ending well!

Fuck it!

I quickly climb up the nearest building and sprint across the roof, reaching almost sixty miles an hour as I leap off. I land directly on Lung's shoulder, gritting my teeth hard to ignore the horrific burns I was acquiring from being in his mere vicinity. Using his scales and the spikes growing from him, I deftly make my way up to his head.

His humanoid face had morphed to one more suited for a leech, but that didn't mean he wasn't without common vulnerabilities. Before he's able to react my claw pierces his eye and pulls out a clump of flesh behind it. He shrieked and raised his hands to slap me away but I'd moved to the other side and clawed the other out, my hands, legs, and chest blackened and burned enough that anyone else would have been bedridden for years.

With that done I leap from the flailing giant Vicky catching me in mid-air and setting me down a good distance.

"Jesus Christ, are you alright!?" Vicky worriedly exclaims as she sees my state.

"F-fine..." I rasp, my throat almost as badly burned as the rest of me... Honestly, I had no idea how I'd managed to take out both Lung's eyes as I could barely stand as is.

"Well, you don't look fine! We need to get you help NOW! A-Ames can help, I'm not letting you die like this-"

I grab her arm, stalling her from flying to her home. Even with my injuries, I was well aware of the helicopters all flying nearby, broadcasting everything to the news. "Lung's not done, yet. I'm good... I heal."

"You... You won't die?" she asks, now looking over to Armsmaster who was barely avoiding getting stomped on. by the blind dragon.

"Cross my heart."

She nods, laying my steaming body on the floor and blasting off toward the dragon.

Uuuugh, you know, I think I'd rather just burn to death than exist like this... My wounds were healing but it was slow, the damage I'd accumulated through the day combined with the sheer number of burns I had had my regeneration struggling to keep up.

I laid there for who knows how long, the sounds of battle ongoing. When finally I heard what sounded like a jet engine... A huge robot dragon plunged from the sky towards Lung, a barrage of weapons firing from various areas of its body as its four limbs grab ahold of the burning dragon.

It grips Lung by his face and the stumps that had been growing into wings and lifts him from the ground, passing over the ocean and disappearing behind the horizon with him. The news helicopters all followed, unwilling to miss the scoop of the month.

That was Dragon... The most powerful Tinker in the world. And she'd done what Glory Girl, Armsmaster, and I couldn't seconds after arriving... Sure, she hadn't killed him, but this still counted as 'defeating' him in my books.

Footsteps stop next to my head and I see Armsmaster looking down at me... Did I mention I was naked? Or that my cock had melted off during my climb up Mount Lung? Thank god it'd grown back, otherwise I'd have let Lung finish the job.

"You're under arrest." Armsmaster drawls, preparing some high-tech-looking cuffs.

"S-shouldn't we get him some medical attention first? Look at him!" Glory Girl lands and jabs a finger at the burned human-shaped salami that'd become my body.

"He'll heal." the man shrugs uncaringly.

"But-"

"This is under the authority of the PRT, New Wave has no business obstructing justice." he calmly states, but before he can cuff me the sound of a roaring engine draws everyone's attention.

"GET OUTTA THE FUCKIN' WAY COCK-SUCKERS!" a familiar voice shouts at the top of their lungs as a supped-up Volkswagen GTI tears down the road, blaring its horn with a Kiss song blasting from the speakers.

It crashes into the side of Armsmaster's bike and sends it spinning away into a nearby shopfront before speeding towards the group. Glory Girl steps in front of me to block it while Armsmaster leaps to the side.

The car drifts around us as the driver tosses some smoke bombs from the window, obscuring the area... I could hear Vicky stomping around swinging her arms but before anyone could do anything I was dragged away. By the time my sight returned me and Sherrel was speeding away from the scene...

"Why'd you come?" I ask, slumped across the back seats.

"Why didn't I stay put like a good little girl while Lung fucked you up? Oh, I don't know, maybe because I owed you one?" she drawls despite how nervous she seemed. "Or maybe you're just growing on me?"

...

"W-when'd you make a Tinker-tech car...?" I can't help but ask.

"Tinker-tech? There's nothing Tinker-tech about this pile of crap, I just stole it!"

...

---------------

"Damn, they're getting away!" Armsmaster growls, looking over at the building where his bike had been buried. "Go, chase them, we can't let Kaibyo go after all this!"

...

Vicky raises her hands up, showing how badly burned they were. What was left of her white gloves were still smouldering, even some of her hair was blackened and singed... "You think I'm going anywhere like this? You go, I'm gonna see my sister." she states before flying away.

"Wait-!... Damn it!" Armsmaster kicks the road. At no angle was this incident going to look good for anyway, except maybe Glory Girl for risking her life to stop it. The Wards and Police were trying to stop the ABB from rioting with Miss Militia, while Assault and Battery were still on their way.

"What a complete shit show..." he muttered, running a hand through his singed beard.