Dragon Conjurer 4, page 23
And they all glowed with as much intelligence as any of the sentient monsters we’d fought so far.
Chapter Fourteen
“That’s a Hydra?” Steffi asked with her mouth gaping wide open. “It’s not what I was expecting.”
“Nope, it definitely doesn’t look like Burkhard’s picture,” Nala said as she stared at the beast. “It’s so much smaller. The shape and size of its body remind me of an upright alligator, though its arms and legs are thicker.”
As we watched from our position behind the trees, the Hydra didn’t move. Its multiple heads were turned in our direction, though, and I found this less than reassuring.
“The heads are terrible.” Elisabeth shuddered and pulled her arms around herself. “Those long fangs… and the whole thing appears to be surrounded by a cloud of poison.”
The French girl was right.
A greenish mist hovered around the periphery of the monster’s body, and the chemical smell was the strongest it had been yet. It was hard not to gag now that we were directly in the monster’s vicinity, and I wondered if we should have brought some sort of gas mask.
“Maybe it will be an easy fight,” Steffi said in an optimistic tone, but her eyes were watering from the odor. “It’s so small, I’m sure we can kick its ass.”
“Yeah, it’s small, but don’t let your defenses down,” I warned. “We can’t forget what happens when it loses a head. It also looks smarter than I was expecting. Something about the gleam in its eyes makes me think it has plans for us. Do you guys see it?”
“Yeah, it’s definitely spooky,” Nick agreed. “It’s hard to tell if it can see us or not.”
“I don't like that, either,” Steffi agreed as a shiver ran through her body. “Come on, let’s figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Right, so what’s our strategy, Dyl?” Nala asked as she looked up at me with her big, dark eyes. “Do you think the fight is going to be any easier now that you see how small it is?”
“I think it will be much easier to blow the shit out of it,” Nick cut in. “But we didn’t bring all these guns for nothing, and obviously, Burkhard thought we needed them. That makes me think the monster may be really tough, but if we kill it fast enough, we won’t have to worry about regenerating heads.”
“I like that plan,” I agreed. “Let’s try to destroy this fucker and get out of here quickly. Steff, Nala, Elisabeth, I’d feel safer if you were up in the air.”
“Easy enough for me,” Steffi responded as her golden wings sprouted from her back. The adorable fairy-girl floated a couple feet off the ground, and her cotton candy hair contrasted with the hardened look on her face.
“I’m going to use a rock,” Nala answered with a more cheerful thumbs up, and as I’d instructed, my two girlfriends immediately went skyborne.
The dark beauty hopped onto a large, flat stone, and it rose until she was twenty feet above the ground. Then they both checked the mags on their AK-47s and exchanged two curt nods.
My women were so fucking badass.
“Can I ride Ky with you, Dylan?” Elisabeth asked from my side. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and I could feel the tension and stress in her grip.
“Of course,” I replied with a quick smile. “Like I could ever say no to you. Listen up, guys. As far as my dragon attacks go, I’m going to have Ky and Goldie work together to create an ice storm and freeze the lake. If that doesn’t work, Beyblade can boil it. I’m hoping the Hydra has at least one weakness, and we need to find it.”
“Yeah, its weakness is gonna be machine gun rounds,” Nick snickered as he tried to hoist his heavy duffel bag of weapons higher on his shoulder. “I’m going to move around to shoot first, but I’ll set up a firing station behind that big boulder so I can use it a little later. The bipod is going to make shooting a lot easier.”
“Good plan,” I agreed as Elisabeth and I followed the nymph over to the stone.
“I don’t think there’s any monster an M60 can’t handle,” Nick said and pulled an M122 tripod out of his bag and rested it on the boulder’s flat surface.
Then he loaded an ammo belt into the feed tray and closed the cover before he latched the M60 to the gun platform, rotated the huge weapon from left to right, and made sure everything was in working order.
“This feels nice and smooth,” Nick decided. “I think I’m all set up over here.”
“Dylan, do you want to get on Ky’s back now?” Elisabeth asked in a nervous voice. “I don’t like being on the ground anymore.”
“Yep, we’ll take off into the air and out of the trees at the same time as Steffi and Nala,” I decided. “The element of surprise is going to be our best--”
A loud, shrieking roar echoed through the forest, and when I peered through the trees, I saw a horrific sight.
The surprise ship had already sailed.
All of the Hydra’s basketball-sized heads were turned our way, and its many eyes had finally locked onto our location. All twelve of its mouths were screaming out in unison, and the high-pitched sounds were deafening as the tones wavered off key. The heads were exact clones of one another, and the dozen open mouths were acting as one being, from the synchronized shrieking to the flicking motions of their forked, purple tongues.
As the heads moved around, the Hydra’s body stayed relatively motionless. The noxious green fumes spread further through the air as the snaking heads hissed and spat at us, and I coughed at the smell filling my nostrils and burning my throat.
This monster was one disturbing, disgusting motherfucker.
Nick and I shared a look, and I nodded.
“Alright, team, let’s kick this pig!” the nymph shouted his signature phrase. “I only have so much M60 ammo, so I’m gonna try to bring the Hydra down with my AK-47 first.”
“You do you, bro,” I said as I reached out for Elisabeth’s hand. “I trust your judgment when it comes to all things shooting. Come on, Elisabeth, hop on Ky!”
The French girl and I swung our legs over the blue dragon’s gleaming, scaly hide, and I slipped my hands around her olive-green waist and kissed her head for good luck.
Then I turned to my dragons.
“Goldie and Ky, you’re up first,” I instructed, and the pearly-scaled creature exhaled a big puff of air as if to demonstrate her wind-blowing technique. “I want you to make a blizzard and freeze the lake. I’ll let you know when it’s time to go, and Beyblade, stay ready, too. If an ice storm doesn’t do anything, we’ll try flames. Stay behind these trees for the time being, but listen for my call.”
The giant scarlet dragon crouched back on his tail in a defensive position, and he hid himself among the brightly-colored fallen leaves.
“Ready, Elisabeth?” I asked.
“I am!” the redhead said with a smile and a nod. “Here we go again!”
“Good attitude,” I praised.
Then I nudged the ice dragon in the sides with my heels, and he flapped his sapphire wings and rose above the trees.
Goldie followed, and the sound of both dragons’ flapping wings calmed me in preparation for the upcoming battle.
We soared toward Steffi and Nala, and Elisabeth loaded a magazine into her AK-47 and shouldered the weapon.
Nick immediately vanished, and I thought I caught a glimpse of him reappearing behind a tree several feet away from the lake.
As the girls and I approached the Hydra, its heads turned from side to side and upward in unison in an attempt to keep its eyes fixated on us as we got closer. Its greenish faces contorted with rage as it hissed and spat up at us, but luckily, it didn’t attempt to leave the lake.
“Here I go,” the French girl growled, and then she unleashed her first bullets on the Hydra.
Small waves started to form around the beast, and in a flash, it ducked into the lake. Its slimy body was so camouflaged with the murky water, I could barely see it, but a stream of bubbles revealed its location as it swam away from us. The bubbles slowed as it seemed to sink further below the surface, and then they stopped entirely.
“Shit!” Elisabeth swore as she turned back to look at me with eagle eyes. “It disappeared. What are we supposed to do now?”
“I’m sure this isn’t the last of it,” I growled. “It has to come up for air sometime. Steff, Nala, you alright?”
Both girls looked at me with frustration in their eyes, and then they lowered their rifles.
“How long is it going to stay underwater?” Steffi shouted in my direction.
“I don’t know,” I hollered back, “but stay on your guar--”
And then suddenly, it was back.
With no warning, the Hydra sprung up from the swampy pool, and it launched several feet out of the water with its twelve hideous jaws gnashing.
Two of the maws came within inches of Steffi’s dangling feet.
“Shit, Steff, get out of the way!” Nala shouted from her stone surfboard.
“I’m on it,” the fairy-girl said as she rose higher into the sky. “Don’t worry about me!”
The beast was shockingly fast and slippery, and it was also nearly impossible to see in the bright beams of sunlight streaming across the clearing. Its body was dull in spots where it reflected the pea-green lake, but as it moved through bright patches, it took on the golden hues of the glare.
“I’m gonna handle this,” Nick growled as he popped up next to Nala on her rock.
“Oh, my god,” the dark beauty gasped. “What the hell, Nick? You’re lucky I didn’t just shoot you.”
“There’s a patch of moss right next to you,” the nymph responded as he flashed a grin. “Let a pro show you how it’s done, though.”
Nick cocked his weapon, aimed, and fired, but in a flash, the Hydra ducked under the water again.
“Shit!” the nymph swore. “I was sure I had it.”
“Why is it so damn fast?” Steffi snarled from next to me. “I expected something big and lumbering.”
“I guess it’s time for some dragon power, since the firepower doesn’t seem to be working,” I growled. “Goldie and Ky, do your thing!”
The blue and white dragons flew into a side-by-side formation, and then they simultaneously released ice breath and wind breath.
For a moment, my vision was whited out as a haze of winter weather descended upon the clearing, but when my eyes cleared, blasts of ice from the dragon attack were hailing down onto the lake. It was so cold that the green water immediately began to thicken into a solid slab of ice, and it turned a sickly whitish-greenish color as the crystals spread from shore to shore.
“Is it trapped under the ice?” Elisabeth breathed. “Did we actually--”
Then, with a noise as loud as the AK-47s, the ice split open in a gigantic, spidery pattern. The Hydra smashed through the break in a cloud of steam, and every mouth on its body was snarling in rage.
It seemed harder to see the faces than it had been before, as if the Hydra was improving its camouflage. The monster’s round eyes reflected the color of its body, and the orbs blended almost entirely into the surrounding skin. The only constants were their black, oval pupils, which hovered in the air as the beast’s colors swirled between sun and ice.
“One more time,” Nala growled, and my entire team moved as one as we aimed our guns at the Hydra.
But then Goldie decided to go rogue.
The white dragon swooped in and shot a small tornado at the Hydra, and the monster was blasted fifty feet across the cracked ice.
It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the Hydra to recover, and now that it was riled up, it started to move faster than ever before. It traced a huge circle around the frozen lake, and then it slid rapidly back in our direction.
We all continued to fire at the Hydra as it skated, but it continued to evade the blasts. Some bullets ricocheted across the ice, and others split it open, but none hit the slippery monster. My team continued to reload magazine after magazine, but the beast was just too fast to hit.
Then the Hydra’s heads shot up toward my team again, but this time, they each squirted bright green venom from between their fangs.
We were almost high enough to avoid it, but drops of the toxic substance splashed against Ky’s scaly legs, and the huge dragon snarled and spat a lance of solid ice down at the Hydra for it.
The Hydra slithered aside as the ice attack splashed into the cracked ice instead, and after Ky tried two more times to spear the swift, twelve-headed beast, I steered him higher and calmed him down.
“Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll get him!” I shouted. “Beyblade, light it up!”
My huge, scarlet dragon rolled out from the trees in his gigantic Flame Wheel. Then he skidded to a stop as he reached the shore of the lake, and he opened his enormous mouth, roared, and shot a blast of flames at the slippery Hydra.
All the ice on the lake immediately went up into a cloud of steam, and the Hydra disappeared for a second in the mist. I held my breath while Ky snarled impatiently, but when the air cleared, the monster had dropped below the surface of the water again.
Only its heads were emerging from the algae-filled pool, and as soon as the hideous spheres popped above the surface, they started to shoot venom fifty feet into the air.
My dragons’ attacks hadn’t done a goddamn thing.
The Hydra’s entire body shot out of the water again, and its heads continued to try to assault us as they stretched up into the air. Its identical maws opened as wide as their jaws would allow, and they each released an identical, bright green spray in a display as spectacular as the fountains at the Bellagio.
Everyone in the air jetted back by several feet to avoid the spray, and I realized we were going to have to get pretty fucking creative quick.
“We need a new plan!” I told the others.
“I think it’s time to bring out the big guns,” Nick growled. “Mind if I head down to the M60?”
“Not at all,” I told my friend. “I really fucking hope it works!”
Nick vanished and popped back up in a small, dying brown bush next to his firing station, and he immediately aimed the M60 at the Hydra.
This time, the shots didn’t miss.
As neon venom splashed upward into the sky, the Hydra was blown into bits, and its many heads were demolished or sent flying. More caustic liquid sprayed from its shattered body, and the stinky green venom sizzled loudly when it hit the surface of the water again.
The force of the Hydra explosion spread a series of whirlpools across the lake, and the monster’s remaining heads skipped across the surface like rocks.
Goldie blew another Wind Attack at the monster, and moist, oozing pieces of its flesh spun in a sticky tornado for a moment before falling down into the water.
The toxic cloud that had surrounded the Hydra’s body began to dissipate, and giant bubbles broke through the filmy surface.
I stared at the lake in shock.
The waters went completely still, and the remnants of the monster sank far below the surface.
“Is it… dead?” Steffi asked with wide eyes as the lake grew motionless.
“It looked pretty dead when it was blasted into dozens of fleshy pieces,” Nala snorted.
“Guess a Hydra’s never run into an M60 before,” Nick laughed as he suddenly popped up on the dark-haired girl’s stone.
“Nick!” Nala shrieked and jabbed him in the side. “You seriously need to stop doing that!”
“And you should never poke a man with a rifle,” the nymph laughed. “Didn’t I teach you the gun safety--”
A deep, gurgling sound interrupted Nick’s words, and two, six-foot wide whirlpools appeared on the surface of the lake.
“Shit,” I swore.
“I guess that wasn’t it,” Steffi groaned.
Snaky heads on long, slithery necks began to rise from the water, but something was different.
This time there were dozens of the hideous, snapping spheres.
“Are there two Hydras now?” Elisabeth yelped as she pulled my hands around her slim waist. “Dylan, hold me!”
“I think it’s just another one with twice as many heads,” I growled. “Cut one down, two grow back. We shot down the beast, and double the heads are coming back.”
“And double the beasts,” Steffi said with a slight hint of desperation in her golden eyes.
“Fuck, you need to see this, Dylan,” Nick muttered, and when I turned back to the lake, I shuddered in horror.
The Hydra was rising from the water, but it was now twice the size it had been originally, and its strange skin was squirming as if it was about to burst.
Then a hole split apart the monster’s slimy belly, and a pale green form began to emerge. The wound gaped wider and wider until a creature slightly smaller than the original beast slid out, and it slipped down to the surface of the water.
And then it did it again.
Monster after monster continued to emerge from the giant Hydra, and when the new beasts began to unfurl themselves my worst fears were confirmed: the Hydra was birthing whole new monsters.
“What the fuck?” I couldn’t help but shout.
The new Hydras hissed and spat as one like they were controlled by a giant, invisible puppeteer, and then all the monsters started to move toward the shore.
A dozen Hydras slid toward the edge of the water with their heads slithering in front of them. We’d gone from a single to a dozen monsters, and we had no apparent way to bring them down.
When I looked at the sea of identical spitting heads, I wanted to throw up.
How the fuck were we going to kill these things?
“I think I need to try to tranquilize these bitches,” Nick grunted. “What else is there left to do?”
“Yeah, because the other guns aren’t working,” I agreed grimly. “The ice and fire didn’t faze it, and the M60 created this disaster.”
“Yep, we need to tranquilize a motherfucking army of Hydras.” Nick stared down at his firing station for a moment. “I’m popping back down to my firing station to grab the guns because it’s time to put these bastards to sleep.”
In a flash, the nymph disappeared, but then he popped up in exactly the wrong location. He was approximately six inches away from one of the Hydras, and the monster’s heads all swung in his direction.
