Create a new version of paste:

Chapter Index:
https://pastebin.com/NMnM65qk
 
Previous Chapters:
Draconic Fortune (Noelle)
1
https://pastebin.com/nRP4AD5i
2
https://pastebin.com/Z1HejS29
3
https://pastebin.com/nc3Jpna3
4
https://pastebin.com/ZUzduK8f
5
https://pastebin.com/A3JdE5Fu
6
https://pastebin.com/w7QUsyeT
7
https://pastebin.com/x1cjQ1PA
8
https://pastebin.com/gsutf9Xq
9
https://pastebin.com/SHG9LpXu
10
https://pastebin.com/Lickn82a
11
https://pastebin.com/7pWU0VJU
12
https://pastebin.com/RNpJC0Hi
13
https://pastebin.com/6rDfF0e2
 
_________________________________________
 
Draconic Fortune
 
Chapter 14
 
Song of Storms
_________________________________________

The Chariot was no longer out of their reach. The ward was gone, they could approach it without problems. "You know, the real spruce goose doesn't have wheels." Noelle reassured herself that she could touch the wheel of the giant plane and that there wasn't an additional invisible wall behind the invisible wall.

"This one didn't have any at first either. We made a lot of improvements to it since it was created. It's faster - the engines are much more powerful. It maneuvers much better. It's more stable, more secure - it could barely glide over the water when we first got it. By now I can take off into the air proper. Brought it up to speed in so many ways. Cameras. We have cameras now, and a lot of the fine tuning is automated."

The time had come for Starlet, the Journeyman's well-aged wife, to do what she was here for. Standing at the side of the presumably wooden colossus, she spun a circle in the air with her hand. Where she did, a glowing wheel appeared in the air. Shining in red, blue and green and spinning in place for a few moments before speeding up to the plane's hull.

There was a circular socket next to one of the doors to it a side, that the wheel slid and fit into. They could all hear the clicking of mechanisms falling into place. And then, a wide door opened up and a staircase extended itself down with railings for them to comfortably walk up the stairs and inside. Kris waited for Noelle and didn't walk inside until she did. When they did enter, her jaw dropped. "What is - this is - this is all different!"

"Hm?" Dasher had already proceeded upstairs with most of the others and peeked out over the railing of the circular staircase.

"The plane this is modeled after - I was at the museum it's at. This all looks different from what I remember." She expected an insecure shell with crude supports, open pipes and tanks in the middle of rooms, all made of cheap metal, if any metal at all. She thought they were going to walk into plain, thin metal grids and one uncomfortable room after the other, but Dasher wasn't kidding when he said they had made some improvements.

All the parts she expected to be nigh-painful to touch if you did so with too much force, were widened and softened up with something, and then painted over with gypsum, to make all the surfaces smooth, even when sliding your hands along them. And it had gone through a paint job to give it all some brighter, and more inviting colours, too.

On her way upstairs, she noticed a lot of the equipment usually strewn around to make way for a large crew to operate, was rearranged or outright missing. Dasher led them all the way to the top and the front. To where the cockpit was, with a few rows of seats for them.

The archer went forward to the cockpit. The interior was redesigned in multiple ways. The cockpit itself was more open to the rest of the room, but in the same vein, the panels had been extended to reach further into it. Simplifying and relegating tasks to Dasher alone that in the original, must have taken over a dozen crew members to perform.

And that wasn't even including maintenance, just reading the displays and making adjustments. Smiling proudly from his chair, the archer cracked his fingers. "Why don't you all relax while the magician works his magic? Please take your seats and make sure your safety belts are sitting tight."

Starlet appeared to have a set seat in mind. Headbanger picked a front row seat near the cockpit and put her and Dasher's weapons and instruments down on the seats right behind her. Ralsei and Noelle paid attention to what Kris was doing, but he showed little signs of planning to sit down. He was keeping an eye on Faith.

The succubus that had just spent a long time trying to kill them all again and again. Injured, with a painful mark branded onto her shoulder, and barely any garments left after her once neat and modest robe was torn and cut down to less and less in the course of three fights. Making some efforts to get on her good side, was probably a good idea, so he asked for a towel or a blanket and offered it to her so she could cover herself up. She declined at first. "Keep your alms!"

She took one of the seats on the right side. Then after a few seconds, she realized he wasn't going anywhere. He was just standing there with that blanket in his hand. More annoyed at that than the gesture, she grumbled and then took it out of his hands.

Somewhat in reaction to seeing that, Noelle came close enough for him to pick up that she wanted his attention. She smiled at him. "Come on, we're taking off soon." They could already hear the engines.

She wanted him to take a seat. And he shook his head. "I'm not sitting down. That was a bad idea last time."

"Why?"

"Brawlers jumped out with the pilots and I wasn't fast enough to stop them. I'm not letting that happen again."

She rolled her eyes. "There are no brawlers here. We're among friends." He pulled his mouth to the side to make a face at her. A face that she'd come to know as his 'I heavily disapprove' face. "Come on, he's waiting and you look exhausted." Dasher indeed wasn't facing the controls and had his custom chair turned away from them.

He hesitated for a while, but he gave in. He took a deep breath. "I'm not sitting at the window though." At least he wanted to be as close to an area where he could move quickly as possible. He sat down right behind Faith. An understandable choice, but it didn't do much to make her feel less like a prisoner rather than a member of the group.

She sat down next to him, together with Ralsei. She was hoping for the Prince to help her calm him down, but he was as much on edge as Kris was. This was the one part of the journey which she hoped to be able to relax in, and here they were, constantly expecting something bad to happen.

But the constant excitement had worn down on Kris more than it had on her. She could tell. The plane began moving, drove further into the valley, and then made a u-turn to move towards the cliff with some distance to gain momentum. And briefly, the nervousness spread to everyone when the moment came to lift off. But when it did, it all worked like a charm.

Even though he was right in front of them with no wall or door separating them, the pilot used a microphone to talk to everyone through a loudspeaker. "We have just taken off, right into a clear sky that promises a smooth flight."

"See?" At first, this didn't do much to assuage their fears. Now that Noelle thought of it, he did look exhausted, but she couldn't remember a time ever since they first fell into the dark world, that he didn't look like that. And yet after all this time, he was still perfectly up and awake. As was she. And there was this strange disconnect. He did have dark rings under his eyes, but aside from that, he was completely awake.

Well, she couldn't let his paranoia rain on her parade. She leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes. They both got some rest and some shut-eye for who knew how long. They were both woken up when a rumble shook the whole plane and startled them.

Of course, Ralsei immediately loudly asked: "What was that?"

Dasher didn't look back. Instead, he took a microphone attached to the console and used it to answer through the loudspeaker. "I'm not sure. But remember when I said we were heading into a 'clear sky'?"

Kris raised onebrow. "Yes?"

"Well it got a little cloudy...and stormy...in a matter of seconds." Those alarmed by this went straight for the window to look outside. He wasn't lying. They were surrounded by dark clouds. And in the distance, Ralsei spotted a flash of lightning. "I would like to point out that this isn't normal. A storm like this usually takes an hour to form, not a minute."

As if on cue, Kris got up and went to the front. "So it's not a normal storm."

"Wait! What was that?" Banger was as worked up as Kris and Ralsei and frantically poked the window with one of her claws. "I swear I saw something move out there."

"We are."

"No, I mean something else. Look! There it is again!" They couldn't directly see anything. But a few strikes of lightning lighting up at the same time revealed some large form fly a thin serpentine through the clouds alongside the Chariot. This time, Kris was looking from right behind the cockpit and could make it out, too. Whatever it was, it had wings, that much he could discern.

Then, they got to a point where no clouds were covering it up anymore. Starlet gasped and shrieked: "Succubus!" Then she paused. "Wait..that's not a succubus."

It was a dragon. But she looked nothing like Susie. She wasn't anywhere near as big as the Chariot, but she still dwarfed any dragon monsters Kris and Noelle could think of. She had a very long neck, and a tail that matched it. She was keeping herself at the same speed as the plane, with a pair of wings that spanned her own width several times over.

She had a lengthy, pointy snout that with a hard end at the front, like a beak. She came with parts of a normal monster - or human - would cover up, and she had nothing to cover it. She was flying through as undressed as she was made. Kris recognized her. He did because he was the one who drew her at Asriel's request. As far as he knew, she was supposed to be under Asriel's bed, somewhere between the music sheets. And her name was: "Tempest! It's an elder dragon called Tempest."

"You know it?"

"It's a she. And she shouldn't be here." Now she sped ahead of the plane, turned around and raised her hand. She roared at them and in her palm, a tiny tornado formed, and with a swing of her arm, she threw it to the chariot. When it raged over the top of the hull, scratching all along the way, they could feel the plane rocking from everywhere.

"She's not going to just stop, we need to do something about her." With a more aggravated voice, he tipped at Dasher from behind and practically snapped at him. "Hey. Berdly. We might need someone with a bow."

Dasher shrugged without turning around. "Who's Berdly?"

"Nevermind, are you coming or what?"

"Who's going to fly the plane?"

"You said you improved it. Isn't there some kind of autopilot?"

"No."

He didn't know how much time they had to do something about it. And he pointed at Noelle, Ralsei and Headbanger. "You, you and you. Come with me. Now!"

The storm had gotten so strong, they could actually feel the plane gliding through it. They could feel the irregular pressures of the outside winds. And every flash of lightning they saw was panic-inducing in its own minor way as well. Kris made sure they were all getting up and then ran back to the staircase. Noelle did do as she was told, but she still asked: "Wait! Where are we going?"

There had to be some door or hatch on the left, something more open than a window. And there was. Not as comfortable an area as the one they came through, but at least there was a door. And several pipes and railings to hold onto. The mechanisms that kept it shut were pretty intuitive. Kris and rock-star-Susie immediately understood how to undo them. "Grab hold of something! Everyone." He didn't open the large door until they did.

This door being bigger than that in the building block plane made it only even more vertigo-inducing. And the air currents raging through only made it worse. Once he caught himself, he took a few steps back and grabbed a microphone from on the wall. It looked like the one Dasher had used before. "Hello?" There was a button. He figured he needed to press it first. "Hello?" This was when he heard Dasher respond in kind. "Do you have something to talk to her with? Like megaphones?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Everyone heard the numbing thumps you heard when you listened to a recording of a microphone being turned on. But they heard it at an ear-shattering volume, followed by Dasher's voice. "Hello dragon! We come in peace!"

"Her name is Tempest."

"Hello, Tempest! We come in peace. We mean you no harm." The dragon roared at the plane, loudly enough for them to hear it from all the way over here. Then she raised her hand to summon another one of those tiny tornadoes, launched it to the plane, and when it was outside of any angle Kris and the others could see, the entire plane shook enough to make everyone stumble.

And it took a few moments for it to stabilize its course again as much as was possible. And they could definitely hear something break. It took a few moments, but then the thumping sounds repeated themselves in reverse and Dasher talked through the interior loudspeakers again. "She took out one of those loudspeakers. She can hear us, but I don't think she's listening."

Speaking of megaphones, they heard another familiar voice scream through one as well. "You crazy bitch! You're supposed to scare them a little, not kill them." It was Susie's voice. Passing by the plane from above, another dragon came flying behind Tempest. A red serpent with wings. With saddles and several succubi - Mistresses specifically - sitting on its back.

With Dark World Susie - or rather Axe, sitting in the front with a megaphone. When it was clear that this scolding had made Tempest calm down for a few moments, the grinning succubus turned to the Chariot. "Hey, lightners! Lookie what we found ourselves on the way!"

Her talking so much with as powerful an amplification as this, drew the ire of the green dragon. She used both hands, and the storm this created as much bigger than the ones she had thrown at the plane. Luckily for them, she launched it towards the red serpent instead of them. "Hey! Watch it!" It generally didn't seem to Kris like the succubi had Tempest under control.

The serpent was able to dodge that bigger storm, but at this point, it was only a matter of time before she threw one just like it at the Chariot. Kris had to come up with something. Talking to her didn't work. Neither if Dasher did, nor if Axe did. Getting creative with ACTing in a situation like this wasn't much of an option. They were having enough trouble holding a steady course with the plane. What were they going to do?

Fly some fancy maneuvers and 'dance' with the dragon? So instead, what he decided was to summon his sword. The first thing he tried, he more or less expected not to work. And it didn't. He tried throwing it out of the plane to see how far it would go, and of course it didn't even come close to her.

Kris always knew that the weird stuff, all the strange dragon girls Asriel wanted drawn would come back to bite them. But not this literally. Back then, he didn't expect them to actually show up in person to attack him. Asriel - if he was here now, he would know what to do. He used to play so many fantasy games in-between juggling all these other things he did. "Wait, that's it. Asriel's games. The fierce deity mask!"

"What?" Now he just had everyone confused, thinking out loud like that.

He turned to the prince. "Can you enchant my sword to make it shoot an energy wave whenever I swing it? Kind of like Susie's Rude Buster."

That only had Ralsei fidgeting round nervously. "Every time you - I don't think I'm powerful enough for that yet. Am I?"

"Yet? What do you..." Kris' eyes narrowed. "Is this like in those old anime about humans and monsters working together?"

"What?"

"Does your magic get stronger with the bonds of our friendship?"

It had Ralsei dumbfounded for a moment. He looked past him as if expecting to find the answer behind him. "What? - Uh - I mean yes! Yes, exactly. The closer we grow to each other, the more powerful I get!" He grabbed Kris' hand and blushed. "I can feel my power growing even now."

"Perfect." He resummoned his sword, and after Ralsei held his hand over it, trails of light ran onto the sword and it began glowing in bright white. Then the white glow grew in intensity, so much so both he and Ralsei took a step back while he held it further away. It was unexpectedly strong. It was bright and powerful enough that Kris could feel the heat it emitted with his armored hand.

"Let's see if this works." He adjusted himself until he was sure he stood secure enough to withstand the wind and swung it into the air outside. An unstoppable white crescent glided off his sword and cut its way through the winds outside. "Yes." He picked up the speaker and pressed the button again. "Could you bring us closer to her?"

"What? Are you crazy?"

"We came up with something, but it won't work if I keep missing." A slight course correction followed but it was very slow and Tempest eventually adjusted her course to fly a little further away again. While it happened, Kris took the time to shoot more of those energy waves to get a better idea of how the aim with this worked.

When they were about to get in range for him to give this a try, he gestured for Ralsei to renew the enchantment. With a solid stance and a firm grip on his sword, he gave it a try. He swung it, and like before, in the curve of the swing, a crescent of white light loosened itself off the blade and shot roughly in Tempest's direction. It would have been impressive. If he hadn't missed by a long shot.

But the enchantment lasted, so he tried tossing a whole volley the dragon's way. Only one lightly scratched its leg, nothing anywhere close to what he wanted to do. After giving it another shot and missing every time, he shrugged. "Well this isn't going to work." He pressed the button to talk to Dasher.

"You'll have to help."

"I told you I can't!"

"Berdly..."

"Stop calling me Berdly, what do you want from me?"

A bow took training, strength and precision to operate. But a firearm, not so much. "Do you have any guns here?" Now was the time when he would have welcomed some modern firepower. Wait a second, they did have a gun. "Ralsei! Can you try shooting it?"

The prince didn't look so sure about this, but he didn't object. He got out his pistol, released it and pointed at the dragon. He fired an entire magazine at Tempest. He missed with all of them. He turned back to Kris and shouted against what of the storm blew in here: "It's too much wind, it's maladjusting the bullets and I can't correct for it."

Well that was just wonderful. Bullets wouldn't work because the winds were strong enough to just pull them to the side. Kris was desperate enough to gesture for Ralsei to enchant his sword so he could give it a try again. He swung and swung and swung around in the air. He didn't hit her a single time, and he didn't expect to. But he noticed something.

He could have sworn that while his aim was off, the waves were all moving in a straight line from where he launched them. He grabbed onto a cylindrical bar on the inside of the hatch and pulled it shut so at least the storm wasn't raging against them. "Is the wind thing happening to those energy waves, too?"

"What, no. Of course not. They work kind of like light does."

Kris pointed at the gun. "Then can't you just enchant this to shoot kind-of-like-light bullets?"

Ralsei was dumbstruck by that suggestion, and stared at his now empty gun. "...I guess that is possible."

"That way you have bullets that you can aim properly AND don't get turned by the wind."

Dasher's voice rung from the loudspeaker. "Guys, I think we lost her." That didn't last for more than mere seconds. "Spoke too soon, she's on the right side now."

While the prince got to enchanting his weapon, Kris and Banger ran to the other side and undid the locks there. "Hold on!" Then he undid the last mechanism keeping the door shut and pushed it open. They were more prepared for the storm this time. And the prince came closer to the door, now with the lines between the different components his pistol were made of, glowing with a blinding white light.

He shouted into Kris' ear: "I'm still not sure how this helps. The one time I hit her barely did anything."

He just lifted up one of those floppy ears of Ralsei's and did the same: "Go for the wings! They're stretched thin and she needs them to fly!" All Ralsei could do now, was swallow his fears, look out and watch the green dragon catch up with the plane to soon speed ahead again.

He braced himself and held his weapon's grip with both hands, did the best he could to aim a little ahead of her wings, and fired again and again. In spite of him not using real bullets, it still had recoil. But unlike with real bullets, all he had to do to reload, was place one hand on top of the gun, and after a glow of light coming from that hand, the enchantment was refreshed. "Keep going!"

At an increasing pace, be began shooting salve after salve at the dragon. only a few shots actually hit her, but whenever they did, they could tell from how she was staggered and would fall behind, before roaring at the plane and catching up again. "Oh no..." It used to try to get ahead a little before shooting her attacks their way. Now she was forming one already from here. She no longer cared about form, if she ever did. "Shoot, shoot, shoot!"

He began shooting and refreshing his enchantment faster and faster. The more he did it, the more he figured out how he had to aim to actually hit his target under these conditions. As the holes in Tempest's wings finally became plentiful and large enough for Kris and the others to see them from where they were. Eventually, the dragon slowed down a lot.

She tried fighting through the pain and surged quite a bit further forwards, but then her wings lost their strength and reduced themselves to frail, aimless flapping as the dragon rapidly dropped down and eventually vanished beneath the storm clouds she had conjured.

Silently, they all stood at the door. Waiting. In case it wasn't over. It took a full minute. But when it passed, the clouds began to move away and disperse. When at last, in some places the black silhouettes of clouds made way for just the complete blackness of the night sky, it was time to cheer. Banger winked at the more timid members of their group. "Oh yeah!"

The prince hopped up and down at least once. "Kris! We did it! You're safe - I mean we're safe. For now."

Kris sighed and helped the dragon pull the door shut. He was glad things went this way. Sure, it was dangerous, but at least they made it through this.

_________________________________________

From far below - in position to catch the heroes if any of them fell out of the plane, and out of the heroes' line of sight from any door or window, two purple dragons and one dark pink one watched the entire thing transpire. "Gee." Axe mused. "Looks like they handled this one on their own just fine. And for a while there I was worried."

She shook the ropes tied to a self-made bridle wrapped around the flying red snake's maw, and tugged at it to guide the dragon carrying them further up above. "Let's join the others, we still got work to do." Far above the plane flew a second, identical red serpent, carrying a whole line of Grunts and Berserkers. All ready with their broadswords.

One of the larger purple dragons tipped on her shoulder and almost hit one of the spikes on her upper armband. "Work? Aren't we done here? Temptress said to regroup if the elder dragon doesn't stop them."

Axe faced back up to where their ride was flying. "Nope. I'm working on the Knight's orders, not hers. I came here to do one thing. And no-one's leaving until we did it and I've got what I'm here for."

"Did what?"

She grinned at the older dragonesses. "We're gonna catch ourselves a dragonslayer!" Once in position, flying right along side the other serpent, she called to the other succubi: "All right, girls. It's show time. Here's the deal. The front roof, the human's most likely right underneath it. And as long as they're mid-flight, if we land on it, they can't do jack about us. But I need him unharmed, so here's how we'll make that happen..."

_________________________________________

Unlike with everything else they faced, getting past tempest put everyone in a celebratory mood. Even Kris was smiling. Starlet opened a fridge on the right side of the room, took out a wine bottle and fetched glasses for everyone. "Please, no modesty. You earned this." She handed filled glasses to everyone. Noelle gave Kris an insistent look when he was about to decline.

Well he could have a little. He took a sip. Then when it felt safe, he drank up the rest of his glass. And regretted it. He could taste the alcohol. It wasn't as mild as what they had at church, and there was no sweetness to smoothen out the bitter taste.

Seeing him actually drink this stuff earned him a painful punch to the right shoulder from a much more high-spirited dragon. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" She leaned on his shoulder and pointed her claw right at his face. "Didn't think you'd go for it you stuck up little wimp!"

Faith sat still in her seat. Wrapped in her blanket. Just like when the dragon attacked. But even she accepted a glass when Noelle offered it to her. "Heyyyy!" With an entire bottle in her other hand, Headbanger half-stumbled forwards to where Dasher sat. "Brave lil' pilot, you carried us through the storm. Why don't you have some, too."

He didn't turn around, but when she hung over the controls, instead of the glass as she assumed, he took the open bottle out of her hand and drank right from that one, instead. "Awww yeah, thought you were up for some partying up in here."

Kris was silent. As he liked to be. He stared at his empty glass for a while, before Ralsei called for him. By the time he zoned back in, he and Noelle were waving for him to sit between them, so he did. "See? Sure, it was a little bumpy, but we're going to make it. Now we can relax."

Right when she said this, a loud thud preceded a sudden shake in the plane. As if they were pressed down. Or something very heavy landed on it. "What was that?" It eased up, but not before one thud after the other came sounding from above. It became a lot of more messy rumbling. Starlet's eyes widened. "Steps! Someone's on top of us!"

The steps then stopped moving about and instead gained strength. All around them, something was being hammered into the hull. The tiny pointy ends of what could only be some hook to fasten their attackers onto the plane. Then with a loud bang, A Susie lookalike crashed against the left window after swinging down from above. She seemed to be held by the ankles, and upon staring Kris right in the eyes, shouted something and gave a thumbs up.

With a bang, a dent was struck into the top of the plane. And it was immediately followed by another, identical looking dent appearing next to it. At first, he chalked up the pointy shape to just coming from how metal bent. But when the third one had that same, slightly curved, pointy shape, he started to realize it wasn't a coincidence. He got up and went forwards, closer to where they were.

They stopped when he was about to reach them. Instead, some faint noise started behind him. Further in the back, right above or in front of the staircase. Whatever they were doing there, it wasn't good. He ducked under the dents, which still didn't resume when he did and asked the archer: "They're on the roof! Can you shake them off?"

"How?"

"Maneuvers? Something like a barrel roll?"

Dasher slammed his palm onto his face so strongly, he slapped it loud enough to be heard. "This is a transportation plane, not a fighter jet! If I tilt it too far in any direction, it will just crash into the sea."

He always sort of had the impression that Dasher 'was' Berdly in some way, but now he was outright reminding him of him. "You know, that sounds like something Berdly would say, too."

"Stop calling me Berdly!"

The attacks that dented the ceiling resumed. And when Ralsei and Noelle tried getting closer to the noise in the back, they were shocked and backed off. "Why is it so hot there?" Worse yet, a spark drifted off the ceiling where the heat built up and it caught fire.

When one of the attacks on the ceiling hit a previously made dent, a little piece of it broke off and fell inside. Kris moved backwards and addressed the archer again. "How are they getting through this? Isn't this made of reinforced steel or something?"

"No. There's an isolating coating around it, but the thing itself is mostly made of wood. That's why we have fire extinguishers everywhere. There aren't even any upward hatches. As long as we're in flight, we're sitting ducks."

Upon hearing this, Kris immediately grabbed the first one he could find around the corner from the control panels and ducked under the spot where something sharp was chopping its way through the roof. Again, the moment he passed by that spot, it stopped for a moment until he had gone past it. Faith had made her way to the back as well.

"Foolish lightners! That means this whole carriage is flammable, when all your enemies are dragons." The other succubus had rushed to join Dasher and Kris in the front. With her axe and his bow ready. It became very clear that the heat was concentrated in a specific area.

Kris needed a moment to figure out how to use the extinguisher, but come to think of it, it was pretty intuitive. He pressed down on the grip and covered the burning roof in foam. It put out the fires for a moment, but it didn't cool down the roof. And behind him, the first pieces of the ceiling were carved out and falling into the floor. When they did, he saw the curved blade of the weapon chopping open a hole. It was definitely the devilsknife.

Susie's weapon since after they beat Jevil. And because of it, it was Axe's weapon, too. The sight of the very thin hull actually breaking open sparked a shrieking frenzy in Noelle. Ralsei could somewhat calm her down by pulling out his gun and standing in front of her, but that didn't help much either because that way, he didn't stand between her and the searing heat in the back.

When enough bigger pieces had fallen off the floor, Axe's dark pink face peeked inside through the hole in the ceiling, showing her yellow teeth with a wide grin. With a melodious glee in her voice, the only actually convincing succubus announced herself: "Here's Susie!" Which made Noelle shriek in her corner all over again. Well at least she wasn't just frozen any more.

Worse yet, from the other side, something with a lot of force bent one corner of the roof over the foamed up part of the room and made a dent much wider than Axe's scythe on the other side. And even she wasn't showing any sign of stopping. "You're not getting away this time!"

The third kick to the roof in the other corner, burst through wood and taxed metal and revealed itself to come from the very voluminous leg of a Mistress. The enormous dominatrix had dressed for the occasion and was now completely covered head-to-toe in black leather. She actually had to duck for her head with all that hair to fit inside.

Ralsei raised his gun to point and shoot, but he was only a step away from her when she entered and she could easily summon a leash and pull down his pistol by the barrel. And Kris had his hands tied together as swiftly as Ralsei's gun was pulled down. Noelle tried raising her staff, but apparently wood alone wasn't enough to summon vines. She needed to be on solid ground.

The moment there was any space between the plump dragon and the hole they had burnt, more Susies came jumping inside. All with a leash on their right arms, leading outside. Faith did nothing but stay on her seat, but Headbanger picked up her Axe. "That's it, fighting it is! Hope you girls are ready! Here goes nothing!" And here went nothing indeed.

She charged for one of the incoming Grunts, but she didn't even make it all the way to her. The exact same way as it did with Kris, a leather leash shot from the ground, wound itself over her axe and tied itself around her wrists, pulling them to the floor.

"Really now? Really?" More bits and pieces fell off the roof right over her. Axe had carved open enough of an opening to drop inside as well, landing right on top of Headbanger's back and causing her to collapse completely under her weight. She knocked some dust off her black coat and with one boot still on the other dragon's back, she kneeled down.

"You, fighting?" She laughed. Any grunts present laughed with her. Laughter filled the whole room while the Grunts further behind punched Ralsei and Noelle several times, keeping them pinned to the wall in their corner. "Dude you are so not cut out for that. Gimme that. You really don't deserve it." Through all of this, Headbanger's star-shaped sunglasses were still intact, but now, the new leader of the succubi took it from her and put it on herself.

By the time this happened, Grunts and Berserkers had long swarmed every corner, keeping tabs on everyone - Starlet, Kris Ralsei and Noelle, Faith, Dasher, everyone had one, two or three of them on them. Kris had let too much time pass, but he just couldn't get this right. He had an idea how to free himself, but it was too little, too late.

He was trying to break out of the Mistress' magic attack by summoning his shield and using its growth to snap the leash, but his shield kept slipping out of it before it got that far. In part it was perhaps the Grunt who saw what he was doing and kept purposefully sliding his hand forwards or backwards to keep the shield from tearing open is leash.

When gunshots coming from Starlet's side of the room drew everyone's attention, Kris took the opportunity to try it one more time. It worked. He summoned his sword and raised it to attack the distracted Grunt. But the only person not so easily distracted, was Axe, who somehow caught wind of what he was doing, planted her right foot on the side of Headbanger's head, and launched herself forward to parry his sword strike with her scythe.

Within a second of wrestling back and forth, she was able to force him to lower his blade a bit, and at that point, she could just leverage her strength into pushing him backwards, to the side opposite from the prince and his classmate.

As soon as the injured Grunts in the front had control of the situation again, the Mistress could dedicate more of her magic towards making slings and bands shoot from the seats and the floor. Wrapping his forearms together tightly and leaving no room for him to wiggle his way into a position he needed for his shield trick to work.

Axe and more succubi swarmed him. They held him down while their boss pulled out a bundle of rope. And raised her head with a wide smile, wide enough for him to see all her sharp teeth. All the other succubi could never fool him. He had seen what Susie looked like in the dark world, so they with their purple scales, torn clothes and impersonal way of interacting with people, something about them never really screamed 'Susie' to him.

"Well well, congratulations. You got yourself caught. You know what's coming next, right?" But with her on the other hand - seeing someone who looked the part, stare him down, pull those lips back to put her jaws on display the same way the real Susie occasionally did. It felt like the real one was talking to him. That was pretty intimidating. Intimidating enough for him to keep quiet long enough to make her angry. "I asked you a question!"

He was out of plays. That was, plays other than going back to bribery. "I give you the rest of my sandwiches and we forget all this?"

She burst out laughing and went on to wind the rope around his arms to pull them together, and made sure it was as tight as possible. "Nope. Now's not the time for sandwiches. That comes later. Now come on, move, 'dragonslayer'." All the way from pulling him back on his feet to leading him past the hot spot and down the stairs, she couldn't keep it together and giggled the whole way through.

He didn't like her using that title in the first place, but he hated her doing it in such a smug way as if he had had any part in coming up with it. It was all the Journeyman's fault.

"Wait!" He stopped. "What about the others?"

"Well..." She did this same thing as Headbanger, where she leaned on his shoulder, but she put a lot more weight onto him. "...I'm not Tempts. She's the one with all the stupid ideas. I got clear orders. Keep the human alive and the lightners away from the fountain. You guys need a human to seal the fountain, so as long as I keep you away from it, job's done."

"N-no!" Ralsei refused to hold still, even when held in place by multiple dragons. "At least take me with him! Please!"

"Nope. Sounds like a big mistake." The more it became clear that she was taking only Kris with her, the more erratic he got. "Kris! Don't go!"

One of the Grunts asked another one what was going on with him. No-one knew the answer. "No! You can't go! I have to come with you!" He tried struggling free to get to Kris. The more effort the succubi put into restraining him, the harder he tried. "Let me...let me!" He tried to wring his arms out of their grip. He tried again and again.

"Jeez, what is wrong with you?"

He only stopped, when Kris stared him in the eyes. Kris was calm and collected. As he often was. Regardless of how hopeless their situation looked for now, all he had to think to himself was: No touching the lights.

All he had to do, was to not touch the lights and once he had more knowledge of what waited for them on Asriel's bed, he could always go back. Who knew, maybe he would be lucky. If he safely reunited with Noelle and Ralsei, he could resume doing so. For the time being, he gave the prince a confident smile, and told him: "Trust me. Everything is going to be okay. I will find some way."

"Come on now." With a painful push to the back, Axe forced him to start walking down the stairs again.

All the way down the stairs, he could hear Ralsei scream. "No! Take me with you! You can't go! I can't just leave you! I have to - No!"

Even downstairs, it never stopped. He had to just hope he'd be okay. "Hey Boss!" One Grunt came rushing down the stairs to talk to Axe. "What about the others?"

Axe shrugged. "Who cares? I got what I came for. Just make sure you girls get out of there." Kris had to hope for the best. He could always just go back. He had to repeat this in his mind. He could always just go back. Axe undid the mechanisms holding the door shut, wrapped her arm around Kris, stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave off a loud whistle.

The winged serpent that had carried her and the Mistresses before, rammed the plane. Rocking the entire thing. It was in position for her to climb onto its back. With a bridle attached to its mouth and reins and various ropes tied to it and in reach of the front person riding it.

Still with her arm around Kris, she tightened her grip and lifted him off the floor to climb on. She let one leg hang down each side of the saddle and placed Kris down right in front of her, making him do the same. While she pulled the reins and made herself comfortable, with her head straight over his, both arms stretched past his left and right side to hold the reins.

She lowered her face to shout against the air currents and into his ear with a menacing tone he didn't hear the real Susie use unless she was really, really angry over some joke or prank: "You try to pull anything, and we're both jumping right down there. Got it?" He said nothing, and he didn't move either. "Gonna take that as a yes."

She whipped the larger serpent with its reins and it pushed itself off of the plane and sped further down, making the air blowing against Kris' face even more unbearable. He was surprised it didn't just blow them both off the lizard's back, when it sped all along a different route than the one they had set out to take.