Copper dragons are one of the easiest dragons to come across and survive the encounter. This is not to say that such a dragon is weak but as they have little interest in killing and rampaging. It is rare for one to truly try to kill someone, at least so long as they have obtained sentience. Their favorite thing to do is to play pranks, share jokes and swap stories. After spending a good old time with one they tend to let you on your way so long as you manage not to offend them. They tend to have affinity for earth and water magic.
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Adrian
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After our bartering, the end price of a few scales to get some chainmail for the rest of our group and a few spare weapons was well received by the group. I still shouldered the whole cost but a few scales isn’t much and it would cost me more time and money practicing the dwarven arts to make them anyways. One day rush caused the price to skyrocket but that is fair.
Once back at the hotel, Bryan and Abagail have entered their room while Ria is not wanting to be left alone. Neither the trio or me like the idea of Ria sharing our room and as K is arguing with her I walk up to the door of our room and open it.
I hear something fall as soon as the door is open. My eyes focus on the dark green almost egg-shaped object, that is a grenade. That isn’t all that is there though, the door has several small claylike blocks attached to and wired together.
I shove the door away from me and accidently break both the hinges and handle as I tackle the trio specifically to the ground, Ria also ends up under me as I shift into my larger dragon body while twisting reality to dampen fire as much as I can.
I break walls as I expand and the explosives detonate. I roar in pain no doubt deafening the others as the concussive force hits me accompanied by splinters and shards of metal. At least those bounce off of my scales save for the parts that strike the membranes of my wings.
The fires of the building are quickly snuffed out as I deny them, rejecting them and their ability to spread. I can hear screams and sirens, but none of that matters to me. This building can burn, the people here can die but someone just tried to kill me and my girls. Someone needs to die for this. . .
When I shift back to human form I quickly check the girls and find them aside from a few scratches and rug burn from my tackle fine. New clothes appear on me from Void Cache and I turn towards the other end of the hall.
K is the first one back on her feet and she is quickly followed by Talia. I help Lysan up as I say, “check on Bryan” to the others. It doesn’t matter which one any of them can heal save Talia and Ria. All of them end up going as I glance around looking for whoever is the cause.
I can still feel the pain of the injuries of my dragon form, the trickles of blood falling from my wings in whatever space they are currently in as several doors open. A swat team of some sort coming at up clicks coming from their assault rifles as my Fire Dampening is still active.
An outlet for my rage here, claws form from my hands as I make use of the hallway to restrict them from getting past me. The closest drop their guns, abandoning a tool that is not usable against me for combat knives that are now more promising.
The first underestimates my strength and speed and ends up with a hole in his chest. The rest do not, their skill is higher than mine, more than matching my higher physical abilities. They keep me from making kill strikes but their blades cannot cut my scales and their might cannot break my bones.
A tingle on my back brings me to side step what could have been a glancing Lightning Bolt from Talia. I make sure to step on the twitching man with clawed feet as I continue to fight against another soldier. My rage barely under control as I am all but mentally chanting 'death'.
A burst of red-black over the men before me lets me know K has joined. An arrow passes by within an inch of my ear to land between the eyes of the soldier I am in melee with. He slumps down and there are but two left after another flash of red-black energy.
They draw a different weapon, tazer guns and launch them at me. Good idea but I don’t need to keep suppressing fire now. Now I compress time and rush the two as I easily dodge the projectile. With this temporally enhanced speed they are not able to react fast enough to keep me from mauling them. A few strikes yes but not enough to stave of death. The warmth of their spilt blood does little to sate me, I want whoever ordered this and whoever that is will have been one of those generals down stairs.
“Calm down Adrian” Bryan is yelling at me and I all but ignore him until something in Abigail’s voice begins to dampen my anger. I don’t want it at first and could feel my resistance to her manipulation of mana working, but after a moment I give into her magic. If I am going to kill everyone responsible for this I’m going to need to think clearly.
I glance around and almost feel disappointed that these soldiers are only dismembered. They don’t deserve it, they were only following orders but I don’t care they attacked me and my girls.
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Fabricio
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“You better be right about this” the idiot General I am manipulating says.
Some fake tears come out of my eyes as I cry at the man, “brother and dad are monsters.”
“Shh, it’s okay boy. Your safe now but are you sure there are enough explosives?”
I nod and sniffle as the man is too caught in his on delusions and what little mind magic I can muster to notice what is wrong about the situation.
“What if the bombs don’t work?” I ask with another sniffle.
“There’s a swat team too. Don’t worry they won’t hurt you again.”
I make a smile of relief and sniffle again as I 'struggle' to stop crying. While I hope this will be enough Geldath doubts it, after all even with modern technology it still falls apart if you just suppress electricity and fire, then most modern weapons become useless.
The explosion of a bomb goes off a few floors above us and I know there were casualties from it. I focus on feeling the fabric of reality, I barely have the strength to do so but I still manage it even if the strain is transferring to this body. It is a good body but I don’t want to walk around without my twin.
The fabric of reality is still contorted, Adrian still lives and I wonder how. Did someone else open the door? Or did he get stronger since Rynald drove me away?
It matters not, kill or capture the experiment and Geldath will give brother and me one last life. The sounds of combat stop before the ripples across the fabric of reality and I turn my will away. He did not die from that, it is not enough.
I whisper thoughts into this fool’s mind again, and he orders more soldiers to go and fight the monster walking amongst them before going himself. I begin to bleed from an eye and my nose as reality pushes back at me. I’m making the man act to far out of his normal patterns and people are noticing but I don't care.
I spit some blood out and catch my breath, I don’t have the strength to do this again so I’ll have to spend it all in this one fight.
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Adrian
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It is not long after the would-be assassin soldiers' death that more begin to arrive. The first soldier who arrives begins to ask if I am alright. I recognize him as one of those who I’ve passed on my way to talk to Secretary Jasmine.
Just as I drop my guard another soldier comes up the stairs and fires his gun at me, a yell of “kill the monster” is all the warning I get.
I don’t suppress fire in time to stop the first few bullets and can only hope that anyone else who was hit managed to not take it in a vital spot. This time my suppression of fire is weaker but I tie it to the area as a duration.
A piece of lead gets pushed out of my shoulder as I reject the wound, my supressed rage masking the pain. More soldiers begin to come up the stairs, some yelling about killing monsters the others confused and making reports to someone over the radio. Not everyone is an enemy, but they all have the same uniform.
“If you’re not here to kill me drop you weapons” I shot with some anger slipping through Abagail's spell.
Some of the soldiers lower their weapons in confusion but quickly raise them back up once the first soldier shouting “kill the monsters” reaches me and ends up losing a limb as my claws tear into him. He shouldn’t be less skilled than the ones before, his attack wasn’t but he barely made a move to defend himself.
Something is not right about this. The men are not really defending themselves. Soon the soldiers who were calling on radios, rather than making suicidal charges at me, begin to try to restrain their insane comrades.
I hear a gunshot behind me. That shouldn’t be possible, I suppressed fire. I turn and see one of my little brothers with a gun still pointed at K. How did he even get there?
“If you don’t come with me Adrian I’m going to put another silver bullet in her.”
“Frank? What the hell are you doing?!”
A blast of lightning erupts from his hand leaving burn marks over it just as it knocks Abagail back, she lies twitching on the ground as Bryan abandons the fight to care for her.
“My boss is done waiting around and wants you brought back.”
“Frank, why are you. . .” I say as I begin to run to K. The echo of another gunshot assaults my ears as another silver bullet is put in K's shoulder.
“Don’t think about trying to help her. The next one I’ll put in her heart. So, will you come with me or will I need to kill you?”
Talia charges at my younger brother but he dodges her attack and once inside her reach sends a bullet through her chest as she falls to the ground. My mind sits in an angry confusion as Lysan begins crying over her sister.
I don’t respond to the threats my younger brother is making. I don’t want to fight him, he’s family but he is killing my friends. These two thoughts swirls around my mind for what seems like hours as I stand in confusion.
A few seconds pass like this and as Ria talked a bullet in retaliation to her throwing of green fire something finally snaps and I charge at my little brother.
I manage to reach him before he can put a bullet in anyone else. Just when I get in melee with him though a rush of wind and lightning comes out of his hand and strikes me. I get pushed back but see a red mist forming from the spilt blood of the soldiers and the nose bleed Frank has.
A specter of red mist flies at Frank as he yells something at it in a language I did not know he spoke, or what it was for that matter. The two collide and I feel some sort of ripple in reality.
What few soldiers that were previously hostile throw down their weapons and begin to surrender to the ones that did not attack me. I don’t have the time to figure out what is going on though, I rush to the nearest injured person who happens to be Talia and begin to heal her.
A bullet in the gut again, this injury gives me less trouble than the last bullet she took and I rush to K next. She is not doing well and I can see wisps of smoke coming out of the wounds.
The bullet holes feel harder to reject than it did for Talia, even after all the silver was pulled out of her, as if her body wasn't trying to heal it. By the time I finally do heal K of the two injuries Bryan is helping Abagail back up and I can hear some soldiers coming up the stairs.
I stand up and walk over to Ria after motioning Bryan and Abagail to handle whoever is coming up the stairs. Ria's injury is also letting out wisps of smoke as K's did and while harder to heal than Talia’s it was easier than K's.