Come on!" Lily agreed, shrinking his sword and diving back towards the land, the others in hot pursuit. "Stay low to the ground! It'll be harder for it to get to us down here!"
...
They other followed his advice, sweeping just overt the surface of the land but still hugging the coastline in their escape just in case they needed to duck out towards the ocean.
The dragon swerved around and came after them nonetheless, pounding its wings as it blasted several fire jets madly down at them, but the nimble airborne cats weaved around to dodge them. Nevertheless the dragon was fast for its size and powered in low after them, landing briefly on the ground to blast another wave right after them.
"Wendy, I cannot defend you from this thing," Mavis called across to her. "I'm next to powerless in this form."
"Got it! We have to look after ourselves!" Wendy nodded, twisting around in Charla's grip and blasting out another vortex of wind from her mouth to the same effect as last time. "But why is it following us?"
"We must have made it angry!" Happy shouted.
"Hopefully it will turn back once we reach the edge of its territory!" Lily agreed.
Wendy sighed and spread her arms out. "Then let's get out of here. This should help. Oh swift wind that dashes through the heavens… VERNIER!"
The entire group, even Mavis, was suddenly surrounded by a greenish glow and they burst forwards, Wendy's Support Magic making their bodies lighter and raising their speed, leaving the dragon behind them. Wendy looked back over her shoulder sadly, watching the dragon trying to catch up with them and snarling through its reptilian jaws, blazing purple eyes burning after them.
"Sorry…" Wendy murmured to the animal before she turned around and focused on the path ahead.
Which is why she let out a scream when suddenly a second black dragon loomed over the rocks in front of them with a mighty snarl, spitting its own flaming blast forwards as they sped right into its path. Charla yelled and twisted wildly to the side while Lily grabbed both Happy and Mavis and ducked down, crashing to the ground and pushing them down as the searing heat washing over their backs, narrowly avoiding roasting them alive.
Charla cried out as she tried to regain control of her flightpath after her violent motion but she and Wendy both hit the ground with a thump and went rolling across the rocky turf, Wendy narrowly avoiding plummeting off the edge of the cliff and into the water below.
"Wendy! Charla!" Lily shouted, but even as he rose up he was forced to clap a hand over his ears as the new dragon's terrific roar shook the clifftops. Lily looked up, expecting to see it looming over them and ready to fire down upon them at any moment, but no, the dragon was looking past them, jaws curled back in a vicious snarl.
Because the first dragon had not stopped chasing them and was bearing down on them with huge sweeps of its wings, before pulling up short and growling in return at the other dragon.
It seemed that the two of them were right on the edge of one another's territory and they both spread their wings and arched their necks, puffing themselves up to try and makes themselves look bigger in a display of strength. Lily immediately grabbed Happy and Mavis and tucked them under his arms to head over towards Wendy and Charla, who were both pushing themselves up. But then the first dragon spotted him and roared angrily, forgetting the confrontation with the second dragon and and barrelling towards him on all fours.
The second dragon evidently took that as a challenge and plunged forwards too, and the two dragons collided in a mighty scraping crash of scales against scales as the second locked its jaws around the first one's neck and heaved it backwards with a strangled squawk.
The first dragon quickly forgot about its intended targets as it twisted its body around, locking its front feet onto the second's shoulder as and lurching it to the side, wrenching its neck out from between the other's teeth and batting its head aside with its own. The second dragon stumbled sideways towards Lily and the others, its tail smashing across like a giant bullwhip.
Lily kicked off from the ground and rose above the swinging tail but only succeeded in getting smashed in the back by a flailing wings and knocked forwards, rolling head over heels to try and regain his balance.
"Lily!" Wendy shouted as she pushed herself up.
"I'm fine!" Lily righted himself and grimaced slightly but turned around to face Wendy and head over towards her. "Come on! Let's get out of here while they fight it out!"
Wendy glanced back at the battling dragons and found her eyes fixed on the sheer ferocity going on before her. She couldn't tell which one of the two dragons was the nesting mother and which one was the newcomer anymore, but the two black dragons were viciously brawling it out. One of them was slashing at the others underbelly with its claws while it was having its wing mauled in the others jaws in turn.
But the one holding the wing twisted its head and brought the other dragon crashing onto its side, rearing up to deliver a fiery blast down on its floored opponent, only for said opponent to swing up its tail and smash it into its face, knocking it askew so the fiery blast torched the rocks nearby instead. The other scrambled up and lashed up with its jaws, snapping them around the jaws of the opponent and slamming them shut with a muffled screech of pain.
The two of them thrashed their necks madly for several seconds before the one being bitten muscled itself forwards and started using its wings to beat and buffet the other one back, trying to force it towards the edge of a cliff.
"No…" Wendy whimpered with wide eyes. "This is… this is so wrong. Dragons shouldn't be fighting each other like this."
"This is a clash over territory," Lily insisted. "This sort of thing happens all the time in the wild."
"But dragons aren't wild… they can't be…"
Memories of her kindly and warm Dragon foster-mother, Grandine, came flooding back into Wendy's mind. Memories of how the great, white Sky Dragon had lovingly cared for her, nuzzled her when she was scared and told her stories just to see her smile. How she sheltered her from the rain with one of her own wings and took her for rides through the sunset sky. How she used to use the very tip of her tail to tickle Wendy's sides as delicately as if it was a human finger.
Everything that she was seeing now with the two dragons furiously clawing and beating at each other like mindless rabid dogs went against everything that she remembered Grandine to be.
And she couldn't stand it!
"STOP IT!" she screamed, throwing herself forwards and dashing across the rocks towards the two clashing goliaths.
"WENDY NO!" Charla cried.
"LEAVE THEM!" Happy agreed. "WE NEED TO GO!"
Lily cursed and wheeled around after her but was not fast enough to stop her from interrupting the battle. The two dragons were blasting fire at one another now, wheeling around each other in a maelstrom of whipping flames but they were both suddenly caught off guard as a whirling tornado smashed into them both from the side, accentuating their fires to wash over them both and staining their scales with soot as they both went stumbling sideways, roaring in pain as the winds battered against their scales.
When it subsided, the both of them turned their heads around to stare at the young girl before them, eyes pleading desperately at them, "STOP FIGHTING!" she yelled. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS! IF YOU'RE NOT FRIENDS THEN JUST LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE! PLEASE JUST…"
But her cries evidently fell on deaf ears when one of the dragons drowned her out with a terrifying bellow and suddenly pounded across the rocks towards her, slamming the other one in the neck with its tail as it passed to send it sprawling.
Lily sprang over Wendy's head and brought his enlarged Musica Sword straight down from above, slamming the blade hard into the top of the dragon's head and smashing it down into the ground. "That's not going to help, Wendy!" he shouted. "Go! Now! I'll hold it off!"
The dragon powered its head up and threw the sword aside but Lily brought it under control by shortening it and rocketing up and past the dragon, drawing its attention away from Wendy and enlarging the sword again to bring it cleaving out towards the dragon's head. But the dragon ducked underneath it this time with a coiling of its neck and blasted a gout of fire up towards Lily. But the Exceed allowed the swinging motion of the giant sword to carry him sideways and out of the way, rolling over to deliver a mighty upwards sweep that carved a line into the dragons' chest on its softer underbelly.
A terrific screech of pain that came from the dragon as a result practically broke Wendy's heart right there. There really was nothing sentient about these creatures. They were purely beasts. And she watched in horror when the dragon seized Lily's sword in its jaws and wrenched its head to the side, dragging the big Exceed with it before releasing the blade and sending Lily crashing into the ground hard enough to splinter the rock.
"Lily!" she screamed, and immediately thrust her hands outwards as the dragon bore down on its prey, recasting the Vernier spell onto Lily, who shrunk his sword down and exploded out of the way as the dragons claws came crashing down where he had just been.
What was I doing? Wendy hissed to herself in her head. I just totally lost my head there!
She guessed that so soon after Acnologia coming across too more vicious dragons rather than a kindly one like Grandine cut her deeply. But she had to get her act together and they had to leave.
"WENDY, LOOK OUT!" Charla screamed and Wendy whipped around to find the second dragon was back in action and was looking up off to her side, flames practically leaking out of its jaws as it thundered towards her. Wendy gasped and dashed out of the way, but it turned out the dragon was not actually after her but was steamrolling towards the other dragon while Lily was keeping it distracted. But, as it thundered past her and Wendy turned to cry out a warning to Lily, the dragon's tail crashed into the rocks next to her and smashed them into rubble and knocked Wendy flying…
…right off the edge of the cliff.
"WENDY NO!" Charla was immediately in the air and diving after her, Happy right behind. But the roar of the oncoming dragon alerted the other to its imminent attack and it swung around to douse the air with fire. The attacking dragon lurched out of the way and the fire whooshed on past it, straight towards the two small Exceed.
"WATCH OUT!" Lily cried and cannoned towards them, the Vernier still in effect allowing him to race past the fire and seize the two other cats before they could be burnt to cinders, but even as he dodged aside the edge of the fire blast scorched his back and one of his wings, bringing a howl of pain from the big, black Exceed as he crashed to the ground nearby, his back smoking.
"Lily!" Happy gasped in shock.
"WENDY!" Charla scrambled out of his grip and flew to the edge of the cliff, staring down in terror…
But there was no sign of Wendy. Just a foaming ripple in the water where she had hit the surface and vanished beneath it. "No!" Charla gasped, tears appearing her eyes. "Wendy, no!"
Lily grunted his pain and pushed himself back up, ignoring his searing back as best he could and growling. "Come on! It's not over yet! We need to…"
And suddenly the area was disturbed once more when several loud cracks ripped through the air and all of sudden several humans appeared all around the area, seemingly out of thin air. The Exceeds all blinked, momentarily distracted as the humans rushed towards the battling dragons, whipping out little sticks of wood from their flowing black robes.
"Conjunctivitis Curses on three! Let's break them up then we Stun them one at a time!" one of the humans shouted and a few seconds later several pinkish blasts of energy lanced out of the tips of the little sticks and struck all around the heads of the two dragons, some hitting them in the eye.
Both the dragons bellowed and pulled apart, shaking and tossing their heads and lifting their front feet to scratch at their eyes, which the others could see were starting to turn pink and swell shut.
...
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