Chapter 29 - Rescue Complete
BOOM!!!
A blinding detonation of golden-blue light raced across the cave.
Before the drake’s jaws could snap around Roxa’s neck, a spatial distortion cracked through the air. Vincent triggered his full divine transformation mid-stride and put himself between her and the monster.
With an echoing rustle, one of his massive white wings swept forward, wrapping around Roxa’s body like an impenetrable shield, while the other snapped outward, slamming directly into the jaw of the incoming beast.
CLANG!
The sound of sharp teeth colliding with his winged feathers rang out like a sledgehammer striking steel.
Vincent slowly peeked around the curved edge of the wing shielding Roxa. "Are you ok!?"
Roxa felt her heart hammer against her ribs. Wrapped securely in the warmth of his wing, she stared up at his glowing, ethereal profile in bewilderment and shock.
"I-I’m ok..."
"Good!"
With an effortless flex of his wing muscles, Vincent shoved the drake’s massive head back, sending the twenty-ton beast skidding thirty feet across the stone floor.
"Roxa! Get the kids out of here. Right now!"
Snapping out of her trance, her hands immediately reached for her daggers. "No! I am not leaving you to fight this monster and the bandit alone–!"
"Just go! The kids won’t survive whatever collateral damage may come of this! I can’t cut loose with them in the room! Trust me! I got this!"
Roxa bit her lip so hard she drew blood. Looking back at the crying and trembling elven children huddled in the corner, she calmed herself and yielded to his logic.
"Do not die, human!" she shouted, turning toward the children. "Follow me! Fast!"
"GET BACK HERE, YOU ELVEN PESTS!" the bloodied bandit leader screamed from the rear, clutching his mangled chest.
He pointed his battleaxe frantically at the fleeing children. "CRUSH THE WOMAN, DRAKE! DON’T LET THE BRATS GET AWAY!"
"GRRRRRAAAARRRR!!!"
The drake whipped its tail through the air like a wrecking ball as it lunged toward the narrow exit path.
"Not on my watch!"
Vincent met the drake head-on, flying straight into the trajectory of the massive tail as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
THWACK—BOOM!
The twenty-ton tail strike collided with him, creating a shockwave that blew the surrounding torches out. Vincent’s boots scraped two inches back in the stone, but his body firm held like an immovable wall.
"Now it’s my turn," he smirked.
With a burst of effort, Vincent flew around and seized the drake’s spiked tail with both hands. Using pure brute force, he spun and hoisted the beast off its feet, slamming its body violently into the left cavern wall.
RUMBLE!
Huge cracks spider-webbed across the mountain ceiling. Boulders the size of small carriages tore loose and rained down into the cavern.
"You blue bastard!" The bandit leader ran out the wrecked shed and brought his broadsword down in a two-handed overhead executioner’s strike, aiming directly for Vincent’s head while his back was turned.
"DIE!"
CLANG!
Not looking back, Vincent raised his arm sideways. The sword struck his bare forearm and shattered the steel into a dozen jagged flying shards, leaving the leader holding nothing but a splintered wooden handle.
"What... what are you?!"
"Who am I? I’m–"
"Go! Hurry but be careful! We’re there!"
Over by the rear tunnel, Roxa guided the last weeping elven child through the narrow path and out the exit.
She turned back just in time to see the main cavern’s ceiling starting to give out under the destruction of Vincent’s fight.
BOOM-CRASH!
Once they were all out safely, a wall of stone collapsed downward, completely sealing the only exit and burying the battle inside in total darkness with no way out.
"Oh no... Human!!"
Inside the pitch-black cave, the dust was thick enough to obscure and choke a normal man. But to Vincent’s divine vision, everything burned in glowing hues of energy.
"GET US OUT OF HERE, DRAKE! WE’RE GOING TO DIE IF WE STAY HERE! THE CAVE IS COLLAPSING!" The bandit leader’s panicking voice echoed from the dark, clinging from around the top of the drake’s neck.
"GRRRRAAAARRRR!!"
The beast surged forward toward the long winding front tunnel leading back to the mountain’s high cliff mouth.
Vincent flared his white wings and accelerated into a high-speed flight straight through the corridor ahead of them.
"Haha! Race you to the finish!"
"Faster, Drake! Kill him while you’re at it!"
"GRRRAAARRR!!"
RUMBLE!!
Giant pointed stones snapped off the ceiling like falling spears, crashing onto the tunnel floor.
Vincent flew while performing impossible aerial maneuvers – rolling horizontally to squeeze between falling slabs of granite and dipping low beneath collapsing stone arches, all while his white wings left trails of golden-blue light in the dark.
Behind him, the drake didn’t bother dodging. Driven by panic and bound by order, the beast plowed right through the falling stone.
"DIE, YOU BLUE-HAIRED DEMON!" The leader pulled a pair of throwing daggers from his belt and hurled them through the dust clouds straight at Vincent’s back.
CLANG CLANG!
Vincent swatted both steel daggers out of the air with his wing.
"Your aim is as bad as your career choices! Also, demon?! C’mon man!"
"FUCK YOU!"
The drake suddenly surged with a violent burst of speed, opening its jaws wide. It snapped its teeth close inches from Vincent’s trailing wing feathers.
"Close, but no cigar!"
As they neared the exit, it soon became very clear that it was entirely blocked off.
"HAHAHA! WE GOT HIM CORNERED! FULL SPEED AHEAD, DRAKE!!"
"Not if I have anything to say about it!"
Gathering divine power into his shoulder, Vincent accelerated straight toward the blocked off exit, shoulder-tackling it with full force.
Outside under the moonlit sky, Roxa noticed that down below them, the chaotic fires of Talia’s battle were finally winding down. However, in her mind, she was stuck at an impasse on whether to continue on without him or try to find some way to go back inside and help him.
For centuries, every lesson taught to her by her elders, every historical text she had read, and every personal experience she had endured insisted on one absolute truth: Humans were evil in every sense of the word.
Yet... a human-looking boy had just saved her from falling to her death, had taken poison dart meant for her, had wrapped her in his wing around her to save her from death a second time, and had ordered her to save the children while he stayed behind in a collapsing mountain to face a drake and its master alone.
"I... I..."
She took a step back toward the path, torn between centuries of deep-seated racial prejudice and a morality.
"I... I have to go back–"
BOOOOOOM!
The blockading wall exploded into flying fragments of gravel, opening a path clean through.
Vincent burst through the debris cloud into the open night air of the cliff face, the moon shining brightly on his flying form.
A second later, the drake burst out right behind him, rock dust exploding off its scales as it vaulted out of the collapsing mountain into the open sky.
"GAAAAAAAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DRAKE! WHY’D YOU JUMP OFF?!"
Roxa stared up at the sky, her jaw slacking as she watched the unbelievable spectacle unfold right above her.
Vincent stopped dead mid-air and drew back his fist.
BZZZZT-FWOOSH!
An absurd quantity of divine golden-blue energy began to condense around his hand, swirling so violently it created a visible shockwave ring of force around his arm.
"This is the end for you! Hasta la vista, baby!"
With a devastating motion, Vincent flew downward, delivering a single, brutal punch straight into the drake’s open stomach.
BOOOOOOM!
"SCREEEEEEAAARRGGHH!!"
The Drake let out a painful, screeching howl as the strike compressed its midsection. The impact reversed its momentum, blasting the dragonic beast and its screaming master backward at hypersonic speed, slamming them directly back into the mouth of the cave.
Lingering divine power pulsed wildly across the drake’s scales, causing the monster to spaz out as it hit the cliff.
Vincent slowly turned his back to the mountain, crossing his arms casually over his chest, and tilted his head toward the night sky.
"Cool guys don’t look at explosions."
The lingering divine power inside the drake detonated like a nuke.
KABOOOOOOOM!
A colossal explosion of celestial blue light sheared off an entire ridge, vaporizing the rock and turning the bandit leader’s prison mountain into a glowing crater of smoldering dust.
A towering pillar of blue light shot straight up into the sky, piercing the night clouds and illuminating the entire area for miles.
Down in the main camp, Talia, her four scouts and the rescued children all stopped dead in their tracks. Every single eye turned to the bright sky, staring up at the newly reshaped mountain skyline in speechless, terrifying awe.
As the blinding beam dissolved into glittering speckles light, Vincent landed right beside Roxa and deactivated his divine form.
"Hey there. I’m glad you’re all safe."
Roxa stood frozen blank.
Her twin daggers slipped from her numb hands, clattering uselessly against the dirt. She forgot how to speak for a solid five seconds.
"Helloooo. Earth– Pristina to Roxa. Can you hear me?"
Roxa didn’t yell, threaten, or drop into her icy, hostile glare. Slowly, she lowered her head.
Pulling the hood of her cloak deep over her face to hide her intensely flushed cheeks, she uttered a quiet, trembling, but genuinely respectful whisper:
"...I was wrong about you... Vincent."
"Wait... did you just use my actual name? And admit you were wrong? Who are you and what did you do with Roxa!?"
Roxa quickly turned around, her ears turning bright red under her hood as she stomped away down the path toward the hiding children.
"S-Shut up, human! We need to hurry back down to Talia so we can find a safe place to rest before returning to the sanctuary tomorrow!"
Folding his arms behind his head, Vincent chuckled as he followed her down the mountain. "Whatever you say, boss."