Well. This turned gruesome fast, Sazh thought, as the mysterious disappearing warrior came up yet again, but from behind with the intent to murder the flaming skeleton biker. Between his precise polearm attack and the beast's savage goring, the Ghost Rider was no match even with his increased size. Decapitated, his flames fizzled out as his enlarged body was slung into the sharp rock wall and the monster stomped violently on his head. Seemingly satisfied with his efforts, Archer dashed away again, imploring everyone to flee while they still had the chance.

That left Saber, Vash, and a still-hesitant Sazh still left in the presence of the Black Gravios. But it seemed that with no provoking from the three left, and with Vash apparently returning her eggs, the wyvern did not act any more violent. She just looked at them meanly, snorting in dismission. Saber promptly left, and as she did, Sazh looked back to motion for Vash to follow hurriedly.

Outside the cave, the l'Cie shielded his eyes for a moment to adjust to the light difference. It looked like everyone else was present, and mostly okay. They were higher up on the mountain ranges now, as the colder air and wind evidenced. Sazh ended up turning to look at the light, catlike voice, perched on its own personal campsite up on a flat surface jutting out of the mountain. It was quite small and fluffy, which led to Sazh wondering how such a seemingly weak creature was able to get up here on his own, considering all the creatures around. Or was he alone? He couldn't see anyone else...

"Well, I think that sounds right..." Sazh lamented in slight wonder at the cat-being's questions. That certainly did sound like a name for a legendary dragon, and they could definitely use all the help they could get to get this ragtag group any closer safely.

Already reloading with a swift set of gestures, Twitch cackled at the snarl of pain echoing from the glowing mass. Confidence reasserted its control over anger in some cramped part of the rat's brain. Squinting into the luminescence, trying to discern a target on the thing's body through the obscuring light and noise, the flare of the insects slammed Twitch's eyes shut, the shock of it almost physical to him. A moment's wince, and the hum was cut short by a deep boom, the crack of rock rebounding into the valley. Finely honed reflex fired Twitch's barbed bolt at the sound's origin before he dropped back into the gap.

Scraping some grime from under his fur and fingernails, rubbing it onto his goggles to darken their surface, Twitch's eyes fluttered open as his hands worked. The insects, yes. Whatever they were hiding was using their energy, their hum and fizz of electricity. In other circumstances he'd love to trap one, taste it, grind it and bottle its filtrates, but his preoccupation now was getting rid of the things. They'd rest on the creature's skin, of course, or under its fur; Who knew the behaviour of tagalong insects better than the magnificent fleabag himself? Ohohoho, yes. Unfastening a round jar from a belt slung around his shoulder, shaking it vigorously, Twitch took the seconds needed to rest his eyes. Flypaper wasn't the intended goal, no, but if those insects landed as often as flies before they returned to the air... The idea was viable.

An ear over the outcrop first, then two, locating the buzz, feeling the wind, deciding where to point his gaze when he emerged, not leaving himself enough time to make the informed decision as he did. "Fetch!"

The toss left the green bottle travelling an imperfect arc, its capped end vanishing and reappearing as it spun, the cloud of light parting for it to show a trace of fur before the noxious adhesive shattered on the beast's body. Twitch fell back under his hideout, accomplished but cautious. He was drawing too much attention to his location. Scrabbling, eyes scanning the rock face, the rat hunched under his coat as he attempted to find the next point of shelter.

Will be? I kinda thought that I already was strong. Whitney was about to give a snarky remark but then she realised that she truly was not the strongest person in the world when compared to the other guys. Well, they’re clearly from different universes and all, and from pretty violent ones too. My world is clearly better than theirs. If they’re used in fighting for their lives, it means that they have to do so regularly. There might be some organised crime in Johto, but they didn’t cause any casualties. The girl was about to think that she hadn’t been able to do a thing against them either, but she didn’t continue the thought. It’s irrelevant. I’ve become stronger since then anyway. I’m just used to a bit different atmosphere than this, that’s all! Her face turned stubborn. Whitney was definitely about to defend herself, even though Nobuo hadn’t accused her about anything. But just when she was opening her mouth, Nobuo announced that he was leaving.

“Hey, don’t leave me alone! I’ll come along!” she cried out in an instant. There might be new deadly battles coming up, which definitely made her terrified. But even that was better than being alone in that completely unknown place. Well, not completely alone, she had her team. And Whitney knew that she could always trust in them. It was just the incident in the cave. If there were no other people to worry about, she might be able to defeat any enemy, at least in her thoughts, but the strength wasn’t the problem.

Her hand found Bibarel’s pokéball and grabbed it tightly, but she didn’t release the Pokémon. It was trainer’s responsibility to take good care of their Pokémon and make sure to not push them too hard. Whitney attempted to justice her actions in the cavern by inexperience yet again, but she couldn’t keep away an empty feeling inside her heart. It was almost like her heart was a Paras, something was growing on it, slowly sucking everything from it and taking it over. Paras was a bug-type Pokémon which had a mushroom growing on its back, which drew nutrients from it. Whitney couldn’t recall what Bibarel’s face had looked like when she was about to be burned by the fire of the monster. She couldn’t even recall that Bibarel wasn’t facing her, but was looking at the dragon-creature instead.

“Don’t leave me alone”, she whispered. Her voice trembled a bit and her eyes started to glimmer by tears yet again. Whitney wasn’t sure whether she was talking to Nobuo or Bibarel. Likely to both.

Archer

The man in red with the darker skin and the paler hair appeared perfectly composed as he waited outside the cavern for everyone else to get there, keeping a watchful eye on his surroundings--and spotting the seated cat-thing before it opened his mouth. Now that was a strange creature... quite unlike anything he'd ever encountered over his life. Vampires and their tendency to become increasingly bizarre, yes, but humanoid cats? This was somewhat stranger than even those, since at least they started human.

Most of them.

Saber's face took on an odd expression when she saw the cat, and Archer couldn't help but smirk at it. The confident, perfect king, losing her perfect composure because of a cute cat. No doubt she'd be embarrassed if she realised that someone had found out her distraction--but that would just make the smirking even more noticeable.

Then, the cat started speaking about killing a dragon. So that was their mission, here? Maybe they should have killed the thing in the caves, just in case it turned out to be the right enemy. Better, perhaps, than being summoned for a battle to the death with the prize being All the World's Evils getting unleashed.

---

Nanoha

The magical girl winced as the creature was so brutally obliterated--but it was an aggressive wild animal, and knocking it out hadn't been a practical concern. Right now, it was more important to get away from the onrushing herbivores. Meanwhile, the redheaded girl who'd been panicking at the sight of the first enemy was running away deeper into the forest. Concerned that she might get herself hurt in her panic, the airborne girl followed along, keeping up through a combination of flight being quite fast, even if speed wasn't her strongpoint, and not needing to worry about obstacles..

Besides, even if anything had gotten in the way, she'd just blow her way through it.

Alice and Àgnes

BGM: That Person's Name Is still playing

Their battle was going on fierce levels. Alice tried to explode Àgnes as soon as possible, but with her as a Valkyrie it seemed impossible, since the Valkyrie is a class which makes Àgnes faster than usual. But the battle wasn't good for the vestal as well. The exploding shields that the puppetmaster was using was leaving her tired. "Please, stop! I just want to talk with you!!", Àgnes begged. But Alice wasn't up for talks. She kept sending dolls, armed with swords, to attack her enemy. Then, Àgnes jumped once again, escaping from the dolls and fell in front of Alice. The dollmaker sent a doll and the vestal pointed her spear. The silence and their breathing was the only sound they heard.

BGM: Bad Omen

"I guess... this will have no end if we continue.", Àgnes said. For her surprise, Alice nodded and the two backed down. "OK, but you'll start explaining. Who are you and what do you want with me?", Alice asked. "My name is Àgnes Oblige, Vestal of Wind. I was wondering if someone was here to help me. When I saw you, I thought you could help me.", Àgnes answered. "So, I'm not th only person lost here. How inconvenient. Whoever called us has a bad sense of humor.", Alice said. Àgnes nodded. "My name is Alice Margatroid, Seven-Colored Puppeteer. Since we're both lost, how about we help each other for now?", she offered. Àgnes nodded once again and the two of them continued to walk.

So the dragon was a mother. It wasn't agressive out of territorial drift, nor was it a dumb monster that attacked humans just because some kind of dark spirit told it to. No, the whole time the beast was fighing just to protect her offspring. It made Felt feel horrible, as if he was the bad one here. It's all because of that skeleton. He's the one who caused this, he's the one who's responsible for it. Judgement was quickly delivered though, in the form of a red-cloaked man quite literally decapitating the undead humanoid, after which the dragon focused her just anger on the corpse.
With the threat of being mauled the moment they turned their backs on the dragon momentarily gone, the party then wisely chose to leave the mother alone. "I.. I'm sorry," Felt muttered, then left the cave himself. He just hoped that her eggs weren't destroyed in the battle...

It was not until now that the battle was over and the adrenaline in his body slowly started to wear off that the young swordsman noticed the fact that he was hurt in the fight. Of course, with all the fire and rocks being flung about, this was pretty hard to avoid, but it still needed fixing. Said fix came in the form of a quickly summoned healing potion, the contents of which caused his burns and bruises to quickly heal. Sadly this low-level medicine wasn't potent enough to also remove the pain, which would still linger for a bit before fading on its own.
Either way, that problem was now taken care of, allowing Felt to focus on other things. Such as, say, Whitney, who, although she didn't look all that comfortable, at least seemed to be in one piece. "Thank Lilith, she made it out," the alchemist whispered, more to himself than anyone else. He then turned to the Pokemon trainer. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, his voice not sounding quite as bright as it sounded before they had entered the cave with that accorsed skeleton.

As everyone seemed to be leaving the cave on their own, Minato commanded Suzaku to fly away. The vermillion peacock flew at a fast pace, never ceasing to accelerate, so some minutes later the male had left the cave.

Once he reached outside, Suzaku would vanish, going back to the sea of his soul. The male then looked around looking at everyone, he was glad that the other people in the cave made their way out, he thought about making an introduction since he just...jumped into battle, but he was to busy glaring at that talking cat. For a second he thought it was a Neko Shogun, however, that cat wasn't black and seemed more like an adventurer than a fighter. Minato remained in silence as he listened to the feline. Apparently he would take them to another dragon, apparently that was his current objective.

However...a weird talking cat showed up literally out of nowhere, and no one seemed to know it, then suddenlly offers for help? Minato glared at the cartographer cat.-"You're a stranger who shows up out of nowhere and offers help...Why exactly should we trust you...?"-He asked with a calm voice tone, after a certain betrayal in his life, he had to make sure who he was dealing with so no one would get stabbed in the back.

“Fantastic work Dutch. I take it you delivered the shipment without much trouble then… No? Well, it can’t always be so easy can it? No matter. You’ve finished the job, little problems notwithstanding.” Balalaika took a long hit from her cigar as the Captain of the Black Lagoon expanded on the details of their most recent job via phone call. Hotel Moscow had recently acquired a group of sex slaves that needed to be transported to an auction. Apparently there had been some law enforcement involvement, as well as interference from the original owners of the slaves. It wasn’t anything Lagoon Company couldn’t handle of course; Balalaika trusted them with her employment for a reason after all. “Well, they’d be fools to try and come after Hotel Moscow’s business again after that. And if they do… we won’t be so generous to leave them with what little they have left.” As if to simulate the demise of said individuals, the scarred vixen rather forcefully brought down her cigar on the trembling mass of the bound man who could have been considered the leader of the irate gang who attempted to get their property back, his muffled screams only reaching foreign ears that only wished to do him harm. “And we will be coming after your friends if they ever decide to show their faces in this city again.” With each word the burning tobacco twisted over the captive’s clammy forehead, hoping dearly that this would be the worst of it. When he figured out that it wasn’t? A foul liquid formed around the chair he was strapped against, the final notice that he had been broken. Balalaika quickly withdrew her foot, unwilling to give this doomed gangster the satisfaction of a final “fuck you” with the sullying of her shoe. “Oh, and Dutch? I’d stay away from the east warehouses. You know how violent it can get over there. I hear bodies just litter the streets…” And at that moment, everything went black, both for the old captain and the captive. One body slumped, and the other faded from this existence, if only for a brief moment.

Meanwhile, in another existence not unlike the last, a filled arena lay dark. The crowd could do little more than mutter excitedly in anticipation, and just when they couldn’t wait any longer… fire. Bursts of smoldering flame emitted from the entrance ramp, and out came something that could have only been created in a terrible, fever induced nightmare. Towering in at an astonishing seven feet, the demon Kane stomped all 323 pounds of himself slowly down to the ring, savoring every second of pure fear that dripped off of the audience. Accompanying him was another evil individual, though this truth wasn’t as clear in comparison to the masked menace that prowled alongside him. The vile Paul Bearer followed behind his child with an ever constant sneer on his face, daring anyone with his gaze to stand up to the monster he created. As expected, Kane made it to the ring without much protest. Once inside the squared circle, he commenced in the ritual of slowly raising his arms in the air, calling something from hell itself. In one fluid motion, Kane crashed his arms down, and another torrent of hellfire surfaced, this time surrounding the ring. As ringside commentator Michael Cole would describe it, Kane was the embodiment of horror. Out of all the superstars waiting backstage, who could possibly take on such a menace? There would be only one, and that man was Kane’s brother, The Undertaker. As if it was fate, or some sort of cosmic force brought on by the dead man himself, the stadium went dark again with only the chime of a bell as warning. As the lights returned, Paul Bearer was astounded to find himself alone in the ring…

In the hours that passed, Balalaika woke to find herself on top of a futuristic apartment building asking all the usual questions. Why was she here? What exactly brought on this sequence of events? Why does everything look like an unsolved Rubik's Cube? Her answers would come in the form of investigation of the locals, and through womanly charm and intimidation, she was as up to date as possible. The leftover time until the first challenge would be spent gathering useful supplies and making allies with various other challengers until together they had a small rag-tag team. Unfortunately, these competitors fell short when it came to iron will and fighting power, because at the start of the first challenge, they were all either killed, or forced to retreat. Luckily Balalaika fell into the latter category, making her way up a familiar Mountain Trail with little more than a pack with sparse supplies and the pistol she entered this god forsaken place with. As she trekked forward, the Russian’s mind couldn’t help but venture back to Afghanistan. The measly group of competitors she had amassed were nothing in comparison to the Soviet paratroopers. This truly would be a war worth fighting if her brothers in arms were here. Thoughts of nostalgia were soon dismissed by a ruckus farther up the trail, and unwilling to die to the unknown, Balalaika crept forward slowly, using an outcropping of rocks as cover from the electric beast as well as the three individuals that battled it. Interestingly, these competitors looked like they were faring decently against this particular monster, and through a rather brash split-second decision, Balalaika took up arms behind the rocks and aimed to shoot the creature in its head, hoping to get a lucky bullet lodged in its brain for a quick kill.

While this went on, a large red figure suddenly arose out of the bushes in the forest. With little basis on what was going on, Kane found himself confused and angry, mostly at his brother. Upon noticing the obvious clamor that was approaching, he became deadset on getting revenge and started to barrel up the path, pushing aside any small foliage that got in his way and inadvertently clearing a path for anyone going the same direction.

The Mountain Trail Near the Cavern's Exit

"Nya... Rumors are abounding about this particular area of the hunting grounds, with a wyvern that SOUNDS like it belongs in the Elder Dragon class has made its home upon the abandoned temple at the peak of this mountainyao... Sightings and information are scarce, save that this particular one is likely the cause of the Feral Wyvern Virus that's been affecting several of the native species residing on this mountainyao..." The scholarly explorer cat stated as the rather oddly clad Hunters asked for info. Likely they came from a different reason, the Felyne thought after pondering. "The problem is that it has pretty unknown abilities other than infecting lesser wyverns with a disease that spikes aggressionyao and completely shuts down recovering abilities... Theorists believe that it then hunts the infected after they're done raging and unable to fight back, as several corpses of high rank wyverns have been seen scattered here and there..." Then the cat stared at Minato and twitched its whiskers in an affronted (yet strangely cute) manner before turning to the other questioners in a prideful huff that was genetic to all cats, sentient or otherwise.

"Most of this is merely speculationyao... none have been able to explore and confirm this new breed of Elder Dragonyao... due to not returning." The bipedal cat said, staring at the ragtag group for a moment. "A majority of you people aren't even clad in the armors and weapons made from wyverns... either you aren't Hunters or you're extremely new to this..." There was a worried undercurrent in cat's tone as it continued regarding them with worry. "But yet if you made it this far without relying on the fangs and scales of dead wyverns to hunt living ones..." Speculation was churning now, before the cat simply handed over a sheath of papers. Most were of geography, giving the lay of the land while a few showed off the diagram of dragons and notes describing characteristics and other important information. "If you continue your hike, it is imperative that you arm yourselves with knowledge..." Though the tone was calm, those who watched the cat would see its tail wagging back and forth in an excited manner, like a particularly fast metronome. "It might not be the info you're looking for, but it WILL get you as close as possible..."

The Forest

Ranma continued leaping about the place, heading above the tree tops and then actually bounding off several flying wyverns the size of a bus so quickly and agilely that they didn't realize that she had even used them as a launch point. As a result of a particular long horizontal jump, the girl was now bounding up the side of the mountain like a goat would. Nonon would find herself facing a pack of raptors, several small ones and what was obviously the giant pack leader complete with frills and all. As the thing hooted out a sound that was reminiscent of a howler monkey's, a swarm of the other raptors darted out of the clearing and raced towards her in a zerg rush along with their bigger counterpart.

The Steeper Mountain Trail

As the Goa'uld shot his energies at a particularly dense swarm of Lightning Bugs, the things absorbed the power, swelled up, and then simply flumped to the ground in droves as they couldn't handle that much energy. Those that did survive though were now intensely bright and practically brimming with power, though a sizable portion of the swarm was destroyed by that attack. Balalaika's bullet would also find a relatively unarmored spot on the monster's skull and provide a fair bit of concussion before the bullet was bounced off by a skull that could bounce off lesser steel. The sticky substance was just icing on the cake for the Zinogre to continue its well deserved rage. By now, the painful distractions and the poison was influencing the giant canine and making it more prone to aggressive maneuvers due to the pain it was being caused. Howling, several bolts of electricity arced about in a certain radius about the beast as it reared up on its hind legs and began smashing the ground with its giant fore paws as it randomly went after all those that dared attack it, melee with paws and range with ozone searing jolts.

Saber

As everyone made it out of the caves, Saber turned and immediately noticed Archer's smirk. Had he seen her attempts to keep from being distracted? The blonde girl's cheeks colored in embarrassment. She did not like such things to be noticed! It was not proper for a knight... She attempted to swallow her embarrassment and focus on the task at hand. Specifically, the... adorable... cat creature that was providing them with information on their quarry. Some kind of wyvern that seemed more powerful, and somehow effected the other dragons in the area, had arrived at the top? It was not a difficult conclusion to make. The beast at the top of the mountain was the Legendary Dragon that they were tasked with slaying.

Forcing herself not to focus on the cuteness of the cat creature, Saber spoke.

"So, you would say this wyvern could be called legendary?" she asked. It was a simple question intended to confirm her speculation. And, hopefully, draw attention from her embarrassment at being spotted trying to ignore the cat creature's general endearing appearance.

---

Jakuzure Nonon

Nonon huffed in derision. They looked like dinosaurs, but that really didn't matter! They'd still face the music, all the same. The cannons on her shoulders ignited with pink light, and she grinned.

"With the way you're charging in, you must really wanna hear my song~" it was kind of playful. Launching dinosaurs around with music was really kind of fun. There was the sound of trumpets as a stream of hearts and musical notes erupted from Nonon's cannon, tearing towards the ground just in front of the pack of the monsters! Nonon's intent was quite simple, and it was a straightforward plan. The sheer shockwave from her symphony would send the monsters toppling over one another and crashing to the ground from the impact. Hell, the entire pack could end up scattered around like a tornado hit them!

"Alright. Hang on!" Nobuo said as he jumped up. The Jet Winger helped him hover into the air as he held Whitney in his arms. The two flew to the mountainous road where the group and puss in boots armor were. He, along with Whitney, landed right as the Felyne began to discuss rumors about the Wyvern and the Feral Wyvern virus. Nobuo looked to the Felyne when it mentioned that their armor isn't made from Wyverns. When it mentioned that they made it this far without said armor, he spoke up.

"Y-yeah... Wait, did we take out the monster in the caves?" Nobuo asked one of the people on the trail.

Vash spotted Archer in his peripheral vision, quickly glancing at him with still glaring eyes, before returning his gaze quickly back to the cat-person, not wanting to confront Archer — at least not directly — while there was still valuable information to be gained. He nodded attentively while he listened to what the explorer had to say. “I agree. Knowledge is one of the best weapons.” he chimed in as he looked over the maps and diagrams that the feline handed over, much more confident that this particular dragon was the one they needed to find. “I know this is somewhat of a long shot, but, I don’t suppose you know of any sort of weaknesses specific to this dragon, or even dragons in general? Especially maybe something we could use to stun it or slow it down?” he asked. “Any information you have could help.” he smiled cheerily, knowing full well how potentially unreliable and misleading rumors could be, especially those regarding such a dangerous creature of legend, but it was at least a good starting place.

The place was beautiful from a high point of view. All in all, seeing things from a different angle was always interesting. That’s what Whitney wanted to think. But it’s not what she was actually thinking, not even close.

”But why he flies so fast? He is a human, right? This gotta be dangerous!” Whitney screamed in her thoughts. She was delighted when the flight was finally over and she felt the solid ground under her feet yet again. The girl took few hovering steps and tried to concentrate on what was in front of her. There was a talking cat, and it luckily didn’t seem to be a threat. Whitney wanted to go and hug it, it seemed so soft. Soft and adorable. If she could just catch it and bring it to Johto. They had a wish if they succeeded, right? Maybe she could use it in getting a talking cat.

Then she noticed Felt. Luckily the boy seemed to be alright, and not even mad at her even though she had dragged him into a lot of trouble. Whitney sighed from relief.

“Yeah, I’m alright”, she answered his question and tried to smile. Something was off, even Whitney noticed that. Felt didn’t sound too cheerful, like he usually did. Was he mad at her after all? Well, she had been dumb. But it’s not like she really knew anything about that world, so it could be excused, right?

Whitney realised that one person was missing. “Where is the motorbike guy?” she asked. A worst case scenario instantly popped into her thought, but she pushed it away. There had to be some other reason than the most oblivious one. This place was so beautiful, after all. Even though she had been so scared that she wasn’t able to properly look at it.

Leaping back away from the terrible beast's initial charge, Sorin repelled what lightning he could with his blade, but a few struck him glancing blows. His armor took most of the damage, but he could still feel a few minor electrical burns. He ignored the pain; a few wounds were nothing to him.

A few others that Sorin did not have time to pay attention to made the scene, continuing to harass the monster. This enraged it, giving Sorin exactly the opening he needed. He unleashed the building mana he was accumulating on the creature, forming the spell with an incantation. With a few words of black speech, a curse in an ancient Vampiric tongue, the monster's fate was sealed.

This power was the reason the vampires of Zendikar knew Sorin as the "Mortifier." As the spell connected, it would corrupt and decay the beast where it stood. Its flesh would slough away and spoil as though suffering from years of rot. Its blood would dry up in its veins and its brain would ferment in its skull. However, above all else, its corpse would serve Sorin in death, his mind taking mastery over its deceased one.

Ba'al looked on with some satisfaction as his shots hit with impeccable aim, provided by the physical superiority of the Goa'uld, and while the bugs did absorb the electricity given off by his Zat'nik'tel, it seemed his assessment was right, the bugs swelling up under the surge of energy they had absorbed before exploding, the voltage and amount too much for them to handle. Always good to see he was right. Of course, the ones that survived were incredibly strong, but hey, a small price to pay. And it was helped by the bottle of noxious...acid, or something that exploded nearby, landing on more of the bugs, that had been thrown by the mole...thing

That done, he was able to turn his attention to the dragon and the fight ongoing there. Another fighter had shown up, a human at last, and was shooting the dragon with an actual gun, a comfort to Ba'al to see something relatively normal here. She even seemed to be doing some damage, if he didn't miss his guess.

Of course, said damage seemed to have pissed the thing off further, and it went into a stampeding rage, smashing the ground with powerful limbs as lightning arced everywhere. Ba'al dodged as he had to, but otherwise watched his vampiric companion as he released the ball of black energy in his hand at the thing, apparently chanting in the process, though not in any words he could understand, which was slightly unusual. He watched on curiously to see what would happen. This might be interesting.

"Rumors, huh..." Sazh murmured passively as he took in what the cat had to offer. He had to admit, it was a bit hard to focus on that felyne when just how it was acting was absurdly cute. Sorta like moogles, but not. Still, he caught all the mumbo about some sort of wyvern-based virus, and how it was being spread by some great dragon that was supposedly just atop this mountain range. That seemed to fit about right with what they might've heard and were looking for. Sazh's thought briefly turned back to that creature they had fought in the cave, wondering if it, too, was a subject of that odd infection...

When the maps were brought out, Sazh was one of the first to try and get a look at them; his own navigational skills couldn't fail him now. In the meantime, some others were expanding upon questions. Saber was trying to confirm if that dragon the cat was speaking of could be a legendary dragon, though there was a certain brand of insecurity in her tone that Sazh couldn't quite pinpoint. Vash, meanwhile, was trying to discern if the thing had any sort of common or uncommon weakness to exploit.

Considering how important that question was, the l'Cie quickly added, "I'm gonna have to double that question. Any sort of things that are particularly effective against these kinds of dragons?" After a moment of consideration for himself, based on what the cat had already mentioned, he tacked on an afterthought, "That is, besides other dragons?"

Twitch was fairly fortunate. A distance warrior by nature, the beast's raging claws held no fear for him. The arc of electricity was less easily avoided. Scrabbling on all fours over a steeply sloped surface squinting every which way for a hole to crawl in, a bang ricocheted from somewhere among the mountainside, drawing his gaze for an unwary moment. A flash from behind threw his shadow over the stones as the lightning curled and cracked over his drooping tail during his glance. There was a brief and violent squeak as the rat's rear body underwent a forceful spasm, nearly flipping him frontwards. When his legs landed back on the gravel a second later, Twitch hopped convulsively, well over his standing height, landed in a licheny depression, was gone in the blink of an eye.

The new mousehole was wider than the old, shallow, littered with pebbles broken into odd forms by avalanches long forgotten. It offered little shelter from any direction except lower down the slope, where the skirmish was roaring. This was all that was really necessary, but Twitch felt unsafe nonetheless, distantly conscious of his tail curled in pain, distantly musing that his acute nose could smell his own sizzling fur, keenly aware of the firearm he'd heard discharged. His ears perked up, taking turns to listen to the beast and the rest of the slope. On one hand, words, a brazen chant that brought to mind Vladimir, Karthus... The darker mages of the League. On the other, the breeze, lifting and slowing, mundane. Left ear, roars over the sound of the crossbow winching into readiness. Right ear, a shuffle.

The chill was playing in his favour in this, gusting towards the fight, muffling sounds from that direction, carrying noise from the other. Premonition was admittedly involved; Twitch couldn't hear much of the shooter, couldn't spot them from his shallow ditch, still knew someone was there. Watching him. Aiming, presumably. A nerve jumped on Twitch's face and he hissed as he stood to release the next bolt, taking in the relevant details of the scene, aiming into the decay boiling under the caster's magic. There were far less energy flies now. Whether the mage down there had seen to them or whether they were caught in his sticky trap or whether some other fighter had killed them off, he couldn't say. Twitch bolted for the next ridge, looking for something more sheltered from the hidden shooter.

Archer

So the cat expected them to fight the dragon with equipment made from lesser dragons? Not really something that Archer could see himself doing; killing one would be hard enough to start with, and despite his ability to alter and work with swords, Archer didn't really see himself fashioning bits of a carcass into usable equipment. For one, he doubted that there would be enough undamaged dragon left to make anything from: dragons of any description couldn't be fought with intent to protect them.

This left a few choices for weapons. Most were swords--despite their size, heroes seemed to like attacking dragons close up, regardless of the personal risk to themselves. Archer, himself, had a sword preference. In this case, a sword was far from his preferred choice: dragonslaying swords were often wielded by the greatest of heroes, and their individual power would be a terrible drain to project. Instead, the Knight in Red prepared to project a spear to deal with the dragon, once they got there.

Ascalon was really the best choice.

But what could he say? The girl was so fragile, and Felt had no idea how she would react to the fact that the undead humanoid was killed by his own teammates. Sure, he knew that it couldn't be helped due to the threat that said undead humanoid was posing to the entire party, but still... Could he assume that Whitney would understand too? Or should he polish the truth a bit, changing it here and there to protect her? At the same time, maybe it would be better for her to know that not everyone could be trusted...

"the skeleton man... He...," Felt started, finding himself unable to look into the girl's eyes. "He was killed during the battle with the dragon. Turned out that the creature was only trying to protect her eggs. As soon as we found that out, most of the party wanted to retreat. He, however, insisted on continuing the fight." The young alchemist shook his head, be it out of sorrow or due to not understanding how someone can be so stupid. "I'm sorry. I know I told you I wouldn't let anyone die if I could help it, It's just... I'm sorry." A sigh escaped his mouth before he continued, looking the Gym Leader in the eyes again. "Know one thing though. I will not fail again. I will keep you safe."

“Somebody talked about type effectiveness? Are dragons weak to dragon, ice and fairy here too?” Whitney asked. The question Sazh posed stole her attention for a couple of seconds. Type effectiveness were something every gym leader had learned to their heart and utilised in their battling as well as they could. Even though she found studying boring, she didn’t overlook an information which could make her Pokémon shine even brighter. Especially since she had to become stronger for her own pride’s sake. Felt had said that he would protect her and Whitney believed in him, but she didn’t want to be some sort of a wall rose. As she was in the middle of those thoughts Felt answered and her focus changed once again.

Whitney tried to picture the reckless skeleton with his fiery motorbike not existing anymore. But no matter how she tried, Ghost Rider and a permanent death simply refused to fit into one sentence. It wasn’t certainly hard to believe that he would have had stupidly continued to fight. It wasn’t hard to see either that the dragon had enough force to kill almost anything, especially if it was a mother protecting its children. Yet Whitney was still on a denial state.

“I see”, she said. “It’s not your fault, it’s pretty obvious that he ran to his own death.”

Her voice was calm but without a single trace of any sort of a feeling. It was almost like she was repeating words of someone else. The world around her was like from a painting. Vivid, beautiful, surreal, sad. Whitney didn’t usually notice philosophical matters like that. It was a new experience, like she had opened a door which she had always before walked past. What lied behind the door was a world for entirely new senses, like she had been blind but now saw. For a short while she just stared at Felt, but not particularly at him but at him as a part of the world. For that moment, she didn’t actually want to go home but wanted to learn, what it meant to live instead.

Then she lost her concentration and everything returned normal. The world was yet again a merely scary place and there were creatures which could kill her, Felt or about anyone else. Like Ghost Rider had died. Whitney started to cry. She had not even truly known about him, but couldn’t feel nothing when a person had lost his life almost at front of him. Death was permanent, especially for a ghost. It was also something that only belonged to old people, not for people who seemed to be able to fight for next ten decades.

“Why did that have to happen?” she asked as she cried. “And you don’t go dying too! And no one else, for that matter!” Whitney shouted at Felt and everyone. She wasn’t too afraid of her own life because she trusted in Felt’s promise, but she was terrified from losing anyone else.