The longer I fought Lung, the more I understood why he went generally unopposed for so long and why the PRT didn’t just ambush him before he could ramp up. Lung was actually a really good fighter.

  Not in the traditional kung fu master kind of way, since I doubted any martial art translated very well with a body that shifted proportions like his did, but the savvy street brawler kind that knew exactly how to take a beating while minimizing the damage. It basically meant if he went into a fight and wasn’t immediately overwhelmed, he was really good at staying in the fight until he ramped up enough to shrug off the damage he was taking, take down his opponent, or doing what he was doing now that was causing me so many issue – running away if he needed to.

  Half of the spells I was throwing around were used specifically to make sure Lung stayed in one place and didn’t go running off trying to burn down half of Brockton Bay during our fight. The binding circles I had tagged him with were doing a good job at that but they were power hungry. And while I had plenty of power to throw around, the spells were also a bit of a pain to use.

  Note to self: Practicing on my own was not a substitute for trying to pull off spells in an actual high adrenaline-inducing scenario.

  A large clawed hand practically the size of my torso swung at me from the fog caused by a rapidly melting ice wall and a blast of flame meeting each other. I caught it mid-swing with one hand and shot a lightning bolt where I assumed Lung’s shoulder with the other and was and was rewarded with a growl of pain as sparks arced all over his body. The metal scales growing all over his body must have dampened the attack somehow.

  I frowned and crossed another attack spell off the list.

  Anything fire related against a pyrokinetic that could tear apart a miniature sun with the wave of a hand was obviously out. I’d tried a few earth spikes and the like, but they mostly just crumbled against him. Air and water attacks were similarly useless because he was either too tough for them to matter or they burned up when he did his whole ‘suddenly explode into fire’ trick.

  My lightning spell was the last one I was going to bother trying without just defaulting to Dragon Shots. Anything else was just not powerful enough unless I was going to artificially up their damage with something like Transfer.

  Which was a bad idea because then I’d be back down to my base state against a ramped up Lung if I didn’t take him down in one strike. So instead of attacking with magic, I swapped to purely defensive and disruptive spells while falling back on what had gotten me through all the fights I’d been so far; hitting them really hard in the face. But like I mentioned, Lung was actually a decent fighter, compared to me at least. Even after I’d all but countered his pyrokinesis, bound his legs and tail with magic I hadn’t used in public yet, and showed I could physically stand up to him, he didn’t hesitate with his next move after catching a lightning bolt to the chest.

  He swapped from trying to claw at me to grabbing my arm in an instant. I didn’t even have time to try to break free before he pivoted and threw me halfway through a nearby parked car.

  “Ow.” I groaned more out of annoyance than pain. I mean, there was plenty of that too, but I was quickly getting tired of getting thrown around by my enemies. The crankshaft digging into my right breast wasn’t helping either.

  ‘Maybe try using an attack that does more than tickle the little lizard then?’ Ddraig commented dryly. ‘Actually, why haven’t you hit him with a Dragon Shot yet?’

  ‘Because I’m trying to NOT level several city blocks in a populated area!’

  ‘Oh, right, the humans. I guess that makes sense…’ My partner trailed off. I held back a snort, despite everything Ddraig was still a dragon. He had a habit of forgetting little terms like ‘bystanders’ or ‘collateral damage’ as soon as a battle got going.

  ‘Anyways, want me to give you some advice on how to beat him?’ He asked suddenly. ‘All you have to do is—’

  “DYNAMIC ENTRY!”

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  Whatever Ddraig was about to say was cut off as an unfortunately familiar figure arrived by trying to dive kick the ABB leader and miss horribly when Lung’s neck twisted like a snake at the sudden shout.

  I sighed as Paladin not only managed to miss a near twenty foot target and crash into the street, but then stood up proudly and like that was his intention from the beginning.

  “Your rampage is at an end, Villain! Because I am here!” The ‘hero’ announced as he posed of all things. “Surrender now or face Justice at the hands of Paladin, the White Dragon Emperor!”

  Fucking hell, he was going to get himself killed.

  Lung growled in rage, visibly growing another few inches at Paladin’s demand, and lunged forward in an attempt to disembowel him. Luckily for him, Paladin was just at the edge of where my binding circles were keeping Lung locked in place. So instead of tearing him in half, Lung’s claws just barely sliced through the front of Paladin’s costume.

  The white-clad hero yelped and tripped backwards in surprise from the close call. And as much as I didn’t want him bothering me anymore, I also didn’t want him dead.

  “Get out of here you idiot!” I yelled at him. “Either run or get help, I’ll handle him!”

  “H-ha, don’t fret my villainous rival. A few scratches won’t scare me off! And I wouldn’t be a Hero if I ran away while leaving a lady in distress, BALANCE BREAKER!”

  There was a flash of white light and Paladin was suddenly covered in his Scale Mail. He crouched slightly and immediately flew up to avoid the rush of fire Lung sent his way before closing with the gang leader where they both began brawling.

  Which was not a good thing since the binding circles I had on Lung were quickly starting to burn out from the effort of trying to keep him in one spot. I needed to get back in the fight and reapply those before Lung broke free and decided to use his wings to just leave instead of using them as extra limbs to smack Paladin around.

  Too bad I didn’t make it in time.

  While I was scrambling to shove my way out of the engine block, Paladin decided that Lung was too hot to keep out in the middle of the street and tried to take the whole fight into the sky. Not exactly unreasonable since the asphalt was starting to melt from the heat he was putting out, but Paladin slamming into Lung’s stomach and launching upwards was the straw that finally broke my binding spells.

  So now there were basically two dragons fighting in the airspace over the docks that could potentially spill over to other areas of the city. And none of the other members of my group would be any help because none of them could fly.

  Okay, I didn’t have much time before Lung either took out Paladin or decided to make a break for it. I had no idea how fast he could fly, but after all this the last thing I wanted was for him to escape. With that in mind I focused on the communication spell and sent a message to everyone still connected.

  “I don’t have a lot of time before I need to do something about Lung, who’s still here and what’s your status?”

  “Me and Sundancer are back down one of the alleyways.” Skitter announced. “I’m fine but Sundancer is hurt though. Twisted ankle.”

  “Newter here, I’ve got a few leaks and Labyrinth is still defensive after our run in with Oni Lee. We’re not going anywhere fast.”

  “I’m here.” Bitch added bluntly and said nothing else.

  I waited a bit longer but no one else spoke up. The Empire had already cut the spell earlier so I wasn’t expecting them to say anything but Coil’s mercs also breaking off was a little surprising.

  Down to just barely over half the group we started out with after one fight.

  “Great. Well, just in case you couldn’t see – Paladin showed up and now he and Lung are fighting in the sky. I need to go help out before he gets away but more of the Protectorate could be on the way. I need you guys to restrain the ABB members and then clear out before they get here.”

  “Not sure that’s a good idea. Some of us are in rough shape and a ganger only has to get lucky once.” Newter objected.

  Skitter spoke up before I could, “I can knock them out from a distance using my swarm. If Newter can douse a few bugs in blood or something I’ll knock them out and we can secure them after.”

  There was a loud boom followed by a roar as the two arial combatants collided again. I looked up and bit back a curse. Despite going head to head with Paladin, Lung was moving west towards the rest of the city. I was out of time.

  “I’ll let you guys figure it out. I’ve got to get going.”

  ‘Hold on a second, partner.’

  ‘Not the time, Ddraig.’

  ‘You’ll want to listen to this. I can tell you how to beat that fake before it gets to the city.’

  Right, he did mention something like that earlier just before Paladin’s entry.

  ‘Okay, hit me.’

  ‘Use Balance Breaker.’

  My first instinct was to snap that, ‘obviously using a power boosting technique would help beat Lung’. Paladin was keeping up almost as well as I had when fully boosted thanks to his and I wasn’t sure he had actually used Half Dimension yet. Obviously me doing the same would mean I could win.

  But then my brain caught up with his words. Ddraig wasn’t telling me it would help if I could, he was telling me to use it.

  ‘You’re sure? I thought I needed a catalyst or something.’

  ‘You technically still do, you have the power to draw it out – both White and my Balance Breakers have always been easy enough to call on if our host has the power or determination – but you need something to focus on to prevent yourself from going on a rampage. A strong enough emotion or will could offset that, but why bother when you have an appropriate target right there?’

  ‘You mean Lung, right?’

  ‘...yes, him too I suppose…’

  I huffed at his begrudging response. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

  I got the gist of it though. I could pull off a Balance Breaker but I’d go wild if I couldn’t focus on something hard enough. But if my ‘rampage’ was just me focusing on a fight I was going to do anyway, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

  Besides, I was just giddy to get my hands on a suit of dragon themed armor.

  “Alright, here we go.”

  I focused inward on the little connection I felt between me and the Boosted Gear. Normally all I did with that connection was tug on it when I wanted to materialize or dematerialize the gauntlet, but this time I felt something pushing back at me. More power that was mine for the taking if I was strong enough to drag it out into the world.

  Without hesitation I seized that promise of power and gave a mental pull with everything I had as the world around me went RED.

  “[WELSH DRAGON BALANCE BREAKER]!”