ATS B5 Ch43: Boss Battle (1) (Patreon)

So far, all the ground scourglings in this eruption had been mantis types. Arthur half expected the emerging Legendary scourgling to be similar. Perhaps an extra-extra-large version of the ground runners.

He was wrong.

It was a bug, though.

The throat of the cone seemed to bulge, as if what was crawling out of it was too big for the narrow mouth. The earth shook with even more violence, and finally something gave.

Golden-brown mandibles came out first, followed by a red bulbous head. The mandibles spread and clacked back together, and flying scourglings all around were thrown into disarray by the force of the air blast. Next came out a tubular-scaled golden-brown body . . . and lots and lots and lots of legs.

It was a giant centipede.

And because it was a scourgling, the thing was covered with weeping sores.

As it emerged, a small vent or opening gaped above each leg joint and produced a vaporous green gas.

The dragons didn’t wait for that to happen, however. They turned and began to flap away as fast as they could. Some were even faster than the scourgling flyers. No one was sticking around. Apparently, a full retreat had been called.

And, of course, the demi-scourge wasn’t the only thing that erupted from the cone. Regular ground-dwelling mantis scourglings were still pouring out from gaps between where the Legendary was still emerging with its long, long body. And more flyers took to the air.

If the green gas bothered them, they didn’t show it.

Brixaby twisted his head around to give Arthur a significant look. A silent conversation passed between them—nothing to do with cards, and everything to do with the fact that they knew each other’s minds so well.

They could pretend to be Rares all they wanted, but they were a Legendary pair, and this was a Legendary-type enemy in front of them.

There was only one thing that they could do.

“We don’t have time to evacuate the others,” Brixaby said. “It is at its most vulnerable point now, while it is emerging.”

Arthur knew that they could now make the time, but . . . if they were not going to make the others safe, then he had to keep that card back as a last resort. Brixaby was right. No plan survived first contact with the enemy, and they had to strike now.

“I bet that gas is poison,” Arthur said. “We have to make this quick.”

“There is nothing faster in the air than a purple.” With that, Brixaby surged forward, straight to the crater where the centipede was still emerging and now beginning to coil around the eruption site.

So far, he hadn’t seen a scale’s worth of another Legendary. It was past time for them to arrive. Were they set on ignoring this eruption altogether?

Brixaby flew grimly on, distinctly against the path of the retreaters.

Other dragons yelled out warnings to him, and riders waved as if to catch Arthur’s attention. Some even called out “Stupid purple!” as if they thought that Arthur and Brixaby were somehow confused.

They both ignored them. To outside eyes, Brixaby still looked like a softer, brighter purple.

He would soon have to dump that Illusion card as well as the Knocked Down card. In order to have any chance of winning, they would need to fight with all of their powers—and anything they could possibly Counterfeit Siphon from the scourgling and turn its own power against it.

Arthur tried not to think about the fact that his dragon had already been flying back and forth to outflung farms and opening and closing portals for hours. He wasn’t at his peak performance. Arthur was tired, too.

But weary or not, they had a job to do, and it seemed no one else was willing to do it.

Well, Brixaby isn’t driven by duty. He probably wants to see what kind of Legendary card he can pull out from that centipede, he amended with an internal smile.

The demi-scourge was still in the process of curling its long body around and around the top of the cone like a demented necklace.

This had the secondary effect of sending landslides cascading down and killing hundreds of freshly emerged scourglings.

Every second it pumped out more and more poison gas. The dusty haze that had surrounded the cone was now being replaced by green.

The wind currents must have sent an outflung trail in their direction. Arthur inhaled something sickly sweet, and he immediately started choking.

Brixaby dipped down a few dozen feet to get clear of it and then turned his neck back to look at him.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Arthur waved him off. “That gas is definitely poisonous, but I only got a little.” His Moderate Self-Repair card was already drawing down his mana to repair his lungs. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he said, clipped.

“It doesn’t . . .”—cough—“. . . affect dragons as badly?” It was a rhetorical question. Arthur used the trailing scarf to wrap around his mouth instead, pulling it tight at the base of his neck. The fabric might give him a little protection. “If I get exposed enough, I’ll get a resistance to it.”

“Yes, if it does not kill you first,” Brixaby said. He opened his mouth, probably to suggest a tactic that, hopefully, would keep Arthur clear of the gas.

But at that moment, a giant portal opened near the cone.

The portal reminded him a little of the sun-ring portal he had once seen the king’s men use.

He stiffened in shock, a bolt of fear striking him. But no, this wasn’t the Sun Ring. It was golden fire.

Golden flames wreathed the open portal as it expanded. The portal itself was opening on the other side of the crater from Arthur and Brixaby’s position, so they both got an excellent view as a dragon poked his head out.

There was no doubt from the size alone, it was a Legendary.

This dragon was a pink coral in color, washed out in comparison to Joy’s vibrant hue. He flapped out on strangely undersized wings that still seemed to carry his weight, took one good look around at the crater, the scourgling, and the land before flipping around and diving back into the portal.

The portal snapped shut behind him.

“Coward!” Brixaby yelled, then immediately jinked to the side to avoid a scourgling flyer. They had gotten a little less aggressive since the emergence of the demi-scourge, but he and Brixaby still had to keep an eye out for them, especially since the rest of the dragons had ceded the sky.

“Pinks are often tacticians,” Arthur reminded his dragon. “He might have been verifying what the rest of the hive was telling him or warning the others.”

Brixaby snorted. “You are too kind-hearted, Arthur. The very least thing he could have done was to throw something out at the scourgling while he was here. No, he saw a scourgling and then he ran—”

Brixaby was stopped as twelve other portals immediately opened around the crater—each at a precise distance from one another. One was so close that Brixaby had to fly straight backward and then up to get clear of the emerging ring.

Each portal was of a different color, made of a different elemental variety and type.

Some were rips in the sky, pulled open by dragon claws. Others were a more dignified ring, again banded by fire, water, or in one case, glittering metal. One in particular was a twisting whirlpool that spat out its dragon.

And after a stunned moment, Arthur realized that they were in the exact clockwise order where all the hives sat around the kingdom. Wolf Moon and Snow Moon at the top. Buck Moon and Strawberry Moon were near the bottom.

The dragons that emerged from the portals were all so large that their very presence seemed to shake the air, as if they were displacing too much all at once.

Arthur felt very small in comparison. But there was more. His Master of Cards felt the power that rolled off of them—a silent pure bell tone that rang with his own Legendary cards.

As they emerged, the dragons opened their mouths and roared, and so did the very-tiny-in-comparison humans on their back. They surged forward, each gathering huge amounts of power to them.

Brixaby let out a growl that was almost, almost approving.

One of the last portals discharged an orange dragon. It was on the other side of the sky, right next to where the pink was reemerging. And Arthur realized with an unpleasant shock that it was Whitaker and Crag.

No other dragons came out after him.

Either Valentina and Elissa were too aged to fight . . . or they had passed away.

Arthur spared a pang of grief for the woman who had helped him out in so many ways.

Last of all was Blood Moon Hive with red Blood Drop leading the way, followed by Desmond’s and Sybil’s less-impressive green and blue. Again, those secondary dragons felt diminished to Arthur’s senses.

But the rest of the Legendaries were fresh, fit, and by all indications, spoiling for a fight.

Watching them, Arthur had to admit there was a touch of sense to holding back the strongest of the fighters. Though, as he cast an eye around the ruin that had become of the countryside . . . he wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

Just one or two Legendaries could have stemmed the flow and given the rest of the fighters a chance to knock the scourglings back.

The centipede-shaped scourgling was less than impressed. Still clinging on to the crater, it raised itself up on the front third of its body. It was so tall that the move put the red head up above the highest of the portals.

It let out a defiant, screeching whistle.

The dragons roared back, and they dived.