Caden grinned but that grin turned to an “O” of horror as he looked at their enemy and caught sight of what the Behemoth was eating.
It’s eating itself! Oh, gross! Caden groaned and covered his mouth as his gorge wanted to rise up.
The heads kept stuffing their heads into the opening that Iolaire had made in the big body and were ripping off hunks of that already split flesh. One head snapped at another head that tried to go in for a second helping before another could feed.
That is… that is just wrong! What is it doing? Caden swallowed thickly.
But it soon was revealed to him. As the Dragon heads ate the “excess” part of its form it started to heal. The massive split began to shrink. The body became smaller--not that much smaller--but smaller.
Oh, man, that explains it then, but still that’s--that’s sickening, Caden grimaced. He sent to Iolaire, Watch out. The Behemoth has healed itself. And it looks pissed.
In fact, the Behemoth’s heads were all looking around the crater and sniffing. A wind started to blow behind him towards the hydra. The nostrils of the main head flared. Those horrible yellow eyes narrowed and the head turned in his direction.
Oh, come on! Caden grimaced and crouched down lower.
But another of the heads let out a roar. It was gazing up at the “cloud” that hovered menacingly above them. The main head’s gaze jerked up and away. Now its eyes narrowed to slits as it glared at the “cloud”. Golden lightning crackled through it.
Evren! Caden’s fingers tightened on the rocks in front of him in excitement.
Rain started to fall from the sky. Not just little bits of it, but great gushes of it. Waterfalls of it. But it wasn’t hitting Caden, it was just filling the crater. Caden blinked. The Behemoth let out a roar as it picked up its feet like an angry cat in a bathtub as the water started to fill the crater’s bottom. The hard, dry soil was not absorbing the water fast enough and the amount of water that Scylla was somehow generating was impressive. Soon the crater was filled with enough water that it came up to the Behemoth’s shoulders. The wings were the one part of it that had not fully recovered so it could not yet take flight, so it was stuck on the ground.
But for how long?
Suddenly, the water began to bubble. The Behemoth let out a cry of shocked pain and started moving at speed towards the edge of the crater in Caden’s direction, trying to get out of the water.
Boiling! Lana’s doing her thing! Caden thought, even as he ducked really low and swiftly flew to the right, keeping out of sight until he found another safe spot to watch from.
The water frothed. Waves started to form. The water was sucked up into high peaks of steaming liquid, causing the Behemoth to flounder as it slammed against dry ground only to have the boiling water slam down over its body. The water though wasn’t really hot enough to burn it too badly. But the new skin seemed more sensitive than the old and every time the boiling water washed over it, the Behemoth was maddened. The heads snapped at the water ineffectually even as the big body tried to surge through the waves to get clear of it. But Mephous and Zephyra were having none of that.
A green and silvery haze descended from the “cloud” that was streaked with golden lightning. It was heavier than the air and settled quickly to the bottom of the crater. Caden covered his mouth as he thought he smelled something bitter and acrid. His eyes stung and watered. He realized it must be a mixture of Mephous’ poison breath and Zephyra’s scalding one.
The Behemoth’s heads flailed, trying to rise above the green and silver mist, to get clean air. Those wet, wounded wings flapped. The scalding steam ate through the thin webbing so they weren’t able to lift the Behemoth up but they cleared the gas. One of the heads blasted it with wind tornados that sent the gas spiraling away. Luckily, not towards Caden.
But the Dragons were not done with their stealth attacks. As the Behemoth lumbered towards the side of the crater again, fighting boiling waves, the Dragons stopped with stealth. Xipil sent a ball of magma that struck the side of the crater, melting the stone and dirt, turning it into a boiling mass of molten rock. Another ball of magma and another and another and another struck the wall until the whole thing was turned into a sliding mass of burning, liquid stone.
The Behemoth scrambled backwards even as certain heads sent bursts of air and water to cool the scalding magma, but the stone slid around the Behemoth’s feet, imprisoning it even as it burned. The metal in the crater was suddenly crawling up the creature’s legs and onto its wings like living tentacles. It bound the Behemoth’s wings and slowed those limbs even further as it struggled.
Go, Eldoron!
The Behemoth’s head snapped up to the cloud. Its other heads immediately sent waves of lightning up at it, trying to strike something within the “cloud”. But the golden lightning streaked down at the same moment, meeting the blue lightning in mid air. There were terrific explosions! The lightning from both sides was canceled out. Caden was blinded and blinking rapidly. For a time, everything he saw was obscured by a black box that kept appearing and disappearing in his vision.
The wind tornadoes rose up and stripped away the “cloud” cover from the Dragons. The Behemoth let out a scream of rage from many throats as it saw its enemies. Raziel’s red eyes blazed down at it. The Black Dragon opened its maw and sent a massive stream of red-gold hellfire streaming down on top of the Behemoth. The Behemoth could not move quickly enough to get out of the way. Its right wing was hit. Caden gasped as the wing literally melted away. The Behemoth’s screams were so deafening and powerful that Caden fell to the ground and his ears rang for long moments.
When Caden had clambered back up to look over the top of the boulders again, the air was full of tornadoes. Each of them were seeded with a ball of plasma. These whirling funnels had all of the Dragons scattering, leaving their tight V-formation in order to avoid them. Evren countered many of the lightning strikes, but some got through. One neared Scylla, but it banked at the last moment and it streaked past the Blue Dragon. Another just brushed the edge of Lana’s tail before the Turquoise Dragon snapped its tail out of the way.
Unlike in the last encounter between just Raziel and the Behemoth where the Behemoth was the only one that could constantly use magic, now all the Dragons worked together. Even unlike the last time they had faced the Behemoth, none were working alone.
Mephous dive bombed the Behemoth, using an acid breath of some sort that left the Behemoth’s skin blistered and bleeding. The Green Dragon raked its claws over the top of one of the Behemoth’s heads as it flew dangerously low, drawing blood that streamed down its neck. Mephous nearly got some toes bitten off, but Xipil had its back. Xipil sent a line of magma down that struck the biting head’s throat, burning through it like butter. The head’s eyes rolled back and the head slumped to the side. Down and out! Mephous flew away with a throaty roar of triumph while Xipil just shook its head in amusement.
Raziel had flown in a large circle and now came in low, like a stealth bomber, red eyes narrowed to mere slits, its body suddenly wreathed in mist, hiding it from clear sight. The Behemoth turned its acid-breather head towards that approaching dangerous “cloud” and sent out a stream of acid. The wind-breather head “captured” that acid in one of its gale force winds that raced towards Raziel even as the Black Dragon raced towards this wall of acid.
But the remaining water was suddenly rising up from the crater’s floor. It diluted the acid seemingly to a mild irritant--or so it seemed--by the way that Raziel cut through it without any reaction at all. Fire gushed from the Black Dragon’s mouth and burned the nearest Behemoth head to a blackened stump. The neck remained upright for a moment before it collapsed to the side.
Another down… only six more to go!
Caden grinned and pounded his fists on the stone. They were winning! But as soon as he thought that, one of the lightning bolts struck Lana’s right wing. The Turquoise Dragon screamed and spiraled down to the crater’s floor. Lana crashed with a terrible boom! The Behemoth grinned. But when it tried to lumber towards the Turquoise Dragon, Xipil turned the ground in between them to magma.
Eldoron paired with the Red Dragon and once more had metal tentacles crawling up the Behemoth’s body and wrapping around one of the heads that was poised to send a lightning bolt towards the downed Lana, who was wobbling onto its feet. That tendril tightened. The lightning head jerked and its eyes widened in shock as the tendril tightened again and again and again as it cut through the head. It slid off and toppled onto the ground followed thereafter by the stump.
