Spyro The Dragon's Story

Rick's thoughts were interrupted when he was approached by some of the militants, veiling threats and telling him to go away. He didn't feel like getting into an argument, and for a second he thought about doing what they wanted......

But somebody had to figure out what Odovan was up to.

So rather than pick a fight, Rick simply reached into his shirt pocket and produced his identification, handing it to one of the troopers.

"Rick Mave, Registered investigative and intelligence officer for Wing city."

He glanced over at Johnathan. "Unfortunately....I'm always in this."

This was his fight after all

Jonathan Bracker observes as Rick Mave flashes a badge. "Ah. Well, I see. I might as well stay and watch. I might be able to help if you need anything."

The behemoth was pushed back, certainly, but not very much. Twenty pairs of hands grew from his underbelly and plowed through the concrete, keeping him in place. His own lashed out in front of him, bending at an angle as to try and avoid the force deployed by the Invictus soldiers. The hands tried to grip on their ankles, where the skin would try to fuse with their clothing, then their feet.

The shots that went off from the cyborgs knocked off quite a few limbs, but as soon as Goulash realized what exactly was happening, they retreated, only for several cracks to be heard within his body. There was a scream.

One of the victims from earlier was half-thrown from where Goulash's ribcage would have been, grabbing an abandoned motorcycle who's rider the creature had claimed. The motorcycle was absorbed. Completely.

He tried to back away, then, with or without the Invictus soldiers in tow.

"Mine! Miiine!"

Jonathan Bracker looked at the large monster in front of him, as it absorbed large objects at will. "You know what, I think I'm just gonna get out of here. I'm sure I'll see you later. Try not to die, I guess. Though I don't know you too well. I won't mourn. Bye!"

One of the Invictus soldiers was grabbed, Arya and the other pushed back by the force of their shockwave. "Turn it up, Stardust." Arya yelled out to the grabbed, soldier as he was fusing with Goulash.

Stardust, despite his name, was a trained professional. He raised a hand to a watch-like device he wore, turning the top of it several times.

Another shockwave shot out from his boots, this one much stronger than the last shockwave was. Maybe it wouldn't do much to Goulash, but surely it would free him. He just had to be ready to hit the ground.

"Yes, we can read. Investigator. Not 'Monster Fighter." The armored man told Rick, "Go investigate something, leave this to us."

"I'm investigating that." Rick said, rather annoyed at the man's tone. He gestured towards the creature with the but of his rifle. "I may not have your weapons or armor, but I've got a higher kill count when it comes to those things than your band of soldiers. So please, condescend to someone else."

He sighed as he watched one of the soldiers get grabbed by the monster.

"It's called a Stitchling...or at least I think it is. It seems to be an evolution of some sort, or maybe a mutation....regardless the genome has changed somehow....but they seem to have the same basic characteristics as the previous generation, they use existing human flesh as a basis for their own body...." He paused as he tried to block the nightmarish memories of the Monastery...

"This one seems to be a bit more....proactive than the other species though."

"Damn!" Agares grumbled inside his helmet. "Shoot to kill! Tear that bastard to pieces!"

The troopers aimed their blasters upward and focused on the monster's torso. Any normal man would have been ripped to shreds by one pulse. A few of the troopers focused their fire on the tendrils that held the Invictus, Stardust, in place.

Silently, like a predator stalking its prey, Nairi came up behind Goulash, stepping into the massive creature's shadow and once again melding into it, disappearing from sight. The first the creature knew of his presence was when an orblike object was lobbed forcefully into its side - the far side from the trapped Invictus soldier, so as to avoid collateral damage - and followed up swiftly by a swing of his sword.

Using the crescent weapon as more of a bludgeon than a blade, Nairi whacked the primed hand grenade as deeply as he could into Goulash's side. The attack caused him to appear, the cloak's shadowy enchantment not quite capable of turning the eye away from someone swinging a sword at you, but the moment after the strike he was already fleeing backwards.

"Boom." he muttered as he darted away, golden eyes narrowing as he turned back to watch.

3... 2... 1...

The arm that held the Invictus soldier squished, then snapped. It was severed, holding onto the soldier's foot as he flew away. The hand continued to grow and become a part of the armor, which would then suck onto skin.

When the Ereb Alpha troopers shot at him, the monster's body hummed. Flesh and blood spilled out onto the streets, onto cars, anyone standing nearby. But Goulash did not scream. He did not cry out. He did, however, withdraw every limb, then sat down onto his stomach. His face, his own torso, withdrew, as well. This happened as Nairi plugged his sword into his side.

Screams filled the air, of a woman, a man, a child, as the rounds, and the sword, went through the body.

Three. Two.

FLUMP.

Like a whale, something blew out of a blowhole in the top of Goulash's form. It landed in the mix of Invictus soldiers. The grenade.

A hand whipped out and gripped a car, fast as lightning, and drew it to himself. The flesh mound looked like Swiss cheese by then.

With the car gulped, the moans of metal replaced all human sounds. There was a slow glugging before something else was ejected from Goulash. This all happened so swiftly. It was a body, this time. A kid's body. It was bloated and slick in some kind of liquid. It landed among the Ereb soldiers. The child cried out, curling up, weeping.

Golden eyes snapped to the grenade as it flew through the air in a graceful arc towards the Invictus soldiers.

Crap.

Nairi's reflexes were sharp, though. His mind worked at a rapid pace, and swift as a flash, a knife flew from within his cloak. The blade hit the grenade mid-flight with pinpoint accuracy, knocking it away from its projected path to land in a clear area of the square, where it would detonate harmlessly without any casualties.

The werecat might have been cocky, but he didn't want to end up on any more shitlists than necessary. Accidentally blowing up Invictus soldiers was a surefire route to being very unpopular.

He backed away from Goulash as it pulled the car to itself, eyeing it warily. That couldn't be good. The werecat wiped bloodspray from his face with a bitter grimace.

The Invictus soldier braced himself for what he thought was death, two others approaching him and placing their hands against the flesh that was starting to cover their comrade and now themselves.

"It's gonna hurt." One of them said, their hands glowing brightly. The energy from their hands dispersed itself into the apparently living flesh of Goulash's severed hand, the energy seeming to be trying to separate what was Goulash from the soldier and his belongings.

"Go get yourself killed if you want." The NPA leader told Rick, "Don't expect us to weep." The man added just to be a dick.

Arya charged Goulash again, several more Invictus joining the fray directly. Arya Bones raised her palms towards the monster, electricity shooting out with the intent to do major damage to him.

The other soldiers raised their own palms, firing strong blasts of energy at Goulash as they constantly moved around him. No need to remain stationary targets.

"Corporal, get that civi' out of here!" Agares barked through the comm link. One of the soldiers swung the rifle over his back without hesitation and was by the child in two quick strides. He scooped up the child with a gentle yet strong grip and sprinted towards the police line. The soldier hopped over the barricade and handed him off to a nearby paramedic before returning to the rest of the troopers.

<< Scanning biological systems. Searching for optimal target areas >>

As the troopers continued their relentless barrage of concentrated dark matter, Paia made a detailed scan of the creature with an elaborate array of sensors. A comprehensive diagram of the monster's anatomy formed in her systems. Any possible weaknesses were tagged on the creature's body across their visors.

Spyro continued to watch the fight with mild fascination. The creature was strong, and though the humans were causing great damage it seemed to not faze the being. He snorted, releasing a puff of smoke, and dug his long talons into the steel plates of the bus he sat on. A powerful magical force resonated from the dragon as its eyes ignited in flames. The spaces between his scales glowed a fiery crimson as a layer of ice formed across the ground adjacent to the bus.

The dragon opened his maw.

"You guys are tormenting the victims...." Rick muttered quietly as he observed the NPA, the other soldiers, and that person from before. It looked like any physical contact with this creature would result in either absorption, or some kind of hostile growth....

"Hey, 'Monster Hunter'." Rick said to the soldier, never taking his eyes off the creature. "You guys ever took a moment to think maybe you can't kill everything by shooting it? This thing assimilates any kind of resource it can get it's hands on, organic or inorganic. You need to contain it, and 'starve' it." He took a moment to think on just how to do it...

"You guys got anything like hard light shield generators?"

Everything. According to plan.

Goulash, he looked like nothing more than a grotesque patchwork of human beings, but he had a brain. He had several brains. Nairi knew this already. No one else seemed to think so before attacking him. He had absorbed several things.

One of them was gasoline.

The child in the Alpha Trooper's grip let out an excruciating, blood-curdling holler before he exploded in a tornado of flame and shrapnel. His whole body had held gasoline, and inside, small organs struck a spark inside with pieces of metal that Goulash had replaced the boy's bones with to cause a devastating outcome.

Even as this happened, when the Invictus soldiers shot at him, the whale's hole in Goulash's body twisted, elongated, and became much like a hose, which spewed gasoline at them all.

Of course, upon contact with the lightning, it would ignite and explode, damaging Goulash in the process.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

This time, he wouldn't give the thing a chance to expel it.

Nairi pulled the pin from a second grenade, clutching it in one hand as he backed away from the spraying gasoline. He had a feeling this was going to be a large explosion. He winced, flinching away as the lightning ignited the spray in a gout of flame. Thankfully, he'd back-pedalled far enough at this point that he avoided singing his eyebrows.

3...

Nairi took aim for the base of the hose full of gasoline.

2...

He narrowed his eyes.

1...

The grenade flew. It cut a swift and on-target arc path through the air, on a course to impact Goulash at the source of the gasoline spray. Not a moment later, it detonated. Gasoline and hand grenades. Nairi covered his face in anticipation of a rather large light show.

"We're sure you haven't noticed, because you'd rather take the time to make quick judgments and assumptions, but, we haven't shot this thing yet." One of the Invictus soldiers called out to Rick, "We figured out what it does the moment we saw it do it."

"I think what he means is, we aren't amateurs." The NPA leader added, his tone almost patronizing.

"That looked like it hurt it, Sugar, take him out." Arya ordered, still focusing her lightning on the creature as Sugar, a well-groomed soldier with bleach blonde hair, approached.

Sugar fired concentrated blasts of fire at Goulash. Arya's own attack, along with Sugar's, Nairi's and any others that were coming would surely be more than enough.

The other Invictus soldiers doused in gasoline huddled together, a swirl of different colored energy wrapped around their bodies. They were evaporating the gasoline. It was unknown where exactly it was going from there.

"Shit!" cried out the trooper as the child exploded. He was fortunately far enough away from the unarmored civilians to minimize casualties. When the smoke cleared, the trooper was in the process of rising to his feet. His nanosuit had deflected most of the shrapnel and protected him entirely from the flames. What few pieces became embedded between the platelets were quickly expelled by small black tendrils that worked to reconstruct and repair the damage.

<< Agares, I am detecting a large amount of brain activity. This creature has formed a parasitic relationship with its victims and has taken over their bio systems, rendering the overall organism incredibly complex. >>

"Speak common, Paia." Agares growled as he allowed his rifle to recharge.

<< This thing is a lot smarter than it looks. I advise a change in tactics. Try utilizing a containment procedure, like the Investigator suggested. >>

"What do we have that can hold this thing still?"

<< Searching database... >>

Spyro arched a brow and exhaled slowly at the creature's latest tactic. Instead of fire, he released a cloud of withering heat that dissipated into the air. A storm of dragon's fire would likely not be the best course of action. But perhaps...

The dragon's eyes flowed into a chilled cobalt. He inhaled deeply. A layer of frost spread across his scales and incased the bus. Then just as suddenly and powerful as the dragon's deafening roar, an arctic gale erupted from his mouth. The winds tore across the monster's flesh, dosing the flames after the initial explosion, and formed a growing layer of ice. As the subzero temperatures continued to plummet in close proximity to the creature, his flesh would begin to harden and solidify. A cage of thick ice began to form around him.

If that wouldn't trap him, there was a lot more where that came from...

There was a brilliant explosion.

Just like the boy that Goulash had made an example of, the monster's body went up in fire and pushed shrapnel, pieces of bone, flesh, organs, everywhere.

What was left was a smoking slab of meat, blackened and frying. At first, it did not move. Goulash's torso and head was left, with one arm stretched out. The ice that formed around his body, just as he opened his mouth a little, with signs of life, stopped him dead in his tracks.

"...Iiiiin...kuh..." he whispered.

Nairi pulled his cloak up and over his head to protect himself from the rain of gore that burst outwards from the exploding creature. Globlets of blackened flesh bounced off of the shadowy material, and blood splattered on it. Both were quickly shed like water off a duck's back from the unnatural fabric.

When it was over, the werecat lowered the cloak, narrowing his eyes at the remnants of Goulash.

His mind went back to the eel woman, defeated in the Plaza. The black pool.

Immediately, he started forwards towards the frozen monster, intent on ... what exactly, he wasn't sure. Finishing it off? Trying to stop another pool reclaiming it? Something.

"Iiiin kuh." Did that mean something? Had he heard that before? He didn't think so.

Did it refer to the inky blackness of the pools, perhaps?

"Threat neutralized..." Agares called out across the channel. "Paia. Get what scans you can and order a clean-up crew for this."

<< Acknowledged, Agares >>