Return of the Tower Conqueror

  Felling a Dragon (III)

Traces of shock, confusion, and, most notably, excitement ran rampart through the group right after Cain shared with them the news that they would be battling a genuine Dragon, wings, claws, maw, tail and all. After all, they knew little in the way of the reality-- to them, it was yet another fantasy come true. A fight against a Dragon was a staple, a heroic monument that defines stories.

As such, Cain didn't drag down the atmosphere too much; partly it was due to the fact that they would be fighting Wyverns mostly and partly that by the time they came around to fighting a Dragon, their niche excitement would have solidified into genuine terror, having seen what a leviathan can do.

"Damn, we're really gonna be bricking a freakin' Dragon?" Jamal exclaimed softly. "Fuck, I really wish we could record things in here... we'd get like... infinite views out there, man. Even the dead would arise and applaud us."

"Calm your tits," Emma said. "What's the catch?" she immediately asked Cain. The moment the question left her lips, it felt as though someone poured liquid nitrogen on top of everyone, cooling the heated atmosphere instantaneously.

"The catch?" Cain swiftly played a fool.

"Yeah, the catch," she nodded. "There's no way in hell you'd let us fight a Dragon, I guarantee it. So... what's the catch?"

"Ooh, she's right!"

"Yup, what's the catch, Cain?"

"You ain't soloing it, are you?" Senna asked, narrowing her eyes.

"What's the catch, Cain?"

"..." with the pressure mounting, Cain handled it naturally and calmly. "There's no catch. Except a catch like me! Heyooo, whadup?!"

"..."

"..."

"If you think cringe is gonna cause a short-term memory loss... well, it's close, but not quite there."

"Damn, and here I thought I'd fry all your brains," he chuckled lightly as they rolled their eyes. "But seriously. There's no catch. Except for my wife! Heyoo, whadup?!"

"Oh, shut it," Emma slapped him gently at the back of his head. "You aren't soloing it."

"Damn, though I've earned plenty of faith from you lot," Cain said. "I didn't earn enough for you to so readily believe I can solo a fucking Dragon. Jesus, people. You're all unilaterally insane."

"Yeah, he's getting super defensive," Kramer said. "It's probably not straight solo, but something close to it."

"I'm already missing our extended vacation and seeing you develop a belly while lazing about a couch..."

"Chill out, everyone!" Cain called out quickly. "The only reason I accepted the task is because there's a massive, tear-jerking story behind it, one full of hope, despair, heroism, backstabbery, courtship, romance, betrayal, and all sorts and manner of debauchery. I felt it was our duty to finish the story in the proper way!"

"... you do realize that nobody believes you, right? Whatever, let's start the preparations," Emma quickly began assigning the tasks. "Everyone hand your weapons over to Taima for reinforcement. Lek, start preparing giga-skellies. Ethan, help Delilah with food preparation. Elypso, Sigmund, and Kramer, prepare the camp. Senna, Cain, and I will devise a rudimentary strategy and will flesh it out further during the meal. Chop chop, everyone."

While others swiftly went about their tasks, Emma dragged Cain by his ear to the side where Senna joined them. The two women sat and stared silently at him, their gazes equally, yet differently, piercing.

"... I'm not gonna fight the Dragon alone, geez," Cain said, whereupon both women sighed in relief. "I'm just gonna distract it for a while."

"WHAT?!"

"While, while you guys kill like forty Wyverns! In fact, your, your jobs will be much, much more difficult!"

"I swear, you keep pulling shit like this--"

"Did you fight it... before?" Senna asked suddenly.

"Before?"

"Yeah, like, in your previous life or whatever."

"A Dragon?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Uhm, no?" Cain chuckled. "But that's 'cause the only Dragons we ever got to know of were full-blown adults. This one's basically a kid still! Who knows? Maybe it's gonna be like with Lek and once we whoop its ass it will join us and we'll get to ride a Dragon! Can you imagine that? Like, flying over the L.A. on a freakin' Dragon?"

"..."

"Senna, don't let him pull you over," Emma quickly warned. "You know it's not gonna be that simple. It's never that simple."

"It could--"

"No, no it won't," she interrupted him. "Do you at least have a frame of reference for how we should even go about fighting this thing?"

"Not really," Cain shrugged. "But it's probably comparable to other aerial giants. Some floors down the line, a Guardian is a gryphon-like creature. Granted, it didn't spew fire everywhere, but I figure the logistics ought to be fairly similar. Try to ground it, first incapacitate its wings, no face-tanking, lots of movement, long-range exodus-like spells, and so on."

"That's... really broad and vague," Emma frowned.

"I mean, it's also specific," Senna argued. "Just because of the added fantasy of a Dragon, I don't think we should corkscrew our standard outfit."

"Hm, that's true," Emma nodded. "I'll consult with Kramer more on the deployment, but we'll probably do a fan-out." Cain looked at the two strangely for a moment, realizing they'd picked up on a whole lot more than he had during their vacation.

"It's gonna be a battle of attrition," Cain said. "I haven't ever fought a Dragon, but I did, in fact, fight a Wyvern ever so briefly. Usually, which is the case with most giants, their only shortcomings are their overall speed and Mana. I'm expecting a Dragon's specs, so to say, to be a bit more up-and-up, but not too much. There's not gonna be any military-grade maneuvering. The truth is, Em'," he added swiftly. "That both you and Kramer, outfited in your best gear and with all your active mitigations and even Yuki's and little Diya's support... you'd both get obliterated in a single attack."

"..."

"This won't be a standard holy-trinity sort of a battle," Cain continued. "I have by far the most DPS in the entire party, not to mention I can output the most at the furthest range. As such, I'll be the fight's Tank. You and Kramer will effectively forget all aggro-having abilities for the duration of the fight and just try to output as much DPS as possible."

"Won't Senna be close to stealing your aggro?" Emma asked.

"No;" Senna quickly shook her head. "I've yet to hit his peak from well before he 'retired' in terms of single-target DPS. I can cover more ground, though."

"I'll be doing a very simple style-- burn all my major cooldowns to build up aggro, then run like a little bitch while you guys attack it from the flanks. As soon as my aggro would drop, I'd turn around and blast it again, before running away."

"What if your ass catches on fire?" Emma asked.

"I've a couple of 'heroes don't die' ways, so don't worry about me," he said. "The question of if we kill it becomes a simple calculation, really: can we dish out enough DPS within the frame of me still having Mana?"

"You? Running out of Mana?" Senna scoffed.

"Yeah," Cain nodded. "In fact, once Wyverns are dead and everyone's focused on the Dragon, we'll have about six-seven minutes in the optimal scenario to kill it before I'll be running dangerously low. Remember, my Class isn't exactly supreme at prolonged, high-octane, adrenaline-pumping, non-stop-action sort of fighting. The only reason I can even maintain such high throughput for so long is exclusively 'cause of my bonkers items and titles. And, well, 'cause it's me, of course. The most supreme! The most talented! The catch of the--"

"Oh, shut it," Emma grumbled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "What are our chances?"

"100%," Cain shrugged.

"Just how in God's name were you less confident in asking me out than beating a fucking Dragon?" Emma complained while Senna's ears perked up. She'd actually grown fond of hearing the stories about the two's rather strange childhood.

"The worst thing a Dragon can do is kill me," Cain said. "You? As a teenage girl? Jesus, you were brutal."

"I can't have been more brutal than a literal fucking monster of death..."

"You'd think."

"... fine, fan the stereotypes," Emma relented. "If there's not gonna be any healing and such, we should probably get little Diya, Yukki, and Tamia to stay back, right?"

"Yup," Cain nodded. "Even if we had them DPSing, they might actually just heal the damn thing with how little they'd be doing. Anyway, let's get back to the others."

"You just wanna run away from the two of us, eh?"

"You ladies are a dangerous combo," Cain sighed. "I must be a man of million balls to have paired the two of you up. Thank me later. Let's go now."

Emma and Senna glanced at each other before chuckling gently and sighing, following after. Whatever the case may be, he really was the one to pair them up-- not just the two of them, but everyone. Without him, the group would have long since fallen apart. In fact, the only reason it survived the 'vacation' was because there was the unspoken knowledge that, one day, Cain would return. Even if Emma was the de facto leader of day-to-day operations, he remained the heart the soul still, and was entirely irreplaceable as such. Either by them or anyone else. After all, there were many dumb and brave people who would face a Dragon head-on. How many, however, would do the same if they knew just how insane that was? Likely a lot, still. After all, world was never short of madmen.

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