"ROAR!"
With a bellow, an endless barrage of dragon scales poured down twice in a row like a dam bursting!
It had abandoned defense entirely, switching to a cost-be-damned attack cycle—burning every scrap of power to shove its speed into a realm Jason's team could not reach!
"Damn! Again?!" Jason swore, hauling the great hammer back up and bracing against the ceaseless rain.
DING-ding-DANG-dang! CLANG-clang-CLANG!
This wave hit harder and faster than the first. The cadence of impacts nearly doubled, and the jolt drove Jason inexorably sliding back across the mud. Iron Valiant spun its blade-shield even faster, dumping more power in just to keep the storm from chewing through.
After three volleys of Scale Shot, the fight flipped on its head.
A triple ring of white light wrapped Roaring Moon's body. In the rain it was nothing but black-red smears—its flight path a string of movements too quick for the eye. Even Cynthia's Garchomp narrowed its gaze and coiled tight, ready to spring at a word.
Jason and Valiant went from initiative to pure reaction—backs pressed together, guarding all sides, too wary to shift their feet lest the next strike come from a blind angle. Their tidy synergy was gone; all they could do was weather the storm of scales. In seconds, tempo had passed wholly to the tyrant.
"Th-that's insane…" Nemona breathed, squinting at the streak that might be a body. She prided herself on speed—nothing like this. "My camera can't even track it anymore!" Iono added, frustration and nerves in her voice. "Wide-angle only—you guys are just gonna see a light flashing around… this is too scuffed!"
Liko's usual gentle face was pale. She clenched her sleeves, blue eyes mirroring the crisis on the field, lips whitening with tension.
Cynthia alone stayed steady, eyes pinned to the blur. "It's driven its speed to something monstrous. Yes, three Scale Shots have wrecked its defense—it's fragile now. But only if Jason and Valiant can hit it. At this speed, normal attacks won't land. If they can't touch it, even a paper wall might as well be granite."
Then she smiled.
The others stared. At a time like this?
Liko tugged at her coat. "Cynthia… aren't you going to help?"
Cynthia ruffled Liko's hair. "Relax. Jason can handle it. Any answer I'd think of, he'll think of too."
The battle belonged wholly to Roaring Moon. It flickered through the curtain, the air's scream replacing thunder as the field's only song. Its speed had ascended to hopelessness.
Valiant tried another Moonblast—locked the smear—fired. The dragon was already on the far wall; the lunar shell blew a crater in stone and flung shrapnel, hitting nothing that bled.
Jason's hammer fared worse. Every read was late, every full-body heave met only empty air and a fading eddy. The hammer's wind carved ripples in floodwater, but didn't so much as chip a scale.
Are you kidding me?! Jason's mind howled. Hacked speed monster!
Satisfied with the set-up, the predator stopped spamming scales and started hunting. It toyed with them—using obscene mobility to cut in from impossible angles.
One heartbeat it was ahead; the next, pain detonated in Jason's back. It had ghosted into a blind spot—Acrobatics whipping a flying kick square into the armor. The blow sent Jason stumbling, nearly to a knee, and when he whipped the hammer around, the dragon was gone.
Valiant fared no better; a sudden shadow overhead, a rake of Dragon Claw, a shriek of sparks, three more furrows gouged in metal.
Their rhythm shattered, they could neither track nor trade. Their proud offense and layered guard were a joke before absolute speed. All they could do was eat the blows.
Back to back, they turned as one, scanning every drip and shadow while rain blurred sight and the air-tear shriek came from everywhere at once. Still the strikes stabbed from the one angle they didn't catch: a sweep at their ankles as the dragon skimmed the ground; a vertical dive through the rain for a tomahawk slash. In moments, both were scored and battered—Jason's pink plating laced with claw marks and boot-prints; Valiant's armor dented and split.
Roaring Moon seemed bored with cat and mouse. It climbed and wheeled, gathering power—an ominous dark-red radiance boiling around it. Particles in the air converged, a storm eye forming—an executioner's tell.
On the ground, Jason's Tinkaton knelt in the mud, hammer the only thing keeping him upright. Each breath tugged fire from every cut. Valiant's blades were dim, its core pulsing erratically.
Cold rain washed their wounds; mud and leaked energy mottled the ground. The air itself felt heavy with defeat.
And yet Jason's head had never been clearer. Conventional won't win. Time to gamble everything. He tipped his chin up at the god staring down, resolve flashing—and then looked past it, to the field's edge.
Haunter. Shaking behind a rock, big eyes wet, wanting to help but knowing a straight dash meant death.
Jason saw her and found the only line left.
One chance. Turn the board or die.
"Screw it!" he snarled inside—and with the last breath he had, he hurled it:
"Haunter—now! TRICK ROOM!!!"
The shout ripped the rain and reached the edge. Haunter jolted—blank for a heartbeat—and then saw Jason's eyes.
He'd put all hope on her.
Her first, last, only contribution to decide this fight.
A mission like none before shoved terror aside. For the first time tonight, fear left her.
Haunter rose from behind the rock and faced the sky-filling monster. Tiny next to it. But her eyes were steady.
"I… I can help!"
She raised her hands and let go of every ounce of psychic power she had.
Waves of visible force pulsed out from her, and a translucent cube blossomed—like a glass bell dropped over the world. It swelled, and swelled, rolling over stone and mud—and, just before Roaring Moon could loose its finisher, swallowed sky and earth alike: dragon above, knight and hammer below.
Trick Room unfolded.
The instant it locked, the rules inside bent until they screamed.
Air thickened to quicksilver; every raindrop slowed to a drifting bead. Light refracted, softening edges. Time itself felt wrong.
For a creature that had made speed its kingdom, it was agony. Roaring Moon crashed into invisible syrup. Every wingbeat was a battle with the weight of the world; the air that had been an ally became chains.
Its supreme edge had become its shackle.
To Jason and Valiant, the reverse—the crushing speed aura vanished. The "viscous" air slicked their joints. Bodies turned light; thought and motion clicked together. Inside this warped box, they were the masters of speed.
The board flipped.
Valiant understood in the first instant. Trick Room was short; there was not a heartbeat to spare.
One window. Hit, or die.
"Now!"
Jason surged up from half-kneel, dumping everything left into the hammer. The pink head shrieked with light, near buckling under the load.
He set his feet, raised high, and sighted the dragon's stalled bulk.
"DOWN!"
He roared, and cast the last, greatest blow—
[Gigaton Hammer]!
Back to back with him, Valiant launched—no hesitation. As Jason charged, the android fused both blades into one moonbright greatsword, Fairy energy coursing like liquid moonlight. Knees bent, then uncoiled—Valiant became a silver comet streaking for the dragon frozen in syrup.
A perfect, point-blank [Moonblast] in sword form.
Inside the slow world, seconds stretched like wire. Denied speed, Roaring Moon could only watch. Its mind kept up; its body moved a lifetime too late.
In its pupils, two fatal threats burned their reflections.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 50 Chapters Ahead of Others!