A little tiny pause and the man tells “It’s a group of arcanists… Pretty respectable and important… I’d say only a handful of them might have stripper as their cover, but probably one or two”

“Aunt Penny is Trinity.” Bekki shares, sniffing the air.

Mercy scrunches her nose some, ticking up a brow at Avalon’s statement. “There any use fer the heart? Or you jus’ lookin’ for another stew ingredient?” Her expression then falls somewhat because of course he’s going to hang back while she and Bekki fight a literal dragon.

“There’s some value to keeping it around at least” Avalon informs, before adding “They informed me that the scales of this thing were awfully resistant to magic, so we have no arcanists with us… Brute force is likely the way to proceed. The beast is apparently elusive, it might try to flee if it senses too much danger, you are to kill it before that happens, it only shows every couple of years” And with that and another motion, he tilts his head to glance in between Bekki and Mercy, telling the later “We only got the news that this one was around because apparently it interrupted a convoy that was carrying some valuable trinkets down here… Out of those, one of which might interest Mercy over here, so keep an eye out, it might be around in its stash somewhere”

“If we keep it we can get twice as much in a couple days.” Bekki suggests, completely having expected Avalon to fall back. “They want us to go to some cold place and kill one for one hart, so, like, I guess if we get both we can extort them and stuff.”

Mercy may squint at Avalon because of his tendency to mess with her, but her interest is undoubtedly piqued. “Like riches an’ all that? Guess if we find ’em an’ a few things go missin’, no one gonna make too big a fuss.”

Mercy says “Ain’ sure my little knife an’ crossbow gonna be much help though.“

“Do you want my hammer? That way you can try and compete with Bekki in blunt force trauma to the beast” Avalon asks, with a nod of his head towards Bekki’s hammer instead, shrugging his shoulders and telling “Most of the convoy has been considered lost, so, if something goes missing, no one will claim it…”

“Okay.” Bekki agrees, likely not seeing more than the prospect to fight a giant reptile. “But I got a question. What’s a convoy?”

“Alright, I’ll cut you right there and let’s visit the glade…” Avalon tells with a sigh, before putting a palm to each of their backs as if to push them in the right direction, he’s really leaning into treating them by kids in this instance. And across the denser woods and bushes to the west, eventually, there’s an opening in the forest, a wide clear with some mist clinging to the ground, and what look like will’o wisps all floating across the air of the place.

But once there, Avalon pushes them inside and he retreats some towards the woods himself, taking cover. Right in the middle of the glade, of course, is the beast. A dragon covered in scales shining somewhere in between a purple and a dark blue color. A quadruped, with two wings and a long tail. The torso alone the size of a car. A long neck, a horn on its nose and two on the back of its head. Three eyes as well, two in the right places, one on the forehead, and, at least for the moment, the reptile seems to be resting, laid down on the grass

(Repost because I forgot to move) “Alright, I’ll cut you right there and let’s visit the glade…” Avalon tells with a sigh, before putting a palm to each of their backs as if to push them in the right direction, he’s really leaning into treating them by kids in this instance. And across the denser woods and bushes to the west, eventually, there’s an opening in the forest, a wide clear with some mist clinging to the ground, and what look like will’o wisps all floating across the air of the place.

But once there, Avalon pushes them inside and he retreats some towards the woods himself, taking cover. Right in the middle of the glade, of course, is the beast. A dragon covered in scales shining somewhere in between a purple and a dark blue color. A quadruped, with two wings and a long tail. The torso alone the size of a car. A long neck, a horn on its nose and two on the back of its head. Three eyes as well, two in the right places, one on the forehead, and, at least for the moment, the reptile seems to be resting, laid down on the grass

“You can get a lizard with a knife.” Bekki supposes. “You just gotta stab it in the nose or in the eye and stuff.”

She glances over to Avalon as they walk. “How we gonna know where it is?” she asks, realising shortly after that yes, indeed, it is easy to spot.

Mercy may let Avalon herd her along but it’s not without some obvious trepidation, which manifests into her digging her heels into the ground once their target becomes visible in the clearing. She’s fought something dragon-esque before, but never the more iconic version of these mythological beasts and considering what lore says about their fire breath she is, understandably, a little nervous for once.

If anything, Bekki seems disapointed when seeing it, mentioning casually to Mercy, “I thought it was gonna be bigger.

Regardless, the bow is strung, the hammer ready. The bimbo either doesn’t have, or can suppress fear.

It isn’t exactly fear that gives Mercy pause, so much as wanting a few minutes at the bare minimum to assess their foe and consider how best to tackle it. At some point in time her head-on approach to everything seemingly gave way to at least a little tactical thinking, personal growth and all. She mirrors Bekki in lifting her crossbow, and readies a bolt while beginning to move closer to the resting creature with slow, hunkered movement.

At first, the mythical beast doesn’t seem to even register the presence of the two women, letting Bekki talk and Mercy contemplate her options, though, the moment the string on Bekki’s bow is tensed, the reptiles head turns to face the pair. From a front view, the face could even resemble that of a horse, if not for the scales, fangs that show and horns. But at least the shape is more similar to that of a typical reptile. It stares for a good couple seconds, before the eye on its forehead illuminates, glowing a soft purple and emitting a faint sound.

And before anyone can realize, in the blink of an eye, it seems that Mercy and the dragon have changed positions. The redhead now right in the middle of the glade, and the reptile right beside Bekki, with one of its forelegs already lifted from the ground and thrown down towards the blond, attacking with claws seemingly made of something close enough to obsidian

There’s something of tactics from Bekki, too. Not so much in thought given (there are very few outside of kill), though she does grip her necklace, activating the artifact preemptively.

She realises the shift, of course, scenting, hearing and smelling the creature as it moves and reacting as fast as she can.

The bow is left to hang as the hammer raises, hair writhes and Bekki rages, ready to heal from even death.

Mercy just stops dead in her tracks when it lits its head and looks their way. The jig is clearly already up and a stealth approach no longer on the table. Cursing softly under her breath she lifts the crossbow higher, takes aim, and-

Poof. It’s gone. And so is Bekki. And the scenery around her has changed. It takes Mercy a few seconds to really grasp what just happened and even then it’s only from hearing the beast’s movement back from where she HAD been standing that prompts her to whirl back around and process the switcheroo. “Son of a- NOBODY TELL ME THEY CAN DO TELEPORT-Y MAGIC SHIT!!” She yells to no one in particular, steadying her weapon again while slinking in to slightly closer range to try and get a clear shot at one of its eyes, ideally the center one, while its busy playing with the bimbo.

The beast seems to be ready to strike though, after all, it just crossed the distance of the massive glade in an instant, almost like teleportation, with the added feature that Mercy was dragged to its previous position. The sharp claws decend upon Bekki and pierce her shoulder easily, likely damaging her clothes some in the process too. Though instead of what most animals would do and just remove their foreleg after the attack. The dragon seems to hold it there. The eye in the middle glowing once more, this time, orangish. And the scales near its claws start turning a bright orange with red and yellow tones here and there- And before Bekki can now it, the leg is now on fire while still pressed to her body

Even were the claws obsidian, that is no longer an issue; Bekki cleansed the angel already. The fire however, that’s a problem, even with Bekki hypernaturally regenerating.

That’s fine though, Bekki applies force, the equal and opposite reaction, her own iron talons digging.

While at first, the dragon obviously seems to take the advantage, after all, it’s a dragon attacking a woman, the moment the claws seem to dig in and ignite, the oversized lizard seems to be pushed back by a surge of Bekki’s strength, head shoved backwards along with the woman’s resistance and forcing the creature to release one of its loud growls, sounding nothing like a reptile but instead something akin to a bird the metallic echoes on the background- But that de-stabilizing motion is just what’s needed, as,the mythical beast seems to be about to do something else when one of the bolts shot from Mercy’s crossbow seems to land straight on one of his usual eyes, making it bleed profusely and the reptile to become even louder in complaints and pain, momentarily thrown off its footing and stance weakened by the landing attacks

Within its opening maw, though, Mercy and Bekki are both perceptive enough to notice some trails left of whatever convoy it had attacked before, some pearls from necklaces are still stuck in between fangs, the blade of a knife seems to be stuck on between two molars, and what looks like a bone ring seems to be stuck to one of the bigger fangs

Sensing weakness in only the way a demon can, Bekki steps in, advancing on the lizard, itself now on the back foot.

One handed, she hefts that over sized hammer, bringing it in to swing into the beast’s throat hollow.

Having hit her mark, Mercy starts loading another bolt in while pressing in closer at the same time in case Bekki might need more close-quarters assistance, even if she wouldn’t mourn too long or hard if the dragon ended up eating the other girl. She’s not expecting it, certainly not looking for it, and yet the ring stuck around one of the creature’s fangs tugs at her notice immediately; almost like it’s calling to her somehow. Movements freeze up, then hasten to a full-on sprint. “BEKKI! I GOTTA GET IN ITS MOUTH!!” Forget waiting for it to be dead first, what if the ring comes loose and gets swallowed in all this commotion?

“Okay.” Bekki agrees, swinging. The blow hits, but it does not break ribs.

While the animal might have taken lightly Bekki in its first strike, it seems to adjust somewhat to the strength of the woman the second time- But it still doesn’t go to tank the hit, she’s too strong, even for something like the mythical creature. Instead, as the hammer closes in towards its body, the middle eye glows once more with that purplish tone, and Bekki’s position is exchanged with it before her impact lands, causing her swing to instead happen against empty air.

Then the eye glows in orange once more, and the scales around the beast’s neck and throar start to change from the purplish color to that yellowish orange one, probably indicating what’s about to happen in a couple of seconds- Luckily though, one of its eyes was damaged before, and it’s still leaking bright green blood from it. An eye that in the current position is aiming at Mercy, and thus the reptile is unable to perceive the speed of her approach

Mercy is kind of an idiot sometimes and this is probably one of those times, but with that kind of prize being more or less dangled in front of her the tunnel vision kicks in and that’s what her eyes stay fixed on. The crossbow ends up sheathed at her back so she can pull her knife out instead, rotating it so the blade sits flush against the underside of her arm and frees up a few fingers as she closes in with full intent to just leap and/or climb up onto the creature’s back, with its neck and head the subsequent targets.

Eating shit for reckless motion, as is her want to do, Bekki skids,recovers, shakes herself and turns, leaping for the creature, aiming to scale it with her hair and claws to create hand holds.

While it’s probably easier for Mercy to mount the creature coming from its blind spot and with its focus on Bekki, the overgrown lizard doesn’t seem to want to make it easier for the demonborn. What was intend at at coming by the coloring of its throat soons becomes reality, as with the opening of the dragon’s mouth, a huge amount of fire sorcery is spelled from its mouth- Thankfull, Bekki is skilled enough to close the distance and grip herself to the creature’s long neck before getting caught in the blast- Though one of her hands takes the heat blast full on. Thank god her hypernatural regeneration for allowing her to heal on the way up. This time it seems, the fire comes to an end as the dragon cannot find itself shooting at anything, instead trying to thrash to the sides to escape the two climbers

Bekki ignores the pain, ignores the blackened splitting flesh. She ignores the sluffing skin and the burn cracked bone– It will grow back, and so it does, each motion on that ascent bringing Bekki further up its neck and purferating its scales.

The flame is unacceptable, and though her grip is firm, even with the thrashing, the benefits of demonic strength and unbreakable, far too long nails, Bekki wheels back, one handed, going for the throat punch in tandom with Mercy’s climb, seeking to cause the thing to gag, letting Mercy gain access to the thing’s maw.

Bekki moves in for the throat punch, but there’s a choice: Lose her grip or land the blow, the thing’s serpentine neck makes it hard.

Well, the punch does land, and it certainly makes the creature roar in complaint. Much like Avalon had warned before, it doesn’t seem to be the most resistant to physical attacks, sure, there’s some hardiness that comes with being a scaled beast, but its main defenses are magic. So when Bekki hits its neck, the beast seems to stagger rather than open its jaws open. And for a moment, the reptile is paralyzed on the spot, only to, within a couple seconds, grow a tiny bit bigger, without explanation. The middle eye starts glowing again, but no magic seems to happen yet. Instead, the reptile sinks its teeth onto the demonborn’s shoulder, baring them, and giving Mercy a direct glimpse of the ring she seeks pressed directly against Bekki’s shoulder, the bad news is, it’s wrapped around one of the fangs buried into the woman’s shoulder

Oh, would you look at that. Bekki’s shoulder will be fine. The dragon’s even holding Bekki up. that means that the bimbo can grip its face with her hair, let the shoulder recover with her claws in its neck and reach up with the other hand to jam it inside the dragon’s mouth, not going for the ring, but to pull its tongue out.

Mercy is a woman on a mission, she even opts to put her knife between her teeth to free up both hands though it’s more out of necessity than cool factor given the dragon starts thrashing now that there are not one but two girls trying to mount it. Oh my. Hanging on is only possible thanks to a level of strength someone her size should not be capable of having, and given its attention still seems fixed on Bekki she takes the chance to carefully move along its neck towards its head- closer and closer, the ring so close she can almost touch it. Except it’s around the fang buried in Bekki’s shoulder. “GERD DERNIT!” she mumbles with the knife in her mouth, wrapping her legs around the dragon’s neck while lurching forward to attempt to pry its jaws open.

With Bekki trying to pull out its tongue and Mercy attempting to pry open its jaws, the beast makes use of its one trick to counter both of them. The glowing eye, color shifting back to that orange, and within a couple seconds the very jaws of the creature are engulfed in pure flames, which the dragon uses not only to force its fangs deeper inside of Bekki, threatening to split her shoulder and severe it from her body, but also essentially burying the ring into her body in the process, it seems it will have to be pulled out first from the girl and then from the fang

Mercy has to pull her hands away quickly to avoid the rush of flame coming out of the dragon’s mouth, and even then she’s still close enough to easily feel the overwhelming heat. Now she’s lost sight of the ring entirely, and mad about it. Wrapping a hand around one of the horns on its head for stability, the other takes the knife from her mouth and gets a good grip on its handle before she moves in forward again to take a stab at its central eye; the place where most of the problems seem to come from.

Reflexively, Bekki lets go of the dragon’s tongue, arm yanked back, but not before it crisps, needing to heel from blackened bone, a process that takes staggeringly little time.

Bekki should be in agony, though she’s deactivated her ability to feel pain, which allows the demon to dislocate her own shoulder, tugging, the dragon getting a hunk of flesh— Then the arm, though it’s already repairing itself.

Bekki snarls in the thing’s face. she grips on with her legs alone, then, lost in the throws of demonic fury she rips her own arm from the impaling draconic fangs and procedes to bludgeon the creature around the snout with her own fucking limb.

At first Bekki starts punching, heavy hit after heavy hit it seems that the dragon is losing some ground, even if it technically just claimed one of the woman’s limbs. It is already in the process of regenerating anyways thanks to Bekki’s hypernatural regeneration. No, the worrying part is how the third and middle eye starts glowing once more in warning of something going to come. That is until Mercy’s blade comes down on it, stabbing it and making it splatter all over the place with that bright green blood that had been dripping from the previously damaged one.

The glow seems to die with the eye, and the color of every single one of the creatures scales seems to turn into a slate gray, as if someone had turned on the device that is this animal. Its strength also seems to be reduced, and even the way it keeps taking the beating seems even more pronounced now. It seems the source of its control over magic has been dealt with, and now, well, it’s just one big reptile

Weakness…. Bekki senses weakness and so saying, leaps on it, using her own arm to gouge at the only remaining eye with her own invulnerable nails…. this time on the end of a severed arm.

Mercy pulls the blade free and quickly slips down from the weakened dragon’s neck, back onto solid ground where she gains some distance and whirls around to figure out where Bekki is now in all this. There’s a lot to take in at a glance with the whole weaponized severed limb and all, but ultimately she needs the demonborn to dig the thing out for her now. “FUCKIN’- BEKKI!! THE RING! FANG- ARM- TOSS IT HERE!” Hopefully that made sense and she doesn’t just lob the entire limb over.

With the constant strikes from Bekki, the jaws of the dragon loosen and slack, the whole going in and out of the woman’s flesh having resulted in the ring that Mercy seeks so vehemently to end within Bekki’s body- Better get it before the surface of her skin heals and traps the trinket inside, need to recover it before it’s sealed into her shoulder- But while the redhead is worried about that, the demonborn manages to use her own amputated arm as a weapon, and a third eye is wounded and leaking green blood all over the place. The dragon seems to try and tap into the same magic as before, trying to switch places, likely to flee, but it’s for nothing, the attemp fizzles out into the air… And so, the creature seems to resign itself to try and start crawling and limping away before it’s too late- Unfortunately for it, it’s not easy to flee from people that are on top of you

isn’t even listening any more. It’s completely accidental when the arm is tossed away, Bekki flexing the new growth, balling its fist, then reaching inside the eye socket to thrust fingers as deeply as she can, seeking the brain.

Of course she throws the whole damn arm over. Mercy is so hellbent on retrieving what’s inside though that she dives at the soggy, bloody limb to dig her fingers right into the area where it meets shoulder for what’s hopefully still in there.

Mercy pulls out a small, bloodied object between fingers stained to match with a look of utter triumph and glee.

As Mercy digs in between the severed limb in order to retrieve the trinket, the now almost powerless dragon seems to try and the trashing to the sides to get rid of the clinging Bekki, which by simply pressuring further and further, seems to make it into its head, and eventually, reach the brain. That’s when the creature goes to the ground, though it’s not as easy as it seems. The beast isn’t yet dead, it has been paralyzed by the damage to its brain, but it seems that enough is in place for it to remain, somehow, alive

It’s like Gollum with the ring of power, as Mercy obsessively stares at it a while before finally slipping it on with deliberate slowness and precision for maximum dramatic effect. The rest as they say, is history, and a few more seconds later after the usual chorus of awful sounds made louder than ever by the size of her form a massive red shape comes barreling in teeth-first to seize the downed dragon’s throat and end its suffering with a single, rough twist and resounding CRACK.

continues to bludgeon the thing around the face as it drops, hardly notising Mercy(wolf) until the dragon stops moving- At which point it’s no longer interesting and Bekki wanders a short distance away to retrieve her dropped weapons

Well, Avalon was already on his way out of the periphery of the woods, coming to join the two women on the glade. Seemingly he had assumed that the paralyzed beast was simply dead, so he glances over towards Mercy(wolf) whenever she goes to finish the deed and probably show the animal some mercy. Though despite this show of kindness towards the dead animal, the man almost immediately tells Bekki “We should get the heart, feel free to rip it out of its chest”

There’s a pause as he considers the two women, while the animal has the last spasms that come with dead and finally falls limp, and with a smile he tells “Well done girls… Now, all we need to do is leave the corpse behind, and warn Trinity and our job here should be done… Did you have fun?”

“Okay.”

Equipment retrieved, rage abating, Bekki produces a knife from -somewhere- shoving the corpse on to one side and carving it up like a bird before ripping its ribs open and extracting the heart with little care for its consistancy- a burst of blood and severed attachments are drawn out with it, Bekki waving it at Avalon before tossing it to him.

Mercy(wolf) answers Avalon with a throaty chuff and pads back over to him now that the deed is done, leaving Bekki to do the remaining dirty work while she enjoys just.. existing like this.

Avalon nods his head along, catching the bloody heart with both hands, after all, it has size for that, putting to shame that of a cow, before telling “Well, I think we can get going back then, I’ll inform Trinity that they can come down to Camelot to retrieve their corpse.” With that he puts the heart into a leather bag he seems to have brought exclusively for it, and he hangs it over his shoulder