VII - A New Addition

-[Elsewhere within the City of Xyrcadia...]-

Thena hated the sun. And she was pretty sure it hated her just as much.

Her hair was clumped up and matted to her forehead, the precious raven locks she had taken extra care to fix up earlier in the morning ruined in the short time she had been under the sun's oh-so-caring embrace.

She was very much tempted to make a detour and burn a gigantic offering for Opho at the nearest temple to get rid of any more disasters, but Thena doubted it would help her case.

The large crowd she was forced to walk in the middle of wasn't helping either, the mass of people making the already unbearable weather worse and making her sweat harder than she ever had before.

If anyone had asked Thena right there and then, she would have asked for a miracle. Something, anything, that could distract her from the mind-numbing heat. She definitely wouldn't be saying the same thing a few hours later.

Thena suddenly tensed up, the summer heat momentarily forgotten as her senses focused on something else. Or rather, one particular sense focused on something else.

"Magus fluctuations? But this is the middle of the city..."

Thena glanced nervously at her surroundings, noticing that a handful of the ice mages that had been hired as cooling systems had taken an impromptu break from their jobs, much to the dismay of the nobles that had hired them. Much like her, they too were glancing around nervously.

A loud rumbling sound made its way into her ears, the crowd around her going restless as the ground started to shake. Panicked screams and frantic yells started to arise from in front of her, and Thena struggled to try and figure out the source of the alarming disturbance.

A feat made utterly impossible by the fact that she was only 5'3" and couldn't see over anyone's head.

Sighing in defeat, she nudged the tallest person she could see to try and get an explanation of what was going on, but he didn't even budge or look in her general direction.

Now a little irked, Thena elbowed the dude to get his attention. She was not expecting the man to scream in horror and run away.

"I'm not that scary... am I?"

Thena realized a little too late that she wasn't the reason why the man started running.

Her first clue towards figuring that out was that the crowd around her had turned into a stampede, all of them running the opposite direction she was facing, and therefore turning her into a primary target for being stepped on and run over.

Deciding enough was enough Thena let her aura loose, letting the power of her magus roll off of her in waves. Thanks to her neat little trick, the crowd parted around her like she had a bad case of the flu, effectively saving her from being flattened like a pancake by designer footwear.

As the crowd started to thin, Thena started to get glimpses of what exactly everyone was running away from. And as the last straggler ran past her and she finally got a clear look, she was very tempted to turn tail and split.

"Mother of Mayana that's an igneel."

Just a dozen yards in front of her stood a gigantic lizard, towering over her at over 10 feet tall. If the fact that it was more than twice her height wasn't terrifying enough, igneels were also feared due to the fact that they were like discount dragons.

If you took a dragon, chopped off their wings, and made it a bit chubbier, you basically ended up with an igneel. Of course, igneel scales aren't as tough as dragon scales, and they're also much slower, but they make up for those weaknesses by secreting flames from hidden pores in their body.

This made it tricky to attack or defend against an igneel because unlike a dragon there isn't just one main source of impending fiery death.

"Okay. I can do this. I've beaten bigger enemies before," Thena mumbled under her breath as she tried to pep herself up, doing her best to forget the fact that the 'bigger enemies' she was talking about were stationary pine trees she had practiced a couple of her spells on.

As if it had heard her ramblings, the igneel turned its fiery eyes onto her, the pitch-black slits pulsing red as if it had found a particularly delicious prey. Puffs of smoke started to leak out from its closed mouth as it stalked towards her, its crimson red scales reflecting the light and disorienting Thena's vision.

"No time like the present."

With the grace of someone who had been practicing in front of a mirror for hours on end in an attempt to look cool, Thena whipped her wand out of its holster and aimed the glowing tip at the cobblestone street in front of her.

[ICE WALL!]

What little moisture in the air around Thena condensed into a giant wall of ice in front of her, its length blocking the whole street with both ends of the wall frozen against the storefronts on either side.

The igneel certainly didn't like the icy obstacle that had blocked its way, the said lizard banging its head into the wall and forcing cracks and breaks onto the wall's surface.

"Yeah... I don't stand a chance here on the ground."

Taking advantage of her reinforced body Thena leaped into the air and landed on a nearby roof, nearly slipping off as a couple of the roof tiles dislodged and messed up her footing.

Her change in scenery was just in time too, as she heard the telltale sign of ice breaking below her. The igneel suddenly let out a loud roar, the sound shattering not only all the windows in a mile radius but also her eardrums as well.

The lizard was not pleased with its prey's magical disappearing act.

Changing her mind and deciding she wasn't strong enough to take on the igneel solo, Thena quickly cast a teleport spell to the nearest safe area she could think of.

Of all the things she wasn't expecting, it was for her magus to fizzle out into harmless sparks and dissipate into the air.

"What in the name of-"

Thena wasn't able to finish that sentence as the roof she was standing on exploded.

----------*line break*----------

"Shit. That can't be good."

James squinted as he peered into the distance, eyeing the large plume of smoke that had appeared after a rather large explosion had shaken the city.

Grumbling in frustration, James turned his tired hobble into an exhausted sprint as he pushed his bruised and battered body to its limits.

"If I had known I'd be doing the tango with a fire-breathing lizard today, I would have dressed up for the occasion," he growled as he spared a glance at the tattered remains of his clothes. His shirt had been ripped and turned into a crop top, his cloak now sleeveless and hoodless. Multiple deep gashes were present all over his body, not even counting the burn marks that had also given him a bald spot right on the crown of his head.

The lizard had taken him by surprise earlier, torching his face as soon as he had opened the kitchen door in one of the rudest welcomes James had ever experienced. He had then spent the next few minutes playing a very dangerous game of tag with the lizard inside the cafe before being smacked by its tail through a wall and passing out.

By the time James had come to, the cafe was in shambles and the lizard had scrammed. The waitress had also disappeared, so James couldn't question her about why a giant lizard was casually lounging around in their kitchen.

What really bugged him about the whole situation though was the fact that the Magus Brigade had yet to appear. Usually, they would arrive in a flash, literally. But zilch, nada, not a peep from a single officer.

'If the Magus Brigade is too busy to even take care of a threat right in the middle of the city... what horrifying threat are they dealing with right now?'

James was broken out of his thoughts by a heavy object slamming right into his gut and folding him in two. Silver lining was that he hadn't eaten anything since morning so he didn't have anything to puke out.

Pained and annoyed, James grabbed the object and tossed it to the side, the object landing on the sidewalk with a smack and groaning as it did so.

'Wait... groaning?'

James tilted his head to the side and took a better look at the foreign object that had slammed into him like a charging bull, now realizing that it was actually a person. Or more specifically, a woman.

She had long raven hair that might have been sleek and straight at one point but was now just singed and frizzy. Her shirt and pants had a couple of holes peppered all over, with some parts still aflame that James hurriedly rushed to and patted out.

Something about her nagged at James' mind though, as if telling him that he had forgotten a piece of the puzzle.

He wasn't able to focus on that for long as a nearby building collapsed in on itself in a shower of wood and glass, the culprit being the fiery reptile that crawled out of the rubble.

James spared another peek at the unconscious woman lying prone beside him, cursing as she definitely didn't look like she would be getting up anytime soon.

"Ah... the things I do for humanity."

James sprinted as fast as his injured body could handle, drawing his gun midstep and firing off a couple of shots at the igneel. Just like before the bullets ricocheted harmlessly of its scales, the lizard just snorting in amusement as it scanned the immediate surroundings before locking its eyes on its prey.

"Oh Mayana no. You ain't touching her you shitty dragon reject!"

Apparently, the igneel didn't like being compared to dragons, as it immediately whirled around and sent a gigantic ball of fire streaking towards James' face.

By the grace of the gods, James barely managed to dive aside, the flames nipping at his back and burning his exposed flesh with a disgusting sizzling sound.

The igneel wasted no time and sent another fireball his way, James now regretting his decision to act all heroic as he ran around the fire-breathing lizard in circles in an attempt to not become a delicious James barbecue.

It didn't take long for the reptile to figure out his strategy though, as it flicked its tail at him at just the right moment and sent him flying into a building for the second time that day.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," James groaned as he tried to dislodge himself from all of the rubble he was buried under.

The ground shook as the igneel walked over, and James swore it had the reptile equivalent of a smug grin plastered all over its face. With jaws opened wide and fire building up in the deep recesses of its throat, James had about three seconds to say his last words.

"I fucking hate lizards."

As if spurred on by his words, the igneel released its load and sent a burning spout of orange fire at his immobile body, obviously not caring if its meal was a little too well done.

The next series of events was one James wouldn't have guessed would happen in his wildest dreams.