They had to be quick, before the creature caused a cave-in that would most likely take them. While Caius and Vordun kept the creature busy, Faris had transformed once more. The outfit wasn't that much more gaudy than the others, so he didn't make any remarks. And honestly, he was having too much fun to care. Caius was in his element here, a high pressure, high intensity fight where he could go all out and just enjoy the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest and his hair blowing back in the wind as he moved. But whatever Faris ended up doing, it kept the tunnels up, at least temporarily. At his command, Caius and Vordun charged forward together.

"Low!" Caius called to Vordun, who went low and slammed itself into the creature's lower half, as Caius would go upstairs. While the creature was reeling, Caius slashed with his blade quickly and went for the neck, a clean cut that managed to pierce the scales and put it down. As the creature went down, Caius let out a sigh in relief as the tremors finally stopped. He couldn't help but laugh a bit, the adrenaline still pumping through his body and keeping his spirits high. But he hadn't forgotten why he was here either, or that he was hurrying, and he would motion with his head that they needed to get going. He would have time to ask Faris questions about this new form later. He wanted to get to the summit as soon as possible. The path soon gave way to light as they would find themselves on the outside half of the mountain. The summit wasn't too far, and after a few more lizards had been felled, the summit was almost in sight.

That was when Caius stepped on a rag that gave a crunching sound, and he stepped back, staring down at it. Brown pupils shrank as he realized quickly what he was looking at.

It was the garb the children from the village wore, still barely attached to a small body that when Caius looked closely, could tell it had been charred and chewed up and likely left for later. The body hadn't really rotted much, meaning it was a recent death. A day or so ago at most. And seeing as the village had only reported one child missing...

Caius put the dots together quickly and the realization that he had been too late hit him hard. Of course, the child had been gone before he had even set out, but... He couldn't help but blame himself, even if he had no right to. What if he'd been in the area sooner? What if he hadn't been slacking so much on the road and had traveled quicker? He could have saved them. Caius was... Peculiar, when it came to children. He clearly had a very soft spot for them, and that was more than evident here at the sight of the body. All of the upbeat spunk from the fight earlier was gone, as Caius had frozen cold at the realization. His hands began to shake, as he lowered his head. In his eyes, he had failed a child. A child was gone and he hadn't been able to do anything. This was familiar, wasn't it? How many children had to die before he stopped being helpless to stop it?

He knew deep down it wasn't his fault. But it was difficult not to hate himself for not somehow being in a position to stop it. Vordun seemed to sense Caius' despair as the dragon let out a whine and buried his head into Caius' leg. Caius meanwhile, seemed to just be in another world in those moments. Just blankly staring at the ragged body, tears streaming down his face. But eventually, he seemed to regain himself. Quickly wiping his eyes while keeping his back to Faris and Vordun, Caius gingerly moved the body to the wall.

"We'll come back to return the child to the village when we're finished here" Caius spoke roughly. He had closed off again, so to speak. His voice had returned to a much more cold and reserved tone, but there was something else to it. Something sharper, yet held back as much as possible.

---

Perhaps Caius might have appreciated Faris' words if he were listening. But he hadn't heard a word of it. The mercenary had drifted into his own world from the moment he saw the child. But he did feel Faris' movements and that was enough for Caius to get moving. Or perhaps he wouldn't have waited? Perhaps Faris just decided to move at the same time that Caius finally willed himself forward, not a word escaping him.

It was only further up a set of steps before they reached the summit, and greeting them was a very large monster, not a dragon of the kind Caius had fought to get Vordun's egg but definitely a much larger variant of the species they had been fighting. Standing close to three times the size of it's counterparts, the roar it let out at the sight of them seemed to be almost like a command for the several other wyverns to attack.

Caius didn't wait for Faris or Vordun to move forward with him, even as he heard Faris draw his sword. Caius' blade appeared in his hand immediately as he began to march forward with purpose. But his eyes told the story.

In those eyes... His despair had been quickly replaced with pure, unbridled fury and rage. His teeth gritted, with a low seethe emitting from his tongue as he seemed laser focused on only the target of his ire. Vordun appeared to be able to sense his master's rage, as the dragon, while they didn't understand what had happened, seemed to at least be able to know Caius' emotions and the dragon's own matched them perfectly. The smaller dragon let out a loud, booming, resounding and bloodthirsty roar that seemed very out of character for the generally quite friendly lizard. Caius charged straight for the larger of the wyverns, slashing square at its head immediately in what then became a series of slashes, the last one being delivered with a pained, furious roar.

The adrenaline and blood were pumping to the point Caius hadn't noticed that one of the other wyverns had slammed their claws into his shoulder until the moment it hit, knocking him down as he felt the claws slash through the back of his jacket. Caius quickly stabbed upwards, before materializing one of his daggers and tossing it backwards to Warp and clear some distance.

---

It wouldn’t have mattered to Caius if he had his powers or not in this instance, he wouldn’t have backed down either, so that was one thing they had in common. Caius was not leaving this mountain until these things were dead, it was as simple as that.

The moment he landed, he charged forward again to start the conflict anew. The black scaled wyverns would chomp at him en masse, but the mercenary tossed his sword overhead just as he leaped upwards - boldly reeling his foot back and landing an upwards kick on the jaw of one of the beasts. He doubted it would do much damage but it would likely stun it. And while it hurt, scales and all, it felt damn good too. Using the Warp, Caius disappeared and re-appeared next to his blade as the monster chomped at him, and the monster would then be struck unawares when Caius snapped his fingers and Vordun sent a large ball of flames slamming into the face of his fellow dragonkind.

Caius didn’t hesitate.

Bringing his blade into both hands, he lifted it overhead in an attempt to bring it down on the creature’s head.

But a loud crunch was followed by a bloodcurdling scream from Caius.

The largest of them had managed to get some distance from Faris and had chomped down on Caius left arm, close to the shoulder. The pain was insurmountable, and Caius’ head darted toward the beast as he felt heat rising near his arm. His sword disappeared as he realized what was going on, and the mercenary acted on instinct.

Caius brought his right hand down and held it toward the monster’s mouth just as the flaming glands in the monster’s jaws reached the point of delivering a firey breath. He had grabbed something from his pocket - the only explosive he had left on him from back home. He had been saving this for an emergency and this seemed like as good a time as any.

Tossing it into the monster’s mouth, Caius called his dagger and letting it drop, the Warp letting him escape just as the wyvern tried to breathe fire.

The explosion caused the creature to let out a shriek and enraged, tried to breathe fire again. But the flames didn’t come. Caius had managed to damage the glands. Probably not permanently, they would recover with time. But for the time being he had disabled them. But Caius had no reason as agonizing pain shot through him when he tried to move his arm. There was a good chance it was broken and if not for the armored plates on his jacket that the creature had destroyed, odds were he would have lost the arm entirely. In a sick sort of way, Caius had lucked out on that one. But he was still down to one arm.

Caius tried to rise to his feet, but the pain was unbearable and was a shock to his system that caused him to stumble, clutching his arm. While the big one couldn't breathe fire anymore, the other one could, and Caius watched it open its mouth as it unleashed a large jet of flames...

---

Why had he done that?

Caius' eyes widened when Faris threw himself in front of him. Caius growled in annoyance -- not at Faris, but at himself for being so helpless that someone had to put themselves at risk for his sake. He was grateful, of course he was. But Faris had endangered himself for Caius' carelessness. But Faris seemed alright, had even seemed to regain use of their changing magic as a spear appeared in their hand and he was able to deal damage to the wyvern. Faris instructed Caius to get back and heal his wounds, and Caius managed to slowly get himself to his feet, letting out a begrudged nod. He wanted to say "Thank you" but the pain made it difficult to speak as he slowly made his way back.

But Vordun was another story.

The dragon had witnessed this and while it was likely grateful for the cover from Faris, Vordun had squared his crosshairs completely on a topic of its ire. Vordun made a flying beeline for the largest wyvern that had hurt Caius so, loosing a large jet of flames that engulfed it in turn. While the creature tanked the damage, Vordun’s assault didn’t stop there.

“VORDUN!” Caius cried out to the small dragon who had at this point stopped obeying orders out of pure rage. Aiming its claws at the large one, Vordun would be stopped by the enraged wyvern that they had left alive before. But Vordun attacked anyway, slashing across its face with his claws. The wyvern attacked back, but the smaller Vordun was also faster with his size and managed to duck down, before managing to blind his opponent with his claws and attacking with his fire breath once more, this time managing to take the monster down.

Wyverns remaining: 1 Boss, 1 Support

But Vordun wouldn’t be able to defend himself when the large one attacked from within the smoke, its claws swatting Vordun and sending him flying, tumbling off the cliff and disappearing below.

“NO!”

Caius cried out desperately after Vordun, willing himself to his feet. In his mind, he had likely just lost the closest thing he had to his own child.

Something in him stirred. He didn’t care if he died here anymore, so long as he killed these things. No pain mattered anymore. No useless arm mattered anymore. No concern for his own well-being mattered in that moment. Caius picked up both his daggers -- a rush of adrenaline holding up the one in his left hand up just long enough -- and pointed them at whichever of the wyverns was in front of him. If it wasn’t busy with Faris, it was going to pay.

Clicking the triggers on both blades, he opened fire, fully intent on emptying every bit of ammunition. Much of it bounced off but Caius didn't care.

For the first time for as long as he could remember, Caius felt something new: Fear.

He was scared.

No, scratch that. He was absolutely terrified.

He needed to know Vordun was alive. He needed to go down there and find him. But with that fear came neverending rage. That thing had taken that child from parents who would never see them again. And now they may have taken his.

They would pay. And they would pay in blood. Even as his arm gave out again and forced his dagger to disappear, Caius let out a snarl as he allowed the other to disappear, materializing his main gunblade in his uninjured hand. Drool foamed at his mouth as he seethed in pure rage and agony, the pain being ignored as all possible as all he could think about was killing them.

"I've still got one arm..." He growled low. Nothing would stop him.

---