Making friends and enemies.

“¿Are you sure about this ?” Dino asked from his hamaca as he swung lazily under the sun.

“Of course the Beretta family is the best choice. Capitalist greed is quite simple to understand, the other two are much riskier. The “Beretta” are the sort that will be willing to be exploited if they can exploit us in return. I´ll be that sort of dance.”

“No I meant about your cooking. ¿Since when can you cook?” Dino ignored all that he had just said.

Irvin had wasted no time since he awoke putting the whole lair to the test of his broom and duster. And after the colossal effort of cleaning up Dino´s mess, he put on a blue apron over his lab coat and gets to work on a proper breakfast as he had meant to do for days. Here he was boiling eggs and sausages while simultaneously preparing some waffles.

“The better question is how you don´t. A lack of cooking skills reduces your survival as a loner considerable.”

“Yeah well, I hope you put some meat on that. Cuz I really need some.”

“Noted, In any event you will need to change some of your habits; this messy lair is not a good fit for a villain of our future grandeur.”

“Well then, whine at me in that future. Just don´t move my stuff or clean through my room.”

“Huh ¿what are you afraid of?

“¡This is my house! Geez….” Dino threw himself from the hamaca and remained in the floor trying to get his hair of his eyes to no avail, still feeling very tired.

“In any event I meant to ask you something.” Irvin said while flipping the waffles.

“Just tell me what it is “mom”

“We are going to need more muscle on our side. Someone we can trust with our true goal. Someone I can trust.” Irvin said.

“That´s a hard one, you don´t trust shit.”

“I don´t appreciate the language, but I get your point. Help me here and I will prepare you twice the sausages.”- Dino sighed and got back to his feet. “I know of someone, but you have to listen to me for real, this time.” Dino got up with a yawn.

***

“¡Well then boys, if you don´t want your legs breaking step it up!” A man´s loud voice broke through the ambience.

A ruff buffed man with thick rounded glasses and black short combed hair was screaming at the student from the top of the school wall. The man wore brown overall pants with no shirt simply letting his muscles free for the entire world to see, muscles with a red skin color that seemed too bright to be natural and it wasn´t, he was known for having a body as resilient as rubber.

He was Nicholas the red and most of the hero’s community knew him as the Berserker of London. In this age thought, he was known mostly as the PE school teacher at Salvatore´s School for villains, neither Dino nor Irvin wanted to annoy such a man and went to see the field track again.

Below them there was an open field of traps and barbwire that the students struggled against with various results. Some climbed tall walls of wood and others crouched below trenches that looked far too dangerous for any military training.

Close to the wall in the field and track, the less physical students simply runs over a dozen laps. This too was way too demanding for Irvin and he had collapsed after having barely finished five of them.

“Inhumane…this school is truly inhumane.” Irvin said while still wearing his heavy lab coat and formal attire.

“You really should change your clothes pal, like really.”- Dino came to his aid this time he wasn´t wearing his usual hoody, but instead a green shirt with a fossil head painted in black in the texture of spilled oil.

“You might as well strip me of my very soul...Besides I actually don´t have any other clothes.”

“¿You ran off from somewhere or something?”

“I sure did.” Dino groaned and raised his arm over his shoulder and helped him back on his feet.

“¿So did you finish your twenty laps in that hell on earth of a track?” Irvin asked him as he cleaned off his white lab coat.

“Easy- piece.”

“Huh, you people really are something else.” Irvin told him and Dino gritted his teeth slightly.

“Yeah.”

Suddenly a man crashed upon the ground in front of them from high above with a tremendous force. Dino instantly let go of Irvin letting him fall on the dusty ground. It was their teacher Nicholas Oaks who stood, looking imposing even when he took a bottle of beer and took half of it on a single gulp. “What´s the matter there is still plenty of more laps for you Maximillian.”

“Sorry, but as a mad scientist I´m not supposed to be that fit. Even the course for common student´s is unnecessary for me. If you want to I could write you a long letter explaining this in detail….” The teacher bitted off the top of a glass bottle of beer and began to crush the glass with his teeth, teeth that were pointed like those of a shark.

Irvin´s words seemed to disappear from his mind.

“Nice story kid. ¿So you think you can escape class with that excuse?” The teacher said.

“I assume there are precedents….” Irvin was interrupted again when the professor threw the empty beer bottle to the ground, shattering it.

“You can´t skip class with just that. ¡Hey Miss Lí come here for a second!” He said with saliva falling from his mouth.

The professor howled at the obstacle course where a girl walked on her hands at the top of a small wood bridge surrounded by a pitfall full of spike. When she heard him she flipped backwards impulse only by her arm strength and landed neatly outside the pitfall.

The girl walked towards them looking very annoyed about it. She was short and with boyish short black hair. She was wearing black jeans that ended with a pair of black combat boots and a tight red latex top without sleeves. She crossed her arms, both quite muscular. Irvin´s attention went to her right arm where the tattoo of a serpentine dragon seemed to spread thought the arm.

“What is it prof.” The teacher showed his grin of frightening teeth not unlike those a monster. “This kid needs to skip class. ¿So why don´t you give him a hand?” The girl sighed and then began to stretch her arms for warming up.

“Fine. Sorry, this isn’t personal boy.”

Dino walked away from his friend. “I see…Well if only you would allow me to pick up my suitcase…” In a flash she punched Irvin on the face throwing him backwards were he got caught by Dino. “It’s done prof.” The girl ran off waving goodbye to the teacher.

“That´s a good girl. There you have it, feel free to spend the rest of the class in the infirmary. Little scientist boy. Hahaha” The teacher jumped towards the school wall landing on top of it way above them.

“It was not wise to leave my suitcase on the locker room….” Irvin spoke defeated.

“Jeez you can be really stupid sometimes, man.”

¿In any case is she the one you were talking about?” Irvin asked, his nose bleeding.

“Yeah, Yong Lí. The daughter of General Lí himself.” Dino raised his friend up and left him against the wall. “¿Would she really help us, her father being who he is? Dino passed him his sunglasses again.

“¿And you are the one talk? Believe me if you want someone that hates Salvatore enough for a dumb rebellion, but may not ´t kill us too, she is our girl.” Irvin fixed his glasses properly and spitted blood once more.

“¿What´s the story?”- Irvin asked.

“You knew that General Shang Lí betrayed his country for Salvatore.” Irvin remained quiet. “Some people believe the general has been blackmailed with something ever since then or at least his daughter does.” Irvin scratched his chin ignoring the blood that now fell over his palm. “¿The general a mere victim? ¿What is being used against him, do you know?” Dino looked back to the obstacle course where Yong Lí crossed the middle of a trap of countless shooting arrows with a rapid jump.

“You want to know, you´ll have to ask her, at your own risk.”

“I rather ask our paper headed friend, but if I must.” Irvin stepped towards her and Dino just froze again. “Goddamn it man.” Dino stopped him and dragged him back by the neck.

“The only place you´re going to is the infirmary. ¡Forget the plan at this rate you aren’t even gonna make it to next week! ¡Forget her too, we don´t need her!” Irvin remembered he was bleeding all over his white coat. “Ah, yes…that is why I’m feeling so drowsy…” Afterwards he passed out.

***

“So I actually did pass out.”

“¿I can´t even tell why? Your nose isn´t broken or anything.” A woman said.

“Oh I just tend to pass out when I see my own blood. Lots of stuff makes me pass out.” Irvin drank a glass of water as he lay on the infirmary bed.

“Yong Lí, for a girl that strong to hit me so carefully…. Makes one curious, ¿Why would she hold back like that? ¿And how to use such a thing to my advantage ?”

“Well you can go home now Mr…¿Maximilliam? ¿As in that Maximillian? God, you have grown boy.”- The school´s nurse told him, but Irvin couldn´t quite recall to have seen this woman before.

She was a skinny middle aged woman wearing a white lab coat with a black dress underneath. She wore her blond hair in a ponytail. Her most notable feature thought was that half her face was completely burned to the point you could almost see the skull. Her posture was uneven and she compensated it by holding a staff with her burned left hand.

“It’s me Dr.Fringe, I used to work with your mother all the time. Hell I was actually your nanny here and there.” Irvin fixed his sunglasses as he looked at her more thoroughly, Yes, I do recognize that scrawny and bended shape.

“I must apologize I never paid much attention to other people in my youth.”

“Don´t sweat it kid, I changed a lot.” Indeed I can´t actually recall if she was burned or not back then. None the less this woman was unpleasant for entirely different reasons.

“So have I. I hardly need a nanny of any sorts now. ¿So then…are you still working with my mother?” The doctor laughed, but her laughs turned into painful coughs very fast. “Yeah she and I got in a fight actually. Hell she even threw acid at my face for it.”

“I see…”

“But we are friends again, so no biggie.”

The woman laughed again and then tapped the floor with her staff.

“So…¿Have you seen her yet.”- She asked.

“No, I have not.”

“Yeah, I don´t blame you.” The woman walked off towards the exit tapping the ground over and over.

Dr.Fringe, my mother did say she´s a woman who enjoys pain in all of its forms; to receive and to give and finally to transcend it all. I prefer to not know what that even means though. ¿Still is she really just a school nurse now? Huh, always a new development. Planning truly is just about adapting.

“Screw this. ¡Like hell I´m getting use to this trash!” From the other side of the room a man struggled with the cast on his right arm. Irvin looked at him as he stupidly tried to remove it. I’ve seen him is that boy from the opening ceremony….Who´s name I didn´t bother to remember. The self-proclaimed grand shooter.

“That is bound to be counterproductive, let it rest and please stop being so loud.” Irvin told him.

In that moment Irvin hear the sound of a gun reloading. When he looked at the boy again he pointed a revolver coldly at his face. He aimed it on his left arm and Irvin took notice he was struggling to not have it shake. They stared at each other awkwardly from their infirmary beds.

“Will that get me my good arm back, eh you pale weakling.”
“Not really, but I´ll give you better odds than not.”

Irvin finally paid attention to the boy’s features. Pissed off and with greasy black hair and pimples. A perfect example of a boy in the middle of pubert. He sported a lot of painful looking bruises; someone must have hit him enough to send him here. Boys like this one can be quite dangerous in the right circumstances. ¿But can this boy even defend himself anymore? No, he can´t truly cease to be dangerous at least for me.”

“That´s it I’ll paint the sheets red with your….forget it I´m just gonna shut you up.”

“¿What do you intent to do now from here onwards?” The boy kept his gun pointed, his hand shaking more and more.

“¿Are you mocking me?” Before he could scream anymore Irvin raised his hand to gesture him to stop.

“No I´m being honest. ¿Revenge? I´ll be very fitting for a cowboy like you.” The boy grinned showing his mangled teeth.

“Yeah once my shooting arm is back. That gal is ending full of holes.” He babbled on excitedly moving his gun all over the room.”

“If you face her you will undoubtedly die.” Irvin´s cold tone killed his smile and his eyes fill with fury instead. He pointed the weapon again trying to keep the aim at his head.

“I’m not weak.”

“Yes you are…and as long as you can´t accept it you will never achieve a thing.”

A shoot rang out.

Below Irvin’s bed. The boy tried to shoot again, but his weapon had no ammo. Irvin carried on speaking without paying his actions any mind.

“People like us can´t fight them, we must make our own tools to beat them in their systems…just to take care of ourselves.” The boy dropped his arm.

“Don´t compare me to you. Like hell I’m not broken and I´m, not weak.”

“It’s best to admit it. That way you can find your own strength, even with a broken body there is always something that can be done. How you go from here will define your worth” Irvin clenched his fist as he got up out of the bed.

“If I see you again you´re dead” The boy whined before hiding back under his covers, full of bitterness.

“I hope not. ¿Who knows?” Irvin closed the door to the infirmary behind him and suddenly collapsed against it.

“You can back down, there is no more danger.” Irvin talked to a small device on his wrist and back at the infirmary room high above on the window. A metallic hawk observed the resting gunslinger with its glowing red eyes. The bird suddenly flew away quietly as if it had never been there in the first place.

“ohh I´m glad he had no bullets left, talk about another unpleasant surprise.” Irvin cleaned off his sweating with an elegant handkerchief and went back on his way.

“How strange I really didn´t need to talk that much…that fist must have done quite something; Messed up my head real good. Anyway good to see you´ve arrived”

Irvin saw on the hallway a familiar girl. The short girl was drinking a juice box with a straw that went up inside the brown paper bag mask she wore. This time she was wearing an oversized pink sweater with three multicolored scarfs on top.

“You asked and here I´m…shhhhuuuu.”- She sucked the juice loudly.

“Enjoy it, you little leech as I have nothing more to offer you.” Irvin threw a pack of bills at her side, but she didn´t bothered to pick them up.

“¡My question please, then and only then do you get the sweatiest honey goodness that is the truth!” Irvin tightened his tie. “Just hurry up then.” The girl jumped to her feet and walked till her face was just a few inches from his face.

“Tell me then. ¿What is Dallas Dino Saurus to you?”

“I’m sorry. ¿What?”

“As much as I like the trading of information and blackmailing. ¡Gossip about boys is a lot of fun too!”

“…..I suppose that´s… quite humane coming from you. Let me think.” Irvin tapped his tie as she awaited his answer in silence.

“I’m not truly sure; but I will use him as needed.”

“Figures…You aren’t lying either. Watch it thought, not knowing about yourself won´t help your plan at all” The girls shrugged.

“Are you pleased if so…¿Would you tell me if the rumors of General Lí are true?” This last bit of information better is all that I´ll need for now. No more cheating from here on as all of my money has finally left me.

“Yes mister, I´ll tell you why the dragon´s hands are tied. Those are not just whispers of course. So listen and listen well” The girl intertwined her hands, the money already between her palms.

***

The islands weather tend to be very warm and calm If it wasn´t such a hotspot for crime I´ll be an attractive place for any tourist, and here the daughter of the dragon sited on her own at the border of a quiet empty beach. Standing her balance in a tall wooden poll, among the remains of a peer.

She saw the calm current of clean blue seas as she took a bite of an ice cream pallet.

She came here often after all classes where done, and no one ever bothered her. It felt so much calmer than her apartment and the roommate she had to share it with. A quiet place where she could think, even if no answers has ever come to her within it.

“Miss Yong. Good evening.” As soon she heard this she bit off the rest of the ice cream in one bite. She made a quick jump to end looking backwards to the beach that went back to the school. There it was Irvin with his lab coat and briefcase and Dino in his messy summer outfit. She took a quick note of his guitar; she could recognize it was a weapon with ease.

“Yo.” Dino greeted her excitedly.

“Hey…¿Why are you boys even here?” She jumped back into the sandy beach, but didn´t walk any closer.

“Yeah, let me introduce you to an old friend of mine. This ghostly looking dude is my pal Irvin Maximillian.” Dino pushed him forward making him almost trip on the sand.

“Yes that is indeed my name. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Yong finally noticed it.

“Wait you are the guy I punched in class. Sorry about that I just didn´t want any trouble with the teacher. I mean that guys the worst and he sweats like hell.”

“It’s not a problem in fact I was quite impress.” Yong crossed her arm looking quite surprised, but with clear anxiety about their encounter.

“¿So you the kind of guy who´s into that?”

“Not, at all. I lack such interests”- Irvin denied it calmly.

“Oh…a pity. Yong relaxed and walked through the sand towards the two of them. Her eyes fixed on Dino rather than Irvin. .

“Spit it out already. ¿What do you boys, want?”

“Nothing we just wanted to greet ya´” Said Dino while taking out his long lizard tongue.
“You are boys. Of course you want something.”

“Well Miss Yong I came here with a proposition.”- Irvin pushed Dino behind him. He just smirked at that.

“Go on…” She was getting impatient so Irvin headed straight to the issue.

“I’m going to start my own gang. So, I´m looking for some strong fighters that wants to embark on this new journey of villainy.” Yong´s face frowned with disgust.

“Oh I get it so you want some dumb muscles for the slaughter. You asked the wrong person I don´t like to get involved in any big mess.” She denied them with her open palm, but Irvin didn´t walk back.

“No, I need you exactly because you are quite thoughtful and not just muscles, although your muscles are still pretty great. “ Irvin spoke cautiously his face in front from of her palm.

“That´s for sure. ¿Now what, whitey? ¿Want to feel them?” She cracked her knuckles and Dino put his hands on his guitar.

“¿Can I” I´ll be quite grateful for that” - Irvin said disregarding the ambient.

“Huh…ok. Sure look at his big guys if you want. Cause it’s the last time.” She said showing off her biceps again. Irvin went to take a closer look and touched them completely with no shame whatsoever or any expression.

“The hell is even going on now.”- Dino scratcher under his hood. Irvin keep at it for a while without saying a thing.

“Ehmm... you can stop now.” She said surprisingly embarrassed, but Irvin didn´t pay her attention at all. He was following the contours of the tattoo on her arm. The same dragon tattoo that her father had, the dragon that was surrounding the arm as if holding itself on place. Irvin looked at it with great interest.

A curse powerful enough to be carried by one´s own genes. Even a man as ignorant in magic as I, can appreciate it. The dragon strengthens the body, but curses always come with a toll ¿What price it has? Whatever the case, she has trained herself to use that curse to her fullest. The stronger the body the stronger the curse. ¿So why?

Because she has yet to give up. As impossible as it is somewhere deep inside her, she cannot accept the reality of this life. She…

She really is a fool.

Just the sort… I cannot allow myself not to use...

”Anyway…¿Why do you even want to start a gang? You seriously don´t look the type. Yong, removed his hand with care still looking kind of awkward about it all.

“It’s just the beginning that’s all, just a step in ending Salvatore´s reign. “Irvin fixed his sunglasses and smiled.

“¿What did you say?” Yong closed her fist, just hearing that name put her on edge.

“And if you join us I will for sure get your mother back.”

Yong raised her fist and threw a devastating blow. Irvin remained transfixed looking at Dino´s back that was now in front of him. In an instant he blocked her fist with his guitar. The impact had been strong enough to scratch the red color off from the strange axe guitar.

“Dino don´t do anything rash:” Irvin told him.

Dino threw Irvin back by pushing him in the chest and making him fall to the sand along with his briefcase.

“Give it up, the chatting is done for, I can smell the killing intent quite clear now” Dino spun now sporting a long tail with a spiked tip behind him. Yong jumped and with great agility landed far into the water with both arms and immediately flipped back to get on her feet.

“¡So that´s it you´re going to blackmail me now! Typical” She kicked the water in frustration.

¿Why is she acting so emotional about this? I merely mentioned her kidnapped mother?

“It´s not blackmailing we just want to give you a hand. Think of it like a kindness.” Irvin said with no trace of tenderness on his voice.

“Give it up pal. She isn’t gonna play to your tune now.” Dino growled as his tail swinged and his hands turned into sharp claws.

“I refuse to; so please stop her from killing me till I made my argument clear.” Irvin got back up as he tried to throw the sand off himself.

“¡Damn it, you´re a goddamn pain!”

Dino´s boots broke his legs bended forward like those of a raptor and in a flash he rushed thought the sand and into the border of the sea, wielding his guitar like a battle axe. He swung the weapon; she ducked below him and countered by hitting him in the jaw. Dino recoiled unnaturally, jumped back and was once more running around her in circles, splashing thought the surface of the water as he searched for an opening.

Dino was light on his feet and tremendously fast as he stroked her with his claw again; she kept jumping backwards through the end of the beach evading every ferocious move if only by an inch. Till she finally saw her moment and with a step just as fast manage to strike Dino´s chin once more and didn´t let his confusion from the hit be wasted and hit his head with an open palm strike at both sides.

“As I was saying. You have to understand we both share the same enemy and therefore we have much to offer each other.” Irvin talked in vain.

Dino didn´t even recoil and stroke back with his open palm; she ducked and gained distance again. Out of frustrating he growled spitting over her and as fast as thunder she closed his mouth with another blow.

“¡Your mouth fucking reeks!” She screamed at him.

Dino was sent on a rage and tried to bite her arm off. She felt the incoming danger and jumped backwards with a summersault. Her feet landing on the sand again as the half dinosaur man roared to the skies. Yong prepared her stance again, placing her feet firmly while leaving an arc traced on the sand. She dared the best to come towards her territory now.

“See you are pretty amazing and you ain´t even fighting with your all yet.”

“Eekkk.” Yong jumped out of her stance as Irvin suddenly appeared right at her side and casually talked to her.

“¿What the?” Her concentration on the fight was so intense she had completely forgotten about his existence.

“There is no need to fight. We are not your enemy after all.” He kept talking and she immediate got on her stance raising her fists against Irvin.

“¡Everyone in this damn island is my enemy!” As she spoke her eyes began to tint in a red color.

“But your most hated enemy, you will never reach him like this, you cannot.”

Yong aimed to hit him in the face and this time with the intension of breaking it completely. Suddenly she stopped and jumped back as the axe-guitar of Dino flew between them, just a little more and she would have lost her arm. Dino did not waste a moment either and jumped behind her swinging his claw, she blocked it, but it left her with a deep wound on her arm.

She clinched her teeth baring the pain and with her other arm she rushed to punch him straight in his long reptile jaw. This was stronger than any punch before it an she followed it up with another one his torso. The blow was strong enough to throw Dino backwards into the water. Irvin stared at her arm, the dragon tattoo had moved. It now surrounded the whole of her arm and her muscles had grown tougher as well.

“You may have over done it a little Dino…” Irvin fixed his tie as the girl stared at him again, her eyes where a deep red color and seemed like the pupils of a reptile.

“I´m very sorry, he tend to go overboard sometimes. If you could just listen to us…we both are tied by very similar circumstances and…”

“Fuck off” She grabbed her wounded left arm and rushed off into the nearby forest. Dino got on his feet again and walked towards his axe, his body slowly returning to a more humane shape.

“It’s just as I thought, she has the intension and desire to kill, but lacks the conviction.” Irvin told Dino as he grinned his sharp fangs in annoyance and ignored his words.

Dino grabbed his axe again and roared once more, his head still remaining in the shape of a velociraptor. Irvin got closer to him trying to regain his attention.

“She is a lot like you, so I believe we can convince her not to fight us. We cannot afford to let her escape right now.”

“¡I know!”

Dino screamed as his body transformed again, growing its tail back and take the shape of a velociraptor. His walking stance put him close to the ground and in an instant he crossed the beach and disappeared into the woods along with his axe.

“I guess I must reach her as well…this is going to take a while.” Irvin went in pursuit as well, a very slow pursuit that is.

Dino did cross through the treacherous forest following the trail of blood his prey has left behind; he jumped above a fallen trunk to land on a huge rock at the side of a small cascade. There was only the soothing sound of the water running, but he could tell that he was being watched and could feel a great danger surrounding him.

“Give it up; you aren’t hiding from me, much less with that ugly wound.”

Dino jumped down from the rock as a huge boulder was thrown above him. The fall into the water below wasn´t too terrible for the raptor who roared as his feet reach the water below.

“I don´t get it I never though you will be this much of a moron. The Dinosaur thinks he can rebel against fuckin Salvatore. I heard you weren´t a brute like everyone around this place, but I guess not.” Yong jumped from above into the shallow water with him, she had her arms crossed. The wound on her biceps had completely closed.

“Sorry to disappoint ya´” Dino´s shape began to change to a more humanoid appearance; he could tell there was no easy way out of that small river.

“¡So this is your big plan, to beat me up till I cooperate! ¿Really?”

“Only if ya´ want to, else you should just take our offer; it’s good to go crazy once in a while. You might just like it”

“¡I´m not like you people, so shut up!”

Yong ran towards him and Dino raised his axe above him and brought it down to her head, a loud crash resounded in the forest. The axe remained stuck as Dino used all of his strength; she had blocked it with both arms above her head. The skin on her arms had turned into the gray scales and Dino felt as if he was trying to break through and iron wall.

“¡You morons can just get killed on your own!”

She threw his axe out of the way by pushing back with both of her arms and as soon she saw an opening she hit Dino in the face throwing him backwards, she punched strong before, but now it was really inhuman.

“ You really believe…you can actually win…” Yong held her right arm as the tattoo began to glow in an intense orange shine. Almost as if she flew without making a single sound she reached Dino and stroke him in the chest. Dino grabbed her punch with both arms, stopping it.

“¡Hell yeah! Irvin can win… absolutely.” Dino said, very firmly.

Yong felt a sudden shiver as she stare into Dino´s eyes, there was no hesitation whatsoever. She felt this man was different now almost as if he was no longer a man. Dino twisted her arm out of the way and with his open mouth bitted violently at her shoulder. Her face twisted in anger and pain, with her free arm Yong immediately punched him in the head ripping his teeth from her skin.

Dino crashed against a sharp wall or rocks, but even though his head was spinning he remained at his feet. Yong´s arm were bleeding blood, cold blue, colored blood. But the wound was closing fast as her arm became surrounded by scales, both of her arms where gray now as her muscles seemed to expand even more. Her figure was different, though she was still small, her shoulder where now frighteningly broad.

“So you heal fast too. ¡Screw Irvin, get lost girl! ¡Your character crashes too much with mine Irvin doesn´t need another cold blooded beast!” He rushed splashing the water on its path towards her.

“¡I´m not a beast!” She ran as well and they both crashed hitting each other at the same time. Dino flew backwards, but Yong wasn´t left unscratched a terrible wound had been opened in her torso and she ended on one knee.

“Yeah, right. You are monster the same as I, we can´t change that anymore.” Dino growled still lying on his back on top of the water current.

“I won´t forgive you for making me take this shape again… ¡Everyone in this island, you are all monsters!” A burst of flames was breathed out of her mouth when she screamed.

“¡If you hate this place so much, stop whining and do something about it!” Dino started to get on his feet again, feeling his ribs rebuild themselves, as his shape changed. His skull changed completely into the shape of a trice raptor and extinct creature with a formidable horn at its head, the rest of his body began to expand with thicker black scales in place of skin.

“¡If you are beast, act like one and break them all down!”

She jumped back on her feet and with a loud crash placed one foot behind the other returning back to her fighting stance. Her eyes had turned a bright orange and smoke was released from her mouth with every breath.

“¡Fine I’m fucking breaking you first!” She screamed as her voice turned graver.

She stood in her place and Dino reached her with speed and intensity of a truck and crashed against her.

The whole forest trembled almost making Irvin fall to the ground. Still he recovered by holding on to a tree and stumbled clumsily onto the small river. He took a break to recover his breathing and looked at the scene around him.

Dino laid at the ground slowly returning into his human self, his blood mixing with the flowing river, In front of him was Yong on the middle of a broken down wall of solid rocks. She had been thrown against it cracking it; her chest bleeding as well barely keeping her consciousness.

“oh, dear, this mess wasn´t needed at all.” Irvin walked slowly as he got closer to the fallen Dino. “Dino are you alive?” He turned his friend´s head up in case he could drown.

“I’m fine...”- Dino said as he spitted out blood, he didn´t look fine at all of course.

“Good, now just wait here for a moment. “Irvin let go off him and walked off towards Yong. Dino growled in annoyance.

I´m really hoping she is not dead…or well enough to kill me right now.

Irvin walked close to her and kneeled at her side to have a better look at her condition. He stretched his gloved hand to move her black hair from covering her face st the contact grabbed him from his arm with a painful grip and Irvin winced in response.

“If you insist on this…The real dragon is gonna slaughter you. You must now that” She said that calmly and Irvin had to swallow his spit, her grip was just too painful.
“That is why we need you so much. If you let us borrow your strength we will make it.”- Her eyes loose they´re glow as the scales on her arm disappeared.
“¡I cannot trust any of you!” Her grip got stronger and her claws started to make Irvin bleed.

“You don´t have to, but we are only ones who wish to help your mother, after all. She´s a legendary hero that even Salvatore feared and he will fear her again. He deserves to remember fear” Her grip got even stronger and Irvin clenched his teeth.

“If you betray me…If you risk mother or father….I will break you…” before she could finish her sentence she ended up passing out, her arm growing too weak to hold him anymore.

“Understood.”

Irvin took out his remote control from his coat. Once he pressed the switch an iron bird descended behind him and began to destroy and then reshape itself into a huge turtle.

“Very well, as an apology I will be treating your wounds.”

The turtle´s shell opened revealing a compartment with medical equipment of many sorts far more than just for first aid. Irvin pushed a button and a freezer opened full of blood containers and other unknown substances.

“Good that I checked out her blood type beforehand. ¿Dino can you hold on for a second?”- Dino growled back, but manages to show him a thumps up.

Let see if his medical training was of any good. At least that way not all he said was nonsense.

Irvin stretched his surgical white gloves and walked along with the turtle towards her.

“Well take care of each other from here on . Look forward to it, my dear new comrade.