One on One

The storm howled like a wounded beast.

Snow whipped through the air, cutting at Ray’s face like tiny blades.
His cloak snapped and tore behind him as he climbed the jagged cliffs, blood dripping from his hands where the ice had bitten through.

Each step was a war.
Each breath a battle.

But something was pulling him upward —
something ancient, something heavy, something he had felt twice before.

A Totem.
It was here.
Waiting. 
Begging to be taken.

A deafening screech tore the heavens open.
Ray stumbled, looking skyward.

Through the blinding white, a shape carved itself from the clouds.
A dragon.
Eyes like twin blue infernos.

Sapphire scales shimmered against the gray sky.
Wings wider than buildings beat the storm into chaos.
Around its thick neck, almost mocking in its simplicity, hung a simple carving:

A Blue-Eyed Totem.

Ray couldn’t help but laugh.
A dry, broken chuckle lost in the wind.

"You son of a bitch," he whispered. "You know I can't fly."

The dragon circled lazily, almost... peacefully.

Ray dragged himself up the final ledge to the mountain’s peak, standing on trembling legs.
He looked up shielding his eyes from the storm as his vision focused.

The dragon looked down.

For a moment, neither moved.
Two predators sizing each other up.
Two legends colliding.
A jackrabbit against Guardian.

The dragon moved first.

A pulse of violet energy gathered in its throat,
the very air trembling around it.

Then it unleashed a beam of pure destruction.

Ray threw himself backward, slipping time around his body — speeding himself up and blinking twenty feet back just as the peak exploded in a rain of molten stone and ice.

Chunks of mountain rained down around him.
Ray didn’t hesitate. He froze the falling debris in time.

He launched a volley of every loose stone he could feel around him—
his skills streamlined, sharpened to a razor’s edge by months of brutal training.
Ray could now control objects in time without using his hands.

The stones slammed into the dragon’s chest.
The beast barely flinched.

The dragon dove.

Ray hurled himself sideways, slowing time around him in a desperate burst.
A blast of violet energy screamed past, disintegrating the rock where he had stood.

The shockwave smacked Ray, coughing blood, as he was sent flying into the side of the next peak.
The snow exploded around him in a cloud of white and red agony.

Ray staggered up, ribs screaming, blood dripping from his mouth.
The dragon didn’t give him a second.

It roared — a sound that shook the teeth in Ray’s skull —
and unleashed a torrent of purple fire.

He scrambled up, blinking again, and accelerated every rock that was flown, as he raced around the beast.
Ray even stopped boulders in the middle of the air, suspending the mountain top in a perfect frozen state.

The dragon could move but every stone that the dragon kicked up in its wake would be suspended in air. Giving Ray a new arsenal of weapons with every attack the dragon would throw at him.

The stones struck the dragon’s chest —
but barely left any marks, exploding into powder upon impact.

The dragon seemed as if it didn't notice Ray was even attacking it.

The dragon landed with an earth-shaking crash,
throwing snow and shattered ice into the air.

A claw larger than Ray’s body swung toward him.

Ray barely ducked, sliding under the strike, lashing upward with a frozen chunk of ice —
slicing across the beast’s underbelly.

A line of blood opened.

The dragon screamed —
not in pain, but in rage.

Ray didn’t get time to celebrate.

A tail like a battering ram slammed into him, sending him flying off the peak.

He twisted midair,
freezing his boots in time, trying to catch his balance,
using blasts of magic to slow his fall.

He crashed onto a lower ledge, bones rattling, shattering his left hand. He quickly turned back time to heal his wounds. His body draining from using his power.

Above him, the dragon roared again.
It dove, faster this time, murder in its blue eyes.

Ray threw everything he had.

He fired stones, ice shards, even freezing the dragon's own wingtip momentarily to stagger it.
He slammed blasts of rock into its mouth as it tried to gather another breath attack.
The dragon crushed the rock in its mouth with a powerful bite.

Ray hurled a barrier of frozen time between them —
a fragile thing, a spiderweb of blue light.

The fire slammed into it.

The shield cracked.
Splintered.
Broke.

But the shield had quelled the fire before giving out.

The dragon swerved in the storm, placing itself right above Ray and folded its wings tight, as is did a dive bomb through the air.
The Guardian descended as if it had hated Ray for all of his life.

Ray saw it coming — but his magic was too drained,
his body too slow.

He raised a shield once again of frozen time at the last second, this beast wasn’t giving Ray a moment alone to think. 
Ray's nose began to bleed from the overuse of his power.

The dragon shattered through it like it was glass.

The impact was apocalyptic.

Ray felt his bones break.
The ground gave out beneath him. As if the very tectonic plates had felt the impact.

He plummeted down the mountainside —
bouncing, rolling, spilling blood.
The avalanche followed him like a hungry beast.

He fought to breathe, fought to move, tried to slow what was happening so he could process but the cold was a blanket against his skin now. He had no time to think.

The last thing he saw before darkness took him under the snow
was a black raven circling above —
watching.

Recording.

The world would see this.
The fall of the last jackrabbit.

Somewhere, through the avalanche of red snow,
a voice spoke.

Old.
Strong.
Kind.

"You stubborn bastards never learn."

Hands, wrapped in vines and flowers,
pulled Ray from the snow.

And the world went black.